The other day I was reading a conversation where they compared the sounds of U-he's Repro against Arturia's Prophet synth. Honestly, U-he's synth sounded a lot fuller and with more analog warmth than Arturia's version. However, one user commented that while this was true in past versions of the V Collection, starting with the new version, they updated the code of several Arturia synths and today they sound much better because of it. In fact, another guy commented that the previous code was based on a 2006 replica. Is that true?

 

I'm not sure if they updated their code or not but any Arturia synth I put up against it's equivalent from another brand. Arturia ate cheeks each time. I bought into the bundle and was pretty surprised everyone always surpassed them without fail, unless there was nothing to compare to. Sometimes you show up when nobody else does, so you win.

 

They CAN'T update sound engines once released, because projects would sound different.
BUT they updated their "base engine" in their recent synths.

I was not impressed by previous synths, but synthi or prophet sound nothing like their previous ones.

Arturia still smell "behind" others sound engine wise.
Listen to a VERY old Uhe ACE or ImpOSCar, and compare :D

 

What does "ate cheeks" mean?
Perhaps it is a poor translation of "sucks ass" ?

And, in a similar way, what does "that womans hair of follicles" mean?
Hair of follicles?

 

It's not a poor translation, just an adjacent one.
Yes, ate ass. As in; lost or took a sea- stool to the winner.

Follices of thine womans hair getteth stuck in thine ass my friend.
Tired of pulling them out most mornings man.

 

I would be very surprised if the latest version of Arturia's synth were as good as u-he's, sonically speaking.

 

I haven't heard that but you've got me curious enough. The issue I've always had with Arturia is just how much bloat there is in their packages though. Repro is under 100MB Pro V requires 2Gb free disk space for install.

Just because I have the space doesn't mean I want to fill it all for no reason.

 

I think he meant the newer version of Prophet-5 V, it is a separate new plugin in the collection. The older one, the Prophet V is a combination of the Prophet 5 and VS. I prefer the newer version, soundwise.

Repro-5 has more low end content naturally if you compare the oscillators + filter sounds between the two synths which when you compare side by side, it will make the Arturia's version sound smaller. Not sure if it count as better like that because we tend to perceive sound with more low end content as "better" sounding.

 

Last edited: Nov 18, 2022

The thing about 'better', is that better doesn't necessarily mean accurate.

Each time Arturia updates their synths they bump the number. So for example, their Jupiter-8 clone has 4 versions:

Jupiter-8V
Jupiter-8V2
Jup-8 V3
Jup-8 V4

I don't doubt that they tried to improve the sound engine, at least a bit. IMO Jup-8 V4 still doesn't nail it, it's basically on par with Zenology's Jupiter-8 Model Expansion (which is known for not being as close to hardware compared to their own ACB versions). I've heard that some of Arturia's synths are closer than others, but I take that with a pinch of salt, because it only takes one rotten apple to spoil the basket.

Ultimately it's better to stop worrying whether its accurate and instead focusing on whether it can do the sounds you're looking for. I was really disinterested in Cherry Audio's stuff but their PS-20 (and perhaps a few others) can sound surprisingly good despite not being accurate. You'll get more sleep and less grey hairs that way.

If you really want accuracy, u-he's Repro and many of Roland's Cloud plugins are circuit-modelled and the closest ever made thus far outside of digital synths (Plogue OPS7 is a bit-accurate emulation of the digital Yamaha DX7). You usually can tell its doing circuit-modelling when it uses a lot of CPU even when doing nothing. But Arturia's "TAE" is probably marketing sass - if they really modelled the circuits, they'd have gotten it right the first time!

 

Perhaps true concerning CS-80, redesigned when upgraded to V4

Prophet-5 V (lastest v1.1.0.2880 / 04-Nov-2022) is less than 400 MB (all plugin formats + NKS), not 2 GB.

 

Not on every update, but when upgraded (major update aka full redesigned code, reworked GUI, etc).
Also name have changed ("JUPITER" to "Jup") due to confict vs. Roland company (same concerning OB-Xa V, quickly renamed to... OP-Xa V).

 

I'll demo it this weekend.

The system requirements for install called for 2GB free space. At least it's smaller than I thought. Still 4x the size of Repro. But As I stated now I am curious.

Thanks for letting me know.

 

The new Prophet 5 V sounds great - I personally like it better than the Repro.

 

Trust me, the Prophet-5 V uses less than 400 Mbytes when installed (full installation VSTi/VST3i/AAX/NKS), installer downloaded from Arturia website, for Windows platform. I don't know about MacOS, also I don't know about u-he Repro-5 because I never tried it.

Unlike some instruments (Synclavier V, Emulator II V, Vocoder V, CMI V, Pigments, Augmented series, Mellotron V, etc), the Prophet-5 V doesn't use samples!



Arturia plugins use a lot of space because they're ton of files (resources subfolder in particular).
Yep, Arturia policy is... every pixel is a .png file!

 

Last edited: Nov 18, 2022

If you want the Arturia emulators synths sounds better for real: run em at 96 kHz like for all vst.

 

Mine 59-years old ears don't "see" the difference...

I always assume 44.1 kHz (or 88.2 kHz) for audio only (CD) - but 44.1 kHz as final master.

48/96 kHz for audio into video (like DVD / Blu-ray authoring), and not recommended for live performance (using more resources, CPU, etc), except if you're using a warrior-like or NASA computer.

However, I totally agree for mixing/mastering, in particular for important plugins chains (I'm using 192 kHz for 8~12 track projects from REAPER 6, CPU and audio interface don't protest).

If you want realism, in particular for analog instrument emulation, you need temperature & humidity probes connected to your computer, and pray for the plugin consider them!

 

Last edited: Nov 18, 2022

I tend to think exactly like you about "not caring about accuracy". The important thing is if the sound is useful for you.
But, if a brand sells it's products as accurate emulations, It's obviously criticable if it's not accurate, as their clients are in their right to expect accuracy.

 

I don't know if Prophet-5 V is closer the real hardware than u-he Repro, or not, but I love the Prophet-5 V sounds!

I have never tested u-he Repro-5.

Also, I love the reworked CS-80 V4.

 

Give them a chance and listen, it does really sounds better, i'm an 8 bit guy so i'm old too but i can hear clearly a difference (you can feel on the bass deep...cmon in low frequencies we are still ok heheheh) i do use it alot on the M12 we are so maniacs here in the studio we run the plugins in a secondary pc/mac at high rate and we recording it back in analog by adding some extras
About realism: as you well know, we are old and we know the emulation evolution, nowadays is quite good but is not the perfect one that we need and want because all the bla bla bla of the universe, in a mix sometimes is hard to listen the difference, to my side i complain only about the filter emulation i dont find that we are
Pls try it then tell me if you hear the difference

 

I only use from Arturia the ARP 2600, CS-80 and Minimoog V-Original all V2 from 2010-12. and believe me, the sound and the interface graphics are undoubtedly much better, weighing around 60 mb each. Just check for yourselves.

 

Last edited: Nov 18, 2022