Arturia’s V6 VST Collection : A Comprehensive Review

Arturia’s collection of classic synths and keyboards has almost become a classic in itself. It is used by millions of professional and amateur musicians, studios, producers, and composers around the world. But how does it get to that status?

Let’s take a look at history.

YAMAHA DX7-V

How to Install Arturia V6 Collection VSTs On Your Computer?

Installing this package on a PC or Mac is really very easy. After buying it on the website (www.arturia.com) you will be able to download the installer and the necessary licenses. When you run the installer, everything you need will be installed on your computer without further ado. Do not forget to check the folder where you have the rest of the plugins installed so that they are all in the same location and so your DAW recognizes them. In addition to the plugins, you can install the standalone application, which allows you to run all VSTs outside of your DAW.

Brief History Of Arturia’s V6 Collection VST

Arturia is a company specializing in the development of musical software and hardware, with its headquarters in Grenoble, France. It was founded in 1999 by French engineers Frédéric Brun and Gilles Pommereuil, to create affordable software synthesizers.

The first product they developed was Storm, a virtual instrument workstation. The successful emulation of classic analog synthesizers helped the company gain popularity in the marketplace. In order to create sounds with minimal digital artifacts, Brun and Pommereuil developed new software algorithms.

CLAVINET with amp and effect pedalboard incorporated

The electronics that supported the analog synthesizers of the 1970s were very unstable, which made these instruments very unreliable in terms of tuning, mainly. With the advent of new digital technologies, during the 1980s, much improvement was achieved in this regard, causing musicians to quickly turn to them. But these new instruments markedly changed the timbral nature of their sounds. Although electronic stability had been gained, the warmth of those first sounds had never been able to be replicated in the new equipment, which used other methods of sound synthesis.

During the 2000s there were important advances in music computing, which allowed some companies to successfully work on digitally emulated recreations of those old synthesizers, Arturia being one of the pioneers in working in this field. Thus, towards the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, the company began to associate and work closely with various research institutions, such as IRCAM, in France. The result of this work led Arturia’s Signal Processing area to develop a technology called TAE (True Analog Emulation), which allowed it to position itself as a valuable competitor among the companies that worked on this trend.

In 2003, using the algorithms created by Brun and Pommereuil, Arturia worked with Robert Moog to create the Modular V softsynth. This uses Arturia’s True Analog Emulation, in an attempt to faithfully reproduce the oscillators, filters, and other modules of the Moog 3C and the Moog 55. Following these releases, the brand continued to develop software emulations of well-known synthesizers such as the ARP 2600, the Roland Jupiter-8, the Minimoog, and the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5.

CMI FAIRLIGHT is another classic synth included in the Arturia V6 Collection

In 2007, Arturia combined sounds from several of their softsynth titles into their Analog Factory, which offered 2000 preset synthesizer patches. The following year presented their Analog Experience, a hybrid system that combined the software with a MIDI keyboard controller specifically designed to play and control it. In 2010, they presented Arturia V Collection 2. In 2012 version 3 was presented. Version 4 was released in 2015 without much mention, in 2016 version 5 came out, and in 2017 Arturia presented version V Collection 6. To this day Arturia continues developing synth and effects software, including them in its Arturia V Collection and Fx Collection packs, which are updated every year. Each year brings improvements and more instruments in the pack, reaching to develop until the V Collection 9 that went on the market in the middle of this year 2022.

Exploring The New Features of the Arturia V6 Collection VST

Now, we will talk about V Collection 6, presented by the brand in 2017.

Adding 4 new instruments and various improvements to its predecessor, coming to contain 21 different instruments, including analog synthesizers, digital synthesizers, pianos, and string instruments.

BUCHLA EASEL another legendary synth featured

Working side by side with developers, artists, and sound designers, the Arturia team took into account those demands and ideas that its users have been claiming over time: so it included great improvements in the workflow, visual aspects, more elaborate sounds, and more identical to the originals, improvements in all its instruments, scalable panels to resolutions beyond 4K. The progress, achieved with its exclusive technology called TAE (True Analog Emulation), physical modeling, and a large number of new presets created by professionals from sound design and well-known artists, has been a huge upgrade in every way.

The Arturia V Collection is a virtual compendium of electronic instruments that have set milestones, as are undoubtedly the four new classics that are included in edition 6: DX7, Fairlight, Clavinet, and the modular Buchla Easel. These join an extensive list that already included the Minimoog, Moog Modular, Yamaha CS-80, ARP 2600, Roland Jupiter-8, Prophet V and Prophet VS, Oberheim SEM, Oberheim Matrix-12, Solina, VOX Continental, Wurlitzer, Synclavier, B3 and Farfisa organs, electric pianos on Stage-73 and acoustic pianos on Piano V with various modeled tails and uprights.

The 21 instruments of V Collection 6 are also accessible through the new version 3 of Analog Lab for those who do not want to get too involved with editing and prefer to use a compendium of thousands of presets for one instrument or another accompanied by simple reduced editing. to a few essential parameters of each sound.

 The Role Of Arturia’s V6 Collection VST In Modern Music Production

It is very easy to work with this tool in a producer’s day-to-day since it compiles many instruments in a single VST. It is very well made, very intuitive, and easy to use. If you have a MIDI controller, then you have in your hands a powerful high-quality resource. Adding to this, the sound quality of the instruments is superior. Of course, you will equalize a little, compress a bit, and make the necessary corrections to achieve the sound you want (many of which can be done from within the VST itself), but already playing the instruments as they come by default you will achieve an impeccable sound.

Sound customization and synth simulation can also reach very professional levels. If you are passionate about synthesis, you can spend hours playing (or studying) with this plug-in. It not only includes all the synthesis possibilities of real instruments, but it adds possibilities that are impossible in a non-virtual environment. In case you don’t want to handle so many parameters, Analog Lab 3 provides very simple presets ready to use without much hassle.

The possibility to search and navigate through different sounds quickly and with just a few clicks, allows us to explore, try various possibilities, and not be left with any doubts.

All this together in the same VST means that it can solve a problem, or change the course of a production in a matter of minutes.

Using Arturia’s V6 Collection VST in a live Performance Setting

Arturia V6 Collection VST can bring great possibilities when playing live. The mere fact of being able to save our sets and use them dynamically in a live performance is already a spectacular plus for any show. The possibility of carrying the same quantity and variety of sounds, presets, customizations, and audio quality that we have in the studio, to any live performance, transforms this collection into an incredible live instrument too.

Many artists of various genres are known users of these products: Herbie Hancock, Robert Moog, Tiësto, Mike McKnight (keyboardist for Madonna, Spice Girls, Earth Wind & Fire, Jennifer Lopez) Armin van Buuren, Deadmau5, and more.

Final Thoughts

Since its creation in 1999, Arturia has been dedicated to the creation of virtual instruments, developing technologies that have allowed them to achieve superior quality and high-fidelity audio for its instruments. With its vision, the brand accompanied and pushed virtualization and the resounding change that the music production industry has seen since that time. This is how it reached our days, in which production exists not only on an industrial scale but also on a domestic scale, with the boom of home studios and the greater possibility of accessing recording tools. This is how they became one of the most used brands worldwide: providing a product that serves anyone interested in production at any of its scales.

Source of images: www.hispasonic.com