Pigments 4 – POLYCHROME SOFTWARE SYNTHESIZER
An immensely powerful synth 20 years in the making, combining wavetable, virtual analog, granular and sampling in one inspiring instrument.
This is Pigments 4, and it’s going to change the way you make music forever.
Taking that spark of imagination and transforming it into sound is the most fundamental, exhilarating part of creating music. Pigments makes that process natural, intuitive, and colourful.
Pigments 4 – Whats New?
With updates to every single module, Pigments 4 is a free update that lets you discover your own wavelengths on an infinite spectrum of sound – redefined, optimized, and unleashed.
New looks for your setup
- New graphical interface: Easier to navigate than ever,
- Play Mode: Enjoy a simplified overview of your entire sound, with stripped-back modules and hands-on macros.
- Light Mode: Opt for a less nocturnal vibe and enjoy a sleek off-white redesign.
The best sound design workflow yet
- Quick modulation editing: you can now simply click and drag your modulation source to its destination, and quickly adjust its depth by hovering over the parameter.
- Quicker feature navigation: Flick between options in an instant for any of Pigments’ multimode modules with added left-right buttons.
- LFO presets: Pigments’ LFOs now come with 6 familiar waveform presets, from sine to random.
- FX & Seq bypass: You can now quickly bypass both the FX and Seq sections from the Synth and Play Mode views.
- New sync modes: Create dynamic rhythmic ideas by blurring the lines between straight, triplet, and dotted sync within Pigments’ modulators.
- MTS-ESP microtuning compatibility: Pigments is now compatible with ODDSound’s microtuning software MTS-ESP, designed in conjunction with Aphex Twin.
Enhanced engines
- Wavetable engine: Sprinkle some warbling tremolo movement and metallic character by swapping frequency modulation for the new Ring Mod feature, and harness a new Pulse Width mode for the Phase Transformation section
- Harmonic engine: Uncover new harmonic territory and pitch alterations
- More Unison options: The Unison control is now uniform across all engines, with the addition of a Unison Phase control for Wavetable, Sample, and Harmonic voices.
- Modulator Oscillator: Go deeper into the dedicated Mod Osc with Ratio options and an extended hertz range from 0.100 to 20,000.
New effects & filters
- MS-20 Filter: Unleash deeper bass than ever and crank the grit with the notorious screaming response of the classic MS-20 filter, with HP6 and LP12 modes.
- Shimmer Reverb: Inject cathedral-in-outer-space ambience and cinematic detail into any sound with the Shimmer Reverb effect, complete with 2 octaves of pitch-shift and built-in modulation.
- Super Unison: Mimic ultra-wide ensemble timbres with a single voice using Super Unison, a swaying chorus-like effect that detunes, spreads, and enlivens any sound.
- Effects & filter improvements: Pigments’ Bitcrusher has doubled in size with Jitter, Scale, and extra Downsampling options, the Jup-8 V filter now has FM control, and both the Multi Filter & Distortion algorithms feature a Notch Filter mode.
Fresh sound exploration
- New factory presets: A distilled selection of the hardest basses, leads, pads, and percussive sounds for modern production, from ambient to drill to soundtrack composition.
- 63 new wavetables: Navigate a massive array of crushed filtered sounds, monstrous peaks, resonant vowel-like sweeps, and more.
- 67 new samples: From rattling 808 bass to hang drum resonance to sustained vocals, enjoy 67 new sounds for the Sample & Granular engine.
- 36 new noise types: Expanding Pigments’ Utility Engine Noise modules, this fresh selection includes smooth impulses, nature sounds, industrial tools, and more.
Pigments 4 sound banks
- Wavelengths Lo-fi: The chillest beatmaking palette you’ve never heard, perfect for adding retro color and character to hip hop, trap, and electronic mixes.
- Wavelengths Neuro Bass: Deeper & darker frequencies that hit different. Reach new levels of crushed, gnarled, earth-shaking bass using Pigments’ engines, filters, and FX.
- Wavelengths Cinematic: Discover new shades of ambience and impact alike, with evocative and powerful sounds for contemporary film score and library composition.
Your Sound, in Living Colour
Imagine a sound, then create it.
Pigments gives you the finest elements ever found in a software instrument, letting you create pioneering, exciting, and deeply personal sounds.
Laying everything out before you, Pigments lets you fully express your creativity in a way that’s never been seen before in a software instrument.
- Intuitive, lightning-fast workflow
- Powerful awesome-sounding architecture
- Amazing presets from legendary artists
Pigments features a twin audio engine, letting you mix virtual analog and wavetable oscillators with a sample engine to create the perfect starting point for your patch. You can even morph wavetables, granularize samples, and import your own sounds to warp and contort.
What you do next is up to you.
Experiment with 3 envelopes, 3 LFOs, and 3 function generators. Assign modulators to animate your sound, and breathe life into it. Add controlled, or totally wild random changes to any parameter with a Turing probability generator. Run it through 2 filters, with any combination of iconic analog filters or modern formant and surgeon filters you want. Process your patch with exciting contemporary effects like wavefolder and multifilter, or vintage studio reverbs, tape delays, and EQs.
“Routing” isn’t a Dirty Word
Scanning a matrix for the right parameter works, but it isn’t the only way.
Thanks to its unique interface, Pigments doesn’t just make complex modulations easy, it makes them fun. This is a new approach to building sounds.
Making a Masterpiece
For 20 years, Arturia have been analyzing, emulating, and refining the most iconic synthesizers ever made.
Working with Dr Robert Moog, Cameron Jones, and many other industry legends, Arturia have built their reputation on creating world-class instruments. They turned the music industry on its head with the release of their trailblazing, affordable analogue hardware synthesizer, the MiniBrute.
With multiple awards under their belt, you could say that Arturia have done their homework. Pigments combines their passion for vintage FM and analogue sound with modern wavetable synthesis to create what is, to us, the ultimate software synth.
MAIN FEATURES
- Extensive factory preset library
- NKS controller compatible
Two Engines in Parallel
- Virtual Analog triple OSC engine
- Complex Wavetable engine
- Sample and Granular engine
Two Filters
- Classic filter types from V Collection instruments
- Modern filter types
- Continuous series/parallel routing
Powerful Effects Section
- Insert or Send routing
- Modulable parameters
Advanced modulation system
- Graphical editing, source-based or destination-based.
- Envelopes, LFOs, Function generators, Random src, …
Visual interface
- Graphical representation of the most important modules
Polyrhythmic Sequencer and Arpeggiator
- Create complex, custom and evolving sequences/arps
- Advanced random sequence generator
Sample Engine
Explore hundreds of samples, import your own, load them into one of 6 different slots with 6 playback modes. Loop, edit, and bring them to life with Pigments’ modulation abilities.
Synth Mode
Add another level to your sound design by transforming samples into granular synth patches at the touch of a button, adjust density, envelope, size, and exciting randomization parameters.
Sequencer
The in-built sequencer now lets you apply randomness in a non-destructive way, letting you always return back to where you started, perfect for live performance and improvisation.
Filter and Delay
Arturia have added the iconic sound of the Buchla Easel low pass gate and a space-age tape echo to Pigments’ sonic arsenal, for some seriously nice warping, contorting analogue flavour.
Windows
- Win 7+ (64bit) PC: 4 GB RAM; 2.5 GHz CPU.
- 1GB free hard disk space
- OpenGL 2.0 compatible GPU
Mac
- 10.11+: 4 GB RAM; 2.5 GHz CPU.
- 1GB free hard disk space
- OpenGL 2.0 compatible GPU
- Compatible with M1 Chips
Required configuration
- Works in Standalone, VST 2.4, VST 3, AAX, Audio Unit, NKS (64-bit DAWs only)
Protection
- The software is protected by the Arturia Software Center.