If there’s any motion going on, it’s going to be represented in this row. What Pigments does really well is its center-strip row of little oscilloscopes – for every single modulation source in the synth. If you’ve seen this channel before you know how important I think an oscilloscope is as a learning tool. Most synths are really good at giving access to the easy stuff, like the waveform of an oscillator or the shape of a filter – but when it comes to the mod matrix – where the really interesting things happen – things start falling apart into a boring table with a list of sources and destinations, or a sub menu somewhere. Just the name alone is enough to scare off a beginner.

In most synths – both virtual and real, the mod matrix can be quite an unpleasant place. Now that of course isn’t enough… which brings me to the second reason Pigments is a great learning tool… #2: Modulation Oscilloscopes & Destination cues

So, for starters it’s free to try, which means you can take your time learning. Other companies will degrade the quality of the audio, introduce noise every minute or so, or just shut down the plugin after a few days, which is a big turnoff – at least for me.

The only thing you can’t do is save presets you make, and once 20 minutes are up, it no longer makes sounds, but if you shut it down and open it up again – something that takes about 5 seconds – you’re back up and running for another 20 minutes. You can download Pigments and use all of its features free, check out all its presets for as long as you like. The first reason Pigments is a good learning tool isn’t actually unique to it, but is true about all of Arturia’s software synths and that’s their demo policy.

What I think they really did well here though, is make a synth that’s an extremely useful tool for learning synthesis, for a few reasons. Is it the best sounding synth ever? I think it sounds pretty good but I’ll leave that decision up to you. Pigments from Arturia is a new software synth that is their own original creation, rather than an emulation of a vintage synth.

Arturia pigments review