Phase Plant or Pigments 4? Which do you like more and why?
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Elrik Settee
ambientwibbleshedcoremaestro
Falcon 3 out now
intro offer 199 full price 349
Please 100 voucher for expansions or any soundware and ever on those expansions
Check out out.
Also I think Pigments is more capable than Phase Plant perhaps
intro offer 199 full price 349
Please 100 voucher for expansions or any soundware and ever on those expansions
Check out out.
Also I think Pigments is more capable than Phase Plant perhaps
Paul@Sydney
Senior Member
Agree with what others have said, very different synths with different philosophies. Phase Plant is semi-modular, verging on fully modular.
But leaving aside workflows, I find both synths rather average in their sonics. Phase Plant is a bit lifeless. Pigments is a bit boring/smooth sounding (I find 90% of what pigments can do, vital can do - only real differentiators is the additional osciallator types - samples, granular, additive).
If I was looking for a first paid-synth to move onto from Vital, I'd be looking pretty hard at Zebra Legacy. No other synth comes close when it comes to outright sonics, as well as flexibility. And it's amazing value. But it doesn't do samples, not sure if that's what your focus is?
But leaving aside workflows, I find both synths rather average in their sonics. Phase Plant is a bit lifeless. Pigments is a bit boring/smooth sounding (I find 90% of what pigments can do, vital can do - only real differentiators is the additional osciallator types - samples, granular, additive).
If I was looking for a first paid-synth to move onto from Vital, I'd be looking pretty hard at Zebra Legacy. No other synth comes close when it comes to outright sonics, as well as flexibility. And it's amazing value. But it doesn't do samples, not sure if that's what your focus is?
Voider
From the future
Pigments can be very gritty, but it's harder to get there than with some other synths. That's because Pigments' oscillators are a bit tamed by default.
These are two patches (bass + lead) from my upcoming Pigments soundset, which is a bit more edgy in design:
View attachment Pigments 'Phantom Edge' Guitar Intro.mp3
In my opinion PhasePlant is more interesting sonically than Pigments, is more cpu optimized plus you have the modular plug-ins.
On the other hand, Pigments is so popular you'll find thousands of 3rd party patches.
Also, if you like the Arturia ecosystem, Pigments entitles to huge rebates on cross grades.
On the other hand, Pigments is so popular you'll find thousands of 3rd party patches.
Also, if you like the Arturia ecosystem, Pigments entitles to huge rebates on cross grades.
wing
Active Member
I have, love, and use both quite frequently. I don't turn to either of them for general subtractive synth sounds (for that I might use Serum, Diva, or Repro). They're capable of that, but for me, they are better as sonic playgrounds – I use them most of all when I am craving interesting textures, pads, and sound effects. Or just a quirky, unique synth patch.
I will say that Pigments is more immediately breezy and user-friendly from the jump. If you're familiar with any other synth, you'll be up and running with Pigments in no time.
Phase Plant is fully modular so you can actually do a lot more, especially with modulated effects chains, but that comes at a cost of a somewhat higher learning curve.
Phase Plant only recently added a granular synth engine with the newest version; Pigments, in many ways, was always kind of a granular synth capable of doing standard subtractive, wavetable, and sample synthesis.
So for my use cases, I generally turn to Pigments as a glorified sampler and granular synth tool, especially for pads. And I turn to PhasePlant when I wanna get wacky and wild - complex sound design, textures, weird and surprising stuff.
Both are very capable of doing what the other does, but I'd say that seems to be where their strengths lie.
I would say if you're looking for an intuitive granular & pad synth, Pigments is the way to go. But if you want something even more experimental and creatively boundless, you can't go wrong with PhasePlant.
Plus if you get the KiloHearts bundle, SnapHeap is an awesome totally modular effects rack. Kilohearts YouTube channel also frequently updates with quick sound design and patch ideas which are fun to learn from.
I will say that Pigments is more immediately breezy and user-friendly from the jump. If you're familiar with any other synth, you'll be up and running with Pigments in no time.
Phase Plant is fully modular so you can actually do a lot more, especially with modulated effects chains, but that comes at a cost of a somewhat higher learning curve.
Phase Plant only recently added a granular synth engine with the newest version; Pigments, in many ways, was always kind of a granular synth capable of doing standard subtractive, wavetable, and sample synthesis.
So for my use cases, I generally turn to Pigments as a glorified sampler and granular synth tool, especially for pads. And I turn to PhasePlant when I wanna get wacky and wild - complex sound design, textures, weird and surprising stuff.
Both are very capable of doing what the other does, but I'd say that seems to be where their strengths lie.
I would say if you're looking for an intuitive granular & pad synth, Pigments is the way to go. But if you want something even more experimental and creatively boundless, you can't go wrong with PhasePlant.
Plus if you get the KiloHearts bundle, SnapHeap is an awesome totally modular effects rack. Kilohearts YouTube channel also frequently updates with quick sound design and patch ideas which are fun to learn from.
richiebee
Active Member
I have and own Pigments. I have only used the demo of Phase Plant. For me, Phase Plant felt really messy and disorganized. I think complex synths have a bit of a learning curve and Pigments was no exception, but I have found it to be nicely organized and easy to create with. It sounds great. I guess it comes down to whichever you find the easiest to work with.
Eclipse.SoundWorks
www.eclipse-sound.com
Completely different tools.
Phase Plant is for more advanced users, who need to simplify the process of creating very complex modulation.
Pier
Senior Member
Personally I find PhasePlant to be much more intuitive to use than Pigments.
With PhasePlant everything is very explicit and flexible. You can route stuff in any way you prefer and add as many oscs/filters/fx as you need. I find the process very natural and organic. Everything makes sense to me because I cand bend it to my process.
With synths like Pigments I always feel constrained by the architecture and I'm constantly trying to wrap my head around the weird decisions they made.
With PhasePlant everything is very explicit and flexible. You can route stuff in any way you prefer and add as many oscs/filters/fx as you need. I find the process very natural and organic. Everything makes sense to me because I cand bend it to my process.
With synths like Pigments I always feel constrained by the architecture and I'm constantly trying to wrap my head around the weird decisions they made.
zvenx
Senior Member
I feel bad about not using Pigments.. Arturia has been more than generous with their updates and their preset sales, yet to this day I have never used Pigment in any project even though I probably bought it in the first three days it was released... for the most part, except a few arovane presets, it just doesn't do much sonic aesthetically for my ears... phase plant whilst clearly not being my favourite synth or being anywhere close to, I find has a more pleasing sound to my ear.
ymmv.
rsp
ymmv.
rsp
Solarsentinel
Active Member
Which is the best for granular things? I tried the Pigments 4 demo which is nice, but there is no demo for phase plant. on videos the granular engine in phase plant looks like more advanced.
Crowe
part raven, part troll
There's no 'best' here. They're both great.
They (Kilohearts) have a quasi rent-to-own scheme for $10 per month. You get their whole set that way and every year to get $100 in voucher value to put toward their products.
Please excuse my indulgence! I hope this is actually useful.
Zebra has probably the most complexity under the hood - that's to say the filters, for example, are not just filters, they're multiple tuned stages of saturation and filtering (visibly so in the XMF modules) in order to achieve a very rich and complex behavior and sound, which some might call "analog". In Phase Plant, you're responsible for building that complexity with bare tools. Case in point again, Zebra offers 4-5 comb filter types per comb module, with different arrangements of multiple processors within the feedback path, leading to an impossibly large sonic palette for physical modelling and creating shimmering, groaning, airy, metallic sounds, the list goes on. Phase Plant by contrast offers a comb filter with a feedback control, but Phase Plant has a different idea in mind when it comes to architecture.
Pigments is sort of an intermediary. Its layout is strict; it is not nearly so semi-modular, but the modules it contains are often somewhat more complex than in Phase Plant. For example, it offers an allpass filter in the feedback path of its Comb LPF - which is a useful and customizable sound (weird and pretty). Pigments' additive is not mirrored in any way by the other two synths, mostly producing harsh or "additive-sounding" sounds, but the parameterization affords making a variety of useful and pleasing sounds - it is worth a few tries. Pigments' granular is uniquely good in that it does not shorten grain length past certain grain rates/densities, leading to more capability for the "wash" sound and being able to sear a steak with your CPU. The effects, like the shimmer reverb, delay and chorus sound good! The modulation is comparatively limited, which is probably enough for most users, evidenced by a whole lot of good-sounding presets.
The extent to which you can process sounds in Kilohearts plugins, and the ease and speed of making such complex patches, is the selling point for Phase Plant. Right off the bat you've got as many or more features for oscillator types, fx and modulation (so many more). But then you can go running 49 parallel keytracked polyphonic resonators in a Snap Heap setup, with macros and modulators augmenting their tuning, decay, panning etc.; which might sound alarming, but Phase Plant makes it easy. And you could make it two million resonators or more if your cpu was designed by the Lord; the system scales as far as you and your cpu can take it. On the Kilohearts discord you can find ample Snap Heap presets that will with a few macro knobs completely transform any input sound into something completely different, maybe beautiful, or a complete mess. That's the power of Snap Heap and the Khs modulation system! Doing that, and having one of the most powerful modulation/polyphonic FX/FM implementations in softsynths, and the layering and unison modes, that's why Phase Plant is special.
At which point one might wonder why not just get Falcon or MSoundFactory -- answer being they kind of suck to use compared to Phase Plant or Zebra. For most people, anyway - they're certainly more powerful in some ways. Phase Plant is powerful enough that the 8 macros at the top may as well be replaced soon with the Performance View of these Kontakt-competitor super-synths, and maybe at some point they will. Phase Plant is after all more likely to get a multisampling system and custom feedback chain processing/routing than Falcon or MSoundFactory are to get a workflow that doesn't make one want to leave their studio! Sad as it is. In fact, those features already being talked about by the devs. So it is not hyperbole. :|
Zebra has probably the most complexity under the hood - that's to say the filters, for example, are not just filters, they're multiple tuned stages of saturation and filtering (visibly so in the XMF modules) in order to achieve a very rich and complex behavior and sound, which some might call "analog". In Phase Plant, you're responsible for building that complexity with bare tools. Case in point again, Zebra offers 4-5 comb filter types per comb module, with different arrangements of multiple processors within the feedback path, leading to an impossibly large sonic palette for physical modelling and creating shimmering, groaning, airy, metallic sounds, the list goes on. Phase Plant by contrast offers a comb filter with a feedback control, but Phase Plant has a different idea in mind when it comes to architecture.
Pigments is sort of an intermediary. Its layout is strict; it is not nearly so semi-modular, but the modules it contains are often somewhat more complex than in Phase Plant. For example, it offers an allpass filter in the feedback path of its Comb LPF - which is a useful and customizable sound (weird and pretty). Pigments' additive is not mirrored in any way by the other two synths, mostly producing harsh or "additive-sounding" sounds, but the parameterization affords making a variety of useful and pleasing sounds - it is worth a few tries. Pigments' granular is uniquely good in that it does not shorten grain length past certain grain rates/densities, leading to more capability for the "wash" sound and being able to sear a steak with your CPU. The effects, like the shimmer reverb, delay and chorus sound good! The modulation is comparatively limited, which is probably enough for most users, evidenced by a whole lot of good-sounding presets.
The extent to which you can process sounds in Kilohearts plugins, and the ease and speed of making such complex patches, is the selling point for Phase Plant. Right off the bat you've got as many or more features for oscillator types, fx and modulation (so many more). But then you can go running 49 parallel keytracked polyphonic resonators in a Snap Heap setup, with macros and modulators augmenting their tuning, decay, panning etc.; which might sound alarming, but Phase Plant makes it easy. And you could make it two million resonators or more if your cpu was designed by the Lord; the system scales as far as you and your cpu can take it. On the Kilohearts discord you can find ample Snap Heap presets that will with a few macro knobs completely transform any input sound into something completely different, maybe beautiful, or a complete mess. That's the power of Snap Heap and the Khs modulation system! Doing that, and having one of the most powerful modulation/polyphonic FX/FM implementations in softsynths, and the layering and unison modes, that's why Phase Plant is special.
At which point one might wonder why not just get Falcon or MSoundFactory -- answer being they kind of suck to use compared to Phase Plant or Zebra. For most people, anyway - they're certainly more powerful in some ways. Phase Plant is powerful enough that the 8 macros at the top may as well be replaced soon with the Performance View of these Kontakt-competitor super-synths, and maybe at some point they will. Phase Plant is after all more likely to get a multisampling system and custom feedback chain processing/routing than Falcon or MSoundFactory are to get a workflow that doesn't make one want to leave their studio! Sad as it is. In fact, those features already being talked about by the devs. So it is not hyperbole. :|
AnhrithmonGelasma
Senior Member
I've seen a lot of reference to a free trial, though all I found on the Kilohearts website is "If you are using an outdated OS please try our free trials to ensure compatibility before making any purchases." Splice mentions "Try Phase Plant free for 3 days, then pay $7.99/month for 25 months until you own it through Splice". I had been planning on demoing Phase Plant so this is a bit concerning---3 days isn't very long, beyond testing basic compatibility....
