Arturia Pigments 7

Hot on the heels of version 6, Pigments 7 brings workflow improvements, increased efficiency and some really rather special new effects.

Never a company to rest on their laurels, Arturia released Pigments 7 a mere 321 days after releasing Pigments 6. This is impressive, however it could be argued that of the two, it was Pigments 6 that was the revolutionary one. This new version is more in the evolutionary category, but the refinements it offers are all welcome upgrades — and let’s not forget these updates have commendably always been free, so we can’t really complain can we? Bravo Arturia, and thank you. The end.

New Filters & Effects

Just kidding. So what’s new in this seventh iteration? Well, there are three new filters to start with — the three Rs of Ripple, Reverb and Rage. Ripple runs the waveform through a succession of all‑pass filters that could easily pass for ring modulation at more robust settings, even though it isn’t. There are three flavours of heft that you can select for your waveform to limbo under, the most extreme of which can make things sound like they’re simultaneously being flanged and supersawn (is that a verb?), and this is a good thing. Interestingly, turning the resonance control to zero appears to impact the waveform pitch more than when it’s fully cranked, which changes the filter shape to a dramatic‑looking single sawtooth with the resultant tone more of a sharp phaser.

Reverb is next and my favourite of the three, the resonance control cleverly seeming to double up as the size control for the reverb time of the filter’s effect. If you modulate this, the resultant sound is like being crept up on by Wembley Stadium, which then hides behind a tree when you turn round because it immediately disappears when you release the key or stop the modulation. I’ve not come across this before. It’s a novel way of adding size and movement to a big lead sound without having to drench it in reverb, for example.

Lastly there’s Rage, which does exactly what you expect and there are five flavours to choose from: diode, distortion, soft clip, tape and transistor. All self‑explanatory and all very musical. My favourite setting here is transistor, which puts you straight into 303 territory, should you wish to holiday back there for a bit with your bucket hat on.

Filter two has the same complement of filter types and you can blend them variably between series and parallel. I couldn’t resist running a saw wave through two fully resonant Rage distortion filters in series. The result was suitably cross, with the sweep of the second one really picking out the screaming harmonics of the first. Not a bad way to spend half an hour.

In terms of new effects, we now have something called Corroder to play with and it’s fantastic. Not only do we get...