Arturia Mini V - Software Review
I recently purchased this old school software synth specifically for one sound , the ‘House Bass’ preset, and to my surprise there sure are alot of amazing sounds coming from this soft synth.
The Mini V from Arturia was created in partnership with the legendary Robert ‘Bob’ Moog. For those of you who don’t know who Bob Moog is , he is one of the pioneers of electronic music. He is the founder of Moog Music and the inventor of the world’s first commercial synthesizer, the Moog synthesizer. When you hear a synth in your favourite track , 9 times out of 10 Bob Moog is the man behind that very sound.
Arturia have been recreating analog synthesizers into digital formats since 2003. Here they have basically made a virtual version of the ‘Minimoog’ replicating its features, design and its sound.
Mini V is installed using the Arturia Software Centre application , used to secure that your purchase either digitally or physical is legitimately purchased and recognised. Through this application it makes sure that all your software purchased from Arturia is up-to date with all the latest patches.
When you finally get to boot up the software through your DAW , you’ll be pleasantly surprised just how neet and clear everything is and that it is an exact replication of the look and feel of the original Minimoog. All the filters , cut off switches and so on , are clearly labelled and marked making automation very easy to use as well as tuning one of the over 450 presets found . I was amazed at the quality of each of the presets found , the replication of the original analog sound is truly amazing. This is because of Arturia’s TAE (True Analog Emulation) which recreates all the sounds and characteristics found in the original hardware synth.
Mini V holds all the parameters of the original synth which is 3 controlled oscillators with 5 waveforms (sine, wave, square, sawtooth and triangle) , 24DB octave filter, 2 ADSR envelopes, Low Frequency oscillator with 7 waveforms and more. More features found are the arpeggiator, vocal filter, stereo effects ( Chorus and Delay ), up-to 32 voices of polyphony , modulation matrix and an advanced automation mode .
Once you start playing around with some of the presets , this is where the fun begins. With over 450 different presets (sounds banks split into Bass, Lead, Pads, Strings, Organs, Keys, Percussive, SFX, Sequence and more) you’re bound to find an abundance of sounds that you’ll absolutely love. I found a lot of sounds that made me reminiscent of the 70’s and 80’s . Some truly fantastic bass and pad presets. I had fun for hours loading up presets and tuning them to my liking , changing the waveforms and cut-off filter , trying out different attack and delay settings and so much more.
If presets is not your thing , you can create your own using any one of the five waveforms and create your own sounds, save the preset and can be used later.
Overall this truly is great piece of software which Arturia has done a great job to replicate the original . Where the original hardware version will cost over € 1300 , you can now own this for as little as € 149, and at this price you’d be a fool not to get it.
Purchase from Arturia HERE
Moog Official website HERE
Original Minimoog can be purchased from Ebay HERE