Arturia: V Collection 8

The move to improve, enhance, add to and tweak already impressive software bundles continues apace with this latest package from Arturia

Arturia’s V Collection (VST, VST3, AU, AAX and standalone) is a mainstay of the VSTi world that has grown over the years to incorporate a combination of mainstream and rare synths, pianos, organs and string machines. Of course, you can purchase the instruments individually, but the collection delivers a considerable financial saving and also includes their Analog Lab package, which is a present packed workstation that pulls together patches from all of the instruments (see box out). Although the names are sometimes modified, Arturia’s V instruments are full-on emulations of original hardware synths and use their own component accurate analogue (TAE) and physical (Phi) modelling emulation technology. The highly accurate emulations are then enhanced with plenty of software-only extras.

V Collection 7 added some tidy new emulations based on classics such as the Casio CZ 101, EMS Synthi AKS and Mellotron. In contrast, V Collection 8’s additions are very mainstream instruments from Oberheim, Moog, E-mu and Roland. The recently released OB-Xa V is joined by three completely new emulations – Jun 6V, Emulator II V and Vocoder V. There are also two major updates in the form of Jup-8 V 4 and Stage-73 V 2. Once again the sound library has been expanded and the PatchWorks bundle adds 700 contemporary presets. Across all instruments you now have over 10,000 presets, which is a staggering number. The 27 classic instruments are ARP2600 V3, B-3 V2, Buchla Easel V, Clavinet V, CMI V, CS-80 V3, CZ V, DX7 V, Emulator II V, Farfisa V, Jun-6 V, Jup-8 V4, Matrix-12 V2, Mellotron V, Mini V3, Modular V3, OB-Xa V, Piano V2, Prophet V3, SEM V2, Solina V2, Stage-73 V2, Synclavier V, Synthi V, Vocoder V, Vox Continental V2 and Wurli V2.