Pigments 5

I'm done with Pigments. I so want to like it but I just can't. It's a really well thought out instrument that is a joy to work with but, at the end of the day, it simply doesn't sound good enough compared to the other synths I work with every day. I've had it for a couple of years now and I've only ever used it for generic sounds/parts to fill out a mix, never for anything where you might actually notice that it doesn't really sound all that good.

I love the layout and the visual representation of all the modulation - that whole system is top shelf. I like the way the "Engines" are implemented and the filter section is pretty good, too, without setting the world on fire. The GUI/UX is intuitive, well laid out, lends itself to a good workflow and there are more modulation options than I'd ever need or want. The on-board sequencer, too, is second to none, although it doesn't do anything I can't do in my host, so I've never used it.

In the end, my rating comes down to the sound. It just doesn't sound good enough in our mixes. It can do the little filler type things well enough but then so can dozens of freebies I use regularly. Where it can't seem to hold its own is when I am looking for a prominent part - a lead or a big pad kind of thing. It just doesn't sound big enough for those things, no matter what I try. It seems to have all the requisite parts - the V/A engine is very well featured, the Wavetable engine has loads of modulatable options, the Granular engine is quite capable, the newer Additive engine does what you expect and beyond that the filter is OK and there are plenty of other features to get the job done - but somehow it all falls a bit flat in the end. It's so frustrating because I really like working with Pigments, I just can't get it to sound as big as I need it to.

As with Hive, I have come to the conclusion that maybe I am just not the target audience for this synth. To me it feels like a Swiss Army knife. It does a lot of things well enough to get by in a pinch but when it comes to the big, important projects, there is no substitute for a good set of specialised tools.