Like many people, I am always looking for that surprising instrument that will potentially change the way music is produced. Also, like many people, I don't want the thing to come at the price that would warrant some sort of bankruptcy. When looking for keyboards, I look for certain things. I  like them to be somewhat compact, not heavy and having enough flexibility to work around my own workarounds. Most of my instruments are digital virtual instruments (in AU format). It is the way I can achieve great sound quality without breaking the bank.

Many products out there do a wonderful job at emulating original keyboards like the Mellotron or the Moog synthesizers. I used to have a Mini-Moog and just loved that thing and the sounds it made. Because of that, I am always looking for the best Moog plug-in that I can find and incorporate it to my rig. I now own three of such plug-ins and found that all of them have their strengths along with their weaknesses. In all, they do a pretty credible job in recreating the analogue sound of the Moog.

A company making waves in the industry is a French outfit called Arturia. They have been around since 1999 and have taken their own proprietary approach to emulating analogue synthesizers through  digital technology. Robert Moog was a big fan of their products, he even gave them his official endorsement.

I have walked the isles of music stores like Guitar Center to check out what sort of new musical "toys" are being put out there. One that caught my eye was a little keyboard by Arturia called The Player. It was good looking, well-built and seemed like a great addition to my rig salvo for a couple of issues: it didn't have neither a pitch-bend nor a modulation wheel and it only had 25 keys. Because of that, I didn't bother to get it. Everything else about it seemed to be a pretty cool idea.

Fast forward to today. Arturia now has a line of "hybrid" synthesisers that run on their "Analogue Experience" software. In addition to the 25 keys player, the company has a 32 keys controller called "The Factory" and the top of the line called "The Laboratory", which comes in 49 and 61 keys respectively and pack a lot of punch for their money. I got the 49 keys controller which in my opinion has more than enough octaves to drive any Moog-related software. When extra octaves are needed, the transpose buttons get you where you want to go in an instant.

What's in the box?
The product ships in a corrugated box with foam blocks to hold the keyboard and cardboard dividers to hold the cables and manual. I was impressed by the fact that the keyboard comes with a printed manual and not just a disk with a PDF on it (although you can download the PDF version also). A plastic card comes glued to the inside cover of the manual and has your serial number printed on it. I tried to remove the plastic card until I saw that the actual paper from the inner cover started to rip loose. Why don't they use the same glue they have on those cards attached to the inside of magazine ads? I don't know. At the end, I left the card attached to the manual cover because I hate to break something before I even get the chance to play with it.

Once I got the keyboard out of the box, I was very impressed. This thing is built solidly. It has an aluminium chassis and wooden ends just like a good synth with vintage sounds should. The knobs and buttons fit perfectly without play and the feel of the sliders is very good. The keyboard feels great and looks great. It also weights around fifteen pounds which is fairly light (for a keyboard albeit a little heavy for just a controller). Also, with the manual and the keyboard you get a USB cable and a CD with what I guess is the start-up software.

Everything was shaping up fantastically but then, I had to register the product and download the software from Arturia's site. I know I must not be the only one who hates installing and getting licenses of music software to work. Many of them require a USB "dongle" or a software "dongle". The problem is, there are all sorts of "dongles" and requirements and as it never fails, it is a major pain to deal with it. To make things worst, I received my keyboard the same day that the company was giving away copies of one of their most popular title (MiniMoog V). What that meant for me was the inability to properly registered my software due to network traffic on their servers. I hate downloadable software salvo for upgrades. I like a box with discs and a manual whenever possible, call me old-fashion but it gives you something with printed serial numbers and the ability to reload the program at will, etc. Eventually I got the software registered and loaded although it almost took an act of God to do it. Perhaps it is because I don't do these things that often or, perhaps it is just always a pain in the neck operation.

Setting the situation for my testing.
I spent about half an hour messing with the stand-alone version of the software (the Logic plug-in was installed but I decided to first try it on it's own). I loved some of the sounds and it even got me inspired. That's when I came up with the idea to create a piece of music so I could put the software through a real test and not just playing. If I could make and record music with it, then it is worth keeping. Otherwise it would only be a nice toy with very limited functionality for me.

My personal rig for the task consisted of an iMac with Intel 2 Core duo processor, 6GB of RAM and 2.4 khz clock-speed. The main program for recording and sequencing is Logic Pro 8. Of course driving the input for the Arturia software is their 49 key controller. Being on a Mac makes the format of the software to be in Audio Units which is what I downloaded. So far so good. I opened a new project window and went through some of the pre-programmed sounds that come with the software. For two of my tracks I used some of their sequenced sounds which seem to love taking processor power. The very first time I tried it, I change patches in the middle of replaying something and my ears almost exploded from a very, very loud noise sound that emanated from my headphones. For a moment I thought that I would damage my ears or at the least, damage the headphones. Thanks to some quick reflexes I was able to hit the computer's mute button thus saving the equipment. Needless to say, I will not be doing that again!

After tinkering with some sounds and control's I got to learn a few tricks to make things go smoother. For example, when using a sequenced sound one must let it play a full "sequence" before stopping and re-starting shuttling around a track. Failing to do so may result in some of the sequence of the sound to be omitted or to sound different. This, is a little painful to work with at times but once you get used to it,  it becomes easy to deal with. Another problem I experienced was when tinkering with some of Logics filters on the Arturia's tracks. I think that some of the controls react with the synth software thus triggering some of the software's filters along with it. For example, one of my tracks developed an echo effect to it but when I check my mixing window, it fail to show it. It actually took me sometime to figure out what had happened. I eventually open my instrument window and found that the echo effect was triggered from within the instrument and not through Logic. I also experienced some clicking noises here and there. The noises would not transfer to bounced tracks but they would be indeed annoying when working in a "live" situation. I think the clicks are an indication of the processor being over-worked. I was able to eliminate the clicks and pops by saving and closing the project and then re-starting Logic and the plug-in. I know that so far this reads like a nightmare but the sounds of the software are so good that it made me take the challenge.

I gave myself the weekend to come up and record a piece of music. This way, I could really asses if Arturia's "Laboratory" was indeed something worth my time. Originally I wanted to create a minute or so of music that would highlight some of the synth's capabilities. Once I started working on it, I got inspired and kept stretching the song until it was at around three and a half minutes which is a decent length for a thematic instrumental piece. I took my main inspiration from back in the day when I played with my Mini-Moog. I started to build the piece of music as if I were back in the seventies trying to do some "Tangerine Dream-Vangelis-Larry Fast-Tomita" sort of thing. The main idea was to create something by mostly using Arturia's software. Somewhere around the middle of the project, it occurred to me that my music would need more than a synth to have a "full" sound, (at least to me). So I added a second part to the song that introduces other instruments into the mix.

Without going into each track's specifics, I will say that I had eleven tracks with some sort of keyboard sound into them. Out of the eleven, five ran through Arturia's software. The other six included an M1 (choir, strings, tubular bells and piano), a Mellotron (classical choir), some of Logic's on-board instruments like synth pads and other analogue synth emulation which I used to generate some sound effects like modulated swishes and that sort of thing. As far as filtering goes, some tracks have some echo in them, some tracks have the digital version of a Lexicon LXP reverb added to them. There is some compression on some of the synth tracks and even more compression within the drum tracks.

I have to say that despite the learning curve due to some of the software glitchy behaviour, I truly enjoyed working with it. It is limiting because of the amount of processing power that it takes. However, adapting to it wasn't that hard. It required for me to "freeze" or "lock" some tracks during production. "Freezing" or "locking" a track generates a temporary "bounced" track which is basically a recorded sound track of itself. This process eases some of the burden on the processor and allows for you to keep working the other tracks. Unlocking the tracks will re-store the ability to change patches and alter a specific sequence. In the end, there is never a loss when locking a track that you are already pleased with. Worst case scenario, bounce the track as a WAV format track and bring it back as a pre-recorded track into your mixing environment.

Would I keep using the software?
Yes. I am no expert regarding software but I know a good sound when I hear it, I know a good and well-built keyboard when I feel one and more importantly, I know what I like and makes me feel more creative. Arturia's "Analogue Experience" is a wonderful combination of keyboard and software which can reproduce certain analogue synthesisers like no one else can. However, it is glitchy and even twitchy but I'm hoping that the programmers over in France can eventually clean it out of those. If they can achieve that, Arturia's software would definitely be the standard from which others will try to measure up to. Until then, I say it's very nice and sound very good but I wish it was a bit more stable when working with it.

Finally, we have now come to the best part of your reading. The rewarding part if you will, from having put you through my boring review. I have uploaded my composition to Soundcloud and it will be available for a time as a free download. The end product may be a better indication as to why I decided to keep working with the software instead of giving up at the first sign of trouble. There is a chance that some version of this recording will make it into a future album but for the time being, you can hear it and download it here.

Arturia's interface looks like a natural extension of the keyboard.