Pigments Play is the free version of our modern and colorful "Pigments" software synthesizer.
It allows users to discover Pigments at no cost and benefit from an intuitive interface to easily enjoy its sonic capabilities while having access to a selected amount of presets from the original Factory bank.
Pigments Play can be downloaded for free via the following link below:
-Once you've downloaded Pigments Play, simply install it, and open it.
-You'll be prompted with a login pop-up window:
-Once you've entered your email address, the registration and activation process will be different whether you already have an account, or whether you're new to Arturia:
New to Arturia (no account)
-When giving an email address not linked to an Arturia account, you'll be prompted with another pop-up window asking you to set up your account:
-Then, please fill in the Password field with the password you want to use for your Arturia account:
You can subscribe to newsletter and potential offers and allow usage datas to be sent to us if desired.
Important Notes
-Make sure to double check the email address to avoid any typo and to use an existing address you have access to, otherwise you won't be able to receive the needed license on the correct account nor will be able to activate your newly created Arturia account.
-Also, in order to prevent future login issues, we advise you not to use special characters or emojis when creating your password.
-Once done, you should see the following pop-up, make sure to click on "Get license" to retrieve the license on your newly created account:
-After retrieving the license, just click on the "Activate" button:
-Once this is done, you'll be able to access Pigments Play:
-You will also receive an email to confirm your registration and validate your email address:
-Click on the "Confirm your email" button, and sign in with your new login name and password on the website:
-Once logged into your account, when checking the "My Products" section you should also see it registered if everything went fine.
You're now all set up !
Note
Do not hesitate to check out the Arturia Software Center, our simple solution to help you install, activate, and update your Arturia software instruments, once you've made your first steps with Pigments Play.
Arturia User (existing account)
-When giving an email address linked to an existing Arturia account, you'll be asked to enter your password:
-You'll then have access to a new pop-up window allowing you to get a Pigments Play license.
Note
-If you are an Arturia user and already own a Pigments license, you won't see the Get License pop-up window since you already have a more advanced version of Pigments.
-After retrieving the license, just click on the "Activate" button:
-Once this is done, you'll be able to access Pigments Play:
Note
-In case the activation process via the "Pigments Play" pop-up window would not be successful, you can also refer to the following articles to proceed via the Arturia Software Center:
Activate and Install from the ASC
-If you do not have an Internet access to activate your license online you can refer to the following article to proceed with the Offline activation:
In order to start using Pigments Play as a Standalone application, you may have to adjust some settings:
- To do so:
-Click on the "Hamburger" menu and open "Audio MIDI Settings":
-Make sure to select your Audio Device (Preferably a dedicated Audio Interface for better performance/quality) and an appropriate Audio Driver (Windows only) such as "Windows Audio" "ASIO4ALL" or your dedicated "ASIO Driver".
-Check also that correct "Output Channels" are being selected:
macOS uses "CoreAudio" driver and this cannot be changed.
-Now, adjust the "Sample Rate" between 44100/48000/96000Hz and the "Buffer Size" between 64 and 512 samples depending on the performance of your computer and the latency you would like to reach.
-Click on the "Play" button to ensure that sound is working and forwarded to the desired output:
-Finally, tick the box in front of your MIDI Controller "MIDI" port (if you have any) and click on "OK":
Please note that if owning an Arturia Controller, the correct MIDI port should be automatically selected on software opening (of course, if the controller is not working immediately make sure to double check this option).
-Once done, using your MIDI Controller or the Virtual keyboard from the interface should generate sound via the selected output.
- While adjusting these setting keep in mind that:
-We do recommend avoiding Sample Rates over 96000Hz.
-The higher the Sample Rate the more the CPU consumption will be.
-Setting a too low buffer size (such as 64 and below) can lead to a significant increase in CPU consumption (but with almost no latency) and thus generate Audio Cracklings if the CPU cannot handle the load.
-Setting a too high buffer size (such as 512 and over) can lead to a significant increase in Latency while lowering the CPU consumption.
The goal here is to find the best compromise depending on your usage, needs and depending on the capability of your computer (44.1 or 48 Khz and 128-256 samples usually offers a correct balance between both).
Concrete example:
Lowering the buffer size can be useful while playing Live or during Recording while Increasing it can be useful while playing back a recorded project (where latency does not matter but CPU load does when working with multiple plugins / tracks).
Next Step
After testing Pigments Play as a Standalone application, you may want to start recording sounds and go further along with your instrument.
To do so, please refer to the following section explaining how to use it as a plug-in.
To start recording, you will need to use Pigments Play as a Plug-in and not as a Standalone application.
Please note that Pigments Play can be inserted as a plug-in in a dedicated DAW of your choice supporting any of the following formats:
- AAX (Pro Tools only)
- Audio Unit (mac only)
- VST2 & VST3 (most common format used by all the major DAWs or Hosts)
We though recommend using DAWs part of our Software Instruments compatibility list available here:
Virtual Instruments - Compatibility
-After opening your DAW, the first step will be to open its dedicated "Audio / MIDI Settings" menu to adjust the settings following the same rules as the ones described in the above "How to use Pigments Play as a Standalone application" section (make sure to refer to the DAW User Manual if needed).
-Once done, next step will be to insert Pigments Play as a plug-in on a MIDI or Instrument track:
You will find below some useful links to rescan your plug-ins (in case the plug-in would not be immediately identified) and insert your software instrument in your favorite DAW:
How to insert an instrument in my favorite DAW?
-Once inserted on a MIDI or Instrument track, you can typically start recording after enabling "Arm Record" on the track and after clicking on the DAW "Record" Transport button or on the "MIDI Clip" dedicated record button.
e.g with Ableton Live:
-Click on "Arm record" on the track where Pigments Play was inserted:
-Click on the MIDI clip "Record" button and play on your MIDI Controller to start recording:
-Now, you should see MIDI Notes being recorded inside the MIDI Clip, and using the "Play" Transport button should allow you to playback the previously recorded clip:
Make sure to refer to your DAW User manual or Knowledge Base if you are not familiar about how to insert, record as each of them may have their own methods.
Note
-"Pigments Play" will be labelled as "Pigments" in your DAW plug-in list as it relies on the same software.
-Upgrading to Pigments will allow the same plug-in to automatically switch to the Full version without affecting the DAW project you are currently working on.
You can of course use the search if you are looking for a specific preset but other useful options are available, so let's describe them below:
- Filters: You can filter presets by Types / Styles / Banks and even filter "User" presets to easily find your own created presets.
- Sorting: You can sort presets by Liked presets (heart icon) / Name / Type / Designer or even Bank (after clicking on the small Hamburger icon aside of the Designer column).
- Sound Banks / Store: Allows to either browse the In-App Sound Store to acquire more Presets banks or to easily access all of the already acquired Sound Banks to install or use them.
- Favorites: You can use the heart icon in front of presets to add Favorites to this list and also right-click on presets to use the color tagging system to create specific presets lists.
- My Playlists: Allows to create or load Playlists to easily reload presets used in a specific Project/Song and even use MIDI Program Change messages (Sent from a MIDI Controller or a DAW) to recall them.
| Feature | Pigments Play |
Pigments Full version
|
|---|---|---|
| Presets | 100 | 1700 |
| Engine types | 6 | 6 |
| Filter modes | 68 | 68 |
| Effects | 20 | 20 |
| Edition of parameters | Main Engine / Filters & Effects parameters only | Full |
| Edition of modulations | ✕ | ✓ |
| Play view | ✓ | ✓ |
| Main view | ✕ | ✓ |
| FX view | ✕ | ✓ |
| Sequencer view | ✕ | ✓ |
| Tutorials | ✕ | ✓ |
| Save preset | ✓ | ✓ |
Ready for the full creative toolkit?
Pigments Play includes "Multicore" support to enhance CPU efficiency, especially on older systems. This option is enabled by default and allows up to 4 threads to be used for audio processing.
Keeping it enabled should help reducing the CPU consumption when working on complex polyphonic preset or while working in a DAW environment.
-If you would like disabling it, "Multicore" option can be found in the "Global settings" section of the "Preferences" -> "Settings" menu:
In any case, we suggest to attempt both enabling and disabling it to see which option will be the most efficient on your system as there may be multiple aspects to take into consideration (Preset / Computer architecture / Operating System / Digital Audio Workstating / Project type).
-You can also adjust "Unison Voice count" if needed in the dedicated "Unison" section of the "Engine" tab:
-The amount of "Polyphony Voices" can be modified at the bottom of the interface if the CPU Meter seem to still show a high consumption level:
-As a last suggestion, make sure not to use a too high Sample Rate and to attempt increasing a bit the buffer size in the "Audio Midi Settings" menu if necessary when using the Standalone version:
When working in a DAW environment, make sure to adjust these settings directly in the dedicated "Audio settings" menu accordingly.
In some situations, depending on your setup, the GPU or integrated graphics, the drivers and their settings, you may possibly observe slowness or even freezes of the interface while using Pigments.
- If such happens, we strongly recommend to ensure having the latest drivers installed for your GPU but to also check its related settings via the dedicated Control Panel (AMD / NVIDIA / INTEL):
-Once opened, you should find a "Max Frame Rate" setting (also called "Frame Rate limit").
-Make sure to avoid setting any limit and to preferably set it to "OFF" as showed below:
e.g via NVIDIA Control Panel:
-Once done, open Pigments Play again to check if such helps improving things up.
Make sure to refer to the latest User manual which provides useful information: