Featured Product: Arturia’s Origin Synth
Arturia, one of the many software sponsors of the DJ/Producer Competition (who generously donated prizes including the Analog Factory Bundle and ARP 2600 Virtual Synth), is certainly one of the most forward-thinking developers in the game. Their claim to fame is their astounding virtual replications of classic synths such as the Sequential Circuits Prophet 5, Roland Jupiter 8, Moog Modular, Mini-Moog, Arp 2600 and Yamaha CS-80. These reproductions have gained a ton of popularity over the past decade. But Arturia isn’t stopping there. They’re taking it one step further, merging the advantages of DSP synthesis with the feel and old school flava of hardware synths. Enter: the Arturia Origin ($2,499).
There’s too much about this synth to cover in this brief plug. Arturia sums up exactly what the Origin is, stating that “it goes beyond the traditional definition of synthesizers. It is a hardware DSP system that houses several synthesizers in one machine.”
It’s got a user interface with a luminous color display, 54 knobs, 81 buttons, a jog wheel and a joystick. It contains modules and presets for all of Arturia’s Virtual Synths and allows the ability to mix components of each, leaving an almost infinite amount of possibilities to create sounds truly unique and unobtainable anywhere else.
And when you combine these possibilities with the streamlined interface, high quality real-time effects, audio ins/outs (2/10) to process external audio, a 16/32 step advanced sequencer, and Arturia’s own TAE® Engine for optimum audio quality, what you get is basically one of the most powerful, all-encompassing production tools ever. Wanna hear props? It just received Electronic Musician’s 2010 Editor’s Choice Award for Best Hardware Synthesizer.
It’s also used by The Crystal Method, Herbie Hancock, Brian London (Lady Gaga’s and Rihanna’s keyboardist), French synth guru Jean-Michel Jarre and French DJ Laurent Garnier, among many others. All in all, this is one of the best synths out there – so if you’re serious about production, you might do well for yourself and save up to invest in this Franken-synth. And if you’re a good boy/girl and you buy local (MSD), you may end up acquiring this monsta for a nice discount (wink, wink).
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