CZ V

I was pleasantly surprised that the real character of the hardware is right there in CZ V! And I think there are four main strengths, in order of importance: The percentage level control on each envelope really opens up the possibilities in a very big way, allowing the CZ V to respond to the player in a much more organic way from modulation. It also makes it much easier to have bright or dark within the patch. Now it’s so easy to tweak the patch so that it sits right in your track. I love it!

I love the chorus. With one voice it is very much like the hardware CZ, and with two or three voices, it is pretty much the perfect chorus for a synth! When I got the initial specs, it was the looping envelopes that most excited me. I would have killed for this feature on the hardware, back in the day. It took me a while to figure them out, but I did, with relative ease, and they are hugely useful.

I have been using a CZ since 1992, starting with the CZ-5000 and ending up eventually with the CZ-1. Back then it was my only polysynth. With the sequencer it was like an affordable workstation, so I wanted it to make every sound possible. With CZ V it is more of an adventure. This is because it is exactly the same as the old hardware and at the same time is a very up to date synth with all the features we take for granted in software today. So the method was simply to explore and have fun. Several times I started from an initial patch and just explored the new possibilities, especially with the extra Mod Envelopes, the more detailed velocity modulation and the Custom Waveform.

The main strength of CZ V in my opinion is definitely the user interface. It is heads and shoulders above other competitive products, making sound design and programming seem like child's play. I have built most of the patches so fast that programming was no longer an issue. In fact the only issue was inspiration - I was able to make sounds almost faster than I could imagine them.

When building this soundset I had two goals. First was to try to emulate some of my existing sounds from my beloved CZ-1 (which in the meantime I sold, since CZ V covers it 99%). The second goal was to try and push the software to the limit and see what will come back - whether it will break or continue to impress. Most of the time it was the later, especially when trying the things the CZ-1 never had. The only time i would briefly hang from a cliff was when stacking too many voices in unison which my Mac Mini (late 2012) was no longer able to push. But other than that, I was super happy to participate in this project!

My approach is to treat the whole thing as an instrument - including the FX, routings, and all the other well-considered additions.First thoroughly understand the core synthesis engine and then expand outward to fully grok the whole thing. Be the synth. From that place I take sometimes an improvisational approach, sometimes a vector "must get a certain sound" approach. Either way, almost always something interesting happens, and such was the case with CZ V.

Just as with analog synths, the rawness and imperfections of early digital synthesizers give them an unmistakable character. Like the original CZ series, the CZ-V provides sounds with real character, it has a vintage feel, but in a completely different way than an analog synthesizer.

Programming the macro controls was my favorite aspect of sound sculpting on the CZ V. Having two distinct oscillator lines lets you get creative with the interplay between DCW and amplitude envelopes, generating awesome textures.

Our brain is accustomed to hearing the imperfection and irregularity that it takes pleasure to correct. The original CZ synthesizer is typically the kind of digital synthesizer that sounds too smooth for me. Fortunately, Arturia developers have extended the functionality of the CZ synth by adding additional modulations such as "Sample and hold" LFOs, MIDI synced and Looped envelopes as well as a wide spectrum of audio effect. All these features allow me to take advantage of phase distortion synthesis with the possibility of giving it more warm and lively features.

The thing that really defines CZ V for me is its sound. It sounds like a mix between a classic analog synth and a FM synth. It's quite unique! The fact that there is no filter forces us to use new ways to shape the sound, pushing the boundaries of creativity.

The thing that really defines CZ V for me is its sound. It sounds like a mix between a classic analog synth and a FM synth. It's quite unique! The fact that there is no filter forces us to use new ways to shape the sound, pushing the boundaries of creativity.

One of the features in the CZ V that I found really useful was being able to loop the envelopes. This opens up all kinds of possibilities for rhythmic and sequenced sounds. The ring modulation is good fun too and is great for making harmonically rich sounds for example, bells and buzzy leads. For sound design, I usually start with my own initial preset that has the synth set up how I want. This is often different for each synth but with common settings like pitch wheel amounts set to 12 semitones, the mod wheel and after touch set up as modulation sources, and volumes at unity. I find this approach gives me consistency across all my presets.

I don't tend to start with a sound in mind when making a preset. I like to start with my blank patch and get multiple oscillators working together. Then I will look at the features in the synth and start adding modulation. The key is to experiment with all the different features as these can vary quite a lot between synths and this is where you start to get unique sounds.

If I had to pick 3 of my favourite presets from CZ V they would be these: they show a wide range of possibilities for this synth.