The art
of sound design
Our emulations are marvels of music technology, but even the best-sounding synth and keyboard models would be dull without the incredible work and imagination of their sound designers.
Veterans of the industry and young upstarts alike, for more than a decade we’ve worked with some of the most talented musicians, producers, and sound designers around to create sounds that both honor the past, and help you create the future.
On this page, we pay tribute to the amazing men and women who helped create the signature sounds of our instruments, and give you an insight into their creative process.
"I love the graphic user interface of this instrument. At first glance it seems 'simple,' upon further exploration, it reveals its true power and versatility. The hardware unit's uniqueness lies in its simplicity: a few controls can yield dramatically different results if you know how to use them. I believe the Mini V4 perfectly captures this aspect of the experience."
Diego Tejeida
Lead Me To The Machine
Diego Tejeida
Lead Me To The Machine! This patch faithfully recreates the famous lead by Pink Floyd's Rick Wright on 'Welcome to The Machine'. The Mini V4 captures the grandeur of the original, making a powerful statement with just a few notes.
Diego Tejeida - on Mini V
My goal was to faithfully recreate famous sounds from the '70s era. These patches are virtually identical to the originals, capturing every nuance and 'sweet spot' that made the unit famous, particularly the gain structure, drive, and cross modulation. The Mini V4's responsive features made programming an enjoyable and fluid task. Additionally, I incorporated other elements in the FX section for stylistic relevance, such as using mono reverb and/or a tape saturator to emulate the tape saturation present in '70s records.
Base Bass
Jean-Michel Blanchet
'Base Bass' is for me the classic mini bass sound using the 3 oscillators, the famous Moog filter and going through the various saturation and soft clipping stages.
Jean-Michel Blanchet - on Mini V
The Mini V4 is a superb evolution of the famous Minimoog emulation. The sound obtained with the 3 oscillators and the filters, through the various saturation and soft clipping stages, is very faithful to the behaviour of this legendary synthesiser.
I really enjoyed creating sounds, starting with the 'Init' preset to obtain either very famous or typical sounds from this synth or more modern sounds, showing the different synthesis possibilities provided by the advanced panel.
Venus
Michael Geyre
My favorite preset is 'Venus', inspired by Isao Tomita's female singer patch (heard on various albums), I still remember the first time I've heard that sound, and cried, at that time, I could not even imagine a synthesizer sounding so lively, it is quite a simple patch, but is so expressive and musical ... I feel it is very inspiring and emotional.
Michael Geyre - on Mini V
The main strength in my opinion is to have faithfully captured the soul of the original hardware instrument, they're very close, I could compare it to my original unit, but the fact it is running on a computer offers a better workflow, you can have memories, recall a session, modify parameters, play some chords, except if you really want to own a real hardware unit, today, there is I my opinion no point, sonically.
Various approaches, first, since the Mini V is polyphonic, I've tried to reprogram some original factory presets from the memorymoog, despite they're very different instruments, it could mimic some sounds a convincing way, I've also reprogrammed some patches I liked from various records I've heard in the past.
Man-Machine
Kuba Sojka
My favorite preset is Man-Machine, because it reminds me of raw techno from Berlin in the 90's and the Love Parade and Mayday parties of that time.
Kuba Sojka - on Mini V
The most important thing is its simplicity and classic sound, I also like what happens to the sound when using the drive and feedback parameters. Then the instrument becomes crazy and you can create unusual sounds.
I tried to create sounds that would be rich in harmonics and would be interesting in terms of filter modulation to achieve effects similar to those of an electric guitar.
Soft House Chord
Solidtrax
This monophonic sound makes use of the ability to tune the osc's into a chord. Together with the macro and the mod wheel assignments this can drive a complete track if you want to.
Solidtrax - on Mini V
Being involved as a sound designer in the early stages of development of a synthesizer like the Mini-V gave me a lot of time to get to know this beautiful instrument inside out. I really like how the oscillators can fight for attention - ie interact. Arturia's thoughtful additions, such as polyphony, aftertouch support, effects, and the inclusion of 4 macros, enhance its capabilities. These features make it very capable and good sounding synthesizer!
My goal was to craft a well-balanced array of sounds, incorporating not only soft tones but also edgier and more gritty textures. Another aspect of balance I incorporated was a blend between mono and polyphonic sounds. With regards to sound design, I allowed the instrument to be my guide, shaping our creative journey together.
Frequent Sea
emptyvessel
It's hard to pick a favourite but I like the expressiveness of the Frequent Sea keys patch, Oscillator 3 is modulating oscillator and filter which gives interesting timbral movement as different keys are played and the patch is very responsive to velocity. The Macros can then be used to give further expressivity via automation as in the demo.
emptyvessel - on Mini V
The core strength of Mini V to me is the huge amount of character in the sound, the fact that we also have polyphony, great FX and enough additional features to push the boundaries in terms of sound design is really inspiring to me. The Oscillator and filter FM really open up the timbral possibilities hugely. Add the LFO and Function generator, Macros and Velocity/Aftertouch and you really can program some very expressive, evolving sounds!
As always, I take time to explore the instrument so I can mentally map out the possibilities. From there the exploration is informed but intuitive and I usually seek to show the capabilities of the instrument, exploring all the hidden dusty corners while staying in the dark, lofi ambient world I enjoy. My main goal here was to imagine what an enhanced Minimoog might be used for now in the context of modern ambient and cinematic/soundtrack music.