A few years ago, Arturia ventured to emulate classic synths and push into sound effects territory. The FX Collection unclear about the must-have like COLLECTION COLLECTIONbut the company has slowly built up its stabilizing effect with FX 3 . Collection increased to 26 from the original 15.
The new collection is Dist Tube-Culture, Dist OpAmp-21, Fragments and Tape Mello-Fi. Now, the latter two are available – Mello-Fi was originally a free holiday product in 2021 and Fragment launched in March of this year. I won’t spend too much time talking about them because I have already covered them. But TL; The DR is Mello-Fi that delivers amazing tape emulation from subtle saturation and warping, to full on broken tape trays, while Fragment is one of the more accessible granular effects processors The best I’ve ever met.
However, the two distortion circuits are completely new. OpAmp-21 is based on today’s hit classic version SansAmp The original pedal was introduced in 1989. It was one of the first amp and speaker simulators to come in the form of a guitar pedal. Unlike today’s digital emulators which are based on pulse and code response models, the SansAmp is a fully analog circuit.
Tube-Culture is based on Thermionic Culture Vulture, which I’m a little embarrassed to admit I’ve never even heard of before. It’s an all-tube rack distortion unit that covers everything from subtle saturation to broken speaker fluff.
While most of the rest of the effects remain the same, there have been a few nice improvements. For one, many now have AB comparisons, so you can quickly compare different settings, or even bounce directly between them. All interfaces have also been improved. Some of the changes are subtle, but navigation is a bit easier and loading times appear to be faster.
The FX Collection is available now for a discounted introductory price of $299 (or less if you’re an existing Arturia customer) through July 7th, after which it will increase back to $399.
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