First, I checked the unmodified waveforms and found them to sound very similar to those of the original. Before investigating all of the extra facilities on offer, I conducted an A/B comparison between the soft synth and my CZ‑1. Like other Arturia soft synths, the architecture of CZ V starts with that of the synths on which it's based and then takes things much further. Sure, fanatics will point out that there are cases in which some of them fail to emulate their inspirations with implausible accuracy but, since many of those people have never owned (and probably never will own) the likes of a Synthi AKS, a Moog System 55, an Oberheim 8-Voice or a Yamaha CS80, the point is at best a moot one.
That many of these emulations are, for most musical purposes, accurate enough to use in place of the originals is even more remarkable. Of the instruments listed, the ones that mark the major step up from Arturia's V Collection 6 to V Collection 7 are emulations of the Casio CZ series, the EMS Synthi AKS and the Mellotron, but I make no apologies for listing the complete set of instruments in the previous paragraph it's one thing to write 'lots of desirable synthesisers, organs and pianos' but quite another to read the names of every instrument that V7 contains. But if someone had told the younger me that in 2019 it would be possible to buy a bundle containing much enhanced equivalents of the ARP 2600, the Buchla Music Easel, the Casio CZ1, the EMS Synthi AKS, the Fairlight CMI/IIx, the Hohner Clavinet D6, the Mellotron M400, Moog Minimoog and Modular systems, the Oberheim Matrix 12 and SEM (and, by extension 4-Voice and 8-Voice), the Roland Jupiter 8, the Sequential Prophet 5 and VS, the Solina String Synth, the Synclavier, the Yamaha CS80 and DX7, Rhodes 73 and Wurlitzer EP200 e-pianos, Hammond B3, Farfisa Compact Duo and Vox Continental 300 organs, plus a selection of acoustic pianos, all for less than £20 per instrument, I would have been stunned. In the intervening years soft synths have come on in leaps and bounds, taking full advantage of the power that modern computers can offer. Running on just 64MB of RAM on a Mac G4, it was a recreation of the ARP Odyssey and, even then, it captured much of the essence of the original synth. Having avoided them in their infancy, I reviewed my first soft synth 16 years ago this month. Now in its seventh incarnation and offering three new instruments, Arturia's V Collection just keeps getting bigger and better.
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