[Feature request] More than 4 Macros / Modulatable Macros

Software Instruments Pigments
#1

Hello!

When using Pigments (especially Pigments 6), I can do almost everything I could ever dream of with this synthesizer. However, coming from other soft-synths such as Massive X, the limit of only 4 Macros in Pigments really affects the patches that I work on, so I am requesting the possibility of seeing 8 or potentially even 16 macro slots in future iterations of Pigments.

My second request would be the ability to Modulate these Macro slots the same way you can modulate most other parameters in the synth, as this would allow easy non-destructive mass modulation of many parameters at once.

I hope these requests aren’t too demanding to add, as they would be a total gamechanger for me (and probably other users too).

Thank you!

#2

Hi @HzKrypt and welcome to The Sound Explorers Forum!

Thanks for the suggestions, we’ll leave this marked up for you so The Arturia Devs will be more likely to see it.

HTH!

#3

Hi @HzKrypt. Welcome to the community from me as well.

I also think more Macros would be great. Perhaps it’s not simple for Arturia to do. Analog Lab and hardware controllers seem currently to be aimed at 4 Macros. But it could be done at some point i assume.

You can’t compare Massive X and Arturias Macros.

Massive X have 16 Macros as far as i recall. But each can only control a single parameter as it is. And you can’t control other parameters.
In Arturias instruments you can assign a midi CC to much much more parameters than 16. Massive X do not have Macros that can compare to Arturias 4 speciel Macros.

The Macro controls in Arturias instruments can control multiple parameters in different ways, so they are much more advanced. They are not substitutes for missing midi CC control for each parameter as they are in Massive X.

Being able to modulate the 4 speciel Macros in Pigments have been wanted from the beginning. I would like it. But perhaps it’s not as easy as that, as lets say you will modulate the Macro with a LFO the Macro already is modulating, then what will happen?
I think there could be a way to make this possible, but it’s not as simple as it may seem to be.
We can for example also not modulate the Modwheel or the Expression pedal and so on.

#4

Remember too, you can modulate the Pigments Macro knobs in your DAW (e.g. Ableton envelopes).

#5

What you pointed out about circular references of modulators to macros being an implementation difficulty suggests an effective solution. Each macro should have an amount knob for the modulation sources that cannot themselves be modulated (such as Wheel, Pressure, Expression pedal ). At least those three…
Even though you can get this functionality by replicating the macro’s assignments on the Mod Wheel I often wish I could just make the mod wheel control the macro.

#6

Hi @Zip_oLeighter ,

Yes that have also been wished for from the beginning of Pigments life. Actually i think i was the first back then to suggest the Macro modulation we dicuss in this topic. I’m just saying that there might be reasons why it’s not possible today.

Arturia have along the way added the possibilities to both Reassign and Copy modulations from one modulator to another - like to the MW modultor with ease. We have a whole menu of options as can be read about in the manual section 1"9.1.1.3. The Mod target view".
Menu

This method will not make it possible to modulate more parameters with a single modulator than you can now. That might be a reason why it’s not possible.

#7

Eight macro controls, please. Perhaps the Macro label in the modulator strip could become a tab? Scrunch up the rest of the mods. In the Play window make the envelope controls closer together and stack the transpose and voicing. Pigments is a great synth but almost every single patch i do i run into the limitations of four macros. Being able to modulate the macros would be a nice, too.