It’s a dream I’ve had ever since Pigments first came out… if it were to come true, it would be the most futuristic and crazy hardware synth ever made, more powerful than any other hardware synth currently on the market.
I hope that Arturia engineers can take this proposal into consideration, there are so many users around the world who would be happy with it
Thank you very much
Hi @Lallaccio and welcome to The Sound Explorers Forum!
We’ll keep this marked up for you so our team are aware of it.
I think most of us on here would LOVE something like this, thing is, Pigments’ development seems to outrun current technology constantly, so not sure if it will ever be possible… certainly a nice idea though 
Ps,
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Hi matjones! Thank you to keep this request marked, so 
I have a question: what do you mean with : " Pigments’ development seems to outrun current technology constantly" ?
so, there will never be a chance to be able to see a hardware version of Pigments made? there is no hope that this will ever come true?
Thank you very much
Being software, Pigments development and changes can happen at any time, potentially making a custom hardware controller “sub-optimal”.
Like, let’s say they decide to add a new FM Algorithm sound engine type (hell yeah!). Any Pigments hardware controller that was created for the previous software version might not have a good set of controls for it and suddenly this controller perfectly made for Pigments now has to use some kludgey hacks to control that engine.
At a basic level, I think a great design would be a combination of Hydrasynth’s paged controls and a couple large touch displays (similar looking to NI’s Kontrol S-series). Something like that should be relatively future-proof.
One display would show the currently-selected section of Pigments and the touchscreen and/or associated knobs would control the parameters available on that page.
The second display shows an overview of the current patch and allows intuitive navigation through the available pages/sections.
The optimal control layout would take some usability evaluation - what makes sense to fit on a single page for both ease of control and sensible navigation, how many physical knobs/buttons, what can be touch-manipulated, etc.
Ok, I’ve got it!
Regarding the last thing you wrote, you have proposed an excellent idea for a possible hardware layout development of Pigments, what you describe has its own logic and represents a potential workflow for using a hypothetical hardware version…
Said that, we can only dream and hope, but the last word is up to the Arturia engineers
I think Pigments’ modular nature would make it incredibly difficult to recreate in hardware form. This is similar to u-He’s Diva. They sound great because you can chop and change elements. Want a different oscillator? Done! Want to try a formant filter? Do it! And that’s before you get into the unrivaled modulation system.
The Hydrasynth probably comes closest in mindset, but they are quite different sonically (I love both).
So what I’ve started doing is letting my creative and experimental imagination run wild in Pigments, not worrying about how I can reproduce it live, and now I typically end up sampling it on my 1010 Blackbox.
There’s two ways Arturia could achieve this. One, try to emulate Pigments using true non-IT physical hardware. It’s already been explained that this approach would be obsolete the day it was launched, compared to the software version. However there is absolutely nothing stopping from Arturia building a hybrid like Astrolab, which let’s not forget is basically just a midi controller with a computer inside it running a stripped-down version of Analog Lab on Linux. Like @ Talahamut said, the designers would have to think hard about what the actual user interface should be comprised of in terms of buttons / sliders / screens, but it’s absolutely doable.
It’s even absolutely doable as a DIY project using a mini PC built into a midi controller, if you have the right skillset and aptitude.
Why? What would be the benefit? I can only think of one: reduced latency for performative modulation.
Software synths are superior to hardware in many ways:
Pigments would be great to have in a hardware version without any kind of OS and App that just simulates hardware. AstroLab is not a hardware synth! It is just a thin Linux machine with quirks and limts.
I’ve actually designed a concept in hardware!
I totally agree. I have no desire to see a h/w version of Pigments. End of.
just by some knobs and faders then lol
Hello Astrolab! 
Pigments’ modular nature would make it incredibly difficult to recreate in hardware form.
Totally. It’s not even possible to control with MIDI or automate in your DAW the depth of a modulation routing at the moment. It means it’s not even possible to tweak the filter envelope amount, for example, which most other synths can do. I remember trying with macros, but it didn’t work very well.
It’s even absolutely doable as a DIY project using a mini PC built into a midi controller
Love the DIY idea, but because of the limitation above, it would be quite limited. I don’t know if it’s possible with the Astrolab.
Freak line of products is the closest we’ll probably get to pigments.
It’s multi-engine (“oscillator”) architecture, and cross-oscillators like they did on Minifreak where osc2 can process signal from osc1 could get close if they bring richer wavetable and granular synthesis engines.
Custom LFOs from the minifreak are also close to functions from pigments, only with fewer sources and less complexity.
So a big brother like a polyfreak could provide the same philosophy and sound possibilities, but with a very different interface.
Hi @jeromej,
In the software you should be able to do this by using the modulator sidechain feature.
I just tried it again, and yes, it works indeed. I just needed to set the filter env amount to the maximum, so the macro can modulate it fully. I hadn’t understood that before. Thank you @LBH!
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