Arturia
Arturia
Arturia innovative and affordable instruments and controllers are designed to bring the benefits of technology in music to everyone, not just top end engineers and technically minded musicians. Music technology can often be baffling prospect for musicians who just want to create music and not tinker with settings. Also much of the "classic gear" used in recording is expensive and hard to get hold of. Arturia aim to break down these boundaries and nurture a creative, simple workflow so that you can focus on the music!
History of Arturia
Founder Engineer/musicians Frederic Brun and Gilles Pommereuil started Arturia in the late 90s with the vision that technology could open music creation to everyone. Their first product, Storm was an all-in-one virtual studio DAW making music creation easier and cheaper.
This led them to virtual instruments, where they started creating the now critically acclaimed library of legendary analogue synths, recreated in digital format. From their hard work, anyone can now get legendary synthesizers from the likes of Moog, Roland etc right on their computer.
In 2009 Arturia took the leap to unleash their first analogue hardware synthesizer called the Origin. This has led to a full range of synthesizers that have become popular for their simple design and punchy modern analogue sound.
Since 2009 Arturia have been at the forefront of dedicated hardware controllers for native music software. They were one of the first companies in the industry to recognise the need for dedicated hardware to make the most of the emerging DAW softsynths, virtual instruments and virtual control sets as creating music "in the box" became more and more popular. Not everything can be seqenced, drawn in or set using a computer mouse; So Arturia have spent years developing their range of affordable and easy to use MIDI keyboards, controllers and a drum machine so that you can regain that important tactile control during the creative process.
Arturia's Brute Synthesizers
One of Arturias biggest hits of recent years is their range of Analogue synthesizers. It all started with the MiniBrute, a relatively affordable synth in what was a sea of expensive and complex synth options at the time. Finally musicians could easily get into proper analogue synthesis with an affordable and relatively simple design. The signature punchy Brute sound became a massive hit with synth lovers and new players alike, and in 2018 the Minibrute2 added a whole load of new features including a patch bay and a sequencer version.
Arturia Software
Arturia now have a library of 21 classic instruments from the Jupiter 8 and prophet V to a Vox Continental and B-3 Organ. The best way to buy these virtual instruments is in the Arturia V collection bundle where you can get all of them for a fantastic reduced price!
Arturia MIDI Controllers
Arturia are one of the premium brands when it comes to MIDI controllers, however you wouldn't expect that from the price! They offer a range of controller keyboards called the minilab series so you can take control of your software instruments. If you're looking for something more portable the Keystep is simple and ultra compact, so you can pop it in your bag and start creating music with a laptop anywhere.
Arturia also offer drum machine controllers called Beatstep and Beatstep Pro. You get a number of handy features like a built-in step sequencer so you create beats quickly and easily. They also double up as a general purpose control surface - Handy!