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Me: "I'm thinking of going to Vienna for a weekend break and seeing the sights". My colleague: "Oh wow. What would be your first port of call - the Schönbrunn Palace, the Kunsthistorisches Museum"? Me: "Klangfarbe".
On a more serious note, I visited Vienna in 2018 to see the amazing Bruegel exhibit at the Kunsthistorisches Museum. I intended to stay for three days, mainly because I don't much like big cities. Long story short, I ended up adding on another week to my visit because I enjoyed the place so much! Seriously, a big city with a wine growing district located within the city limits?!?! And if you don't know what a flak tower is, be prepared to see one of the most frightening buildings anywhere in the world. They absolutely REEK of evil!
What about that one all $800 digital one voice beige synth that a bunch of sunthfluencers shilled for a few months back? That was definitely worthy of bad gear
Well this didn't take long, and it absolutely deserves a spot here. Hardware manufacturers are going to keep trying to make hardware tied to a single-user license in order to make money off of the used market. The fact that Arturia is trying this again even after the failure of the Origin shows how convinced the industry is that there is gold in those hills. I hope consumers won't go for it.
Every episode is an instant classic, except for when you own the specific gear, you just ignore those video(s) just like you do with the flaws of said gear.
@@MrTomaat23 I pay closer attention when it's gear I own (or plan to own - I've bought stuff because he covered it); I figure I'll learn stuff about how to get the most out of it.
I'm guessing their vision was more like hey let's do like Teenage Engineering and make something totally useless that some rich dudes are gonna fall for instantly. Arturia does make very cool stuff otherwise though, maybe they needed a quick cash influx.
Yeah, the idea is to have a compromise between a stage keyboard and a workstation. The issue being that both of those will have a massive amount of extra functionality depending on what you'll want to do on the fly at that moment and this is the common denominator of both.
@@sub-jec-tiv Probably only in the US. In Europe i never experienced any sort of music in churches, other than people just singing. But there where never any sorts of instruments involved, other than maybe the church organ.
Everyone: Wow, a knob per function midi controller for Pigments would be amazing! Arturia: Here it is!! A..... 4 knob controller. That will be one kidney please.
@@AudioPilz *gasp* My people! 😀 * * - I am after all a guitarist who generally knows which note is on which key, but expecting me to make them come out of a synth in a musically useful manner? You gotta be kidding me.
@@mrz80 have you looked into the Linnstrument? (I've been vaguely considering one even though I _can_ play keys, just because it's so much more like playing my bass.)
When you follow a channel like this one, after a while, you can learn to tell when a musical instrument is able to stir the flames of creativity in the performer's heart. You can hear and feel how the instrument magically becomes an extension of the body and the mind of the player, granting them the ability to will their ideas into song and emotion. And for the person listening to that performance, time stands still, as they witness the sublime fusion of instrument and player, of man and machine, of spirit and matter. This, my friends, this is not one of those times.
@@AudioPilz Sure they can, but at least you'll only have the Astrolab and a keyboard stand to carry on your endless journey home from whatever random port they shove you ashore at.
I fell victim to all the hype and bought one. It's a good keyboard to always have set up for a drive-by-playing. There is a good variety of presets, but if you wanted to use it in a live setting you would need to do a lot of planning ahead on your computer. It's fun to split and layer different sounds, and is simple to navigate the menus, but the lack of UI edibility is definitely frustrating. The CPU limitation is very present. Some presets crackle if you play them too hard, which is why I would probably never use it live. I hope Arturia improves it with updates so I don't end up feeling like it was a waste of money.
As many people said: more than 10 years later they still can not do something better than the Virus Ti2. This keyboard is just a variant but it is not an evolution, it does not solve a problem. If you have a controller you can just bring your tiny laptop any way and run the same sounds with unlimited polyphony.
I don't think this is in anyway intended to be anything at all like a Virus. That would have been an Origin (which was a literal contemporary of the Ti2.) This is clearly much more like modern interpretation of a stage piano.
Must confess when I first saw these coming out I put one on pre-order - a few weeks later I came to my senses and cancelled. After seeing your video I’m glad I managed to overcome that particular attack of GAS.
For all your VST in a box needs we present the disASterLAb!...complete with a ring doorbell display so you can watch your front door whilst playing at home! ....Disclaimer: the lack of knobs may lead to Knob twiddling withdrawal symptoms
On a serious note, you could buy a laptop with better performance, an Arturia Keylab 61, Arturia Minifuze 2, and Arturia V-collection X for around £200 more, and then gave significantly more power, plus all the benefits of Astrolab. WTF were Arturia thinking?
Dear Florian. I would like to thank you for all the hard work and time you put on your videos. I suffer from severe depression, and I found that my mood changes ever time I hear “Welcomme to Bad Gear!”. Sincerely I appreciate it. Thanks again and keep the good work. Sincerely Sid PS Let’s do an episode if possible on the Alesis ‘nano’ synth line. I would love to watch an episode from you on the nanobass or nano synth!
As a concept, I think the AstroLab is actually very good. It is meant for performers. Not even 'Alleinunterhalter', because it lacks the auto-accompaniment and multitimbrality. Arturia are also very good at making desirable products, and I think they know what they're doing. However, it is not an instrument for the typical synth-head, who freaks out more about features for maximum expressiveness. If you got a bunch of people jumping up and down, nobody is going to care about your polyphonic aftertouch. The impression I get is what most people dislike about the AstroLab is that it isn't the instrument they want it to be.
Every time there’s a Bad Gear video, the whole world stop spinning for a split second, markets drop down a point, people take a bow. Oh. And what a lovely french accent. This is the only YT channel worth our collective time. Period.
@@AudioPilz I think the Astrolab would work live, but only if you were in a slavishly devoted cover band who had to be note- and timbre- perfect every song, every performance. Any expectation of on-stage musical inventiveness goes right out the airlock without a spacesuit.
Midi controller + Lenovo legion go (screen only) + analog lab license = perfect cheaper alternative. It really is mad that the astro lab is so expensive when you can literally get a better experience for significantly less money.
Come for the memes, stay for the jams. Oh, and the visuals. They’re great. Oh, and the production values are top notch. Oh, and the humor. Gotta love the humor. Oh, and the delightfully cynical perspective. Some much to love! Keep up the good work!
So basically this is a Roland Juno DS-61 with more bougie design, aftertouch, and some nicer sounds, but less polyphony and twice the price tag. And the Juno actually has some onboard programmability if you’re willing to menu dive.
They missed the opportunity to make a board with loads more controls, two versions of the keyboard, fast loading times, an onboard multitracker and make it so people just download the virtual instruments they need at some sort of reasonable price.
Somehow I suspected Astrolab to be on your table. "The keyboard doesn't react to MIDI properly.- What does Arturia expect me to do? Actually play it? Award worthy lines! No lubricant reminiscent to astro lab's name appears to me yet but this time's suggestion: Soma '"The Rumble Of Ancient Times", an 8 bit desktop synth indeed named that way (& located at Klangfarbe).
When I first saw this keyboard.. I knew you were going to cover it on the channel… But this soon?!?! Impressive!!!!!! *checks thermostat while playing*
Yep. It's a performer's keyboard. For someone who doesn't want any other gear on stage. And loading times can be worked around if you're in a band. Loading times have always a bit of an Achilles heel with Arturia, TBH. All their VSTs have that problem, so I'm not surprised this has it.
Loading times can be worked around in a band? I don't care about loading times in my daw, on stage in another story. I guess have the guitarist play chords while we wait indefinitely for the next patch to load 😂 Better to get a used XP-50 or a Triton ftw
This really could've been cool but saying they dropped the ball would be a serious understatement. They should've been $1000 at the most. I'm sure it'll drop sometime soon like what happened to the Akai Force
That’s something that Yamaha does with their edrum kits - the iOS apps wind up being discontinued, and if you have one of those kits, it’s either do a lot of button pressing combinations going in blind to change parameters, or finding a used Android device to use as an interface because it’s still possible to find the Android equivalent online. It’s too bad as the apps make editing those a breeze.
It's like a minimalist clone of Akai MPC Key 61 but with a better keyboard and worse everything else, and no sampling, editing and pretty much everything else. I want to love it, and I'm sure it has it's niche use, but the ARM and Loading times seem eerily familiar to me (An Akai MPC Key 61 owner who is already painfully aware of the non-streaming-sample-loading times) so My electronics background is kind of suspicious of them probably using a similar architecture with the similar limitations. Ok I'll show myself out now...
The MPC Live, Key 61 etc are all using an ARM design which is quite old now. It's noble of them to keep updating the firmware and developing the ecosystem but they would be able to do a lot more if they moved to something newer.
It is a gorgeous form factor, and being able to use software like Pigments without a computer is very exciting. I have been an Origin user for 14 years now, and once the loading time is finished there is no hiccup when loading different patches. Cheers!
It not being able to sustain notes after changing patch is oddly pathetic for something at this price point, my mid-2000s yamaha clavinova can do that, not to mention, load its sounds instantly
dude that use of picard being tortured is next level sublime.... I dont remember the episode exactly but they tortured picard to the point where almost saw what wasnt there....
It's essentially an ARM SBC running something like Analog Lab under linux (something you can't do with REAL Analog Lab V on a REAL computer, but I digress...) so processor resources are on the skinny side. Tho that's not MUCH of an excuse, 'cause Roland and Waldorf had been cranking out boxes for decades now that can do dozens of voices across multiple parts, with better UIs.
@@mrz80 And the Korg Kronos series run on Intel Atom processors. The Modwave and other units of that generation run on a Raspberry Pi. Which are absolutely fine for those instruments because they use custom designed software, not a rework of something originally designed to run under Windows that needs to be able to deal with random combinations of CPUs, audio interfaces etc.
Roland was so close to actually making the plugin-hardware integration come true but the HW is too limited, sad because I like a lot how they executed the plugout concept.
I love the mass number of sounds you can get out of this thing. Especially, if you have all of their plugins in the collection. I will stick with my hydrasynth to avoid the cost and the bugs, tho. Thanks again for another epic episode of bad gear.
I wouldn't want to be stuck on a gig and be limited to the sounds in analog lab... This whale is gonna flop, and they're gonna be forced to include the licenses for v-collection to sweeten the deal. That is, unless all the yuppies take the bait and keep the price high.
I was initially fond of this instrument because of the concept and then I got deeper into the the specs and found out about the drawbacks, so my findings match those here in this video. It's like one of those GM/GS sample-based instruments from the 90ies. For playback useful, but not for anything else.
Try loading the Sound Easel VST. The "component level modeling" on that is SO realistic that it tossed my 32-core Xeon machine into some ugly conniption fit. ...and, weirdly enough, Arturia tried to push that fact on me by saying that the fact that the Easel VST is flipping out on a relatively powerful machine is a testament to just how precise that modeling IS. Mmmmmno.
That was a GAS killer! :) I'll stick with the Minifreak. Way better price point, real great sounds, and I'm not even over the "let's use the preset sounds" phase yet. :D
I really think it’s a a lot of people making a “ category error” given Arturia hardware track record etc...everyone keeps judging this as some sort of “crippled synthesizer” I don’t think it is😮. It’s a modern interpretation of a “ romper”- albeit an expensive & over designed one. As soon as you think it as primarily a preset playback keyboard ( with some minor editing thrown in) it makes a lot more sense?
