Arturia Emulator II V: Demo and Tutorial

[@JackOnSkates]

Just found this channel and wanted to thank you for these excellent tutorials. They are incredibly helpful, and I love the background info you include as well.

[@CatSynthTV]

Thank for the kind words. And glad you are enjoying the tutorials, including our background info. 😺🎹

[@ECHQ]

Thanks for this overview. Good to see, that you also click on the "copy" button accidentially to open a sample. It looks like a "open file" button 😆. But hey, this machine really warps me back to the DM mood in the 80s.

[@CatSynthTV]

Hah, yes, that did look like an "open file" button to me 😸

[@etpslick100]

I always like the UVI version but this one here? Very special! Has it’s own character. Arturia has done a great job on this one! Now do the Memorymoog!😌🎹👍🏾

[@neiljvoice1603]

Thank you for this demo video .Great new VST from Arturia and it sounds excellent. I had a copy of the Emulator X myself many years ago, one of the first VSTs I bought.

[@CatSynthTV]

Thanks - and glad you enjoyed the video. It's a great virtual instrument (as was Emulator X 😺 )

[@kristofselmeci4663]

As a former Emulator II+HD owner I can tell, this VST version of the original, sounds completely different like the E-mu instrument. The hardware had more silky, more airy, and more fat sound.

[@stevencook3894]

I love those strings at 15:40. What is the name of that patrick? Thanks!

[@CatSynthTV]

That patch is called "Chaos To Dust" by emptyvessel; it can be found in the factory preset bank 😺

[@kevincowart362]

True story: I was on the couch with my MacBook scrolling through presets on Analog Lab, every time my cat woke up and noticed what I was playing it was an Emulator patch. Something about that sound really got his attention, I wonder if the digital aliasing stimulated his hearing in a new way. This was a total coincidence as I had already subscribed to your channel and had not seen this video yet.

[@CatSynthTV]

Wow, what an interesting pattern. Clearly something about the Emulator patches piques his interest. And thanks for being a subscriber 😻

[@willjosef8087]

Sam Sam is doing a great job :) Thanks for the review!

[@CatSynthTV]

Thank you (from both Sam Sam and me) 😺

[@petedehlinger5478]

so is his owner

[@karlhans6678]

Is it possible to have a drum beat playing in the background (like retro real synths could do) while playing the keys?

[@CatSynthTV]

Yes. If you want to do that entirely in EIIV, you can set one or more of the voices to be the drum beats on the lowest keys and your keyboard sound spread over the rest of the keyboard.

[@Bigmojo75]

Your videos are superb and this one video is way better that Arturias which bitterly disappointed me. I’ve had Emulators since the 1980s and have an E4 XT Ultra now. I genuinely know my way around them. The character of the E2 (and the only reason to own one today) would be the grittiness caused by the way it plays back the samples in a kind of 12bit way. Besides that an E2 today is a liability destined to fail regularly. And like all samplers of the time the E2 was limited by the memory available. 17.6 seconds total. Which was massive compared to the 1.6 seconds I had on my Greengate DS3. But there was no desire to use a sampler of that era for huge pads. Just Drums, realistic effects and to record real world sounds. In fact even while the libraries were excellent, artists used them to sample their own sounds and create their own ‘instruments’. But this generation don’t understand that because it’s all about Romplers. This Arturia E2 isn’t convincing. From what I’ve seen it’s still too clean and lacks the punch. And the whole Ferris thing shows who they think their market is.

[@tmhelmin]

Amanda, thank you as always for the clear tutorial. Out of curiosity, what do you mean when you say you got to work on the Emulator X? Apologies if you answered this elsewhere.

[@CatSynthTV]

Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad you're continuing to enjoy tutorials. As for Emulator X, I was an engineering manager at E-MU and managed the team that did the original Emulator X, as well as V2. I was even able to contribute some code to it :). It was a great software synthesizer, I wish the product had continued to I could still use it in my 2023 studio.

[@derekbrown7303]

What is that annoying loop sound at the end of every sample?

[@MrPoppymusik]

What sample formats will this read ?

[@CatSynthTV]

Thanks for the question. It can import WAV and AIFF files. It can also read Emulator 2 (.eii) samples.

[@defhoez449]

But, can it cough like Ferris's does on his day off?

[@CatSynthTV]

I'm sure it can 😸

[@djgeorgieporgie7862]

Can u load E-mu X libraries in the arturia Emulator 2 V ? Good video bro 👍

[@CatSynthTV]

Thanks! Unfortunately, Emulator 2 and Emulator X are completely different architectures, so you can't looked EX libraries onto this one.

[@Tuth33]

@@CatSynthTV You cant even do a proper drum kit on this Arturia version try to convert the Big Groove kit with 21samples... lol.

[@amandakleisnerova7473]

I have NKI Emulator IMAX II soundbanks for Kontakt, can I play them on this ?

[@zachhaywood1564]

To all the people saying this sounds nothing like the real thing: Thank you for saving me the $150 I was about to spend on this.

[@CatSynthTV]

Well, it's not for everyone and that's fine. Thanks for watching, and please subscribe to CatSynth TV 😺

[@donkeevney]

Why the robot voice ?

[@CatSynthTV]

What robot voice?

[@Vegan_Kebab_In_My_Hand]

Lmao, what??

[@calilovemusic2816]

Having owned both emulator II and III, I can tell you this sounds nothing like em. This is why people still want the real thing

[@bonchbonch]

I'm always skeptical when people exaggerate and say a softsynth sounds "nothing like" an original. Really? Nothing like it at all?

[@calilovemusic2816]

@@bonchbonch the emulators i,ii and iii have this grit and sound due to the e-mu filters. So far no one has been able to duplicate the sound. Its hard to explain inless you hear them side by side. One day hopefully, you will have the opportunity to hear one in person and then you will agree.

[@bonchbonch]

​@@calilovemusic2816 I'm skeptical you'd be able to reliably pick out the hardware in a blind test. Especially if you're relying on an old memory of what you think your hardware sounded like.

[@calilovemusic2816]

@@bonchbonch I doubt I can convince you of the sound difference because we aren't able to hear them side by side. Even when e-mu put out their emulator sampler series in n sofware form it never sounded like an emulator. Uvi tried the same and were as close as Arturia. The one thing that sounds great from the Arturia line is the Ensoniq. Just like the Oberheim, arturia got the presents similarities but not the actual sound. Its all about the filters and converters. Think of how much different e-mu,akai,and ensoniq samplers sound when compared to each other.

[@bonchbonch]

@@calilovemusic2816 I'm not saying there wouldn't be an audible difference, because even vintage hardware units differ from each other. What I'm saying is that I'm not convinced you could reliably determine which was the hardware version in a blind test. I believe component modeling already reached that point many years ago.

[@wArGa5m1]

Is there a way to turn off the reverb/feedback/ delay thing on the samples? sounds terrible and ruins the sound of this plugin?

[@CatSynthTV]

Each voice has its own effects slot, so if the reverb/delay is there one can easily turn it off. However, if it's part of the sample itself it's a bit more challenging. Is there a particular sample in the video you were referring to? If so, please indicate the time and I'll try and provide a more detailed answer for you 😺

[@wArGa5m1]

@@CatSynthTV Okay cool! Wasnt sure if it was a built in part of the vst, for example 2:35 and 3:45

[@CatSynthTV]

@@wArGa5m1 yes, those are built in to the samples/

[@wArGa5m1]

@@CatSynthTV ahh okay

[@DJSTOEK]

🙂😷

[@pixelbender5897]

Is this a cat speaking in the video???

[@andy80sdrums]

As a former owner of the original, I can say without the shadow of a doubt that this looks amazing, yet sounds nothing like the real Emulator II.

[@Bigmojo75]

Exactly. I’ve had 2x E2s, Emax 1&2, Emulator 3, and I’m on my 5th E4.. this is nothing like an E2 and largely pointless. If it didn’t have a ‘sort of E2’ picture it would be any other software sampler. Point entirely missed by Arturia. All they had to do was model the compounding of the E2’s output. In fact they could have created an ‘Emulator V’ and had a switch between E1,2 and 3 DAC and chuck in some of the old library

[@maccagrabme]

It sounds like an 80s sampler to my ears, definitely adds some character to the sound in a lofi way and is inspiring. I can get some useful pads with this, very quick to loop and sounds great.

[@Bigmojo75]

@@maccagrabme E2 just wasn’t used for pads. There were way better and easier ways of getting pads at the time. Prophet, Jupiter etc.

[@maccagrabme]

@@Bigmojo75 My point is I can get a pad looped very quickly with this and it adds 80s character which is exactly what I am after, also I find that sampled pads often sound better for that edgy 80s electronica so this is a great vst.

[@Bigmojo75]

@@maccagrabme certainly. But it’s not an E2.

[@Biffinnbridge]

Syn Kla vee er FFS!

[@Nurse_Troy]

You picked horrible presets...wish you picked ones that really are used in music sound design instead of video games

[@DALTRON666]

Narrator is irritating............Sounds like someone who cries when their preferred pronouns arent used.

[@CatSynthTV]

Sorry, that's just the sound of my voice. But hey, thanks for watching, and please subscribe to CatSynth TV 😹

[@Torrente70]

sounds are really bad, for good Emulator sounds u need the OMI Universe soundbanks

[@danielfisch389]

Yes. UVI‘s (also sample based) version is good too.