Arturia has released the V-Collection 11 and it has brought along some changes in the line-up. There is now an intro edition for €199 and the Pro or full fat version is €699. About now is where is say that €699 is a ludicrous amount of money for a product when inflation and costs are what they are, and the Intro or Lite version is well, to be frank very lite with only 10 products compared to the 45 in the Pro version. Despite there being a lot of instruments in the Pro version there is a lot of crossover with a lot of similar products, I mean the analogue synths all sound similar and have similar features, so to be fair the value is dubious at best, and outrageous at worst! Now Arturia do upgrades/crossgrades whatever you want to refer to them, but recently even those haven’t been great value either. What I can say is that you own V-Collection 10 there is little reason to upgrade at all, and if you don’t own a V-Collection at all then the best products in my opinion are bought on their own (Pigments is THE best in my opinion)

https://www.arturia.com/products/software-instruments/v-collection/overview

So what do I think about V-Collection? Well it is a mixed bag, yes there are some great sounding plugins, they are pretty good at fixing bugs, there are massive sound libraries to buy/download BUT the cost is just too much for a lot of people especially in this day and age. I feel that the collection is just not a great way to do it, and that they have taken (baby) steps to change this but even then, it seems a bit too little too late. The gap between the Intro and the Pro is massive both in cost and products included. To me the best way is to pick which ones you want (after trialling them if needed) rather than have them all, simply because the overlaps are huge (want an analogue polysynth clone – there is a bucketful). It is just so difficult to actively say it is a necessary purchase. I mean a few of the plugins, whilst sounding great etc., are not massively better than some free options and this is what Arturia has to work with. It is obvious that recent world events have changed things, but it does seem that Arturia is out of touch here. Already many people are saying that it is too expensive and too wide a range of products. They did divide the range into 2 options, but I feel that is way too small. There should be an Augmented Bundle, a Synth Bundle, the intro, the pro and perhaps a piano and keyboard bundle – that would be a lot to manage but would make more sense to me!

So to round up and summarise this release – to me it has become an unwieldy and unfocused product. The new additions are alright, but they aren’t for everybody. The JUP-8000V is pretty good, but the upgrade isn’t cheap in any way shape or form.My advice for this release is that if you own 9 or X of V-Collection then this isn’t a necessary upgrade. Not enough has changed for the hefty price.The updates seem to cover most of the additions anyway, so the only thing is the new stuff. That could swing it but probably cheaper and easier to just purchase what you need. The other issue is that other makers have decent enough free options as the v-collection is so huge now you will be pretty much covered with previous releases…

Sound Quality

9 out of 10

Arturia always produce great sounding products and the sheer breadth covered here is impressive

Ease of Use

6 out of 10

Some of these products are huge now with multiple options. Can be a slow process to get the best out of them

Performance

7 out of 10

As the software matures it inevitably needs more resources. Can be CPU and resource hungry, but if used carefully still performs OK

Price

5 out of 10

Getting expensive now, but you get a lot for that money. I personally feel it is too high though

Pros

Still great sounding

Covers pretty much all bases in sound

Arturia always good at updating and fixing bugs

Cons

The price is hard to swallow

This is only a small update at a big price

Plenty of cheaper alternatives out there nowadays

Arturia V-Collection 11 Review!