This video, via Marcus Padrini, is a comparison of Arturia iMini for iPad against Arturia Mini V for Mac.
The two software synths sound almost exactly the same to our ears – which you’d expect, since they use the same sound engine. We noticed one difference, though. Check it out and let us know how you think they compare.
Arturia iMini is available for $9.99 in the App Store.
You can hear the steps in the cutoff on the imini but the desktop version sounds very clear
Stepping on the ios version is most likely due to the scan rate of the touch screen, which I think is somewhere around 10-20ms. It’d be interesting to see how both perform while being controlled by MIDI CC’s.
Hmm. I can still hear steps in the computer one too… Ah well. It does it fine enough for most people.
Limitation of the UI?
that is a very good point. maybe the engine is identical just the gui is interpolated differeltny, ie is more coarse.
btw in any way i am not blow away by the sound on any of them.
They sound very identical. I purchased Arturia V primarily for the CS80 emulation, and after playing with a real Moog for the bass, I wasn’t having fun with the Arturia Moog unfortunately. However, $9.99 for the iPad sounds like a deal and a half.
I have both the Arturia VST and, now, the iMini. They are both very good emulations and both sound great – however I did some A/B testing and there are some noticeable apparent differences in the timbres. That may be due to my rig setup however. I’ll have to see if I can ensure a near identical signal path and try again as time permits.
However, I *didn’t* notice the cutoff stepping effect on the VST – but I think it is likely noticeable on the iMini. That may be subjective in that I was listening for it tho’! 😉 I’ll see if I can scope it at some point too.
Kind regards
Derek Jones,
Owner: MusicInclusive LLC
Arturia VST Mini V cost $129, iMini cost $9.99.
I know which one I will be using 😉
I got MiniV last year when Arturia gave it for free, where were you then? 😉
The stepping is definitely worse with the iMini. 🙁
I noticed the same thing immediately the first time I played it and made a joke about oxide on the potentiometers.
But the fact that it’s better on the desktop version means maybe they will fix it. 😉
Also: other iPad synths seem to do much better avoiding stepping via interpolation, etc., so it’s definitely possible.
why only 3 voice poyphony in Imini???
Would you prefer a more accurate simulation of the Minimoog with no polyphony at all?
why only 3 voice polypony in imini?
Not to be weird, but I was distracted by the fact that he was using a Minibrute as a controller for the vst. It seems like overkill. And a bit sacreligious.
If you think that’s bad I used to use my Juno 106 to control Thor in Reason when playing live. Oh the humanity!