Hello all, it looks like Arturia is having a 15-year anniversary sale. That’s right, 50% off on a bunch of their offerings. This also includes their highly sought after V collection 3.0. “This premium suite includes no less than 10 of Arturia’s multi-awarded TAE® 64-bit software instruments : Mini V, Modular V, CS-80V, ARP2600 V, Prophet V & Prophet VS, Jupiter 8-V, as well as the new Oberheim SEM V, Wurlitzer V and Spark Vintage, a comprehensive collection of 30 classic drum machines” or so their website states. Seems like a really good deal for all you get in that package.

The Good

As I already own the Arturia Minilab along with the bundled Analog Lab software this seemed like a great fit. Apparently, if you own the softsynths counterparts that you’re playing with in Analog Lab (A.L.), you can fully edit the sounds stored in A.L. for it and save them back into the A.L. interface. Handy for quickly recalling that perfect sound any time you want. Rumor has it that you can also use the softsynths to make your own presets and load those into A.L. as well. What’s not to like about that? Armed with this new information I took the plunge and bought the V Collection 3.0. The purchase process was quick and within minutes I had my registration code and download link. The download finished fairly fast considering the size of the file. Even the install and registration was fairly straight forward. No real issues as of yet.

The Bad

Some of the VSTs don’t want to load and crash almost immediately on launch. I feel this is the where I should mention that I’m running a pretty fresh (less than a month old) install of Windows 7 Ultimate x64 on a i7 machine with 32gb of ram and a Seagate momentus XT hybrid drive. In terms of specs, this machine should be able to handle what ever I throw at it. I should also point out that this is a machine is dedicated to music production and is not my gaming / programming rig so it isn’t loaded down with extra software.

Let’s run through the list and see what loads out of the box. I’ll be attempting to use the stand alone application and not a VST loader or DAW.

Mini V – This loads without issue! Modular V – This also loads okay. CS-80V2 – Nope, loads the GUI and then decides it just can’t handle it and crashes Windows Event viewer had error 1000 logged with this to say:

Faulting application name: CS-80V2.exe, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x4ff30688

Faulting module name: CS-80V2.dll, version: 2.5.3.0, time stamp: 0x4ff3027e

Exception code: 0xc0000005

Fault offset: 0x00190b67

Faulting process id: 0xb94

Faulting application start time: 0x01cfaeb82accbec4

Faulting application path: C:Program Files (x86)ArturiaCS-80V2CS-80V2.exe

Faulting module path: C:Program Files (x86)ArturiaCS-80V2CS-80V2.dll

Report Id: 6aabaad9-1aab-11e4-b667-f04da25fd607 ARP2600 V2 – Looks good. Prophet-V2 – Yay, another one loads! Jupiter-8V2 – Nope, can’t even… Windows Event viewer had error 1000 logged with this to say:

Faulting application name: Jupiter-8V2.exe, version: 2.5.5.0, time stamp: 0x52247edf

Faulting module name: Jupiter-8V2.dll, version: 2.5.5.0, time stamp: 0x52247cb9

Exception code: 0xc0000005

Fault offset: 0x001c3922

Faulting process id: 0x1824

Faulting application start time: 0x01cfaebb2720accf

Faulting application path: C:Program Files (x86)ArturiaJupiter-8V2Jupiter-8V2.exe

Faulting module path: C:Program Files (x86)ArturiaJupiter-8V2Jupiter-8V2.dll

Report Id: 66ce9d1c-1aae-11e4-b667-f04da25fd607 It didn’t even load the GUI. Just failed to launch Oberheim SEM V – Same deal Windows Event viewer had error 1000 logged with this to say:

Faulting application name: Oberheim SEM V.exe, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x51b8e158

Faulting module name: Oberheim SEM V.vst3, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x51b8e0ca

Exception code: 0xc0000005

Fault offset: 0x00040ce1

Faulting process id: 0xe1c

Faulting application start time: 0x01cfaebb75825e0e

Faulting application path: C:Program Files (x86)ArturiaOberheim SEM VOberheim SEM V.exe

Faulting module path: C:ProgramDataArturiaOberheim SEM VOberheim SEM V.vst3

Report Id: b44bde73-1aae-11e4-b667-f04da25fd607 No GUI in this one ether Wurlitzer V – More of the same Windows Event viewer had error 1000 logged with this to say:

Faulting application name: Wurlitzer V.exe, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x51b8d3cc

Faulting module name: Wurlitzer V.vst3, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x51b8d388

Exception code: 0xc0000005

Fault offset: 0x000240b1

Faulting process id: 0x1b48

Faulting application start time: 0x01cfaebb9eb8beb9

Faulting application path: C:Program Files (x86)ArturiaWurlitzer VWurlitzer V.exe

Faulting module path: C:ProgramDataArturiaWurlitzer VWurlitzer V.vst3

Report Id: dd65dd14-1aae-11e4-b667-f04da25fd607 Still no GUI Spark Vintage Drum Machines – Last but not least, it loads Analog Laboratory – IT’S ALIVE!!!, yeah this one looks like it loads too… Analog Lab – Strange, it’s loading today but didn’t work yesterday. I already had a copy of this installed when I got the V Collection and when I installed that, it simply overwrote the original install. Still don’t know why it refused to load yesterday but works fine today. I had rebooted several times and still had the same issue.

The Ugly

So that’s 6.5 out of 11 that work out of the box. I’m only counting A.L. as .5 since it’s been unstable and prone to crashing on load. To put that in perspective, only about 60% of the products in the V Collection actually ran without issue after the install. That’s a pretty bad rate of success given the nature of the product. If this is a sign of things to come, I don’t see how I could rely on these for any sort of live performance. Needless to say, it’s been a very underwhelming experience so far.

Please keep in mind that this is my experience with the product and is not necessarily going to apply to you. I have done a bit of research on these issues and there are quite a few forums with users lamenting over similar problems. As with everything in this world, Y.M.M.V.

The Fixes

First thing on the agenda is to update your eLicenser DRM software. (If you’re unfamiliar with the term DRM and how it can affect you, see this.) The eLicenser is what handles your licensing for Arturia products among others. Once that’s installed, you can update the eLC with the licenses from your account page under the section titled My Registered Products.

CS-80V2 – Now Working No idea why, it just started working on it’s own.

Jupiter-8V2 – Now Working Checked an I already have the latest version installed. 2.5.5.0 I was able to get it to run using the windows 7 compatibility wizard but couldn’t get the A.L. Minilab keyboard to work with it. I didn’t save the changes to compatibility mode and, for grins, tried to run in on it’s own without the compatibility mode enabled. What do you know, the freaking thing loads and my midi keyboard works just fine.

Oberheim SEM V – Now Working Version I had installed wasn’t listed so I ran the update from here

Wurlitzer V – Now Working



The DAW

I was able to load them all into Ableton Live 9 after a fashion. Live had crashed to the desktop on adding in the third VST. I was able to recover the project however and finished adding the rest of them in. Aside from that one crash, everything seems to be operating like normal.

The Verdict

While I did manage to get all of them working after a fashion, I’m still very hesitant to use them in any live performance setting. I was able to spend some time with the Oberheim Sem V and while it was a lot of fun to mess around with the arpeggiator, there were several instants where notes got stuck. Even hitting the panic button didn’t stop it. I had to actually close the application and relaunch it to get things to work again.

All in all, these softsynths sound great and are a blast to play with, if and when they work. If you can handle the stability issues and are computer savvy enough to work through them, the price can’t be beat for what you get. On the other hand, if stability is a must or need it to work right the first time, look elsewhere.

Thanks for reading, hopefully this helps a few of you out there.

Brandon Fallout