Arturia Pure SUB review: the synth where bass takes center stage

Review: Arturia Pure SUB is a new dual-engine Synthesizer plugin for macOS and Windows, where bass takes center stage.

In modern music production, bass is far more than a layer in a track’s foundation; it plays in pole position. Musicians want full control over it. That’s why many in-the-box producers move away from classic bass synths like the Minimoog toward synths where you can truly design your low end.

This has led to more bass-focused synthesizers. For example, UVI recently launched Rumble, a multi-band bass synth. Another producer favorite is the SubLab XL. Pure SUB is Arturia’s answer, and they now also have their own bass-focused synth.

Thanks to Arturia for giving me access to a pre-release version, which allowed me to give you a closer look at the new synth.

Arturia Pure SUB Summary

Positive

• flexible dual-type sound engine 
• samples and synthesis options 
• sound quality
• easy-to-use user interface 
• deep modulation with the typical Arturia ingredients
• many ways to shape and colorize basses
• CPU friendly

Neutral 

• A standalone plugin is always good, but it would have been just as good as an extension for Pigments.

Negative 

• nothing

Arturia Pure SUB

Pure SUB is a new Synthesizer from Arturia that focuses on the bass and sub-bass range. The latter refers to sounds in the lowest frequency range of music, typically spanning from 20 Hz to 60 or 80 Hz. It plays a big role in dubstep, drum and bass, and more.

Important: It’s not your traditional bass Synthesizer like a Bass Station or an SH-101. While you can also create classic bass sounds with the Pure Sub, it was primarily designed for subs. It’s also more of a bass designer than another subtractive bass synth.

Pure SUB is monophonic and splits the sound into three dedicated powerful stages: sub, harmonics, and texture. 

Sub is the sub-oscillator that goes from 0 down to -2 octaves. It lays down the foundation of your bass.

A brilliant and super useful feature in the SUB section is the so-called sub-regeneration. Pure SUB features many tools to shape, color, etc. your sub basses. If you use everything, you may damage the fundamental amplitude and phase of your sound.

To avoid this, use sub regen. It restores a clean fundamental practically anywhere in the chain: post filter, post process, or post FX rack. This way, you always keep a usable sub, no matter how wildly you shape it.

Colorful Harmonics

The “harmonics” is the harmonic layer of your next bass. It adds character and unique colors. It’s also the decisive moment where your bass goes. Into a more analog or digital sound range.

Unlike UVI, which relies on 9 algorithms, Arturia uses two harmonic engines in Pure SUB: additive and wavetable.

With the additive option , you can either take the easy route and choose from a multitude of preset waveforms, or delve deeper. A waveform editor allows you to design your own waveforms using additive partials.

Not just one, but up to eight waveforms in a row that can be morphed. It’s a mighty tool to create bass with an organic/evolving character. Neat is the built-in mixer in the waveform editor, so you always know the sub-to-harmonics ratio without changing the window.

The second engine is a traditional wavetable engine with factory wavetables, and that lets you import your own tables.

Both engines share the same three main parameters: morph morphs either through additive waveforms or wavetable, detune adds a chorus effect, and width adds stereo width. You can also set the octave (-2/+2), coarse, and fine tune. 

It also has a simple but effective pitch envelope, great for all kinds of kick bass sounds, plus an EQ. Additive or wavetable? So far, additive is my personal favorite because it lets you surgically shape harmonics and gives you total freedom.

Wavetable, on the other hand, is more traditional and gives you a basic tone quickly, whereas additive is more for tweakers.

Adding Texture & Character

The bass coat creates the texture area. You can work either with a sample-based noise oscillator or a corroder. Noise comes with a generous number of textures, from white and pink noise to crackling, etc. You can also import your own field recordings.

Once loaded, they can key follow and be shaped with distortion, AM, or ring mod; you can also add stereo width. Corroder is somewhat more mysterious and has a modulator to which various filters are routed. So, it also acts a bit like a dirty filter for the sub.

Since all three sections – sub, harmonics, and texture – are independent, they can be used very flexibly. You want a classic subtractive sub? That’s possible. You want a sub that sparkles with harmonics? That’s possible too. The engine covers many needs.

From there, the signal travels to a multimode filter with a colorful selection of filter types familiar from the Pigments synth. It includes the classics, plus unique ones like the reverb, ripple, cluster, and more.

It reshapes the harmonics, making them brighter or darker. Yes, it covers the basics. But the more unusual, modern types also open a door to bass sound design that goes beyond that. Mangling, shaping, and adding character instead of adding or removing brightness.

Let’s stick to the topic of character. The Arturia Pure SUB has two dedicated effect engines on the signal path. One is bright neon yellow in the main UI, and the other is hidden on a second UI page.

The bright yellow is a unique sub processor with various bass-focused algorithms/modes that instantly distort, texturize, and transform your subs. You quickly notice while playing that this is Pure SUB’s special sauce, adding an extra layer of goodness to your subs.

Route a regular sub bass, select a mode, and increase the dry/wet, and your sound will travel through a sonic tunnel where dirt, space, etc., fall down. The result is a new-flavored sub bass.

Each processor is customizable with six parameters: drive, filter freq, color, stereo width, presence, and space. Depending on the algorithm, these also affect the sound differently. Don’t miss the random function for quick new parameter settings.

The sub-processor can be seen as an FX processor, but goes deeper into how it transforms your basses. 

Multi-FXs and Modulation

On top of the sub-processor, you can layer classic multi-FX. Arturia Pure SUB includes a four-slot multi-FX engine with many of the company’s best-known effects: reverb, delay, tape echo, trance gate, chorus Jun-6, and more.

These effects are perfect for giving your sub-basses that final polish. You can also use them as shapers, especially anything involving filtering and distortion.

Each processor is fully tweakable with various controls and also automatable with the built-in modulation. At the end of the signal chain is a maximizer with soft and hard modes designed to beef up and glue your bass layers.

Talking of modulation: Pure SUB also comes with the familiar modulation ingredients found in many other products from the French company.

The menu includes three envelopes (a double-decay pitch envelope, ADSR amp, and ADSR modulation), three fully customizable function generators (act as env, LFO…), two random generators, and a modulation sequencer.

In addition, the keyboard section on the left offers velocity, aftertouch, MPE, release velocity, and more. Mapping modulators to parameters is just as easy as in Pigments using drag-and-drop.

As in other synthesizers, the modulation engine brings dynamics/movement and organic character to the sounds. Anyone wanting to create wobbly basses for the next dubstep track simply can’t do without this. 

The modulation engine is also a creative hub for building percussive sounds from bass, such as bass drums or heavy, low-end-driven sound effects. A traditional pitch sequencer is completely absent. However, the modulation sequencer can scale signals to harmonic content and use it as a pseudo-pitch sequencer.

And don’t forget: the modulators can also modulate each other, which allows you to create very crazy, constantly evolving movements. There are also four multi-layer macro controls that you can use, for example, to launch multiple modulators at once.

Sound Design 

The plugin’s name says it all. It focuses on sounds in the lower frequency range, such as sub-bass, bass, kick drums, etc.

If you’re looking for leads, pads, etc., you’re in the wrong place; Pigments offers a similar workflow but covers a much wider range of sounds.

Arturia delivers the Pure Sub with 300 professionally designed sounds that cover a wide range: subs, hard basses, plucked basses, kick drums, and more.

Designing sounds from scratch in Pure SUB is a great pleasure. It’s not just another bass synth, but a true bass design environment that gives you plenty of options for crafting the perfect bass that seamlessly integrates into your track.

Whether you want it to be gentle, plucky, or punchy, full of substance or more subtle, this plugin gives you all the tools you need.

Arturia Pure SUB Review Conclusion

In summary, the new Arturia Pure SUB is a Synthesizer that deserves the “powerful” label. It’s a powerful sound design tool and partner that lets music producers build custom basses for their tracks, tailored to their specific needs and preferences.

Pure SUB makes bass not a side note, but the highlight of the track. The sound engine is perfectly tuned for this.

Even though many prefer standalone plugins, one might ask whether this wouldn’t have been just as good an extension for Pigments.

The question arises because Pure SUB uses many Pigments-related elements (modulation, filters, effects…), alongside the newly developed bass-focused engines and the sub-processor. Also, the UI is very Pigments-like.

To me, the bass engine could also have been offered as one or two new oscillator types in Pigments, thus eliminating the need to install yet another plugin. 

Arturia Pure SUB is now available at an introductory price of 49€, down from 79€. It runs as a VST, VST3, AU, and AAX plugin on macOS (native Apple Silicon + Intel) and Windows.

More information here: Arturia 

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