Arturia’s V Collection updates land quietly. There’s no launch event, no countdown, just a new entry in the Arturia Software Center and a line in your account. But for anyone who has paid for the collection over the years, each update raises the same question: what did I actually get, and does it change my week?
The most recent talking point is Memory V, Arturia’s emulation of the Memorymoog. It’s a meaningful addition for reasons I’ll get into, but it’s also a good excuse to talk about how V Collection updates work in practice, what the upgrade tends to deliver, and who genuinely benefits from pulling the trigger versus who can sit this one out.
What Memory V actually is
The Memorymoog is one of those synths with an outsized reputation. Released in 1982, it was the last instrument of Moog‘s early era before the company hit financial trouble, and it has fascinated analog fans ever since. Few developers had attempted a serious software version, and the ones that existed came close only from a distance.
Arturia’s take runs at €149/$149 standalone, installs through the Arturia Software Center in a few minutes, and ships in VST, VST3, AU and AAX plus a standalone build for macOS and Windows. The architecture is faithful: three oscillators per voice, each offering triangle, sawtooth and pulse waveforms with PWM, and you can combine waveforms simultaneously the way the hardware allowed. Each VCO is modelled independently, with its own nonlinearities that show up on an oscilloscope. Subtle, but present.
There are modern additions too. Oscillator 3 can drop into LFO territory like on a Minimoog, and while the original could only sync the first two VCOs, Memory V lets you sync VCO 1 and 3. The filter is the expected transistor-ladder low-pass, and it behaves the way you want: solid bass at low cutoff, present mids, highs that never turn harsh.
The detail that sold me is the saturation. Push the oscillator levels in the mixer and a pleasant grit creeps in, just like the hardware. A Drive knob at the end of the chain lets you lean into it harder if you want something meaner.
The interface question
If you’ve used any recent Arturia instrument, Memory V feels like coming home. The layout keeps the original’s aesthetic but reads better on a modern screen, with clearly separated oscillator, mixer, filter, envelope and modulation sections. Some concessions were made: the octave buttons became a rotary selector to save space.
Arturia’s usual quality-of-life layer is all here. Tooltips, a resizable interface, modulation visualisation, and a preset browser with tagging and search. Over 300 presets ship with it, filterable by type, style, designer or sonic character, and the original Memorymoog bank is included alongside a batch of modern patches.
One gripe. The engine handles MPE fine, but there aren’t enough presets built specifically for it. If you’re on a Polyend or a Linnstrument, you’ll be doing your own programming. Not a dealbreaker, just a gap.
Who this update is really for
Here’s the honest version. If you already own the V Collection, Memory V is the reason to update this cycle. It fills a genuine hole in Arturia’s vintage lineup, and it does so at a level of fidelity that justifies the wait. The omission of the Memorymoog had been curious for years given how iconic the instrument is, and the result holds up next to the company’s Minimoog, Prophet-5, CS-80, OB-Xa and Jupiter-8 emulations.
If you don’t own the collection and you’re weighing Memory V as a standalone purchase, the case is narrower. A working Memorymoog now runs well past €/$10,000 and costs real money to maintain, so €149 for a software version is a sensible proposition for anyone chasing that specific character. But it’s a particular character: rich, restless chords that seem to move even with no effects engaged, and a temperament that rewards programming. If you want a clean poly workhorse, this isn’t it.
If you’re a guitarist or pianist who uses the collection mainly for pads and keys, Memory V probably won’t change your workflow. The update is worth installing, but the new instrument is a specialist’s tool. That’s a good thing. Arturia already covers the generalist ground elsewhere in the collection.
Where it sits against the rest of the lineup
It’s worth remembering that Arturia isn’t only a vintage emulation house anymore. Pigments, at €199, is the company’s most powerful instrument and one of its few titles that doesn’t recreate an old keyboard. Four synthesis types, deep but easy modulation, and a genuinely modern sound-design workflow. If your interest in the V Collection update is really about new creative tools rather than historical accuracy, Pigments deserves a look first.
But that’s a different product for a different job. The V Collection update exists to keep the emulation side current, and Memory V does that job well. The two sit side by side in the catalogue rather than competing.
Practical notes before you update
- Run the update through the Arturia Software Center rather than downloading installers manually. It’s faster and the licensing stays clean.
- Check your DAW compatibility. VST3 and AAX are both covered, so most setups are fine, but confirm before you commit a session to it.
- Give the preset browser a real session. The tagging system is only useful once you’ve made it yours, and 300+ presets without curation is noise.
- If you’re on an MPE controller, budget time for your own patches. Don’t expect the factory library to do it for you.
The update itself is not dramatic. No overhauled engine, no rewritten modulation system. It’s a new instrument in the collection, built to the standard Arturia has set for itself over the years. For most owners, that’s exactly the right size of update. Install it, play the original Memorymoog bank, and see whether the character grabs you. If it doesn’t, you’ve lost twenty minutes. If it does, you’ve just gained a synth you’d otherwise never get your hands on.
