Arturia MicroBrute

[Frozen Lonesome]

Cool little mono-synth released today from Arturia. Has a mini CV patch bay and a sequencer.
I would have definitely preferred a sequencer on the MiniBrute over the Arpeggiator.

[S1gnsOfL1fe]

This little thing looks fantastic. If Arturia didn't have supply issues when they released the minibrute, I would have owned one. This looks very cool...I love the direction that hardware companies are going these days. It's reassuring to know that analog is far from extinct.

Cheers and thanks for sharing,
-S1gns

[Ambient Mechanics]

Yeah..it sure looks great and the sound in the video is really good, too. But, at the risk of sounding negative, I'm going to be a little slow to check this one out myself, after having issues with the MiniLab I recently bought. I thought I'd dodged a bullet on that one, as there had been a lot of bad posts about it online..but a few weeks ago my MiniLab started sending phantom modulation signals to all vsts in my daw, basically screwing up any track I was using it in.

It's been returned to be serviced, but if the posts elsewhere Iread are anything to go by, then this issue is a internal design flaw and not unique to my unit. Sadly, it seems Arturia have been mostly silent on all of this..pratically ignoring posts over on their support forum..so I am more than a bit slow to jump at this new offering of theirs. Think I'll wait a while and see what the reviews are like after people have had a chance to burn em in first.

[AtaRaxis]

When I got the teaser email earlier this week I thought, polyphonic minibrute! Crossed my fingers, prayed a prayer to Joe Pesci, sacrificed a chicken even! And low and behold, this. This Korg looking joke of a piece of.....
Wait a minute you can record your own sequences? You can patch the envelope to pitch? $300? hmmm, where's my wallet?

[KrisM]

had one and returned it. fantastic sound, but quality control issues and poor customer support forced my hand. Mine came out of the box missing 7 of the 12 screws holding the bottom plate on, and of the 5 remaining 3 weren't tightened all the way. To Arturia's credit I didn't even notice until I flipped it over for the serial number to register it. Support never answered me on whether it'd be covered by warranty, or if they'd go "you opened it, you're screwed" and never told me whether they'd ship me a pack of screws, or what the specs on the screws were so I could take care of it. Add the wonky pitch/mod wheels, and it had to go. I know it's only $300 street, but meh. To their credit, they did release an internal software tool they used to calibrate the wheels (naturally it was windows only...).

And the envelope was pretty fast ;)

[Frozen Lonesome]

had one and returned it. fantastic sound, but quality control issues and poor customer support forced my hand. Mine came out of the box missing 7 of the 12 screws holding the bottom plate on, and of the 5 remaining 3 weren't tightened all the way. To Arturia's credit I didn't even notice until I flipped it over for the serial number to register it. Support never answered me on whether it'd be covered by warranty, or if they'd go "you opened it, you're screwed" and never told me whether they'd ship me a pack of screws, or what the specs on the screws were so I could take care of it. Add the wonky pitch/mod wheels, and it had to go. I know it's only $300 street, but meh. To their credit, they did release an internal software tool they used to calibrate the wheels (naturally it was windows only...).

And the envelope was pretty fast ;)

Kris, too bad about the quality issues. I had my MiniBrute for 9 months and had two units. The first one had a broken LFO selector knob and the replacement unit had a broken in less than three weeks. According to complaints on the Arturia forums, here seems to more quality issues than you would expect. I bought from Sweetwater and live in Canada, so it was a hassle to send back. So I convinced them to take the MB back and exchange it for a Novation Bass Station II. Had it for a few weeks now and am very happy. It is very seems very solid and for the most part, It shares the one knob one function of the Mini and MicroBrutes but with digital control (and some extra function options that are very accessible). Also has a broader range of sounds and the sequencer. For about $150 more depending on sales the BS2 is a very capable and good sounding analogue synth. Check my SoundCloud page for some demo tracks. NB: these are not very ambient.

https://soundcloud.com/steve-raizen/sets/bass-station-ii-sounds