Key presses did not cause the Filter envelope or vca envelope light to turn on, indicating the keys were not triggering anything.Īpparently this has plagued a number of Minibrutes, as the official forums acknowledged the problem and offered a fix. The keyboard octave led was dark, and the LFO rate light did not move when I adjusted the rate. After dialing in my first patch, what did I hear? Nothing.

Out of the box, I plugged it in and let it warm up for the 5 mins necessary. However, the unit I received had a couple of problems out of the box, one of which is proving more annoying to resolve than I thought it would be. The oscillators sound amazing, the filter is EXTREMELY capable, and the hands on factor make it incredibly addicting. There's been a ton of hype surrounding the Arturia MiniBrute since it's announcement, and for good reason. Hook it up to your DAW immediately so you dont miss one note of the insane amounts of inspiration this synth will provide you with. My only advice is: first time you hook it up dont make the mistake I did and use headphones. Overall, its just stunning and in my opinion, a true modern classic. Arturia may have set the bar so high with its initial offering as to scare other manufacturers away from entering the analog market. The keys and knobs and sliders all feel great and the case is sturdy for what these sell for new its an absolute steal and if anything I think they priced it too low because now how could Korg ever possibly compete with this product? Also, I hope they are making enough $ per unit to continue to manufacture them and earn a nice profit on the design.

I think Arturia hit an absolute upper deck grand slam with this synth at this price. The short form factor and lack of velocity are my only two real complaints about it, but I still find myself just getting lost in sound, and when I go back to my other synths, even the andromeda, I find myself missing some of the unique features/sounds of the minibrute. Not having owned every single one mind you, but I just get so much tonal variety of out it and the play between the metallizer, the brute factor, and the filter resonance takes this synth into territory Ive never heard before.