Arturia MATRIXBRUTE

[himalaya]

Mission accomplished for me though, Matrix Brute is more true analog than I suspected.

It also sounds fantastic (regardless of its analogue signal path or its digital bits). It's simply a great synth. I played one when they were first shown at NAMM some years ago, and I couldn't leave the Arturia booth. I spent maybe half an hour just having fun with the oscillators and the two multi-mode filters. The amount of sounds possible with these alone, even before we move to the mod matrix, is simply stunning.
It's also so easy to end up with cool new sounds by accident. Set the oscillators to one signal path, get a nice sound, then on a press of a button, the signal path changes and we get another cool sound. Do it with the filters as well...so easy and so effective!

I also like all the overdrive/waveshaping options which can add more weight to the basic waveforms or obliterate them with evil distortion. Yummy!

[lfm]

Mission accomplished for me though, Matrix Brute is more true analog than I suspected.

It also sounds fantastic (regardless of its analogue signal path or its digital bits). It's simply a great synth. I played one when they were first shown at NAMM some years ago, and I couldn't leave the Arturia booth. I spent maybe half an hour just having fun with the oscillators and the two multi-mode filters. The amount of sounds possible with these alone, even before we move to the mod matrix, is simply stunning.
It's also so easy to end up with cool new sounds by accident. Set the oscillators to one signal path, get a nice sound, then on a press of a button, the signal path changes and we get another cool sound. Do it with the filters as well...so easy and so effective!

I also like all the overdrive/waveshaping options which can add more weight to the basic waveforms or obliterate them with evil distortion. Yummy!

Thanks for your inside report. It looks like endless amount of fun to explore.

Only really raise a red flag on the tutorial for filters I saw from a link - upper mids and highs were not on par what you expect. I did have my HD201 phones on computer which normally sound ok for purpose of YT. General purpose for not highest requirement.

Listened to a range of synths like Roland JD XA, System 8 and all sound incredible on these phones too.

I will test on a computer that can run YT on full hd, at least 720p if better. I guess bitrate for audio go down with video quality too.

Test this and listen as example at 1:18 and 2:00


Sounds horrible to my ears.
Tried up to 360p which normally sounds ok, not like this.

[himalaya]

I had no issues with the filters when I played the synth. I was getting all manner of 'filtery' goodness, including powerful plucks, that reminded my of huge Moog Modular systems ( I was kind of recreating lots of Tangerine Dream-style basses). Then, the filters could produce lovely harmonics at high resonance as well....it seems to me that in the video above, many of the sounds are overdriven, wave-shaped, on the more 'brutish' side of things, which may influence how those filters respond. Not sure... I won't try to analyse this video and rather trust what I heard in person.

[lfm]

Thanks himalaya - I tend to believe you and that something is wrong regarding how and what they uploaded to YT that degraded it all.

I posted a ticket to Arturia to see if they have audio for it before uploaded. But puzzled over that they are not more concerned about quality of every aspect in the marketing of the unit - and let this pass.

If I had something to market and sell being audio - I would see to that every little part sound incredible. It's Arturia's own channel, I mean. If third party reviewers do stuff you might not take it for the full truth.

[AnX]

its not really the kinda thing you buy based on a YouTube video

go to a shop and try it out

[Mutant]

its not really the kinda thing you buy based on a YouTube video

go to a shop and try it out

Yeah.
Drive 1000 kilometers to the nearest shop that has it on display.

[AnX]

its not really the kinda thing you buy based on a YouTube video

go to a shop and try it out

Yeah.
Drive 1000 kilometers to the nearest shop that has it on display.

well, when its practical.... depends how much you want it, or if you're happy to risk buying it blind

[lfm]

its not really the kinda thing you buy based on a YouTube video

go to a shop and try it out

Yeah.
Drive 1000 kilometers to the nearest shop that has it on display.

Almost - about 110 km here that has one in store.
So doable for me - but as very final confirmation after reading manuals cover to cover, watching loads of YT reviews. And in reality you cannot really spend more than 2-3 hours at best in a shop and you hardly determine from that alone either.

But with return policies of today of most serious online shops you can take a chance buying one too - if price is much better. Thomann.de has three years warranty on everything and return costs for warranty jobs at least are free.

Last spring I was like on tour almost going from shop to shop testing acoustic guitars - because one is not like the other - far from.

A synth is plugged into recording equipment and you should not be able to fail, one would think.

When I tested video editors, some had prepared rendering with upload for vimeo and youtube and such - and some of those had really old settings, not full hd even - which they allow today. If something like this is what happend, everything was degraded before uploaded.

[rlared]

I own one and am happy to answer any questions.

[lfm]

I own one and am happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.
I saw one review with Nick Batt, as I recall his name.


So no hesitation on sound quality anymore, it was just Arturias own tutorials that sounded not so good.

Batt had some issue with auto-tune and some point, octave did not tune up?
I guess that might be voltage leakage thing depending on was is activated at that patch. But it means you cannot play in tune.

#1 Did you have any such tuning problems?
#2. Anything needed sending to service?
I saw some comments somewhere about some retailers worried about returns due to reliability.
#3. Reading manual I tried to figure out what alternate routing you can or cannot.
I thought it might give total freedom between modules, but seems not.
It seems to me both oscillators 1+2 is always mixed before a filter envelope.
So looking at oscillator 3 and what it gives.

On page 28(eng.man) there is a flow chart over duo split mode, but see no chart at all for normal operation what flow is. Lower section just not being in the game until assigning in matrix?

Can Env3 be applied to just oscillator 3 filtering or so?
Is there a way to have two parallell routes osc->filter(w. env)->amp(w.env)?
Thinking at least upper section and lower section getting its own route.

If osc 2 is turned down in upper section leaving filter free - if you can route osc 3 through matrix patching in using that filter creating a parallell route in upper section.

Not sure if I am able to explain so it makes sense. My first attempt anyway.

Really smooth way of routing either way with this huge matrix.

[pdxindy]

Fantastic hardware interface... the matrix is great!

I do wish the Osc's had more range.

[rlared]

I own one and am happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.
I saw one review with Nick Batt, as I recall his name.


So no hesitation on sound quality anymore, it was just Arturias own tutorials that sounded not so good.

Batt had some issue with auto-tune and some point, octave did not tune up?
I guess that might be voltage leakage thing depending on was is activated at that patch. But it means you cannot play in tune.

#1 Did you have any such tuning problems?
#2. Anything needed sending to service?
I saw some comments somewhere about some retailers worried about returns due to reliability.
#3. Reading manual I tried to figure out what alternate routing you can or cannot.
I thought it might give total freedom between modules, but seems not.
It seems to me both oscillators 1+2 is always mixed before a filter envelope.
So looking at oscillator 3 and what it gives.

On page 28(eng.man) there is a flow chart over duo split mode, but see no chart at all for normal operation what flow is. Lower section just not being in the game until assigning in matrix?

Can Env3 be applied to just oscillator 3 filtering or so?
Is there a way to have two parallell routes osc->filter(w. env)->amp(w.env)?
Thinking at least upper section and lower section getting its own route.

If osc 2 is turned down in upper section leaving filter free - if you can route osc 3 through matrix patching in using that filter creating a parallell route in upper section.

Not sure if I am able to explain so it makes sense. My first attempt anyway.

Really smooth way of routing either way with this huge matrix.

#1: The tuning definitely drifts, especially when you first turn it on. But I haven't had any tuning problems that auto-tune couldn't resolve.

#2: No reliability problems. It's built really well and everything seems really high-quality.

#3: Monophonic and paraphonic modes share the same filter envelope Env 1 by default. But keep in mind Envelope 3 can be routed to control pretty much whatever you want. So for example you can use Env 3 to control the ladder filter cutoff. In this case if you set the ladder filter "Env Amt" to zero then only Env 3 would control it, otherwise Env 1 and Env 3 would control it. Also, duo split mode routes Oscillator 3 through the ladder filter and uses Env 3 as the filter and amp envelope. So yes there are multiple different ways to have parallel routes.

I didn't understand your last question. But hope this helps!

[rlared]

Fantastic hardware interface... the matrix is great!

I do wish the Osc's had more range.

Oscillators 1 and 2 are extremely flexible. . . what would you add to them?

[himalaya]

So no hesitation on sound quality anymore, it was just Arturias own tutorials that sounded not so good.

I told you just as much.

It's also a perfect example of how YouTube videos cannot be treated as the definitive guide to the sound quality of any given synth. One video left you thinking that the synth sounds bad, and the other video showed you that actually, there is no issue with the sound quality.

[pdxindy]

Fantastic hardware interface... the matrix is great!

I do wish the Osc's had more range.

Oscillators 1 and 2 are extremely flexible. . . what would you add to them?

I meant a wider octave range