Arturia 'poly' Brute now launched.

[toine6]

As far as the sound, to each their own. I own the MicroBrute, MiniBrute, and MatrixBrute.

I think the functionality for the price of the Micro & Mini are great, and I like that they can reach a messy and insane distortion level. Hell, I have broken old analog synths that are all messed up sounding, but I like trying to make some kind of music out of the grating distortion hell. It's a challenge, it's inspiring, and it pushes me. There's a beauty and liveliness to harmonizing distortion in a pleasing way, and having a nice cheery little tune churning away in there. You have to build the house out of mud & grass, it's not reliant on one beautiful key press sound. That said, I rarely play with the Micro and Mini, and was never interested in getting the MatrixBrute... Then I sat down with one. It could do the ugly and the pretty, and had a much much wider pallet, both silky AND gruff. The MatrixBrute can cover a lot of ground, it's really deep. I was really wowed by some of the presets, as far as the analog sound goes. But I could understand if it wasn't everyone's cup of tea.

I think the effects are kind of one of it's weaker points, decent and ok, but lacking some kind of giant lush reverb, super killer chorus or whatever.

Some people listen to analog, and are not impressed because they are actually more impressed by digital. Liking supersaws, complex experimental oscillators, sample layers, and are looking for that glossy soundtrack sound. Analog can do it, but it's a different sort of thing, it's not really the best at doing digital. Free & pay Vsti's and nice digital synths really have their place. Analog is more for that lively distortion, different kind of math and distortion. They both cross into each other's realms, but specialize in their own area. It's okay to be a fan of digital, it's superior in many areas.

I do run low on polyphony with the Matrix. I love the addition of the CS slider, and the morph is a dream come true. What a cool synth the Poly is. But the Matrix is much better suited to connect with my other modular gear. I really like the Poly but it would not be a replacement for the original. They both cover their own ground.

[WatchTheGuitar]

Looks pretty spot on. If I hadn’t bought the Deepmind 12 this year I’d have taken the plunge even if it takes 3 times longer to pay the credit off. I wonder if there’s scope for a Polyfreak at some point?

[foosnark]

It could do the ugly and the pretty, and had a much much wider pallet, both silky AND gruff.

One of the things I liked about Microbrute was, once I got to know it, there was all this subtlety lurking in that "brute" filter if you dialed in it just right.

[JoeCat]

May not be everyone's cup of tea, but certainly sounds (and looks) like a quality cup of tea, and at under $2,500, even more appealing. Seems like some great performance options also.

Hard to tell without having your hands on it, but for people like me who don't have "a sound" (as in hate/love certain filters, etc.), the biggest question is usually how big (for lack of a better word), the sweet spots are. Like, U-he's Repro synths - I can start from scratch and almost everything sounds good; every tweak leads to a different but still tasty sound. I feel like you have to work to make them sound bad. Some other synths, you really have to work to dial something in (not really a criticism, but by it's nature, Serum is like that - subtractive analog synths or emulations shouldn't be IMHO). You can get great sounds out, but it's not as pleasant an experience if you like to experiment and do sound design.

Hope to be able to play it life, even though it's a bit large for my space.

[BONES]

How is a 6 voice polyphonic synth cheaper than a monosynth? According to my local shop's website, MatrixBrute is $500 more than this. Weird.

[thecontrolcentre]

The matrixbrute and polybrute look more different than I first thought ...







The Matrix seems to have more physical controls than the Poly. UK prices are currently £2000 and £2,250 (pre-order) ...

[SLiC]

It’s just great the way that Arturia have turned them selves in to a serious player in the hardware synth market in a relatively short time. From the Mikrofreak to the Polybrute I am seeing more interesting and desirable keyboards coming from Arturia than most of the old big names.

From the SOS review conclusion,,,

“In short, I've had the privilege of playing and reviewing many of the most revered polysynths of all time, and I think that the PolyBrute has the potential to be up there with the best of them“

That’s high praise indeed!

[deastman]

I guess I’ll just stick with my Andromeda.

[david.beholder]

Sweetwater -- $1,999.00

sure?????

Please read original post carefully

[SLiC]

How is a 6 voice polyphonic synth cheaper than a monosynth? According to my local shop's website, MatrixBrute is $500 more than this. Weird.

The mono has a much bigger matrix and some analogue fx like BBD, but there is probably also quite a lot of 'recycling' of tech used in the mono so less R+D. In reality, now the poly is out, I expect that the mono price will reduce. I always though the mono was a bit overpriced, but the poly (with a little retail discount) seems a pretty fair price for what's on offer.

[SLiC]

Another nice Video - also FYI you can download the full user manual now.

http://downloads.arturia.net/products/p ... 1_0_EN.pdf

[BONES]

I always though the mono was a bit overpriced, but the poly (with a little retail discount) seems a pretty fair price for what's on offer.

I dunno, you can get an 8 voice Korg Prologue for about two-thirds of the price of this. In fact, for the price of this you could buy a Prologue plus a Minilogue XD or a Wavestate. I think you'd have to really want one of these to justify the price.

[buzz1]

Nothing I have seen so far to knock a Summit off the top of my wishlist.

[lfm]

I always though the mono was a bit overpriced, but the poly (with a little retail discount) seems a pretty fair price for what's on offer.

I dunno, you can get an 8 voice Korg Prologue for about two-thirds of the price of this. In fact, for the price of this you could buy a Prologue plus a Minilogue XD or a Wavestate. I think you'd have to really want one of these to justify the price.

Having Prologue-8 and Wavestate, still considering PolyBrute.
I still have to evaluate Wavestate which has a bunch of filters, but all digital of course. But not so impressed by resampling pitches algos in Wavestate, they don't sound that good going an octave up even for playable sounds. Percussive stuff usually does not resample. Using simpler waveforms like in synths rather ok, but more complex sampled stuff like piano, strings and brass is something I avoid using.

PolyBrute
+ nice options with both Steiner 12 dB and Ladder 24 dB filters to run in series or parallell
+ way more crossmodulations, real matrix
+ assignable ENV to do other things like pitch or something else
+ some nice morph options like Nordlead has
- price tag
- less voices

Prologue-8
+ 3rd oscillator in multiengine, vpm or user oscillators
+ good price point
+ more voices allow dual timbre with 4 voices still, could be bass line plus a chord
+ rather clever sorting options of the 512 patches
- share pitch envelope with filter envelope
- modulation only on lfo(single) and fm to vco2 and velocity on env

Wavestate
+ incredible sequencing options for evolving stuff
+ incredible cross modulation options
+ rather extensive sample collection
+ lots of voices
+ good price point
- sound like rather cheap electronics inside, and resampling not top notch algos
- some samples are mapped to keyboard, others just resampled but does not say on sample name so you have to listen how it sounds

Check out Loopop PolyBrute demo which usually floor everything else(70 presets played as well from 39:00)

[SLiC]

I always though the mono was a bit overpriced, but the poly (with a little retail discount) seems a pretty fair price for what's on offer.

I dunno, you can get an 8 voice Korg Prologue for about two-thirds of the price of this. In fact, for the price of this you could buy a Prologue plus a Minilogue XD or a Wavestate. I think you'd have to really want one of these to justify the price.

I guess it depends what you are in to (modulation and expression are high up my list), price is certainly relevant, but ultimately I guess its all about 'if you fall in love with the sound'. I have both a DM12 (more voices, fx, cheaper) and an old V1 Prophet 8....I use the latter most of the time.

Given how great software instrument are, I think you really need to just 'want' any hardware to be honest, but there is nothing wrong with that