Missing a synth to complete my set.

[CoolColJ]

I have both the Polybrute and Matrixbrute, and they sound pretty different.
Matrixbrute is thicker and fatter sounding, more raw, and the filters are more driven, even with low oscillator levels.
Matrixbrute is more vintage 70s sounding and matched well with my departed SH-2, similar tone.
The SH-2 could sound similar to my old Minimoog, and the Matrixbrute can also sound similar to the SH-2.
So it does kinda do the Moog thing with the ladder filter, but its resonance compensated, so it doesn't lose bass and volume with high resonance, like normal ladder filters.

You also need to modulate the decay slope with the matrix, to get the filter to sound snappy.
Use the third envelope to do so with a positive amount of 40-50 to get that sharp slope to get those percussive bass sounds you hear from Casio CZ synths and DX7s

https://soundcloud.com/coolcolj/matrixb ... b-bass-arp

[egbert101]

The price increase of the MatrixBrute is a bit heartbreaking for those wanting to buy one. It was something like £1200 and now it's more like £2000.

[Trancer]

Thanks a lot for your answers.

Having the two Arturias, regarding reliability, manufacturing quality, keyboard, screen, calibration, stability, what are they worth in reality?

A good investment?

The Matrixbrute has a reputation for having a beefy, thick fat, excellent monophonic sound.

On the other hand, the Polybrute apparently loses its famous punchy sound.

It sounds flatter, less dynamic.

Thank you for your upcoming opinion regarding the two Arturias.

Arturia has had a meteoric increase, even though it is made in China! so made in China does not mean interesting for the consumer, on the other hand for the Arturia company a nice big profit.

Concerning Moog and Behringer, we can criticize Behringer for a lot of things, but they are consistent in their prices and they give access to music to everyone thanks to their fairer and more lucid prices and do not get fat on their backs. consumers.

Moog wants to be elitist, but if we want to charge this kind of price, we need flawless reliability and that's not really the case.

I have nothing against Moog, on the contrary, I love Moog.

Only the name is not everything you have to follow behind and there not really that.

[egbert101]

Anyway, has anyone mentioned the Trigon 6? I didn't even know of it's existence until recently. Three VCO oscillators, ladder filter, and six voices! How does it compare to the MatrixBrute/PolyBrute? Is it trash or nah.

[vurt]

The price increase of the MatrixBrute is a bit heartbreaking for those wanting to buy one. It was something like £1200 and now it's more like £2000.

chip shortage + economic collapse induced by pandemic, would have been bad enough, but throw in brexit and whatever truss and co did, and prices went up...

[egbert101]

*smashes keyboard*

[cryophonik]

Anyway, has anyone mentioned the Trigon 6? I didn't even know of it's existence until recently. Three VCO oscillators, ladder filter, and six voices! How does it compare to the MatrixBrute/PolyBrute? Is it trash or nah.

Definitely not trash! It's a killer synth and was just recently released as a desktop module. I've been seriously contemplating one to add to my Prophet 6 and OB-6 to complete the Sequential "6" trifecta, but I've also got my eye on the GS Music e7, which is a 7-voice analog poly with a ladder filter, far more modulation options, and 2/3 the cost of the Trigon.

[Uncle E]

We can sell the Trigon module for $2,099 and the current rebate would bring it down to $1,849, so pretty close in price to the e7. Polysource, OTOH…!!!

[cryophonik]

We can sell the Trigon module for $2,099 and the current rebate would bring it down to $1,849,,,

That's a very tempting deal, but I thought the Trigon rebate expired on 9/17?

[egbert101]

Polysource would be amazing, but yeah, those three sequential synths are a work of beauty, it's just the prices are too high for me. Also, Trigon sounds amazing but definitely not a monosynth, doesn't have that thump, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, as there's always room for smooth bass. I own an Analogue Four mkii, and it really is a lovely flexible synth which can also thump in the bass department, but I still think sequential polysynths are a work of beauty and probably soundwise superior.

[CoolColJ]

Thanks a lot for your answers.

Having the two Arturias, regarding reliability, manufacturing quality, keyboard, screen, calibration, stability, what are they worth in reality?

A good investment?

The Matrixbrute has a reputation for having a beefy, thick fat, excellent monophonic sound.

On the other hand, the Polybrute apparently loses its famous punchy sound.

It sounds flatter, less dynamic.

Thank you for your upcoming opinion regarding the two Arturias.

Arturia has had a meteoric increase, even though it is made in China! so made in China does not mean interesting for the consumer, on the other hand for the Arturia company a nice big profit.

The Polybrute does sound more nasal, and polite than the Matrixbrute.
My MKS-80 rev 5 sounds thicker and warmer.
But it's still creamy and nice sounding.

Combo Matrix sequencer and arpeggiator, using 12db high pass filter into 24db ladder filter
https://soundcloud.com/coolcolj/polybru ... ix-arp-seq

Latched arpeggiator line turned into sequence, noddling with Morphee pad and ladder filter - Onboard effects straight out to audio interface
https://soundcloud.com/coolcolj/polybru ... ed-arp-seq

I bought my Polybrute Noir brand new, due to a special price, and free legs at the time. Sold the legs, so total price was much cheaper than it normally is, and other similar polysynths on the market.
It's been fine so far, after a few months, good build quality on this unit, everything is working well. Knobs feel a bit cheap relative to the rest of the synth, it's the same as their other cheaper gear.
Keyboard feels fine to me, but others don't like it, feels too soft and cheap to them.
Now in the first week I exchanged it for the original colour scheme unit, as I found the bright white LEDS and black of the Noir unit hurt my eyes at night.
Well that unit has a kink in several of the slider travel. And the Morphee pad has lumps on the wood surface, which annoyed me, so I eventually exchanged it back to the Noir unit.
Latest firmware has option to dim the LEDs so no longer a problem for me.

The Matrixbrute similarly seems very well made. Rock solid, built like a tank, and not unlike a Minimoog.
The cheap feeling knobs and sliders though.
I bought my unit second hand, and it's probably about 5 years old, which was sitting inside it's official flight case for most of it's life.
And all the knobs, slider caps and buttons were covered in sticky oxidation!
It took me a whole week, for several hours a day, with a microfiber cloth and Isopropyl alcohol to clean it all off...
It cost me way less than new price, so it was worth it for me.

I suspect the same will happen to my Polybrute in a few years time, it does take a while.
Same knobs and button caps on both from what I can see.
It's the type of material they used on these, and it makes me wonder why they haven't changed them yet after all this time.
As it's been known for a while on all Arturia gear.
If you clean them microfiber cloth and Isopropyl alcohol when you first notice stickiness then it's not big deal.
Just don't let it build up....

I bought a second hand Korg Prologue 16 recently, and the owner had a Arturia Drumbrute.
Out of curiosity I touched the knobs on that, and they were sticky
You can replace all the knobs with aluminum ones from Aliexpress, but since there are so many of them it will add up to over $150.

Now firmware and software wise, Arturia are lax. Expect to wait a long time between updates.
I don't expect any more updates for the Matrixibrute
And the Polybrute got a firmware update a couple of weeks ago, and still missing a Matrix sequencer step nudge, the Matrixbrute had.
I don't understand why software features get left out from a similar earlier product...
The Connect librarian software has a bug where all the dialog button hitboxes are offset downwards and to the left, and sometimes don't show up, on Windows.
Me and many others have reported it.
Pretty critical bug IMO, and still not patched yet after 2 weeks....

[CoolColJ]

Anyway, has anyone mentioned the Trigon 6? I didn't even know of it's existence until recently. Three VCO oscillators, ladder filter, and six voices! How does it compare to the MatrixBrute/PolyBrute? Is it trash or nah.

I have played with one extensively at the shop.
It sounds punchy, snappy, creamy, yet clean, bight and clear sounding.
Nice resonance, and 12db filter mode.
The OB-X8 sounds thicker in the mid range, with a colder top end sheen.

Doesn't do the thick monosynth thing as well as the Matrixbrute, but it can do deep punchy bass, super snappy bass just fine.
More raw beef than the Polybrute for sure, just quite a bit more simple and less extensive in expression and modulation.

This video sounds close to what it feels like to me


If you want a ladder filter synth that sounds thicker and more vintage, check out the Melbourne Instruments Nina.
Which I also played for several hours and programmed up at the same time
Snappy filter/envelopes on that, but thicker mid ranges, and cloudy fuzzy sound.
If it cost less I would have owned it by now, as an Aussie it's still pretty expensive.

[Trancer]

Thank you for your feedback.

A big thank you to you CoolColJ for your very detailed report.

Unfortunately, Arturia's reputation is not great.

If I pay 2000 euros for a synth, I want excellent product, excellent service and follow-up as well.

What you say doesn't really reassure and confirms other comments on this subject.

It's still crazy that for such high prices, the quality is not at all the best, or even mediocre, and that the follow-up is often far, or even very far from being correct.

Sequential and Moog the same.

Quite a few concerns also regarding the Pro 3, regarding Moog, quality control is not great, which is very damaging.

I don't think I'm being demanding, just that when you want to charge high prices, you need excellence for everything and in everything.

Quite frankly, I'm hesitating between a Matrixbrute and a Pro 3, but given some of the feedback from here and elsewhere, that doesn't really motivate people to buy this kind of machine.

A shame, because the possibilities are immense and the sound is magnificent.

[chk071]

Unfortunately, Arturia's reputation is not great.

I disagree. And, if anything, their "not so great" reputation rather stems from the authenticity of their analog emulation software than their hardware synths.

If then, the sound of their hardware synths is not for everyone. I find they sound horrible (don't like that Steiner-Parker filter, it sounds rude and wild, and not in a good way), but, others seem to disagree on that.

Do you have a music store near you? Demo some of the suggested synths here, and see for yourself what you like the best.

[Trancer]

I had the chance to try both Arturia models a while ago.

These were the first versions (batch).

I naively told myself that changes could have been made to improve things and that wasn't really the case.

Keyboard really not great, the knobs not very qualitative.

Concerning the Polybrute, I stayed for two hours and twice there was a mismatch.

Concerning the Matrixbrute in addition, the screen was not great and of poor quality and seemed to have a display problem.

Namely new equipment on display which was barely three months old at the time.

Two models I really like are the Matrixbrute and the Pro 3.

Unfortunately no Pro 3 available, not very successful in sales, therefore not in demonstration.