The Arturia MiniBrute is a fantastic synthesizer and really
stands up to a lot of vintage synths. I
must point out that it has been correctly stated that the mixer section was
designed with a lot of headroom so if your levels are too high in this section, the
sound can easily become distorted or unusable. I tend
to keep levels under 75% and often around 50% to avoid unwanted overdrive.
Before I bought one, I thought that the “metalizer” of the
triangle wave would be one of the more useful and unique features about this
synth. For me, it turns out that adding
more than a little of this effect (turning the knob past 30% or so) makes the
sound way too bright and harsh in a bad way.
Though I like noise, the sound is more similar to nails on a chalkboard
than grinding metal.
One of my favorite features, it turns out, is the sub
oscillator. This surprised me, because
it seems like a rather mundane thing to be excited about. The sub allows for 2 different waveforms
(including sine), 1 or 2 octaves below.
It really sounds fantastic to add a sine wave 2 octaves below the square
or saw. The built in saw animator and
pulse width modulation allows the ability to make this synth sound larger than
a single oscillator synth.
The ability to control modulation with aftertouch is a huge
bonus. This makes it a great synth for
leads or solos, but certainly is not limited to such things. Since I got it, I have used it for bass,
snare, various leads, and external filtering/processing.
The only thing that I think could have made the MiniBrute
even more useful would have been to allow each of the waveforms (and especially
the sub) an option or switch to be mixed in before or after the filter, but
before the “brute factor” pot.
I love to use the Minibrute to control my dot com modular. Great synth.
ReplyDeleteDo you have any suggestions for cases for a dot com modular? The case options that are offered on their website are too long for my studio. I'd like to have maybe 3 sets of 11 modules wide and 1 module tall that I could stack.
I saw a pic of your studio that shows an angled case for your dot com. I'm interested in that as well.
Unfortunately, I can't build my own. Your feedback/insight would be much appreciated. Thank you!
The case that I have for my Synthesizers.com modular was one that I custom designed and made but at its core, I used the rack rails available from dot com to hold them in the case. The rack rails accommodate 8 units wide. This would give you a few less modules, but would allow you to use any rackmount case. Each row is 5U tall in the rack mount world. If you found a rack case that is 15U or 20U tall, you could use 3 or 4 rows of the rails and have 24 or 32 spaces for modules. (in mine, I have 4 rows, or 20U)
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