The New Old School

Arturia made a statement to the world that they were not F'ing around! https://youtu.be/sUNNwibffTw With its Steiner Parker filter it provides the visceral sonic experience enjoyed by my fellow syntheisists such as Vincent Clark, and Italian DJ and producer Sasha Carass. This is my goto synth. I used it as the main fixture and synth on my 12 minute monster drum drone "Someone Forgot The Drummer" It is my workhorse. UPDATE

I love the principles of a company, as that is usually what makes them great. Arturia is one of my "crew", (even though they don't know me) due to the fact that I use at a minimum 2 of their synths on every song. Why? Because their unique. Just like a MiniMoog, the MiniBrute is all, ALLL, analogue. Through-hole, and SMD analogue... is what makes the sound of the Arturia unique. At this point in time, only the very abused "Brutes" will exhibit any sort of uniqueness...sort of. Aging plays a role in the sounds we love. Arturia like many others, have made synths just like everyone else. Some are hitting their 10 and 15 year old age, and while we have a while to get to 50 year old synths those that treasure their classics hold on to them, as I will with my Arturia Minibrute.

Not having a patch system is one of the best experiences I can recommend. Not that it isnt welcome, but sometimes its limiting in its own nature. Turning on a minibrute is a lot like turning on any old old synth ie (60's-70's-80's) You have to let it warm up and the older it gets the longer it takes to get to an even operating temp.... and you can tell! But I can say not knowing anything and turning one on and just trying to make ANY sound is what creates a synthesist....usually (it worked for me) *** BUILD QUALITY***

Excellent.... but. They don't make the miniBRUTE anymore... it's been discontinued but it lives on in shops and collectors now.. It weighs in at 8.8lbs. all steel and rubberised plastic sides that I have seen become sticky. But there are many 3rd-party wooden upgrades for the BRUTEs so don't let that dissuade you. It works great without the sides too just don't stick your finger inside ...lol ZAP!

I saw some comments below that questioned the quality of the Arturia. Arturia makes both high-end and affordable synths. If you so choose you can get one for around $200. I too own a Moog Sub Phatty. It weighs in at a respectable 20lbs, while the original miniMoog weighs 32lbs, Mind you the Sub Phatty and the miniMoog declare in their manual you need a strong table :) IT'S TRUE! While the 8.8lbs is much lighter, I dropped mine the first week I got it, and it fell flat. Normally that would shake or rip a standoff or 2 maybe at least 1 screw.. nope. Nothing... (literally thank the maker) so for me in my experience with their products it's been WOW. The miniBrute 2S is built the same and comes in at 7.7lbs. It's not a Volca.

BUT

The keys... The keys are real keys with aftertouch and velocity. For all the love I pour over this synth. A review below reminded me of what I do not like about it, and it's so minuscule for me.., but might be very off putting to others. They keys have a tendency to crack underneath due to the design (lip) that hangs underneath the underside of the white keys. Once they crack they all the other touch points to give way and crack some more until your playing a "flappy" key and while it still works .... so does the spring action. I don't have to show you a picture of a flappy key bouncing off the spring when slapped... you get the idea. Yes, while that is one thing I wish would have been "beta" tested thoroughly, I know you can't be all things. And with that said... this is one of the finest monosynths for the money.

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Pretty gnarly at its price point

Analog for the masses? For a miserly sum, this bad boy offers users a hands-on approach to analog synthesis. There's a throwback factor in the fact that there are no presets. Forget about hidden menus and little screens. What you see on is what you get, functionally speaking.

Tonally, this synth definitely feels analog. It also feels like its got a unique voice all its own. It's not a Moog, it's not an old Korg, and its not some Oberheim. It is its own thing. Luckily, within the scope of its parameters, you've got enough leeway to craft lots of different sounds. At any point you can bring up a sub, a square wave, a saw, a triangle, white noise, and an external input. No sine wave, but you can get one by being subtle with the sub. Moreover, each one of those parameters can be mixed in with a dedicated fader and most can be tweaked with individual knobs. Some provide cool phaser and chorus effects as you play with the rates. Again, tactile faders also come into play when sculpting the envelope of your wave. I prefer immediate attack, mid level decay and sustain, a just a tiny bit of release. Your ideal sound may vary, and thankfully you've got the possibility of also crafting lengthy pads or tiny bleeping bursts of color.

Personally, most of my tweaking happens on the filter banks. This beastie is a monster when it comes to doing frequency sweeps. At times you can enter the realm of unusable high pitched squeals if you overdo it on the resonance, but generally the filters are all good fun. You can also go wild with the much-vaunted Brute Factor knob. That one can introduce a degree of distortion that can really give the sound an extra boost.

There's way more, too. You can shape each wave with a subset of faders, and you can play with a whole mess of LFO parameters (all of which can be blended in via a dedicated wheel). Also, you can arpeggiate at your heart's delight. There are enough variations on board to keep it interesting. In addition, you can simply use it as a MIDI controller thanks to its very sensitive keys. Finally, since it has Audio In, you could potentially just use this thing as a wacky effects unit. It's done pretty interesting tremolo and sweep filtering to my guitar, and I bet it could do far more if you do real time knob twisting as you insert prerecorded music.

So far there's been praise, but what about the cons? Well, the keyboard is a bit annoying. The keys are the right size, but its only about two octaves. If you want to shift, you'll have to press buttons for that. Moreover, when I got mine, one key was already finicky and it only works if I press at the center rather than the edge. Also, many of the LFOs aren't that useful, so that's a drag. I also dislike how the arpeggio doesn't respond to the order you play the keys that constitute a chord. Want to use it as a sequencer? You'll have to do some hacking. Lastly, there will be a steep learning curve at first; expect to end up getting very useless sounds very quickly. It will take a while to truly grasp what each knob does. Since you can't save any presets, you'll eventually have to intuitively grasp what works best for your sound design.

Regardless of these gripes, I'm pleased with this monophonic synth. I've used it for pads, leads, and bass lines. It's got character by itself, and it has interacted very well with my effects units. It has also been study enough to survive international travel intact. It's not grossly oversized, after all. Any fledgling synthesist ought to consider starting off with this unit. It might not be a Minimoog, but it's still a powerful device that can inspire with its simple old school approach.

synthetic metal

This is one of the "affordable two-octave analog monosynths" that have been having a renaissance over the past seven or eight years. It was among the first of that crop, and while it has some interesting features like the ability to combine all waveshapes using just the one oscillator; and the option to modulate every shape with the LFO, I find there to be an inherent metallic nature to the sound of this machine which is inescapable. Even a warm PWM bass sound has a sort of nasal bite to it that I find extremely off-putting. I can't fall in love with it because of that.

The new SH-101

It is a monosynth, which has built-in tricks to make it sound like a fat multi-oscillator modular. The name "brute" comes from an option which returns the audio signal back to the synth, making it sound very rough and metallic, however if you do not set the waveforms higher than 50%, it can sound soft and beautiful. The variety of sounds is great. Minibrute is affordable yet not easy to use after all. It is very understimated, because many artists do not really understand the mechanics and push the knobs and sliders to the max most of the time. Moreover it can be officialy "hacked" and with one short line of hex you can switch from arpeggiator to sequencer, making the Minibrute a very powerfull tool.

A bit of an analogue monsoter

While build quality can sometimes be hit and miss, my early issue MiniBrute has been going on strong and is great for complex basslines and leads. Occassionally I think about selling it, but after playing with the aftertouch, the enhanced ultrasaw and additional noise generator, I am reminded why I kept it. Only downside is the size - it's a bit large!

Brutally amazing!

I love the fact that you can´t access to presets nor save your own, because the heart of this instrument is the ability to design each time you turn it on. The soul of the instrument is in his powerful sound.

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Great analog monosynth for the bucks!

Well made, really fat and gritty filter and really good feature when it came out. Little bit ''outdated'' with all the analog synth that come out lately, but this one really start the ''budget'' analog synth recent era. Use it for bass/lead/Fx in my live sets.

You have one? Keep it.

I had to change the side panels recently. The rubber started to get sticky. Arturia replaced it without any costs. The sound of the minibrute is very unique. Compared to Minimoog and Arp Odyssey it is a third kind of solo- sound. Very good keyboard action and an arpeggiator on board that can be synced to your song.

What a nice synthesizer!

The owner of the Arturia Mini Brute is one of my bandmembers, but from time to time I'm allowed to use it in my set-up. I sai "allowed" on purpose, because we both enjoy it soo much to play with the Minibrute. In very short time you have created a very specific sound and you don't need to know much about oscillators and synthesizers in order to do so. Very great instrument!

My go to lead machine.

It can be very gritty and ready for thrash but the real secret is to not turn the wave form volumes past 50%. Then you get those nice warm analog sounds.