Arturia MiniBrute 2S Analog Desktop Synthesizer/Sequencer

Warm, textural sonic pallet. Mixer-style controls are easy to use and intuitive. The online manual is way too wordy, should come in print with a free hi-lighter. Oscillator sounds sweeter than the Neutron but not as bold as the Monologue.

The sound is so thick and powerful. I've only had it for about a week and it's amazing to play with. I'm only moderately exposed to the analog synth world and this is so easy to jump in and get started. It really sounds awesome. Bass is one of its strong suites for sure, but overall sound quality is great. The filter sounds amazing. The only thing that could improve the setup would be a reverb pedal!

Arturia has hit a home run with this amazing machine. The build is quite solid. The faceplate/body feel like they are constructed of good steel and the wood side panels make the instrument look and feel like a quality instrument. The knobs and sliders all feel substantial and the patchy feels nice and solid when you insert patch cables. The analog audio circuitry is warm and sweet sounding. VCO 1 has some very nice and unique waveshaping options with a super saw and metalizer on the triangle wave. The multi-mode filter is gorgeous in it's low pass band pass and high pass settings. Very rich and and articulate. I'm am very happy to see a resonance modulation input, something you don't tend to see at this price point. I do have to say the both setting seemed a bit flat, the notch width never really got narrow enough for my tastes, but the other settings make up for it. The VCA section seems smooth and accurate and the Brute Factor adds some really wonderful saturation that can quickly go from creamy to crunchy (great for making aggressive drum and lead sounds). The ADSR envelope generator is about what you would expect but the AD generator has some nice tricks up it's sleeve with the addition of a couple of toggle switches that allow it to run full cycle regardless of gate and also to loop based on the timing of the attack/decay settings. This allows you to create a rehapeable LFO. The patchy is fairly extensive, and while not every single parameter can be controlled via patch, the most significant parameters (and a couple of surprises) are there, including a couple of multipurpose attenuators that come in handy when reworking the architecture of the synth circuit. The operation of the sequencer took a day or two to sink in, with separate pitch, gate and velocity tracks you have to think a little differently. But once it sunk in, it was like a lightbulb came on and I found it to be very intuitive. I have only begun to explore the two additional control tracks.

I super love this synth. I purchased a few eurorack modules and I love how I can patch them together to get some unique experimental sounds. No need for a modular sequencer unless you're a purist, I use this to sequence my eurorack and it links well with Ableton live. I get lost in the music, thanks to this terrific instrument. Good job Arturia.