Arturia today shared this sneak preview of their upcoming Arturia MatrixBrute synthesizer, focusing on the synth’s filters:
The MatrixBrute features two filters:
- Steiner-Parker filter – the Steiner Parker filter supports both 12db per octave and 24db per octave slopes, as well as a DRIVE control for making thicker sounds. 4 modes – Low pass, band pass, high pass, and notch – allow for a wide array of sound making possibilities.
- Ladder Filter – The MatrixBrute also offers ‘a traditional Ladder filter’ (Moog style filter), with both 12db and 24db per octave slopes. It offers Low Pass, High Pass & Band Pass modes and a Drive control.
Pricing and Availability
The Arturia MatrixBrute is expected to be available later this summer, with a street price of about $2,000.
I’m finding it hard to love the sound, from the demos I’ve seen, Youtube sound quality notwithstanding.. The features look great, and on paper it should be incredible. But nothing yet seems either “massive” or “warm” regardless of the settings. I do love my microbrute, but I guess I want something that sounds in a different league for 6 times the price.
I like it, sounds nice and rough/harsh and really up front. Which is goidd. The filter and brute factor seem to scream a lot more than the microbrute does as well which is what I expected/wanted the micro to do but doesn’t, It’s too subtle
How long does it take to release a synth? I mean dam. It looks awesome, the price is up there but seems reasonable for the device and capabilities but they have the marketing strategy of a crappy blockbuster movie. Like 4 teasers, 2 trailers, press releases, actors interviews then you release a crap product to the masses. I remember finding out about the minilogue, then being able to purchase one…. Well….yeah…..
Disregard all of this:)
The Brute sound is a sound not worthy of such an expensive synth. It’s perfect in mini and micro form. Even an expanded sub-€800 version would make sense. But this is like when they soup up a Nissan Micra and it becomes as expensive as a basic Audi 1. Just stick with the basic Audi.
Agreed, I have both the Mini and Micro. Great little aggressive synths for getting that certain harsh sound. It does a lot of variations of that with the waveform mixer, PWM, overdrive etc. It’s still a specific family of sounds though well suited for a little mono, not-quite-but-almost one trick pony. Something this massive could have used better oscillators and smoother filter. The overdrive should add the aggressiveness, but it sounds too harsh for many things even without it activated.
is it me or does anyone else feel like saying “you sunk my battleship”
that would be a neat easteregg by the ways
B4…
someone just drop a battleship
who website has change’
no more likes on comments
awwwwww
if the button matrix had a control mode that could trigger clips in ableton or something that would be a pretty dope device.
j
0=0
I read the comments before watching the clip. The clip gave me more hope for a decent sound (ladder filter) than some of the comments did.
The people saying that the *brute line only do harsh sounds are smoking angel dust. Either that or they’re constantly turning up multiple oscillators past the halfway point. The brutes do soft stuff well too, you just need to be gentle with ’em.
I like how this thing sounds too. Probably won’t get one cos I’m broke as hell, but yeah, it’s nice.
I agree. I’m a lover of the classic Roland SH line as well as some of the very early Korgs. I’v been able to pull many of those sounds out of my Microbrute. As long as you stay away from the ‘metalizer’ and ‘brute factor’ knobs this little keyboard can sound very smooth with that big round vintage sound that so many of us love. Arturia seem to push the brutishness in their marketing but the Microbrute is really more like a contemporary SH-101 with a bit more grit.
I have a feeling that once people get their hands on the Matrixbrute they will be able to coax out some pretty awesome sounds. Too bad I can’t afford such a beast.
I really don’t like the principle tone at all and think they should have ditched the Steiner Parker filter for a dual filter configuration in series and/or parallel with a choice of 24 & 12 DB LPF & Notch Filters with the Secondary filter having the same 12/24 configuation in HP/BP/Comb and All pass modes.
Can’t say anything i’ve heard from it has really tickled my fancy. In fact I’d rather go for a Virus Ti2 desktop over something like this.
For that amount of money, I’d rather have a Yamaha YTS-62. Oh wait a minute, that’s a saxophone…
what about FS1R?
nah scratch that, a real pain to program
Crap distortion
As a Mini and Microbrute owner it pains me to say this but Im falling out of love with the Matrixbrute. Both the Mini and the Micro are great but I expected something a little more radical from Arturia this time – especially at this price. Yes, the matrix is great and yes the dual filters are great but given the poor marketing, nothing is drawing me to the Matrxibrute. Im not yearning for it and I suppose that means Arturia have lost me, for now at least. As I have said before, some proper patches would go a long way to demonstrating the synths abilities. Maybe my mind will change then….
I would tend to agree. One of the charms of the Microbrute, at least for me, is that it’s tiny and cheap. So it’s like “I can’t believe I’ve getting this crazy sound out of this cheap little synth!” From what I’ve seen of the Matrix, it just seems like a couple of Micros crammed into an big exotic package with a lot of modulation possibilities added. Which might turn out to be cooler than I imagine, but at the moment it just seems like they’re trying to squeeze too much out of the ‘brute identity and there may be diminishing returns.
I like the sounds of the filters. And Mr Miyagis kid brother seems like a nice guy.
I really like the possibilities of this synth although the price is steep (for me) and places it up against a lot of other great synths (especially if you consider used options).
So I think the analog fx section and how it can be used with the matrix is going to be a very important factor for me in considering it. There is a lot of potential extra value there. I love the Steiner Parker filter and agree the Minibrute can sound warmer with the oscillators down and no Brute Factor. I seems to have good luck getting very musical sounds with it that don’t overpower mixes. I think this is one I really need to hear/see some advanced tutorials to consider. But I am excited for it to be released.
Some years ago (in this price range) it was Arturia Origin, I hope they had more luck with this synth…
From the looks of the video they are trying to VCS3 synth matrix setup. Where you can choose the audio route with some flexibility (although some others do this they don’t have that matrix layout which makes it easier to figure out what you are doing)
And they trying to give you something that can do the crazy modular stuff but with out the complex setup (reason why presets were a hot item on old synths)
What would be interesting is too let some one who does sound effects or dream type music to play with it. Might have the next sound track for a sci fi movie
Not being mean, but… is that the best they could do with patching??? Kinda lame – I see the potential, but at least get someone who can program something interesting.
like the Yamaha tenori-on?
It says right on the video it’s “Episode 1: Filters”. I don’t know about you, but to me that suggests the plan is to go over the synth a piece at a time, not just to demo a bunch of monster patches.
Oh well – haters gonna hate I guess
Hey Eric, know what? I’ve given it some thought, and actually you’re right. I watched the video again and felt all empty inside. I take back my last remark about “haters”. My problem is that I want to like this synth so much – I’ve never even seen it in real life, yet so far it has only let me down.
Without even getting into the matrix part, this self-contained, programmable synth has two independent, multimode, drivable resonant filters with switchable curves, configurable in series or parallel, while oscillators/noise/external sounds can be routed separately to each filter??? That’s INSANE, yet this guy spends a meager 3 and a half minutes actually demoing the filters.
If I ever get a chance to play around with this thing, the first thing I’d probably do is set the ladder to 12 dB LPF and sweep it over some nice spacey chords in paraphonic mode with a good dose of resonance. Or play a melody on two low-pitched, slightly detuned oscillators (saw + pwm) through the 24 dB ladder filter with cutoff and res set about halfway to get a nice deep sound with some movement, sprinkled with a hi-pitched saw or narrow pulse from the the remaining oscillator, patched through the Steiner, mostly open with low resonance and maybe some slow LFO sine wave filter mod. Might play around with some filter FM while I’m at it.
Synth nerds move along… (sigh) there are still no good demos of this thing. (But I haven’t given up hope)