MusicRadar

The Arturia MiniBrute features two LFOs - one dedicated to vibrato another more flexible for broader modulation duties. It can also synchronise itself with the arpeggiator.

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• Review

Arturia needs no introduction in music-tech circles: it's firmly established itself as one of the leading vintage synthesizer emulation development companies, with a range that embraces classic monophonic, modular, polyphonic and digital-analogue hybrid designs.

More recently, it has explored the hardware arena with the standalone DSP-based Origin hardware, or via software and controller systems such as the Spark drum machine.

Given that all its prior sound-generation systems have been firmly bedded in software, though, it came as quite a surprise when Arturia announced the MiniBrute, a 'real' hardware synth. In essence, it's a single oscillator VCO-based synthesizer allied to a 25-note keyboard - though, as we'll see, this somewhat undersells the full spec.

"In use, the MiniBrute was immense fun and surprisingly flexible. Basses, leads and effects were all easy to achieve, and with no memory storage in sight, experimentation was the key."

On opening the box and picking up the unit, the first impression is that the MiniBrute is weighty and substantial. The case is made of aluminium with plastic side-trim, and the keyboard is of the two-octave full-size variety taking up the full width of the unit, above which sit the pitch and modulation wheels, and the densely populated synth programming section - Arturia really does squeeze in a lot of knobs, switches and sliders here.

Disappointingly, the MiniBrute draws its power from an external 12V PSU, though we suspect this won't be a deal-breaker for most.

Ultra metal

The MiniBrute, as stated earlier, has a single oscillator, but this does somewhat understate its sophistication. Before diving-in, it's perhaps worth reminding ourselves of some synth-design parlance.

Although the MiniBrute can generate multiple waveforms simultaneously, they cannot be detuned independently, making this a single oscillator design. The MiniBrute has a VCO (Voltage Controlled Oscillator) and these generally exhibit more obvious analogue traits (especially instability and unpredictability in frequency terms) in comparison to DCO (Digitally Controlled Oscillators) and true digitally-generated designs.

However, there are many variants even within the VCO stable - from discrete designs (built from separate components) to those built into a single custom chip alongside filters, LFOs and envelope control sections.

The MiniBrute falls into the traditional discrete VCO design camp, but includes some interesting additions that take its sound-generating capabilities beyond what, at first glance, appears to be a modern take on Roland's classic SH-101. This also means that the synth requires a warm-up period of at least five minutes to reach a pitch-stable state.