Generative Abilities?

[Bubson]

Hi All,

Soon looking to buy a new synth and the most likely candidate I am going to go for is the polybrute, can anyone with hands-on experience comment on the generative abilities of the synth? pros and cons?

Thanks

[StudioDeutz]

Hi, interesting question - but it depends highly on what you try to achieve. But it comes up with such a lot of options, I guess it will never gets boring.
I had similar thoughts before I bought the PB. Watching all the videos I was still unsure - as usually, there are a lot of "let's play the presets". This one is one of the best, to my taste: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLpx4YKF3gk&t=2379s
Listen caredully, as he points out some missing functions which would improve the individual workflow.
It is an Analogue Synth, with good sounding digital effect sections, in one box - so if you are looking for a cutomized synth (modular) you might miss one or the other thing - but Arturia might come up with some new stuff sooner or later.
For me - hating cables - it is a wonderful machine, as most functions can be patched in the 8 times 96 patch field - which would be hundreds of cables :-)
My last keys were a Korg M3 - the aftertouch of the Korg is heavy and needs a lot of pressure to get the right effect amount - the PB is far more sensitive, and it took a few weeks to get use to it - now I will never miss it again.
The ribbon slider above thr keybed is working like a charm - the Morphee thing is a wonder tool (I hope I will never break it)
As I am a rough playing guy, a solid made synth is what I need - and the PB is made of steel - and wood. It can cope with my big hands... knobs seem to be solid enough not to break easily. The sliders are typical, but solid enough (I hope)
The software is absolute state of the art - you can always watch what is going on. File management is the easiest I have seen up 'till now.
Negative is the OS - the display (big enough for me) has some hang-ups, but does not affect the sound - but sometimes it just got stuck - means restart, as no changing of presets is possible. Others have other issues with it. I assume Arturia is working on it as there are several complains filed here in the forum.

[Bubson]

Thanks for the extensive response, yeah the synth seems to be a dream to work with.

I guess one generative thought I had that might be possible..

I know you can change the playback mode with the sequencer to random which is great, but would it be possible to create a patch where I create layer A and get it to sequence randomly in the sense that layer A is split to the lower half of the key range. Then separately program and sequence layer B to the upper keyrange?

Hope that makes sense.

Also I guess you can modulate lfo 2 with lfo 1 for example?

[DrJustice]

The PB can do generative patches - that mod matrix opens up for immense complexity and unpredictability.  You can indeed modulate lfo 2 with lfo 1. The mod matrix is recursive, so circular modulations are possible, you can even modulate an LFO by itself. You can also modulate a modulator - that is, any mod matrix "connection" destination can be a modulation destination.

Check out TJ On the Road's videos about generative patches:

Arturia PolyBrute Generations TJontheRoad Preset Pack
Arturia PolyBrute Generative Sound Design

[DrJustice]

...
the display (big enough for me) has some hang-ups, but does not affect the sound - but sometimes it just got stuck - means restart, as no changing of presets is possible.
...

That should not happen... If you haven't already, I recommend creating a tech support ticket for that.

(I've never seen or heard about that before. One long shot thing to try is to reflash the latest firmware - sometimes that resolves issues)

[Bubson]

Thanks Dr Justice. That sounds fantastic.

What about the layers a and b? could I theoretically get 2 different sequences going either via the method I mentioned? or maybe there are other functions I am not aware of to achieve multi-layered generative patches

Many thanks

[DrJustice]

The A and B sounds can be played by morphing between them, or they can be played in a split or layered fashion.

The sequencer and arpeggiator (there's "only" one) plays the lower part in a split, which is normally the A sound, and the upper part can morph between the A and B sounds, but you can also get the morphing simultaneously on both the upper and lower parts.

As you'll gather, it's quite flexible and we'll all be exploring it for years to come

[Bubson]

Ah ok, yeah it doesnt matter too much as I will mostly be using it within the setting of daw projects anyway. So I can alway generate something, record and so on.

One other thing I assume is possible…

As much as I like the arturia preset browsers, these days I save any and all presets for plugins at the daw level so that they never have to be backed up and restored. Rather than using polybrute connect to save all of my user presets at the software level.. im guessing I could save presets just like any other plugin at the daw level?

Thanks
Dan

[DrJustice]

The PolyBrute doesn't have MIDI patch dumps, so you'll need to run PolyBrute Connect. When run as a plugin (it also works stand alone) it  should store the state and work as a remote and for automation. I don't run it much as a plugin myself so I'm no expert on that aspect, but in principle it's very simple; the PBC makes your PB hardware appear as if i was a plugin soft synth, only with the synth engine being in the hardware itself (there's no USB audio, so you need to use your audio interface for recording).

[Zeko]

The PB is very capable in the generative category. The ability to loop envelopes, and modulate the ADSR of those envelopes is a great place to explore.