my first anologe synth in 22 years. very pleased!

[Thunderroad75]

Hi all,
 I am the proud new owner of the Arturia Minibrute.

Firstly I would like to say how very pleased I am with my new purchase. Only spent a few hours playing with it so still lots to cover. What I did discover was how versatile this little synth is. The PWM is awesome! It just has such a deep, wide, alive sound to it. Using just a single saw wave with a little reverb and delay was just heaven playing through all the old pop songs from the late 70s early 80s bought back lots of fond memories.

 The S & H is great and I love the fact it can be routed to filter, amp or pitch...very nice! I still haven't used the arpegiator yet so I will start experimenting with that later.

 Things I found a bit quirky but not too worried about.

1. pitch wheel won't go the full octave even when set past 12.

2. the aftertouch is too easy to activate, I only have to apply a little pressure and it comes on. This I would like to change.

3. When playing through the full range of octaves I found the pitch slightly sharp at the top end.

4. The square wave envelope amount knob seems very easy to turn as opposed to the other knobs that have some resistence.

5. The main tune knob is not centred at 440HZ.

6. There doesn't appear to be any difference between sine and triangle waveforms in LFO section. I know they are similar in sound but I can't hear any difference.

OK I know real anologe synths are a bit quirky so I am happy to put up with these things. Just wondered if anyone else has noticed these things?

[beefinator]

congrats!

this should maybe be moved to another subforum.

anyway,

 Things I found a bit quirky but not too worried about.

1. pitch wheel won't go the full octave even when set past 12.
That's not normal.  Bruno or someone from arturia can help with that.

2. the aftertouch is too easy to activate, I only have to apply a little pressure and it comes on. This I would like to change.
Try changing the response curve using the editor software

3. When playing through the full range of octaves I found the pitch slightly sharp at the top end.
that's been acknowledged.  might be able to be calibrated a bit, but the makers have recognized that behavior

4. The square wave envelope amount knob seems very easy to turn as opposed to the other knobs that have some resistence.
Normal, it's a different potentiometer component.  nothing to worry about

5. The main tune knob is not centred at 440HZ.
It most likely won't.  there's so many factors that affect tuning, most notably temperature.  It's going to be slightly different every time you use it.  just tune it after each 10min warmup period

6. There doesn't appear to be any difference between sine and triangle waveforms in LFO section. I know they are similar in sound but I can't hear any difference.
Listen more carefully 

OK I know real anologe synths are a bit quirky so I am happy to put up with these things. Just wondered if anyone else has noticed these things?

[Thunderroad75]

Hi Beefinator,
 Thanks for the warm welcome. I know I have made an excellent choice buying the Minibrute.

Just to clarify;

The pitch knob in the LFO section seems to be either on or off when turned left or right. I can't seem to bring pitch modulation in subtly.
Is this correct?

I know I can route the LFO amount to the MOD wheel so not a real problem. Just thought I'd ask.

Also the sub oscillator doesn't seem to be able to be modulated, correct?

I was also thinking of getting a Korg Monotribe to act as an audio in source. Is it posible to control the pitch of the oscillator via the CV gate out of the minibute to the CV in of the Monotribe?

Thanks.

[illintechnology]

With the newest Monotribe firmware and the proper cable, yes, you can control the gate and pitch of the Monotribe with the Minibrute. The key is getting the correct cable.  The cheapest way to go is to get a Nokia composite AV cable and a couple RCA female to 3.5mm TS adapters.

[Thunderroad75]

Thanks for the advice. I may even get a Korg Monotribe with the Miditribe conversion. I think it will complement the Minibrute very well.
I love the extremely fast LFO on the Monotribe, sounding like ring modulation. Very sweet sounding oscillator and filter  as well.

[illintechnology]

It should be noted that the audio output of the Monotribe is not very hot if you run it into the external audio in of the MB, even with the fader maxed, it won't be very audible.  You'll need some sort of signal amplifier between them.

[Thunderroad75]

That's interesting.
Thankyou very much for the heads up. Mmm...maybe I need to re think what I use as an external audio in. Going to try my Roland Fantom X later. I'll post my findings.

Thanks.

[Thunderroad75]

Ok I have tested my Minibrutes audio in tonight. Here are my findings;

The audio input needs a hot signal and I have my Fantom x going into the Minibrute audio in at full volume and I'm using a TRS cable to get a better signal.

Filter and Amp knobs in LFO section have an affect on incoming signal adding wah and tremelo to great affect.

For some reason the LFO pitch knob has no effect on the incoming signal. Is this normal?

Glide has no effect on incoming signal. Again is this normal?

Here's a strange thing;

I found the pitch wheel, not the Mod wheel, effects the the filter on the incoming signal. If I turn the pitch wheel up it opens the filter and if I turn it down it closes the filter! I have the ENV speed set to SLOW. Filter ENV  ADSR is set to A=10%, D=50%, S=50%, R=0%. Filter ENV AMT can either be set to fully +/- position. Filter is set to LP mode and about 40% open with RES about 60% open.

Turn ARP to HOLD and this does not hold the input signal. Did find with high resonance in LP mode I could hear a saw type wave modulation going on. I could also change the speed with the ARP step rate knob.

So to end I found my Roland Fantom X sounds absolutely awesome going through the Minibrutes filters. Happy indeed.   

[Seb]

Pitch knob and Glide will have no effect because they control the pitch of the oscillator. Imagine that you had microphone plugged into the MiniBrute's audio in, there is no way the MiniBrute could change the pitch of your voice. This would require some pitch-shifting algorithm. Same with Glide.

The pitch wheel will affect the filter if your Keyboard Follow parameter is not 0 : The Keyboard follow opens or closes the filter depending on whether you play high or low notes. Since the pitch bend affects the note played, the filter follows it.
If you were using the internal oscillator, it wouldn't surprise you, because the filter would "follow" the note you hear. Since you use an external source where the pitch is not affected by the pitch bend, it must have seemed strange!

[Thunderroad75]

Thanks Seb,
It's been a real pleasure experimenting with the MInibrute.  I am so glad I got one. Still got to get my head around a few things but at least it's keeping it interesting.

Can't wait to get my Novation Bass Station 2. It's going to be heaven having two versatile anologe synths to play with. I was thinking of getting the Korg Ms-20 min until I saw the Bass station. I hope I've made the right choice as I can't afford all three!