Did somebody say broken keys?

[DiamondShrim]

About a year ago I was dead set on picking up a Minibrute. I have built quite a digital synth battlestation over the past couple of years and felt like it was time to get a little bit of analog in my life. After reading/watching videos about the Minibrute, it was obvious I had to get one. I needed one. Unfortunately, some unforeseen circumstances in my life prevented that. Flash forward to a week ago, I was finally in a position where I could buy one. So stoked. I go ahead and order one of Amazon. Being a Prime member, I order everything off of Amazon as it's (usually) the cheapest and most hassle-free way of buying things these days. Can't wait for it to arrive, I upgrade my free two-day shipping to overnight. The next day my package arrives at my doorstep. I excitedly open it, eager to blast some noise with this baby. What'd ya know? I open it to find this:

http://imgur.com/fAweeyv

Alright. A few keys raised/unplayable. Frustrating, but still not the end of the world. Arturia said there was only a 1.5% defective rate with their units and Amazon has an outstanding return policy, so I'll just contact them about an exchange. I let Amazon know about my defective unit and they send me a new one the next day:

http://imgur.com/HO8iLua

The high B key is broken. This is starting to get silly. Once again, I contact Amazon and tell them about the defective unit they sent me. They send me another Minibrute the next day. I figured third time is the charm, right? Wrong:

http://imgur.com/e533GsF

A couple of keys are raised/unplayable. This is just absolutely ridiculous now. 3 unplayable Minibrutes. I contact Amazon and ask for refund. No point in another exchange as it is now apparent that they have a bad batch of Minibrutes.

For the past four years, I have bought everything except groceries and booze off Amazon and have never had the slightest problem. But in the past week I have needed to send back $1500 worth of unusable synth gear.

So for anyone out there that is in the market for a Minibrute, the faulty keys are still a prevalent issue. So don't buy one of Amazon. Instead buy one from a local store so you can open the box and check the keys before you buy.

Waiting a year to get my hands on a Minibrute and then being greeted with three unplayable ones feels like a slap in the face. And although this whole ordeal has left a sour taste in my mouth with regards to Arturia, I am still going to buy a Minibrute once I get my refund from Amazon.

Because dammit, I need one.

[T3k]

Holy smokes! Good grief!

I tend to believe Arturia that there are a low percentage of faulty units - but maybe most of those units wound up in the hands of certain distributors like Amazon?

Also: maybe people are sending bad units for exchange. The store receives such perfectly re-sealed packaging that they are incorrectly being put back into stock as new returns.

I assure you that a fully working MiniBrute is a thing of joy. The circuits are fantastic and the sound can go from traditional to totally insane - deeper than many 2-osc 24db synths. It's a classic - as long as you get a perfect key bed.

Keep in mind you might open a perfect unit and have it for a week. One day you glance over at your unit and a key or two has flopped upwards.

If you get one more bad Mini, consider a Micro. Or a used one from eBay that has no issues. Or consider a screwdriver and some superglue.

Good luck! And please update us.

[Varthdader]

Wow what a sour experience.

I have a faulty keybed too, so been playing it through midi. I love it´s sound.

What would be cool is if anybody from Arturia (maybe Bruno?) could give us a solid date to get our keybeds sorted.

It is getting a bit long in the tooth, enough months have passed.

If replacement keybeds were available, you could just get any Minibrute and worst case scenario, you have to replace the keybed for one Arturia would send you, and in the process learn how your Synth´s innards look like.

I bought mine back in August 2013. Found the keys faulty in late Sept. So about six months ago and not even a clue on a date for a replacement from Arturia...

[stevism]

sorry about your experience

i feel lucky to have an earlier batch that does not have this problem.

i do not recommend arturia products to people anymore...this is just beyond ridiculous.

hope you get a usable one soon

[DiamondShrim]

Amazon finally received all my returned Minibrutes yesterday and processed my refund. They refunded everything, tax and overnight shipping, which is awesome. Now I just need to wait for it reflect on bank account and then I'll go brute shopping once more, this time in person.

But now I'm on the fence whether or not I should get one now or wait for another statement on the issue from Arturia. I had a dream the other night that I managed to get my hands on a working one, but then after jamming on it a few of the keys broke. It was a complete flip from pure joy to pure misery. It was bad enough in the dream. I don't want to relive that in reality.

[stevism]

I had a dream the other night that I managed to get my hands on a working one, but then after jamming on it a few of the keys broke. It was a complete flip from pure joy to pure misery. It was bad enough in the dream. I don't want to relive that in reality.

spend some time perusing these forums and other posts online. that exact situation has happened to plenty of others.

avoid it, and get something else. not worth the risk imho, plenty of other choices out there.

[Dav1d]

Finally, this is an official announcement.

"We are of course aware of the issue that affected some Minibrute units in two specific production batches from 2013.
We did investigate and found the cause of the issue. (At a certain points during the production of the keybed parts, the injection of plastic into the mold was not done at constant temperature. This created a weakness in some keys.)
This concerns in fact a limited number of products even if people having issues are naturally more vocal -and have all the rights to be. Less than 4% of the keyboards within these two batches were affected. Still Arturia did replace all keybeds in their entire stock and so did their distributors as well. We are aware that some units have reached end-users this is why we extended the guarantee to three years on the MiniBrute keybeds. Of course we have put more quality controls on the production following this problem.
In any case the Special Edition comes with keybeds that have been tested right. So you should not be scared.
As a conclusion we understand the frustration of customers who trusted us and got issues with the MiniBrute. We have replaced faulty units as quickly as we could, along with our distribution partners and we will keep on doing so when needed. But it should not affect the value of a good product that is reliable and used by many musicians now."

We just received a shipment of containers in regard of the Keybeds issues.
Depending on the warranty period, we can send the new Keybeds directly from you or from our distributors:
==> http:// [url]http://www.arturia.com/evolution/en/buy/distributors.html [/ url]

For the US : us_support@arturia.com

For the rest of the world, If you have not received a reply or you're out area, please write an email to the following address:
distributors.support@arturia.com

We need this specific information:
1/ A picture showing the issue
2/ Your address and phone number
3/ For the warranty, a proof of purchase of the product.

Please note that we will do our best to provide you with keyboards in Timely Manner.