Arturia releases MiniBrute V

[foosnark]

Foosnark, your Minibrute pathway to modular is a perfect parallel to my journey. That little patch bay…. I’m also now in possession of a 2S sometimes bolted to one of my loaded Rackbrutes.

I have my 2S on a 2-tier stand with a Make Noise Strega. Those two are such a deadly combination that I rarely even patch them to my main modular.

[zerocrossing]

And theyre releasing a software version of the Polybrute

Wait, what? Is this mentioned anywhere officially?

Nope.

Pure speculation

I’m doubtful that the feature set of the PolyBrute with the level of detail of a good emulation is possible with the power of current CPUs. If you look at most good analog emulations, they’re pretty simple affairs.

[zerocrossing]

I'll take an objective test (comparison with hardware) over subjective test (trying a demo) any time.

Why? Ultimately, does it matter? I’ve got most of the major vintage synth emulations, but not a single vintage synth. If someone gave one to me, I’d sell it. They simply don’t have enough going on for me. I do have modern analogs, but all of them do something special that I can’t get in software. I don’t see an emulation as a replacement. When an emulation comes out, I’m purely interested in how good it sounds. How’s the character? Is there audible digital artifacts? Cool features? Overlap with something else I have?

Even if they miss by some degree, I feel like if it’s good, it’s like having a poly Minibrute. So, maybe not a replacement for a Minibrute, but something new.

[egbert101]

I'll take an objective test (comparison with hardware) over subjective test (trying a demo) any time.

Why? Ultimately, does it matter?

I'll explain very clearly this to you. Because I don't trust your ears or other people's ears, I rather trust my own, and so objective tests are better than subjective opinions, which are growing increasingly worthless on these forums.

[zerocrossing]

It’s been more than a few years since I owned a Minibrute, but to me, it nails the sound I remember.

https://youtu.be/VXnt87qhNnc?feature=shared

[teilo]

I’m doubtful that the feature set of the PolyBrute with the level of detail of a good emulation is possible with the power of current CPUs. If you look at most good analog emulations, they’re pretty simple affairs.

Not to mention the PolyBrute 16. That thing is a beast. Expensive, but what you get for the price is incredible. I really want to see what that full-range PolyAT can do. The full travel range of a key can be used as a mod source. I'm amazed that no one has tried that before. This is the kind of thing that no VA can replicate.

[Vortifex]

Always best to judge a VST synth on its own merits, even if it's meant to be an emulation. If accuracy is super important to you then use the hardware. Otherwise you just get bogged down in comparing waveforms in oscilloscopes or fretting about virtually indistinguishable differences instead of actually making music.

[egbert101]

Always best to judge a VST synth on its own merits, even if it's meant to be an emulation. If accuracy is super important to you then use the hardware. Otherwise you just get bogged down in comparing waveforms in oscilloscopes or fretting about virtually indistinguishable differences instead of actually making music.

Something you neglected to mention is that some people prefer real analog over emulation. The very reason why the MiniBrute was so successful was that it was real analog and at a decent price. But however much Virtual Analog has advanced today (and it has advanced to a high degree) it's still not real or authentic analog and sometimes that matters to people, and sometimes it doesn't.

[kmonkey]

Something you neglected to mention is that some people prefer real analog over emulation. The very reason why the MiniBrute was so successful was that it was real analog and at a decent price. But however much Virtual Analog has advanced today (and it has advanced to a high degree) it's still not real or authentic analog and sometimes that matters to people, and sometimes it doesn't.

"it's is still not real or authentic" Haha define authentic? "Real" means real hardware I guess so that one is obvious. You must be a genius. But here we talk about software products.

Nah. Nice try. If we talk about twisting knobs sure. That has the advantage. Sound. Whenever a proper blind test of A (software) vs B (hardware) is made few things happen:

1: Literally no human living on earth can pick at least 6 straight and correct answers in a row. Meaning no one can hear an "authentic" difference you are mentioning. If they could they would be able to pick correct answers. Yet this is not the case.

2: I love seeing Gearspace threads. Someone posts A vs B and you see a thread has 16 000 views. Yet only 30 people take a guess. Out of 30, no one can make it correct. Then when results are published you have 15 970 people posting saying how they could hear clear differences and hardware is better That happens EACH TIME no exception.

3: out of those 30 people who had the balls to guess - at least 10 will say that they listened on a notebook speaker and when they are listening in their studio's difference is obvious. It is funny though they post this always AFTER the results are revealed.

4: Casual forum "golden ears" almost always exclusively have some sort of situation in life, like disease or sudden tasks and they can not participate in those tests.

Kind of a tragedy.

So nah...no bananas today.

[cryophonik]

Nailed it ^^^

[Vortifex]

Something you neglected to mention is that some people prefer real analog over emulation.

Then those people will have no interest in a plugin like this in the first place

[EdSfer]

For the first time in my life I can compare an emulation side by side with the real synth, that's cool

I have yet to do more extensive tests but my 2 cents after a few minutes with it : No it's not 100% on par with the hardware (but then I'm not sure my MB is 100% on par with someone else's MB). When I tried to recreate a patch on the software, I got very close, but it lacked a bit of [insert here some usual suspect term related to analog like "warmth", "depth", "organic"]. Also, the filter resonance seems a bit more agressive than on the (my) hardware, but it's yet to be confirmed after more testing.

BUT don't get me wrong it captures the vibe/spirit very well, it can be really close on some patches, it doesn't sound like a poor man's Minibrute, very far from that. And in a real life situation, it's very unlikely that I would detect that the emulation is used in a mix rather than a real MB. It does sound like a MB, maybe just not exactly like mine

And finally, the most important part is that it sounds amazing! They seem to have nailed the brute factor, it behaves very close to the hardware. It does sound very analog, whatever the differences are with the hardware and the polyphony+unison are very nice additions to this little beast. Definitely a character synth, even in software

IMO, fantastic job from Arturia, great emulation, and great synth on its own. I would have loved an emulation that offers the Minibrute 2 alongside with it (with a switchable interface maybe) but it's already great as it is. Now looking forward to the Matrix/Polybrute V!

[zerocrossing]

Always best to judge a VST synth on its own merits, even if it's meant to be an emulation. If accuracy is super important to you then use the hardware. Otherwise you just get bogged down in comparing waveforms in oscilloscopes or fretting about virtually indistinguishable differences instead of actually making music.

Something you neglected to mention is that some people prefer real analog over emulation. The very reason why the MiniBrute was so successful was that it was real analog and at a decent price. But however much Virtual Analog has advanced today (and it has advanced to a high degree) it's still not real or authentic analog and sometimes that matters to people, and sometimes it doesn't.

Whenever I bring a new instrument into my studio, I always give it a deep analysis and comparison to my other instruments, both hardware and software. Sometimes it’s pretty easy to spot the analog from the digital, but often it isn’t. A lot of the time the difference is similar to the difference between two different analog synthesizers. Sometimes the software sounds a lot better at certain things, worse at others.

I used to post recordings of my findings as a way to show how hard it is to spot the hardware. I stopped because the people who were the loudest about their claims that the difference is so easy to spot would never guess, and when pressed, make some stupid claim about how the way I did the test is flawed, or that if they were actually interacting with the instrument, they could tell.

It reminds me of a recent incident where our publisher was being super down on my sound effects in the game we’re working on. I couldn’t figure out why they were complaining. Their criticisms seemed like they were describing a different sound.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, our main producer on the publisher side, wouldn’t stop gushing about the sound, and how it was now vastly improved. He must have mentioned it 6 times in an hour meeting where they played through the game. The meeting ended with a summary of his critique and the last thing he said was how much the improvements in all the sounds and music made the game so much better.

None of the audio assets had been changed at all. My best guess is that we did add new particle effects to the weapon muzzles and hit points. I did add an impact sound to when weapons hit a target, but he was talking about the improvement while using it in a place where there weren’t any enemies to hit. The “much improved music” hadn’t been touched. Another theory is that he had his volume up more than usual. Could be both.

Ultimately it was a confirmation of the type of bias we all have.

[zerocrossing]

Something you neglected to mention is that some people prefer real analog over emulation. The very reason why the MiniBrute was so successful was that it was real analog and at a decent price. But however much Virtual Analog has advanced today (and it has advanced to a high degree) it's still not real or authentic analog and sometimes that matters to people, and sometimes it doesn't.

"it's is still not real or authentic" Haha define authentic? "Real" means real hardware I guess so that one is obvious. You must be a genius. But here we talk about software products.

Nah. Nice try. If we talk about twisting knobs sure. That has the advantage. Sound. Whenever a proper blind test of A (software) vs B (hardware) is made few things happen:

1: Literally no human living on earth can pick at least 6 straight and correct answers in a row. Meaning no one can hear an "authentic" difference you are mentioning. If they could they would be able to pick correct answers. Yet this is not the case.

2: I love seeing Gearspace threads. Someone posts A vs B and you see a thread has 16 000 views. Yet only 30 people take a guess. Out of 30, no one can make it correct. Then when results are published you have 15 970 people posting saying how they could hear clear differences and hardware is better That happens EACH TIME no exception.

3: out of those 30 people who had the balls to guess - at least 10 will say that they listened on a notebook speaker and when they are listening in their studio's difference is obvious. It is funny though they post this always AFTER the results are revealed.

4: Casual forum "golden ears" almost always exclusively have some sort of situation in life, like disease or sudden tasks and they can not participate in those tests.

Kind of a tragedy.

So nah...no bananas today.

True story.

[IvyBirds]

They must have hit a brick wall with product development if they are reduced to Augmented series and digital remakes of their own budget line of hardware synths

Arturia is celebrating their 20th Anniversary. That's a great reason to revisit their own products. In many ways, AstroLab is a re-release of the Origin.

Maybe but Astrolab and Origin are all about their software emulating vintage instruments, no one buys an Astro Lab to run Minibrute presets