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| The Arturia Matrixbrute (Cat was not included in the box) |
I had a Moog Subphatty for about a year, a synth I truly loved, but as it was pretty limited in modulation features I sold it and got the Moog Subsequent 37 CV instead. It didn't take very long to realize that the 37 CV didn't have the same 'fatness' like the Subphatty did! I also noticed that the 37 CV had annoyingly high overtones, especially the first one (octave) when listening to simple waveforms. The latter could maybe be tamed with proper gain staging, but the lack of low end fatness was a big downer. I thought it would be a Subphatty on stereoids, but they sounded very different. Also, most of the knobs on the 37 CV were a bit loose and when touching them it sounded like they were fastened with some cheap glue that hadn't dried yet! Needless to say, because of this the Subsequent 37 CV was a huge disappointment and I sent it back to the retailer and got the Matrixbrute instead.
While the Matrixbrute is a BRUTE audio wise, it's far from perfect.
Here's what I think is wrong with it:
- The "VCO1 < Noise > VCF 1" Modulation Knob Bug
- The knob doesn't work as intended! When turned from 12 o'clock to the left, Noise should modulate VCO1, and when turned to the right Noise should modulate VCF 1. Due to a firmware bug, it's only VCF 1 that gets modulated, unless you first turn the knob from the 12 o'clock position a bit to the right into VCF 1 area and then back into VCO 1 area! The really annoying thing about this is that Arturia has known about this bug for more than a year, but neglect to fix it!
- Lack of Envelope Control
- No loopable envelopes. Nope.
- It's not possible to get the envelopes to always restart from '0' when the release is up and the envelope hasn't finished it's complete cycle. Therefore It's not possible to always get a long Attack while also having a long Release when playing notes. Legato button does not change this. I did come up with a workaround using the Matrix and Env3, but I would like to use Env3 for other things. Arturia claims this as "analog behaviour", yeah sure... but on the Moogs there's an optional switch!
- Pitch Wheel Dead Zone
- The Pitch Wheel has to be turned pretty much before making any pitch changes, in both directions. There's a (too) big dead zone in the center!
- The Sequencer
- The correct pitch of any made sequence will always be set to middle C. This 'feature' should at least be optional.
- There is no preset editor
- No other way to see presets, but to dial them in using Preset + Knobs.
- No way to name presets on the synth itself
- Only way to change the name of saved presets is by using a computer.
- MIDI Control Center (Preset management software)
- Feels like an early beta version, and isn't very user friendly.
- If you save a preset on the Matrixbrute, there is no way to do a 'refresh' in the MCC. You have to either close the app, or select another device in the list and then get back to the Matrixbrute. After that the connection refreshes, and the newly saved preset is available for naming. Why isn't there a refresh button? Or why isn't a refresh triggered when saving a preset on the synth?
- Rate knobs for LFO 1 and 2 does not support triplets
- Not possible to make triplet-rhythms, when tempo synced.
- No preview of target preset before overwriting
- Before you tweak a preset that you might wanna save, you'd better know where to save it first, as there is no way to listen to target presets before saving. Hopefully you won't overwrite your favorite preset. Hopefully you also have a backup in MCC.
I don't think a $2000 synth should have these problems. Unfortunately Arturia seems to be all-in with their new machines Drumbrute, Rackbrute and Minibrutes at the moment, and their flagship synth is no longer prioritized. The lack of response to user feedback on their own user forum speaks for itself and as I said above the known bugs are still not fixed.
There's much to read on the forums: https://forum.arturia.com/index.php?board=157.0
Despite the above shortcomings, the synth IS massive and has a very wide range in audio design.
Compared to the Moogs it does have very narrow sweet-spots, so it's a bit tricky to quickly get 'that pleasant analog sound' , but at the same time it's a pure joy to discover new sounds and ways to modulate parameters!
But with that said...
As long they do not fix the pure bugs in the Matrixbrute I won't buy another Arturia product!
If I had known about these shortcomings I would have probably kept my Moog Subsequent 37 CV.
The Matrixbrute is good, but with a little more love from its creators it could be awesome!
If you're in the process of getting a Matrixbrute, I hope you found this post helpful in making the right decision!
