Arturia MiniBrute Red & Transparent MicroBrute Red

arturia-microbrute-transparent-red

Arturia has officially announced new limited edition red versions of the two Arturia Brute series synths.

The new synths were originally sighted on the Sweetwater site.

The MicroBrute Red, above, is a transparent version of Arturia’s budget analog monophonic minisynth.

The MicroBrute Red is a 25-mini-key monophonic analog synthesizer, with 3-waveform VCO, overtone generator, and Steiner-Parker filter. The MicroBrute also features a step sequencer and a modulation patch bay. 

arturia-minibrute-red

The MiniBrute Red is a 25-key, all-analog monophonic synthesizer with a 3-waveform oscillator, a sub oscillator, and an external input for processing external signals through the MiniBrute’s circuitry.

It also offers a noise generator, 2 ADSR envelopes, assignable LFO, aftertouch, portamento, Steiner-Parker 2-pole filter, and both control voltage and MIDI I/O (including MIDI over USB).

Pricing and Availability

The Arturia MicroBrute Red has a street price of about US $300, while the MiniBrute Red has a street price of about $400. Detail are available at the Arturia site.

41 thoughts on “Arturia MiniBrute Red & Transparent MicroBrute Red

  1. “toy synth”, clearly you know nothing about this and its usefulness for modular and analog users.

    That being said, we didnt need any more colours, a updated version would be nice with an extra oscilator maybe.

  2. Does this mean that my white Microbrute is no longer the coolest Microbrute?

    Jk, transparent actually looks bad, although slightly retro I guess?

    Anyone ever have one of those clear landline phones?

    (Frig. I typoed by own name.)

  3. no sync out for pitch and gate I meant, this is sorely needed on this other beautiful sound little synth, hates are going to hate but it has a great sound.

  4. for the minibtute that is, the microbrute has this already. The minibrute as a much nicer sound than the microbrute but the microbrutre is really useful as a oscillator for your modular setup but you can use it as a sequencer and to get midi in and out of your modular, really useful, great little synth.

    1. I will never ever buy one, I had test it and it sounds thin and brittle, but that might be what you are after.. you never know these days..

      1. Thin and brittle compared to what? I have plenty of synths and find Microbrute really powerful sounding. Perhaps you had a bad ADC, usually cheap ones can’t hear details in lower end.

      2. It’s no Moog but to say it’s thin is suggesting you didn’t really demo it properly or forgot to switch out of BP/HP filter mode.

  5. Fun colors, looks like they are just working through their remaining stock of Minibrutes.. Definitely not just thin and brittle sounding, you just have not worked with it properly.

    It is a great starter synth for kids too, my 9-year old nephew loved it even though it would be a little much for him to figure out at times.

  6. Wow – lots of hate on here for the Minibrute. Thin and weak? I really don’t get where people are coming from with that. The Minibrute tends to be raspy, but people claiming it’s thin and weak strike me as people who really haven’t figured out how the synth works. Of course, it is a one-oscillator synth. If the sound-thickening features like pulse-width mod and ultrasaw don’t strike your fancy, just run in through some effects. My favorite is Guitar Rig 5 inside of a DAW – throw an emulation of a Digitech Whammy pedal on there with some detune = magical.

    Seems to me people need to take a break from criticizing every synth that doesn’t cost $2000 and perhaps try to learn sound synthesis and sound design.

      1. Exactly! That’s where I feel like this criticism is coming from!

        It’s like playing electric guitar – turn on every pedal you have, crank the amp to 11, bash all the strings at once, then wonder why you don’t sound like Joe Satriani.

      2. “It was shrill and piercing, there was this awful whine that wouldnt go away, reminiscent of 90’s Acid House music, something must be wrong, the synth was broken or something” 😉

  7. thin and brittle? my mini is a wallshaking monster, you need to make friends with it which takes time. but then… lovely and mean. the red edition looks cheap though.

    1. the mini and micro brutes both need a gentle touch, oddly enough. best to think of the 12 o’clock position as 100%, and go from there.

      the micro does have more grit and grind to it, as there are key differences in the sub-oscillator config. the mini has a switchable sine or square sub, -1 or -2 octaves. you’re just not going to reproduce that with the simplified* sub on the micro, while still retaining the complexity of the rest of the osc. you *can* get a sine wave on the micro – straight triangle with a low enough cutoff freq will achieve that, but the rest of your osc will be in that same octave, obviously.

      never had a problem achieving great bass sounds with the mini. the micro I wasn’t so concerned with, as it did a lot of other interesting things, tbh. plus, the sequencer was oddly enjoyable. just wish it had more memory slots.

      * I say ‘simplified’ as it has fewer controls, but does offer a different range of tuning than the mini

  8. Bugger, I’m such a sucker for colours, especially red. Maybe I’ll finally buy the mini brute, which I have no need for… But it’s red…

    And yes I upgraded my micro from grey to white first chance I got.

    Still, poly so mths are what I need, one that are less than $3000 !

    And still debating the matrix brute….

  9. Kids these days eh? There was a time where the Microkorg was virtually the only feasible budget option..

    These synths are bloody great for the money!

    1. From what I can tell. Sweetwater is the only place to buy one, and they may not send to all countries:
      Due to manufacturer restrictions, Sweetwater is limited in what they can ship outside of the United States. Please call them to find out if the item(s) you are interested in can be shipped internationally.

      Your best bet is to contact them through [email protected] or (800) 222-4700 to ask about the details, shipping costs, times, etc

  10. While I don’t have one, I like the sound of the Minibrute. I’m sort of holding out until the MatrixBrute shows up. But I’m also nervous as hell that the MatrixBrute may suffer from the same Arturia problems as the BSP.

  11. Perhaps thin and brittle refers to the construction. My hands on experience left me less than impressed. I had a feeling that with any heavy use the keys, knobs and sliders are all going to be a mess.

    I really don’t have a problem with the sound but to me if FEELS awfully close to a toy.

  12. There are So few things I look at and get smacked in the brain with I. WANT. THAT. THING. but the transparent red MicroBrute has *officially* smacked my brain up. I WANT IT.

  13. What gorgeous colours! The red minibrute is super classy, and the microbrute has a cool retro gameboy style. These little machines are beasts! #takemymoney

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