This micro brute velocity sensitive hack is Wack!

Philippe

And why did I spent all that money on virtual synthesizers when all I ever wanted was a simple analog synth. Oh well

Everyone! Before bying tons of iOS synth apps, as cheap as they may seem, try first, at least once, a real analog synth, like lets say a microbrute. This might just be THE thing you seek that will bring an end to the "ever more not entirely satisfying software synth buying frenzy".

Microbrute is a gem.

null____void

yeah i'm getting sick of software, just gotta find one of them money trees though...

Philippe

Microbrute second hand is cheaper than a cheap guitar and opened my eyes (metaphorically and literally through an oscilloscope)!

null____void

luckily @u0421793 feels so bad for my desperate poverty that he's sending me several old dusty synths thru the mails

StormJH1

First of all, the Arturia MicroBrute is a sweet device. The fact that they make something that good that retails for $299.99 U.S. is amazing. I bought one used from a Guitar Center for $199, thought I was brilliant for a few days, and then discovered that the model I had was plagued with some type of oscillator defect, where the MicroBrute sounded like it had this flanger effect all the time that you could never turn off. So I had to return it and that was a hard reality check that: (a) hardware synths are expensive; and (b) things can go wrong with analog hardware, and it's not as simple as reinstalling an app or waiting for the next update to fix it.

That said, being someone who actually started on synths on iOS (not with hardware or desktop VST's), I was amazed how incredibly spoiled we are on iOS. Yes, the MicroBrute is tons of fun. Yes, it's a much more rewarding experience to turn physical knobs and see everything laid out on a physical dashboard. But that's also $300 for a device that has no presets, only 25 keys, and is monophonic. You could buy dozens of polyphonic synths, samplers, and drum apps, plus the DAW of your choice on iOS before you got to the price of a MicroBrute.

So I guess I have the opposite perspective - yes, buying iOS synths is a rabbit hole and you can spend a lot of money doing it. But you burn through money much more quickly the second you are tempted by a Minilogue, Novation Bass Station, or even a $160 Volca.

null____void

It's a very First World Problems situation for me. I'm sick of setting up MIDI, sick of routing, I want 25 knobs ready to go at a moment's notice.

jooga1972

I don't think there will ever be a satisfying solution to the 'iOS or hardware analogue gear' issue but, and in my opinion this is where the real charm comes in, I don't either think we have to make here an 'or' choice at all. Indeed, we've had a number of first world problems for some time now, as far as choice of gear, platform, musical medium, et . are concerned. With affordable or inexpensive synths appearing on the market every couple of months or so (think the Volca line, the minilogue, the microbrute..) AND the amazing iOS music apps all around, for me it is no question that it is worth to try and take advantage of both worlds. Just my cents.
And to make some more relevant contribution to this thread: I used to own a microbrute and while due to the persisting MIDI issues I was unable to incorporate it in my live setup (I so much wanted that nice sequencer to be in sync with the other gear...no happy ending there...), I did love the sound which definitely one of a kind, more on the harsh than the creamy side. A very fierce creature, which is great bang for the buck. I sold it though because that Moog mosquito bit me hard so I ended up buying a Sub Phatty to satisfy my analogue monophonic needs. Still, I can only say that if you want to get a piece of decent and fun analogue gear at a very reasonable price, say, to go along with your iOS setup , the microbrute is one of the best options out there.

u0421793

You can’t sell your iOS apps secondhand, as you can with physical synths, so there’s something to be said for their high cost — you have a chance to at least get some of it back if you don’t like it.

The Microbrute has a very advanced feature, that of controllable waveshape. The funny names they give to the handful of waveform effect knobs are actually wave shaping controls, and these are (I believe) CV controllable. This means that a lot of harmonic complexity can be dynamically controlled in the duration of the note. Not that many synths — iOS or physical — offer such a feature. I’d be tempted to get one myself, if I had the opportunity.

robosardine

I thought about getting a Microbrute a while ago- but I read on several forums about a midi/clock sync bug which would render the thing completely and utterly useless to me- which is a pity because I really fancied one.
So please be sure to check this out- as far as I know it is still a live issue and has not been fixed- before you part with your cash.

u0421793

In other news, today I fixed my broken Korg Poly 800. I replaced Q1 and D4, which were a PNP power transistor and 9V1 Zener diode (both from Maplin, the transistor was a near enough substitute to do the job). It works, I cleaned it up, it came up with dead patches, I programmed in a patch, and basically had a whole new respect for it that I never gave it (nor did anyone else) when I first had it. It really is a far more capable synth than I considered it to be. It literally was my least favourite synth, often sitting in the corner to my embarrassment at actually buying it. Now I see it in a completely different light, and as part of an archaeological progression from Polysix to Poly61 to this, to later, the DW6000/8000 and so on. It all makes sense.

Oh, and I played the factory patch tape (on soundcloud) directly from the iPad headphone jack into the tape jack on the Poly 800 to get the factory settings back in!