Minibrute

[ClavAnother]

I played a Minibrute at STGs gathering. Synthwise, I think I spent the most time on it of all the pieces there. I can't say I was hugely interested in it before that, but it was something I felt was worth noticing. It's weird, but I've never been interested in say a blofeld or a mopho enough to even learn what they are. I guess I have other things to concentrate on....

Well I don't know if any of you have played the brute, but it's kickass enough that I think I want to use one for gigs on top of the electro instead of bringing out the Moog like I have for the last five shows.

Plus, I think it would look great now that the electro got a boob job.

The only thing I don't like about it is the way the up/down arppegiator resounds the first and last notes instead of going back and forth (it goes: do mi so so mi do, instead of do mi so mi do. I wish manufacturers would at least give us options for either).



So who here has played with it?

[gregwar]

i played one at the store a few weeks ago. i don't remember all exactly what it does but i remember liking it quite a bit

someone had a really ridiculous noise patch dialed in so i basically had to reset all the knobs and tested a few of the functions one by one like the osc, filter, etc

the raw ingredients are pretty good and its really straight forward to program. i think the metalizer was cool and a couple other things but i don't really remember

didn't really try the arp

[selfinflikted]

Clav, did you get a chance to try the Korg MS_20 Mini?

[ClavAnother]

There was an ms20 at the gathering, but I didn't check it out. It's also too much money for what I want to spend, and I'm a snob about adult sized keys. Plus in my application, I would rather go with the low profile of the brute instead of an upright synth.

I already have a good idea about mounting it to my stand, but I either need to fabricate some pieces, or maybe I will find something at a hardware store. More on tht later, I'll post pics when I get the design finished, but I think it's pretty clever.

I'm looking for fast and easy set and tear down, plus I want to cut down on what I carry and also the space in the car.

[selfinflikted]

Understood. I just wonder how it sounds compared to other comparable boards like the Minibrute.

[Plink Floyd]

Sweetfest was agonizing. If I wasn't saving up for a good interface...

[ClavAnother]

lol, whos teh sucker that bought the one on the bottom

[ClavAnother]

Anyway, I got one and I'm planning to try it out at a gig day after tomorrow...


We'll see if it can do what I need. The Moog Liberation is super versatile, but I would rather leave it in the studio.

[ClavAnother]

Shit SelfIn... now I feel like chicking out the MS20... I hear really good things about it.

[Plink Floyd]

lol, whos teh sucker that bought the one on the bottom

I think the one on top was a demo or something. I opened the box and looked at it:

it was missing a couple octaves.

[ClavAnother]

Funny Plonk. Actually it doesn't seem to need the keys that much. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have more, but it is rather powerful. At least it has proper adult sized keys.

[Plink Floyd]

Yeah, I like them. I twiddled with one @ Sweetwater. I think most of us agree it's among the top of the crop of new anamonos. But even though it doesn't have kinder keys, two octaves is just useless for real playing. I suppose a lot of people buying this will never aspire to more key skills than triggering arps and drones or driving it with a sequencer, but three octaves is the bare minimum I can personally abide. Playing bass & leads were no trouble on an Odyssey, but four octs would have been even better.

If they aren't going to incorporate a real keyboard, I wish they would offer a rack or knobby box, sans keys. It would still be worth the price and wouldn't waste two octaves of perfectly good desktop space.

[ClavAnother]

Well, I just spent two hours with it trying to assimilate it into the gig rig. I think it will work out nicely.

So, anyway, you get two octaves of keys, but you can set the bend range to a full octave giving you instant access to four octaves for leads; also, the bender is happy to do half or whole step at this range by barely activating the wheel. That said, you have the octave range selectors right under the bender wheel, so you can also go that route. If you hold a key and hit the range switch, you will not hear the octave change until you retrigger a note, so you can anticipate a shift and prepare for it. I believe its useful.

They did a great job as far as having access to all parameters nearby. The hold switch in the back sets you up for modulation madness, and back again very quickly.

I think that it is a quite musical tool, and I am looking forward to bringing it on stage tomorrow night. It will be a relief to not have to bring the Liberation to gigs.

Oh, and it fits in my soft briefcase. I would like to get a hard case soon though. The Liberation hard case is longer, thicker, and heavier than a standard guitar case, plus set up time with regards to a rack mount power supply (that I was standing on end behind my pedal board) and a hard to replace cable all made me apprehensive about the Moog as well.

[ClavAnother]

Oh, and desktop space? It's pretty small fry...

[Plink Floyd]

I heartily agree it's dandy kit, but I'd midi it to a longer board.

Do you plan to use any effects whilst playing it live? I probably would.

[ClavAnother]

Ce2 chorus
Phase90
Wah
Reverb
Leslie

Delay would be cool, but I don't have one on the board. I actually have three extra delay pedals... Need to call eBay and sell some ****.

[ClavAnother]

If they aren't going to incorporate a real keyboard, I wish they would offer a rack or knobby box, sans keys.

Guess you gotta take the initiative...

[ElectricPuppy]

That makes it rather attractive, I must say. Whose is it? Random Synth Pic?

[ClavAnother]

I happened across it searching for case ideas. I think it was on matrix. It is probably very simple to do. Just take off the front panel and fashion a back and sides.

[ClavAnother]

I'll admit that that little thing looks cool, I just think that adding the keys doesn't really make it so big that it suddenly can't be dealt with. It has midi, use whatever keyboard you want... But that's just going to make the whole thing BIGGER