When first saw previous of the MatrixBrute from Arturia, I was sure it was a hoax. The synthesizer in the images was huge and monstrous mix of everything, and I figured it must be a riff on Arturia’s well received compact analog synths, the MiniBrute and MicroBrute. But the MatrixBrute is in fact real, and his here at NAMM.

And it is a beast! It has a fully analog signal path headed by three “Brute” oscillators (the same ones found in Arturia’s smaller analog synths), plus both a Steiner filter and a traditional ladder filter. It has a lot of knobs for controlling…everything, as well as 12 CV inputs and outputs in addition to Trigger CV, and of course MIDI. The place where this machine gets both very powerful and a bit overwhelming is in the modulation matrix. The matrix is literally that, an array of 256 LED buttons that can be used to route from anything to anything.

This is not new, modulation matrices have been part of synthesizer architecture for a long time. But seeing it laid out on a panel like this in more unusual. It makes it both powerful and immediate – one can just press any of the buttons at any time. But it also a bit difficult to get the hang of. It’s challenging to keep track of and predict what a particular matrix configuration will do. In this video, you can see my attempt to play this instrument, including the matrix points.

It’s quite difficult, but presumably someone one can master with patience and practice (and a quieter listening environment). One thing that I would have expected from a synth of this magnitude is polyphony, like the much more modest Korg Minilogue. The MatrixBrute is monophonic/duophonic. Polyphony in an analogue synth is no small feat, but I would have liked to see it. Nonetheless, coming in at just under $2000, it does have quite a lot to offer.