It would be sad if they discontinued it. It’s such a great synth for sound design, but also for straight up jamming with the sequencer.
There are a lot of flagship monos out there, but I’d argue that the Matrix is still fairly unique, at least in its approach and UI. With its two filters, matrix, and modulation options, you can really get diverse sounds out of it. It challenges how far you can take a mono synth these days.
Arturia has also had some very nice firmware updates and added features for the Matrix in its lifecycle, and I don’t think they’re done.
Agreed that its biggest drawback is its size. I’ve thrown out my back moving mine around the room. I’ll never sell it. Partially because I’d need a truck to take it Fedex, and partially because it’s fucking awesome.
Excellent points… although I don’t think there’s another model center in the market that has anything close to the ease/customization of the modulation matrix.
I really think it is kind of strange that they didn’t have the same depth of controls on the poly brute since it’s already got the size thing going on…. I mean once you hammer out all of the customizations it’s really a question of having enough memory save them so as to apply them individually to six voices… seemed like a natural next step… but then again maybe the poly brute does that as well (but in a different way)… I don’t really know that much about it.
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So have had one for a couple of days… a few thoughts:
It really is built like a tank. Its bulk and dimensions make it want to be on its own stand, not with another synth tier above or below it. I was going to sell the Rev2 but they are so different in sound and application that I think I’ll be rearranging things to keep both as my main synths.
My favorite things are the dedicated audio rate mod knobs, and the overdrive and feedback options for each filter. Four different colors of noise are really useful as mod sources too. I wish you could pan the filters independently (ala Pro2) and a few more LFOs and/or envelopes, but I’m just spoiled from Sequential stuff. Also like the A4 and other synths gain staging the oscillators going into the filter section is important… easy to make everything sound smudgy and indistinct if you’re not mindful.
I still haven’t fully dug into the mod matrix yet, just got through half the presets and made a bunch sound more to my liking. You can really make it sound huge. Basses, leads, drones, weird paraphonic stuff, Ae-style glitchiness…
Sequencer seems powerful, need to explore further. It might be easier to just sequence it from an Elektron box. Or maybe in conjunction? 
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Also the “paperwhite” screen above the matrix is kinda weird. Why not a nice hi-res OLED?
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