I’m lousy with movie quotes. Perhaps I should have asked, “Is this the end of Rico ?”
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Gonna go ahead and ask a question RE: DCO’s vs. VCO’s in this context
Would that much modulation overhead not benefit from the precision afforded by DCO’s?
(IE. I get the feeling that you’re gonna craft one morph layer, and expect that state to be unchanged when returning to later, etc)
From UDO’s point of view, PB release came at bad time, since they just got S6 finished after the difficulties. PB is sure going to eat sales from UDO.
Soundwise i think there is not that much overlap, but not many of us can buy two 2500 euros polysynths.
So it would be PB - i think it got lot more to offer at that price point than S6.
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At least in the USA the Super 6 is more expensive. One can debate sound quality the difference can be subjective, but I think it’s fairly plain the APB has a more expressive user interface.
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That is hard one, super 6 is gorgeous synth, but i am not so sure about the sound, it has digital oscillators, and you can hear it, and i already have lead 2x , that too me covers that kind of beutifull… also, i am attracted by mod matrix and expressiveness of Polybrute, not just the good sounding oscillators.
At a quick glance:
Macro knobs
Custom lfo shapes
Extra osc waveforms
Extra osc
Filter drive
Multi mode filter options
Extra audio rate modulations.
CV connectivity
Send/return?
Not a massive list, though enough to justify the MB as relevant. As a MB owner, definitely looking with interest. Though a desktop rack able version without the morphee would be harder to resist (something Waldorf Iridium sized)
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If you keep waiting for the next best thing, you’ll never pick.
You KNOW as soon as you decide on something, there will be something else
Just go for it. All the tools are good…in the right hands.
I feel sorry for the gear I have. It’ll will never realize it’s full potential.
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Imagine what the poor dumb losers of the early 2000’s would have thought if they could see the analogue/hybrid polysynth options we have these days. It’s just amazing.
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Got me there. I wasn’t very smart in the early 2000s. I did have just enough sense at least to stay out of the arguments that always broke out, during that era, whenever somebody whined about Moog not making a polysynth.
The funny thing is, I usually hate wood sides (took the wood rear panel off my old Monologue), and have never been a fan of the look of the Brute line at all. Not a big fan of the colors.
But there is something about the sum of these parts, the spotlighting of the Morphee, it just all works for me.
Humans are strange creatures that place a lot of importance on visuals and materials, and even stranger that our opinions can change on those same things.
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I am curious to what people will think of the Morphee part given more time… in a technical sense of what controls it gives you, it is no different than a touch pad with pressure, the pressure having a good amount of movement to it does make it look really fun to play though. I think it is maybe getting a bit more credit than it might deserve just off of it looking like the touche which is a much more expressive device in theory. I suppose what matters most is it being fun and expressive to play with though.
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Soon enough we’ll see (or even experience) the Morphée side by.side with the Touché. It’s an open question how they compare.
In one way i think of the Morphée and Touché as a three parameter one finger control. Two wheels would be a two parameter two finger control, a ribbon is a one parameter one finger control. Touch pads in general, have two parameter with one finger — except for those like the Sensel Morph which detect pressure too.
I won’t get into multi-finger and gesture touch pad detection, there’s no indication of that so far with the Morphée. It may or may not be possible depending on the capacitive technology employed.
The uFreak uses the spreading of the finger pad to detect pressure.
Comparing the Morphée.and Touché theoretically — the Morphée has two dimensions sensed capacitively and one in the physical dimension. The Touché is three physical dimensions. If the capacitive measure is done well it can be very sensitive in the XY direction, and able to detect rapid change, both in position and in on/off.
Will Arturia ever offer a stand alone Morphée ? Will they use it in other synths ? Their cost of development is now greatly reduced, so they have less of a barrier. Plus if the APB is a success, and the Morphée is a popular part of that, then Arturia has a built in value and incentive to use it in other scenarios.
It’s yet to be seen how well Arturia pull’s off the Morphée. Arturia is certainly the sort of company able to create a winner.
ADDED: Someone please correct me if I screwed up factually. I like learning.
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Written by Gordon “Synth Secrets” Reid of all people. Ok gonna grab a glass of wine and relax for a bit…
So far, when I compare this review to the Music Radar one, I feel like Gordon’s looks like a proper, professionally done writeup by a true synth veteran, and the Music Radar one looks like a term paper written by an average elementary school student in comparison. Shame they didn’t have Scot Solida write it instead.
Master Cutoff knob sits between the two filters allowing you to adjust their cutoff frequencies simultaneously, but I fear that this will most often be used for creating manual filter sweeps because, for reasons that I can’t quite fathom, adolescent males never seem to get tired of doing this.
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Its a b̶e̶a̶s̶t̶. brute
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Osmose = 49 Morphees?
I’ve got one on the way, so we’ll see.
There’s not much of a Y far as i can tell, not like the Continuum,
You might almost think that Expressive E would have put a Touche on the Osmose.
I’m very interested in the PolyBrute, and I did not expect that.
Off Topic
ADDED: rossominerale put a link up, up-thread, for a very nice 3D conventional style keyboard, from TouchKey by Andrew McPherson. They’ve been quietly making some very nice progress with their keyboard, i’ve been following them for a while.
I think it’s organized very well. No problem with the physical layout. The overall aesthetic though, and the knob style don’t speak to me. That said, I’m liking the sound so far, and it seems like a proper synth.
Arturia and ExpressiveE being both French, it would have been nice to see a collaboration between the two (especially after the Mutable episode).
As interesting as Morphée is, it feels like ExpressiveE pushed the expressiveness of their controller to an amazing point!
Maybe EE are too busy with the Osmose though…
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Here I am, once again, throwing pennies into the proverbial well, making wishes…
If there is to be a SuperFreak, may it support MPE, have a USB host port on the back, and come in a module. 
Cheers!
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This is just, like, my opinion, man, but I’m not feeling it. Six voices is the 800 pound gorilla: this con is so briefly stated and understood that any discussion would just be harping on a shortcoming no one has any illusions about.
Worse, however: after listening to hours of demos (with headphones, of course), it sounds very good——but that’s all. I’m not wowed by the fundamental sonic quality, which I might also say about the entire Arturia line. People love them, so I guess that’s a taste thing, but there’s just no hook as there is with some other poly-er polys that are too quirky to compare with here, but have a definite thing to them, for better or worse. The PB’s great modulation and playing features keep me well away from hearing it as vanilla. Morphing, hell yes. And I love the matrix’s immediacy for making and tracking assignments, touch strip is cool, and then there’s the Morphee—a brilliant addition. And yet I look at the Morphee and the 200 Morphees on my LinnStrument, and I go “meh” (not to mention the Osmose). The Morphee’s much larger size has certain advantages for operating it with precision, but the main advantage is simply getting people used to performing this kind of control in real time: it’s the 3-D controller with training wheels.
Not to harp on the 6 voiceness, but Arturia says they designed for years and “we could have had an 8, 12 or maybe even a 16-voice version of the PolyBrute, but it would have been huge, heavy and unaffordable.” That makes total sense, but the PB is already big, heavy, and expensive, It’s just that they constrained the design to be no bigger, heavier, or more expensive than some other flagships. Arturia, however, went for broke with the MatrixBrute, and I think their playing it safer here has effectively turned me off. Even assuming its street price will be USD $2500, I’d have been much more likely to pay an extra thousand dollars to get 8-voice poly because adding even as much as 10 extra pounds (5 kg) and a few inches of depth hardly matters to the bulk you’re already accepting. I understand sales were too low with the MB, and that they need to do what they need to do, but I’ve played the MB many times in the store and only chickened out at the last minute to take it home because of some considerations with customs checkpoints (don’t ask). I think a go-for-broke PB would have been more likely for me even at $3500. I get more wow-factor per dollar from my two MicroFreaks.
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