Originally announced in 2013, Arturia's MicroBrute was a mini-synth with a mini-price tag, squeezing an impressive amount of sonic firepower into a compact and affordable package.
MicroBrute was discontinued a few years ago for reasons unknown, but it seems that the pint-sized analogue monosynth may in fact have been abducted by aliens, as Arturia has announced this week that MicroBrute is being beamed back down to earth with an extraterrestrial makeover in the form of the new MicroBrute UFO Edition.
Despite a handful of new knobs and an aesthetic refresh that outfits MicroBrute in a "bold space-black design" with "Martian green" graphic detailing, the 25-key synth remains otherwise unaltered following its interplanetary adventures, offering the same "gritty analogue tone, wild modulation and deep sequencing" as the original instrument, Arturia says.
MicroBrute UFO's architecture is based on a single VCO equipped with three waveforms (saw, square and triangle) that can be augmented via three "signal enhancers": Ultrasaw bolsters the saw wave with detuned duplicates, Metalizer folds the triangle wave to produce an edgy metallic tone, and Overtone adds a sub-octave or 5th harmonic for extra colour.
The oscillator runs into a resonant Steiner-Parker multimode filter offering low-, high- and band-pass options, complemented by Arturia's Brute Factor saturation circuit, which can be used to introduce aggressive, feedback-style distortion. Modulation comes courtesy of a single LFO and ADSR envelope that can be routed via the synth's handy little Mod Matrix panel, and the sequencer is a 64-step affair with memory for 8 patterns.
MicroBrute UFO is fairly well-equipped in the connectivity department for a synth at this price point, providing options for USB, MIDI and CV/gate across both its backside and patchbay, along with a 1/4" audio in/out and a 1/8" headphone out.
It may be more than a decade old, but at €349/$299, MicroBrute remains an excellent value budget synth we're glad to see the instrument return from the cosmos.
Find out more on Arturia's website or watch a walkthrough video below.
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