Arturia DrumBrute Impact

Being in the lookout for an analog drum machine I stumbled upon this little beast! The DrumBrute Impact made quite an impression to me, considering the price and the features:

There are 10 clean & punchy analog sounds which sit well in a modern track. The kick and the snares are the most prominent, however the entire drum set sounds tight and well thought out musically.

My most praised features are the "Color" function which transforms each sound, and the FM drum, that acts like a wildcard! Meaning you can transform it to many other sounds. Finally the distortion at the master bus makes the sound gritty and harsh, adding that special "brute" sauce!

Although I'm using it via DAW, I enjoyed playing live, using the countless sequencer features, and building patterns easily! I'm sure it will serve you well in a live gig.

To the cons, I would add the lack of a rimshot, and midi control over the sound parameters! Also a big minus is the lack of a complete list of SysEx messages in the manual.

Nevertheless in regards to it's sound, I think this drum machine is a future classic!

It is a cheap little machine so don't expect this to cover all your needs, Behringer drum machines cost about the same and offer much more both in terms of sound and versatility.
The sound is good, the kick can sound ok on any type of electronic music, from hip hop to techno it is usable but this drum voice should have had one more parameter to play with e.g. a pitch envelope in order to sculpt the sound even further.
The snare and claps are ok as well, but the biggest letdown are the toms which are almost inaudible, really a missed opportunity which Arturia doesn't seem to care to fix or even aknowledge (I suppose it could be fixed through firmware update) those looking for a drum machine that can do toms should look elsewhere.
The coolest feature here would be the FM drum (which you can sculpt) and polyrythmic options for each voice.
What makes this machine stand out though is it's small size, I use it for hybrid dj sets (synced from traktor) which also serves perfectly as a clock generator for my Octatrack and keystep, syncs perfectly.
The build quality is pretty good, looks durable.
All in all a cool little machine but to pricey considering what is outhere especially from Behringer.

This is an amazing analog drum machine. However, you have to have some understanding of its capabilities, because even though it offers a good amount of controls, you can't dramatically change the sound of it.

The Arturia sequencer is just great, very intuitive and easy to use. It is convenient to enter patterns both live and in step mode. The only thing that is missing for me is that it can't record automation of the knobs.

I would love to see stereo output in this device, though it provides separate mini-jack outputs for kick, snare, hats and fm drum.

Overall it is really good offering for the price and its sounds can fit a lot of music genres.

Having no special need for analogue drum machine (or more complex stand-alone drum machine at all), I am perhaps target audience for the Impact. It has it's weaknesses, but overall, I am quite impressed and inspired.

Pros:
- Great live playability and sequencer
- Classic, but also personal sound
- Well scaled tuning of pitch knob ranges
- Self sufficient sound palette for jamming
- Arturia's modern thought out possibilities - and I hope with firmware can be done even more
- Price

Cons:
- Irritating kick drum initial thump noise. For some beats it's good, for other, you need i.e. external filter to "shut it down". It's better to have it, with relatively easy, but not ideal way to suppress it (it also affects the rest of the wave and volume of it..), than to not have it and trying to create it somehow, but it's such dominant attribute of the sound, that not being able to control it in the box is nearly deal breaker
- Quite strong initial click in FM drum - not deal breaker, it will be masked in other sounds, but considerably limits its usability.
- Short (and shorter) envelopes for Toms.

Some suggestions for Arturia, if it's possible to change it in firmware? (or for analogue hackers):
- computer config, or another layer of "color" (or hack) for addressing Cons, give switch to more experimental pitch ranges to Toms, even more, near infinite max.release length for Snares (and even for the Kick), independent scales per track...

So I wanted to upgrade my music with some beats. Arturia Drumbrute presented a good price drum machine to get started. It is my first drum machine so i was a bit worried, how long will it take me to get to know it. I started making realy nice and dynamic beats in no time. It realy is easy to use and it has some neat tricks in its sleeve, like randomness, where you can spice up your dynamics.
Sounds are reasonably good for the price. The kick and the FM drum are great, others can be good with some tweaking. I did not like the fact that distortion knob also increases loudness, but maybe that can work in some aplications.
For the price, Arturia offers one hell of a drum machine. I am happy with the purchase.