Hi,

I've been using the matrixbrute in my studio for the past 3 weeks. It's an exceptional gearn just as I expected. Look at it from far and this beast is impressive: knobs everywhere, many buttons that light up... Very pretty! From closer the finish appears worthy, with details everywhere. No comparaison with Moog synths that often look a bit too austere to my taste. This synth is unbelievably easy to use from the start. Switching patch is very easy with the 256 lit buttons, each corresponding to a sound in "preset" mode. Want to create a sequence? No need for the manual. Oh, yeah, there is a sequencer, and it's just plain huge! Well, of course you need to know synths at least a little. The most surprising is the Matrix's price. I don't understand how they managed to release such a product at such a price.

A word about the factory presets: I'd been extremely disappointed by the demos I'd found on the internet so I was very happy to hear the scope of the factory sounds. Top notch! The grain is huge, with very well-rendered stereo and analog effects. You could spend full hours tweaking the same sound and, well, that's a bit of a trap. There's a sound bank (called P)to save presets, plus 4 knobs which can be assigned to the modulation you want. I particularly like this feature, as I didn't expect it when reviewing all the machine includes! Well done Arturia, you really go to the bottom of things! The editing tool is simple, provided you know synths. Whay I like least so far (but I guess this is something I'll end up sorting out) is that I have,'t managed to synchronize the sequencer with my external workstation (korg m50) so far, but I assume there's a computer-related trick to get. Oh, just to mention: I hate computers and only get into it reluctantly.

OVERALL: this is the best value-for-money machine that I've known, and god knows I've known many a synth!