Jesse's Personal Arturia Minibrute Monophonic Synthesizer

This item is part of the BP Relics Series, where Jesse is parting ways with BP items from his personal vault that were one-of-a-kind, dated, or no longer in production. These items are never intended to be reproduced.

Related Album Cycle: N/A

Where Did This Come From?!:

Oh my god. This is my personal Arturia Minibrute Analog Monophonic Synthesizer.

I got this back in 2011, and it was my first monosynth ever. Seriously.

I used it on every album from Moon Gear on - in other words, since 2012. Pretty much every synth bass sound you hear on a mainline Basic Printer record came from this very synthesizer. Seriously. I just looked through the tracklist of the EP, Good Weird, and Fantastic Wrist, and I'm pretty sure this was the synth that produced bass for all of them.

So, there's some magic in this little sucker.

Plus, it looks like they're not selling these particular MiniBrutes anymore, since they moved onto the MiniBrute 2...so that's also an interesting piece of owning this.

Now...what's with the tape? Well, underneath each key is a tiny little piece of metal that helps add weight to each key. I played this thing so much that the metal pieces started falling out - so I just threw some masking tape on there to keep them in check. You could remove the tape and use some Gorilla glue to fix them more permanently.

And what about that weird piece of plastic on the top left corner...? That is a base for a GoPro, so you can just slide one in there and get instant keyboard surveillance action. I only used it for one video, and then was afraid to move the base and tear up the finish on the synth somehow...

Anyway, what else is wrong with it? Well...the output jack is a little wonky. You kind of need to apply rightwards pressure to the cable once it's plugged in to get signal going. Or, you just sort of jostle it around and it eventually settles out. I never really figured it out...anyway, you can get around that by just using the headphone jack instead. Bam!

All this being said, this thing is certainly still a capable and usable synth that you could keep going with for at least a couple years - especially if you make some small repairs. I am ditching it to save some space, and I just replaced it with a Moog :)

If you want a synth from my collection that wouldn't just be a paperweight or display piece, this is it - not to mention, it has some markers of my personal use which is kinda neat, right?

Original Run: 1

Size/Variant Available: Teal

Specifications:

 

Monophonic
Analog
Iffy output jack (use headphone out instead!)
Teal
8.8 pounds (and shipping reflects that)