Arturia DrumBrute Impact - Drum Computer

Product Information

Which brings us onto Snare 2. This is a filtered noise source, with the filter swept by the Tone control. The Decay can go long, producing swooshes that are one of the defining character sounds of the whole instrument. In Color mode this module turns into a Clap, with brighter filtering and the classic analogue clap flam. The Accent variation is nice here, slowing the flam down and producing a smooth mellow clap. It would have been great to see the inclusion of a cowbell, but once again, we must remind ourselves of the price of this unit. Sounding Off In Step mode you can create and edit patterns on the Step buttons using the TR convention; in fact you can do this at the same time as live recording. Regular triggers light blue, and Accented steps are shown as red. Slightly confusingly, to add Accents you switch to a dedicated Accent mode. From here you can create new Accented steps or convert regular trigs. But if you switch a step to Accented, then tap it again, it will remove that step entirely, rather than revert it. In other words Accent is a property of specific notes, rather than being a separate layer that modifies trigger events. Deep Impact In an ideal world the Drumbrute Impact would have the Steiner-Parker filter too – and a reverb woud be sweet too! – but obviously that would bump up the price. Which Drumbrute to Buy? Arturia’s Drumbrute has found a home in many a professinal setup. Composer Tom Salta is a fan and DJ/Producer Carl Craig is a fan, to name just two. Who Uses the Drumbrute Impact?

The snare section also allows for a similar amount of control, letting you to play with the tone of the initial ‘snap’ of the snare, its length and how loud it is. The tone of the ‘body’ of the snare sound is also tweakable, allowing you to tune it to taste. Decay and tone knobs are offered for the clap sound. Continuing across the various sounds, there are Rim/Claves, Closed Hat, Open Hat, Tom Hi, Tom Low, Cymbal, Maracas/Tamb and ‘Zap’ instruments available, all 100 per cent analogue.

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The Drumbrute has a ‘Zap’ part while the Drumbrute Impact has a capable FM Drum part. Of the two the ‘Zap’ part is the least interesting and is not ‘Zappy’ enough for my tastes. Don’t expect the Zap effects to send clubbers running for cover – it’s an adequate but pretty tame affair and something of a missed opportunity in my opinion. 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:

As well as Color, the Impact employs the tried-and-tested Accent concept, implemented the same as on the original DrumBrute. Sounds have two trigger levels (accented or not) and generally sound slightly different from one state to the other. As we’ll see later, Accent sequencing is handled differently to Color. First though, let’s run through the sounds. If you can’t get enough cowbell then note that the Impact comes with one pad for 808 style Cowbell (shared with Cymbal) whereas the Drumbrute offers Tamborine and Maracas instead. Output distortion: rich, specially voiced distortion on the output to add some filth when you need it, and bypass when you don’t.The reverse cymbal is great if you want to add a little bit of groove effect and create drum loops.

Patterns can be captured as live recordings from the pads simply by engaging the record button in the transport area at the top. Live recordings align to the grid, based on the current pattern’s resolution (16ths by default), unless you toggle the Record button into Unquantised mode. The pads are velocity sensitive as far as MIDI output is concerned but the sounds themselves play at just two levels: Accented and non-Accented. Live Recording is clever enough to capture the sequence with Accents based on a velocity threshold.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. When it comes to built in effects you’ll need to decide if you’re a filter or a distortion kind of person! With the Drumbrute you can toggle a high-pass/low-pass Steiner-Parker filter on and off and adjust the filter’s resonance control.