Legacy
The Arturia Drumbrute Impact is a popular and affordable analog drum machine. A while back I had the larger original Arturia Drumbrute, it was easy to use and tons of outputs, but it had a large footprint and most importantly I did not like the sounds all that much that it produced. Here is the original in a DAWless jam.
So it was with some trepidacion that I picked up the Drumbrute Impact. The interface of the impact is basically the same, but now their are less sounds 10 vs 17 (sort of), less outputs and distortion instead of a filter. However to my ears, it just simply sounds better. And with the ‘color’ option, every pad has an option of to switch to a different tonal characteristic of each drum voice, so actually it feels as if there are 20 tones available.
Unless you are lusting after the recently released white 1984 edition color variant, a used drumbrute impact or noir can be picked up at a fantastic price on the used market.
In use
If you want to load samples or endlessly tweak parameters, then this is not the right machine. It is a simple knob-per-function device (with a few shift options) and no menu diving, since there is no menu or display. So if I fancy a quick jam and want to make some music immediately, this is my go to drum machine. Turn it on, and go, it is ready to play. No decision parallasis here about which sample pack to load up!
As mentioned I prefer the overall tones to the original it seems Arturia took some time to refining the character of the sound on this edition.
The Arturia sequencer is clear and easy to use, there is even a song mode, but I cant imagine I would ever use it, since the patterns can be 64 steps. In general I tend to use 1 or 2 patterns and adjust it with the very easy to use muting, and perhaps a fill pattern as well.
Summary
So is this the right drum machine for you? Well it depends, it shines as something quick and intuative to use, with a small footprint and practical form factor for live use, but the sound might not be to everyones taste and since it is analog you cannot change the sound drastically without using external FX. It can also work nicely as a compliment to a sample based drum machine.
Drumbrute Impact available to buy on Amazon https://amzn.to/4jcWUEU
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