This page is read from MIDI Instrument Definitions, a Python library used in the author's other projects, in which every number is traced to a document its maker published. Its source is on GitHub.
Arturia DrumBrute Impact MIDI implementation
The MIDI implementation of the Arturia DrumBrute Impact: what it answers to, on firmware 1.0.9.381.
At a glance
- Firmware
- This page describes firmware 1.0.9.381.
- MIDI channel
- Not recorded.
- Voices
- Not recorded.
- Notes
- Each note plays a drum of its own, assigned by the player; the factory notes are listed below.
- Note range
- Not recorded.
- Velocity
- Received.
- Aftertouch
- Not recorded.
- Pitch bend
- Not recorded.
- Program change
- Not recorded.
- MIDI clock
- Sent and received.
- Start and stop
- Sent.
- Control change
- Assigned by the player, so there is no fixed chart.
- NRPN
- None.
- System exclusive
- Not recorded.
Drum notes
Each drum's note is assigned by the player, and these are the notes it has from the factory.
| Drum | Note |
|---|---|
kick |
36, C2 |
snare1 |
37, C#2 |
snare2 |
38, D2 |
tom_h |
39, D#2 |
tom_l |
40, E2 |
cymbal |
41, F2 |
cowbell |
42, F#2 |
cl_hat |
43, G2 |
op_hat |
44, G#2 |
fm |
45, A2 |
colored_kick |
48, C3 |
colored_snare1 |
49, C#3 |
colored_snare2 |
50, D3 |
colored_tom_h |
51, D#3 |
colored_tom_l |
52, E3 |
colored_cymbal |
53, F3 |
colored_cl_hat |
55, G3 |
colored_op_hat |
56, G#3 |
colored_fm |
57, A3 |
Where these facts come from
Source documents
- User Manual DrumBrute Impact, 1.0, dated 11 July 2018, its user manual, with the numbers on page 99 given only as a picture, read on 3 October 2026 (the file read).
- DrumBrute Impact release notes, 1.0.9.381, dated 9 October 2018, its release notes, read on 3 October 2026 (the file read).
- MIDI Control Center Manual, 1.0, dated 21 June 2017, its user manual, read on 3 October 2026 (the file read).
- Arturia - DrumBrute Impact, its download page, read on 3 October 2026 (the file read).
How they were read
User Manual, 107 pages, version 1.0 of 2018-07-11: the Drum Map at p. 99, which is the only set of numbers this instrument publishes; the instruments at pp. 28-29; the rear panel at p. 17; All Notes Off at p. 27; synchronisation at pp. 68-69; and the Device Settings chapter at pp. 93-99 for the channel, the clock formats, the accent threshold and what the pads, the sequencer and the touch strip send. Plus Arturia's release notes for all three firmware versions, and the MIDI Control Center manual, which is cited for an absence and nothing else.
THERE IS NO MIDI IMPLEMENTATION CHART AND NO CONTROLLER MAP. Arturia publishes neither for this instrument, and the manual's chapters run from its "Synchronization" (p. 68) straight to MIDI Control Center and then to the licence agreement, with nothing between them. So there is no controls block below, and its absence is the fact rather than an omission.
TWO THINGS ON THIS MACHINE ANSWER TO CONTROL CHANGE, AND THE PLAYER CHOOSES BOTH NUMBERS. The touch strip sends and receives one - "The Touch strip also will be activated each time a matching MIDI CC message is received by the DrumBrute Impact. You can change the MIDI CC number of the Touch strip" (p. 97) - and the three transport commands each send one, on a channel of their own: "You can define the MIDI channel and CC number for each of the three main Transport commands independently" (p. 98). Nothing else is said to send or receive a controller at all; the ten instruments' panel knobs are analogue and the manual claims no MIDI for any of them. A number a player assigns is not a property of the model, so control_change: learned says so - the reading the OP-1's four routed controllers and the Pulsar-23's whole panel got.
ITS FIXED CONTROLLER VALUES ARE PUBLISHED AND THE FORMAT CANNOT HOLD THEM. The touch strip's number is the player's but its values are not: "the MIDI CC values sent and recognized by the Touch strip are fixed" (p. 97), over five regions. Off sends 0 and answers to 0-24; 1/4 sends 25 and answers to 25-49; 1/8 sends 50 and answers to 50-74; 1/16 sends 75 and answers to 75-99; 1/32 sends 100 and answers to 100-127. So the send value is a single number and the receive window is wide, which is unusual enough to be worth writing down even though no field here can carry it: a control needs a number, and this one's number is not the maker's.
THE MANUAL NEVER STATES THE MIDI CHANNEL RANGE. Its whole prose on the subject is "Use the pull-down menu to select the Global MIDI Channel for the DrumBrute Impact" (p. 93), and the pull-down's contents are in the screenshot. Searched for every form of a channel range across all 107 pages and found none, so channels is left out rather than assumed to be 1 to 16. More than one channel is in play in any case: the touch strip "sends and receives on the Global MIDI Channel" (p. 97) while each transport command has its own, and no sentence anywhere says which channel the drum notes themselves use.
WHAT THE INSTRUMENT SENDS CAN BE SWITCHED OFF, WHICH MATTERS BEFORE DIAGNOSING SILENCE. The pads and the sequencer have independent four-state settings - "You can choose whether the pads will send MIDI note data or not. The available options are Off (no MIDI note data sent), USB&MIDI, USB and MIDI" (p. 95), and the same again for the sequencer - and Local Control splits the machine in two: with it off, "pressing a pad or playing a sequence will not produce a sound but will send messages to the MIDI Out port" (p. 96). The clock is the exception and is not defeatable: it "will always send MIDI Clock type messages (MIDI Real Time messages) while playing" (p. 98).
NOT MENTIONED ON ANY PAGE OF ANY DOCUMENT HELD: program change, system exclusive, NRPN, RPN, aftertouch, pitch bend and song position. Searched the manual, the resources page and all three sets of release notes. Two of those absences are worth a reader's attention rather than silence. Program change is a real gap: the machine has four banks of sixteen patterns and sixteen songs, all selected from the panel, and no document says whether MIDI can select any of them. Something very like system exclusive exists and is never named: "Each time the DrumBrute Impact is connected, the Device Settings are automatically sent from the unit to the MIDI Control Center" (p. 93), which is a two-way settings protocol over USB with no published message type. So sysex is left unset, because unset means nobody established it and that is exactly the state of the evidence.
ONE PROSE AMBIGUITY THAT THE PICTURE SETTLES. The text says the two toms share their "Color" effect and that "Technically the Color effect is applied to Tom Hi, and that color information is shared with Tom Low" (p. 28), which leaves it open whether Tom Low has a "Color" note of its own. The drum map shows that it does, with a number of its own, and both readings of the picture agree. Recorded here because the prose alone would not settle it. The maker's own spelling is kept throughout, here and in the names below.