Arturia MicroFreak

ben1210 · January 30, 2019, 2:33pm

Portray · January 31, 2019, 7:19am

I can’t understand why they chose to have so few preset slots. 192 is nothing. I’m used to 2048 on my Digitone. I know its a cheaper synth, but they could at least include 500 preset slots. This is the biggest turn off for me when it comes to this synth.

On the Arturia page they write that its include 128 factory presets and that It has 64 user slots. Really hoping that the factory presets can be deleted because 64 slots its not much.

Skippit · January 31, 2019, 7:23am

Yeah, hoping all patch slots can be user?

192’s ok for me as long as it’s simple drag/drop to switch em out/back em up. Not Midi sysex or a flakey librarian etc.

Portray · January 31, 2019, 7:35am

Yeah, that would be nice, hoping for that.

I have a noob question as well. I have noticed that it only has a single master output. Does that mean that every sound including pads are going to be in mono? Or is it some kind of single stereo output?

Lukree · January 31, 2019, 7:47am

I guess it must be mono? There aren’t fx which would benefit from stereo, either.

rcmusic · January 31, 2019, 12:01pm

In some videos, sebastien from arturia said 256 slots. This needs to be cleared up

Portray · January 31, 2019, 2:06pm

From the specs on arturia.com:

Synthesizer with 192 preset slots and 128 factory presets.

rcmusic · January 31, 2019, 3:06pm

I know that. That’s why i say it must be cleared

Portray · January 31, 2019, 3:37pm

Yeah, but it’s more likely that he claimed wrong than the official website.

trickyflemming · January 31, 2019, 3:38pm

jeye_musik:

Native Instruments Reaktor library features all of Braids models

I’m really sorry asking this dumb question, but where to get these modules exactly? Tried to google it and looked in their User Library, found some references in Michael Hetrick ’s Euro Reakt pack and that’s it.

I’m not aware of all the Braids modes being available in the Reaktor UL but if they are I’d be keen to see. There is some Mutable code within EuroReakt but I don’t recall it as being necessarily Braids modes only. You have to open each individual Block and read it’s Help to know which take code (fully credited of course) from Mutable… there is also code from various things like Supercollider patches with various flavours of random etc. Plus, it’s always worth reading his Help on those Blocks as they are very informative.

Yep! I cleared all Mutable code ports with Emilie. We’re in frequent contact and everything is MIT-licensed, but I still wanted to make sure that it was cool. Additionally, Stephen at Noise Engineering approved the SumSyn port, Andrew at Nonlinear Circuits approved his ports, and Sandy Small approved my re-use of his wavetable code. I link to the original code (or product descriptions) in each Block’s help file, along with citations in the included dissertation.

Euro Reakt is inherently open-source, so people can still see how I did the ports and reuse them in their own Reaktor projects. It’s been great to see portions of the code popping up in extremely creative ensembles and racks.

I got a chance to check out the MicroFreak while I was at NAMM. From my brief time with it, I can say that it’s very fun and easy-to-use. The size, weight, responsiveness, and price point are all very appealing (not to mention, the CV connectivity). I didn’t get a chance to dive into the mod matrix… when you’re toodling around on a device at NAMM, there’s generally a line of people behind you watching you, plus the MicroFreaks were connected to speakers instead of just headphones.

rcmusic · January 31, 2019, 4:39pm

i don’t know, since it’s the product designer… i just asked arturia and will let you know

Portray · January 31, 2019, 6:06pm

Sounds good

darenager · January 31, 2019, 6:14pm

Between this and the Sonicware ELZ-1 for me, two great sounding digital synths, I’ll have a hard time choosing but choose I must. Hopefully in the meantime Elektron won’t come along with a digital synth to make the choice even harder

rcmusic · January 31, 2019, 6:32pm

while waiting for their answer, i found where he said it:

https://youtu.be/rPUmbDSOx4w?t=402

The interesting thing is that he’s scrolling to see how far he can go, it seems…

dtr · January 31, 2019, 8:10pm

All this talk of digital synths got me firing up my good ol’ Monomachine today

Portray · January 31, 2019, 8:28pm

Oh, okay, that’s really nice! It’s gonna be interesting to hear what they say.

jeye_musik · January 31, 2019, 10:00pm

Coincidentally I did the same but that was because I was finally getting around to checking out the Autechre sysex… and feeling that I really should be investing more time in what I have rather than lusting over new stuff like this. That’ll pass and I can get into the lustful mode again…

Diayse · February 1, 2019, 6:32am

I think the packaging says 192 but there currently are 256 slots in the prototype I was showing at NAMM.

We probably had room for more so we put them

pt · February 1, 2019, 6:37am

Will it do sysex dump of the current preset? That’s what I use to store the sound with the project; the first 4 bars are reserved for sysex dumps…

Portray · February 1, 2019, 7:48am

First of all I must say that you guys at Arturia has really made something interesting and unique with the MicroFreak. 11 different types of oscillators in such a small package are really something special combined with the analog filter and mod matrix!

I just have 3 questions.
Why does it have so few preset slots?

Is it possible to delete the factory presets in order to store your own presets in all of the preset slots?

I noticed that it only has one master output. Will everything be in mono including the pad sounds?

Thanks in advance!