Same. Liked the engine but the filter fell way short of the SEM-style it suggested. Multimode yes but the SEM filter is much more alive and rich. Like the new Zencore stuff, the filter is OK, but not very exciting. Like a shelving EQ.
Can understand the filter comments, I like it but find the sweet spot is quite small? So I find the travel of the cutoff I use is small as a result.
I also wish recording the arp into the sequencer was easier, can only record a arp over 16steps? Unless I’ve missed it I wish I could live record the arp.
Yeah I would rather have a completely digital signal path and more voices (8+) than this rather boring analog filter and VCA without any possibility to drive them hard for nice saturation (which for me is the main reason to choose for analog).
They did a good job emulating it in their plugin version, so they could have just taken that digital filter. Or even better: the multimode filter inside oscillator engine 2, which sounds excellent.
The plugin version also doesn’t suffer from the downsides of analog. For example: hardware Minifreak has a “thumping” sound coming from the analog VCA when the attack and release are at 0. It is especially noticeable when using a band pass or high pass filter, with the cutoff set rather high and some heavy distortion in the fx section to boost the volume of this sound. When using the low pass filter, the actual sound masks the thumping VCA sound, so not an issue then. Also without the heavy distortion, it is barely audible, thus no issue either. But I happen to just LOVE a band pass or high pass filter into some good distortion…
Anyway, this is just nitpicking. I love the Minifreak! It can make very unique sounds with its versatile oscillator engines and the overall tone is really good. Also the fx are great and much better than some much more expensive synths.
I would love to see Arturia release a fully digital 16 voice (or more) “Matrixfreak” with a 49 key full size keybed with polyphonic aftertouch. Similar sound engine, but with more voices, layering/split possibilities and a mod matrix with buttons like on the Matrixbrute/Polybrute. Now that would be something!
3 Likes
Looks like some new firmware is coming soon.
I was chatting with arturia support about an issue, and I made feature request after the issue was resolved. This was their response.
Indeed we have already registered this as a customer request, unfortunately while a new firmware is just around the corner, this has sadly not been picked for implementation yet as the focus was on adding new features and correcting more problematic bugs;
5 Likes
Thanks for the information! That’s good news, hopefully we’ll get wavetables and granular synthesis of the Microfreak. If you don’t mind sharing, what was the feature you suggested?
1 Like
I wanted the ability to turn local control off for just the keyboard. That way, I could use the keyboard to control external instruments while still using all of the knobs to sculpt sounds that the minifreak is making.
More details here: Question about using midi auto channel with my Syntakt and Minifreak - #10 by Scyphozoa
2 Likes
ooooh, I’m so hoping for that!
It bugs me that I bought the bigger brother of my beloved microfreak and the little brother is still much more potent on this aspect…
Also, in case anyone is curious what I spoke to support about, I was troubleshooting the sequencer. I could not reliably hold down any of the steps to edit them. It would flicker between the editing state and the untouched state.
The solution was to turn up touch sensitivity in the utilities menu. However, they did suggest that my hands could be too dry, I could be getting interference from a plasma globe or eurorack module, and that I shouldn’t play it barefoot (not joking) before suggesting I edit touch sensitivity.
Not even after midnight, standing on one foot, facing east?
Cheers!
2 Likes
4 Likes
6 Likes
V 2.0 just a year after premiere, pretty quick. Is Minifreak not selling too well?
It’s just a firmware update, not a V2 of the synth itself.
2 Likes
I’ve updated my minifreak, but when testing the new wavetable osc doesn’t produce any sound at all. There seem to be no wavetables to choose from, neither with shift+osc type nor through the osc edit menu. The latter only shows a header ‘wavetables’ with nothing under it to choose from…
I’ve updated from minifreakV on MacOS.
Did anyone else have more succes?
UPDATE: solved
When I connected my MF again to MFV it started “synchronizing wavetables to MF”; now the new osc is working! (and it is sounding great!!!)
2 Likes
Finally a long awaited WT oscillator in the mini, but I guess we’ll have to wait another year for user WT. Glad I just got Microfreak in the meantime.
Yeah this is pretty underwhelming for a 2.0 update that took over a year. The MicroFreak was getting updated every 6 months roughly. So I don’t get what the deal is with Arturia being so slow with so few features added. This seems more like a 1.5 update if anything.
2 Likes
Correct me if I’m wrong but its either not possible or a big pain in the butt to move presets from the software version to the hardware?
I agree, minifreak should have had the wavetable oscillator from the start and the new effect is cool but I really doubt I’ll use it much. I was expecting way more for a 2.0 update. I was expecting the minifreak to at least get everything the microfeak has.
1 Like
We all have high hopes, but I think Arturia is just getting started. Patience 
5 Likes
i just bought mine, i’m happy that there is an update 
2 Likes