Picked up this cheap laptop stand from Amazon to use with the Minifreak and it works perfectly, very stable and can work attached to a surface or freestanding - well worth it for £15!
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Ooooo that looks sweet! I might have to do the same…
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I’ve used these stands before - a word of caution to the potential buyer - I’ve ordered multiple and received slightly different products. Some with flat bottom ridges on the lower legs and some with raised bottom ridges. Doesn’t make a difference unless you are planning to place something on top of the bottom legs.
*Comment about Freaks to remain fully relevant to the thread. I preferred the micro sound to the mini. Not sure what it is, just do.
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They use the same filter right? If so that’s probably just gonna be the presets. My understanding is that it’s basically 6 micro’s with stackable oscillators and an effects section.
I tried s mini freak in a store the other day and what blew me away the most was the sequencer.
Just having it running and overdubbing notes and chords into a loop was so enjoyable and satisfying, and it got me thinking what else do I own already that I can do this with?
Digitone?
Does plugging in a midi keyboard allow me to do this in the same way if I just put it into live recording mode?
Udo Super 6?
Tried with the built in sequencer at home but it doesn’t seem to record in the same way, as each time you play a note it just records the next step rather than respecting the timing.
I guess the obvious choice is just using Ableton and looping a live played midi pattern but then directly playing back the midi I’ve recorded to an external synth as it’s looping right?
Not sure how I’ve overlooked this kind of thing for so long. Are there any other bigger synths than the mini freak that do this straight out of the gate? I tried the polybrute too, but for the price the build felt cheap and plasticky.
And lastly, does the mini freak output the looping sequence as midi notes to use with external synths or vsts in the daw?
Arturia recently changing their cover photo on facebook to a picture of the minifreak makes me hope we will hear something about a firmware update in the near future…
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The Minifreak is almost perfect. But why not the same oscillators than Microfreak and new FXs.
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I absolutely adore the MiniFreak. I originally bought it in it’s hardware form but sold it and just run the software now. Really hoping they add the option to import patches from the MicroFreak as I’ve got a bunch of those, that I’d love to further develop with oscillators/engines.
Here’s a small patch using the Mutable Instruments VA-engine and the Destroy-engine (the frog). The macro has some bitcrushing shuffling in and out, and there’s a LFO running sample-and-hold. In my eyes, the MF is quite a wonderful wonderful machine and has a loooot of depths through the modmatrix. Using the on-board FXs.
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Man, I love this synth so much. I’m continually amazed at how much it inspires me and gives me creative juice. I’ve been in a major rut lately and the MiniFreak totally saved me. Little things like Its arpeggio and sequence modifiers are so brilliant. Using those in concert with the looping envelope, modulating the ADSR curves of the looping envelope with an LFO, or modulating the intensity of the multi-mode filter (on voice 2) with an envelope thereby bringing serious ACID into the mix, creating beautiful plucks with the harmonic or karplus engines and piling effects onto those plucks. Adding macros to an arp, modifying that arp, then copying it to the sequence and transposing and jamming on that sequence. And I didn’t even mention modulation lanes! Such an unbelievably great synth for the $$, I love it.
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I’ve been doing sound design on the minifreak this weekend, mainly generative patches for use during an art expo. The minifreak is so versatile! I like the option to quantize osc modulation to scales and the multiple random sources. Using osc 2 as fm/rm and feeding it with permanently changing osc 1 sounds gives it a lot of possibilities! The macros work as brilliant morph-controls. Being able to add randomness to your sequence is nice, especially since you can revert back to the original sequence with the spice-slider. The fx are also quite nice, I just wish one could select the effect subtype without switching the effect on first. That would make for smoother changes live.
I hope the extra osc models introduced on the microfreak will find their way to minifreak soon!
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Hello, I’m interested by the minifreak but I’m too lazy to read the manual so I have a question for minifreak owner. Can we use the audio input to process external sound with onboard fx ? If so, can we still use the full potential of the minifreak or it will use some voices of polyphonie ?
Thanks.
You can. Mono only and you‘ll lose oscillator 2 as it will become audio input source.
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What they said ^ I plug in my guitar into it, sounds great with the minifreak effects.
Love my MiniFreak and believe it will become a classic piece of gear. Mod matrix is cool AF. UI in general allows for a ton of flexibility. Wavetable would be nice.
Really interested in this as a poly add-on to be sequenced by the syntakt.
Anybody that has the two (or other elektron) that could confirm if cc’s are passed thru if you set local control off and use it as a master keyboard for elektron, then dedicate a track on the ST to sequence it back?
Im afraid only the cc’s configured on the midi track would be passed thru, so editing the synth would be hard in that setup since it appears local control affects both the keyboard and knobs on the mini.
Hope that was clear
Cheers 
I have two questions, which I guess someone who owns this synth should be able to answer:
- Is it possible to quickly reload presets? I like to modify sequences in realtime while I’m jamming and then quickly go back to the original state (just like you can on the Elektron boxes).
- Is it possible to smoothly change between presets and running sequences via program change? I would like to use the internal sequencer of this synth together with the internal sequencers on my Elektron devices, but some synths take a while when switching to a new preset (and you might even have to start the playback manually each time you switch).
I would be really grateful if someone could answer these questions.
-
…if I’m reading this right, then yes. You can do this, just press the preset knob and it will reload to the original settings.
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Regarding question 1, yes, that’s what I’m after. Is the reload instantaneous, or is there a noticeable time delay before it takes effect?
Regarding question 2. Thanks for the link. That’s a more complicated use case than what I’m after though. I simply want to change presets through program changes whenever my Elektron devices changes patterns. So, I would like to be able to play, for example, pattern A1, then pattern A2 and then pattern A3 on my Syntakt while having the MiniFreak change between preset 1, 2 and 3 and play along from its internal sequencer.
Regarding question 1, yes, that’s what I’m after. Is the reload instantaneous, or is there a noticeable time delay before it takes effect?
It’s virtually instantaneous.
Regarding question 2. Thanks for the link. That’s a more complicated use case than what I’m after though. I simply want to change presets through program changes whenever my Elektron devices changes patterns. So, I would like to be able to play, for example, pattern A1, then pattern A2 and then pattern A3 on my Syntakt while having the MiniFreak change between preset 1, 2 and 3 and play along from its internal sequencer.
You can change Freak presets using PC’s on DT pattern changes. If you want to change Freak presets while the same pattern is running continuously you’ll need to plock the PC changes. Otherwise you’ll get a single shot for each midi track PC and when you change to another midi track the previous midi track will not re-trigger a PC to the Freak (PC plocks take care of this).
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Thanks for the information! This makes me really interested in buying a MiniFreak and try out.