Beware. I had a MF. Sold it. Now I have another MF. It’s the only thing I’ve sold and later rebought as I had regret.
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I consider this to be the acid test.
I bought and sold, and bought and sold, and bought a Yamaha MOXF6 again (3rd time’s a charm). It only took me 2 purchases of a Reface CP to learn.
Jury is out on the MiniFreak, but you may be right.
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Funny, I keep thinking about buying the cp again.
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No analogue filter on the SH-4D though (plus it probably sound like all the other ZC synths ie unsatisfactory to me personally)
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fair, the closest comparison i can make with something i owned was the hydrasynth explorer and i would say the sh-4d’s overall sound is way more satisfactory to me, but now we’re getting in the weeds
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I’m not trying to be contradictory just for the sake of it, but I’ve yet to hear a single person state that the filter on this wonderful synth is a reason they buy it.
I love its filter because of its very quiet but important presence in coloring (or de-coloring) the sound, but I wonder if there are those who say it’s the synth’s strongest point because of the unique sound it brings to the table.
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Having both the MiniFreak and SH-4d I’d say they compliment each other quite well. There’s things each synth can do that the other can’t. But the things they can do make it worth it.
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If you’re wondering whether anyone bought the synth due to the analog filters, I think we could be certain that at least a significant number of people did. It’s pretty well known that analog filters and anything else “analog” will add value and appeal to music gear for at least a subset of the market. Just being able to put the word “analog” on the box increases sales. Knowingly or not, those analog filters have swayed people to purchase the MF.
I also think the analog filters do sound a little bit different from the Minifreak .vst version. It is a slight difference and depends on the patch - I wouldn’t be able to hear a difference in an AB comparison for some patches, for others I definitely could on a good sound system. For a synth part which gets thrown into a mix, I truly don’t believe the Minifreak’s analog filters would make a functional difference to the song in the vast majority of cases. This is great news for those who use the .vst version for finishing out their tracks in a DAW. It also sort of undermines the analog filters as a reason to buy the Minifreak. But the word analog has some influence over purchasing decisions.
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I’ve got my MOX6 also. I 'll never let it go. At least I hope not. 
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Which is why different synths exist at all, right? I have the Roland and the Arturia too…so I get it.
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Has anyone in the US got the MF vocoder edition in stock yet?
well, I can only speak for myself of course. I have this thing with digital synths with analogue filters, and almost no love for purely digital synths (unless they sound crusty like vintage digital synths). If the freaks would have no digital filter, I never would have bought them.
Why? because IMHO, a digital filter on a subtractive synth only gives a portion of all the possible sounds on offer, AKA “All VST resonance sucks!” as popularized by certain online threads
just my 2 cents (jm2c)
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The filter is just part of the MF’s sound. The variety and complexity it has in its Osc section is absolutely huge, with that, I don’t think you want/need a squealing/characterful filter section.
In addition to the sonic depth of the Osc section, the FX section has an equally huge amount of sonic possibilities, and, again, having a workhorse filter in between the synth and fx sections is perfect IMO.
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Three things I like about the latest 4.0 update:
- The way the vocoder is implemented as an FX allows me to use any of my patches for the vocoder.
- The way in which the “self” vocoder makes existing patches fit in the mix easily and is a terrific psy-trance effect.
- The osc type-change-bug is solved: changing the osc type immediately reflects on the display (broken since 3.0)
And yes, I would have liked “user samples” and “user wavetables” to be part of this update, but let’s hope that will be coming with the 5.0 update 
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