Arturia MicroFreak

Hello from the world of modular synthesis

The synthesizer market has always been moderately conservative, so the classic formula “a pair of analogue oscillators + a good filter” is still relevant. And all the stormy experimentation spun off into the industry of modular synthesizers. Sometimes these worlds collide and create something cool and unique. Recent examples include the Moog DFAM drum synthesizer, the simple and slightly insane Make Noise 0-Coast, or the hero of this review, Arturia Microfreak.

Touch keyboard with pseudo MPE

This baby has 2 features that make it different from any other analogue or digital synthesizer. The first is a touch keyboard with aftertouch and pressure sensitivity. It feels like a cross between a Roli Seaboard with a full-fledged MPE and a touchscreen iPad running some kind of Animoog. That is, it is more convenient to crawl on it with a “finger”, playing the same note with different parameters for opening a filter or effects, rather than performing classic keyboard passages.

The famous sound engines of the Mutable Plaits multi-oscillator

The second distinguishing point is the very foundation taken from the modular world. Instead of the classic analogue oscillators with sine, saw and square, Microfreak relies on the complex sound engine of the popular Euro rack module Mutable Plaits. In fact, it's like a pack of different synthesizers in one package. Do you want FM synthesis? Yes please! Need a wavefolder? This is the next button. And a little further is a granular engine, a corder, a resonator, a wavetable, a pack of engines for drum synthesis and a bunch of other interesting things. In terms of the richness of the sound palette and ease of programming, literally a few synthesizers can compete with Microfreak. If you've looked down on digital synthesizers, Microfreak can easily change your mind. Especially for such a price.

Analogue filter from Oberheim SEM

Other features of the synthesizer include: an analogue filter taken from Oberheim SEM, a simple but powerful modulation matrix, a not the most convenient 64-step sequencer, a basic arpeggiator, a pair of envelopes (regular and cyclic) and an LFO. For better control of all this goodness, there is a small OLED screen. Out of the box, 128 presets are sewn into the memory of the synthesizer, another 64 slots are free to save your own sounds.