Thanks for tuning in! Sorry for noise gate issues but 🤷♂ Preorder Arturia Minifreak and support yaboi ► bit.ly/3z2BPbE New album preorder ► venustheory.bandcamp.com/album/somewhere-the-light-falls ▼▼▼A few relevant timestamps▼▼▼ 0:38 Stream Starts 4:08 First Patch Demo/Noodling 8:15 Some other patches I've made so far 17:20 Fun with supersaws 20:15 Designing a noisy pad 33:54 Boards of Canada-y thing I made 38:08 A neuro-y bass 39:50 Ambient cowbell challenge 44:00 Taco Bell 'bong' challenge 54:19 Synthwave drone 1:06:30 'Plaits Into Clouds Ambient' Attempt 1:14:15 Minimoog-y bass sounds/leads 1:36:56 Audio input testing with a guitar
You've got the best personality voice talent and experience for a channel like this. Great sounding synth huh! Case for loving new boards more than the classics
Haha thanks. Super fun little unit for sure, hopefully there's a wavetable update on the way at some point but aside from that I can't complain much for the price especially. Lots of fun to play with and solid sounds.
I too love the microfreak. for cheap modular, you could get Brains from Behringer $159, Behringer 1006 filtamp $89, Behringer 1006 Filtamp,Behringer SPACE FX $49
Had a good laugh when he busted out Redneck. Definitely a departure from the ambient/sound design roots of the channel. Cool to see I'm not the only one who came from metal roots.
This is an awesome experimental synth that sounds as good as any other in its $ range. Where it excels is the ability to take you places you cannot with the other same $ synths, the dual synth engines, the various engines on offer, that radical sequencer (no I don't mean radical as in Bart Simpson RAD), FX, Macros, list goes on and on.
Looking forward to the Minifreak VST; Such a cool new trend for manufacturers releasing identical plugins to their HW synths! I’m interested to hear how close they get the sound, given that the HW includes analog filters.
I wish Arturia made iPad apps as well. Plugging an iPad Pro into a synth so you can immediately see what’s in a patch is v cool. Modal do this for their synths so you don’t need your laptop.
@@symbiat0 i wish they made iPad apps again .. they entered the iOS market briefly with some fantastic synths, an Oberheim and Model D emulator, iSem and iMini .. iSem is the only one they’ve bothered to maintain- still works great. Moog’s own Model D emulator more than makes up for the loss of iMini though.
Hey Cameron, you ever considered a Kawai K5000? Yes, they are as old af, but if you like interesting textures it might be worth checking one out. I recently bought a K5000W (workstation model) and am having a lot of fun tweaking patches I've downloaded from the net.
Does the audio input go to all the voices? Could you, for example, have a keytracked bandpass or comb filter applied to the audio input and play chords on the keyboards?
I have an important question…maybe I do not understand music theory… How to tune that thing?!? For reference, I like tune knob on Minimoog…it is quick and does something more then only shifting pitch…it stretches or squeezes whole octave. MicroFreak has tuning option A=xxxhz MiniFreak doesn‘t have that. It has only “tuning” in form of moving pitch up or down. Or did I miss smth?
Thanks for the demonstration. Fun as it seems, a Hydrasynth it is not. I’m lucky that you remain a creator on TH-cam. I can’t begin to imagine, but my goodness…you have to be Exhausted!
Hey Venus! looks Amazing!!! Wondering if you could do a redux on the Massive X now that it's 1.4. all the content I can find is from when it came out. Would like to see how it shape up now. Had some amazing potential. You da best.
No, I'll buy only a PCB keys version! It's another KS37 plus a poly synth with digi-oscillators. At least it should be multitimbral. Or what's the point of this portability?
Hard choice! Hydra is extremely unique and does a ton of interesting stuff and offers MPE support - Minifreak doesn't have much sonic overlap with it beyond maybe the Virtual Analog stuff so I don't know that they're all that comparable. Suppose it comes down to if you want more 'waveshapey' synth stuff (hydra), or more oscillator options(freak).
@@VenusTheory I would be interested in an answer to this question for someone who is new to synths. I don't have enough experience to know which of those I want! I know what kinds of sounds I like but not which tools would be better for me, and I would really like to get a synth keyboard.
I don't k if it's common that vts had low volume. I'm trying to put in into a MDI channel in Ableton but it's annoying that volume of minifreak vts it's lower that other instruments. There's a solution for this?
I literally bought a Minilogue XD three days before this was announced. If you had to choose this or that, for a casual, analog-sounding sofa synth, which would it be? For Depeche Mode, 80s new wave, 80s/90s house, 00s vocal trance, Kaskade/tiesto/deadmau5? Just to make up simple riffs and bass-ic sequences, etc., to layer put into a DAW/MPC Live setup?
@@CentaurusRelax314 it’s more of a versatile synthesizer in my opinion and being analog I feel like it’s just creamier and not as harsh sounding as the mini/micro freak , microfreak sounds like a vst
@@BaltimoreReese Thanks. I appreciate the clarification. I’ve only had the Minilogue XD for less than a week, and hadn’t put in enough time to go through more than just the first half of the presets, but I’m not impressed yet. I just have a feeling that there are some synths that ‘pass’ for analog as well as some real analogs do analog. I almost bought the IK uno synth pro, because demos make it sound even more analog and rich (and Fun) than the XD, but I went with the more WYSIWYG Korg approach. Now I’m sorta regretting that. But, it’s still early, and maybe i just need to invest $20 in a different set of presets to use as starting points.
@@AngMoKio8 Thanks. You're right, of course. I do need to put time into it. I do already have a Deepmind and an SE-02, so i didn't need this new synth to have all the controls and be a traditional 'sound design' tool. I just wanted quick and easy ways to get ideas down. But i'm going to proceed with the XD and also dedicate some time to the MPC Live II. I shouldn't need anything else. But, you know how it is-we're like pigeons. A new shiny object appears and it's like, "Want."
I'm torn on how I feel about the baby keys. Sorta miss the weird pcb feel of the micro, but keys make playing feel more 'musical' I guess. Petition for an MPE Megafreak next?
@@VenusTheory I always wondered how the pcb keys felt they sure looked cool 😎 never got to try them. I noticed that and the missing vocoder not sure 🤔 if that is missed,megafreak or maybe nanofreak with pcb .
Good Stream, this synth seems to be really fun . But right now iam torn which one i should spent my money on: This one or the ASM Hydrasynth Explorer........Since i own a microfreak already im leaning towards the ASM but i like the worklow of the "Freak" so it could be a lot easier to handle the Minifreak....Oh dear , i hate decisions xD
Strange question maybe, but does this have any master keyboard functionality at all? e.g. ability to switch to other MIDI channels to target other devices (and automatically turn local response off in that case) - I'm mainly using my Keystep pro for this purpose (and not using the sequencing or CV outs) - to control 4 different devices.. and this is a tempting replacement (especially as it looks like the same dimensions). Being able to optionally layer other MIDI channel targets would be cool too - seems like a simple thing to forward keyboard events. (Yes I'm aware I could do it via a DAW/MIDI host.. )
It does! You can change the input/output channel, and it has a local control toggle so you can just use it as a MIDI keyboard with aftertouch. The KSP 'multi out' function can't be done on this since it doesn't have the same 'layer' features/channel switch but you could use it as a more conventional controller or swap channels as you record parts. I don't think it's necessarily a replacement for the KSP in that regard but if you wanted to swap it out you wouldn't be missing much other than the four 'layers' to the KSP.
Why did you take out your iridium comment? I’d like to hear the rest of that. 😊 ….after listening a bunch, that may not have been intentional. I heard allot of drops like the threshold on vocals may have been slightly too high.
$600+ tax? I’ll wait for for the Minifreak V plugin when it becomes available to everyone (I know the hardware owners will be the first to have it available)
Be interested in anyone's thoughts as to why would I want to buy a hardware synth, besides the fun of twisting knobs, when everything it does can done software. Or am I missing something?
Thanks for tuning in! Sorry for noise gate issues but 🤷♂
Preorder Arturia Minifreak and support yaboi ► bit.ly/3z2BPbE
New album preorder ► venustheory.bandcamp.com/album/somewhere-the-light-falls
▼▼▼A few relevant timestamps▼▼▼
0:38 Stream Starts
4:08 First Patch Demo/Noodling
8:15 Some other patches I've made so far
17:20 Fun with supersaws
20:15 Designing a noisy pad
33:54 Boards of Canada-y thing I made
38:08 A neuro-y bass
39:50 Ambient cowbell challenge
44:00 Taco Bell 'bong' challenge
54:19 Synthwave drone
1:06:30 'Plaits Into Clouds Ambient' Attempt
1:14:15 Minimoog-y bass sounds/leads
1:36:56 Audio input testing with a guitar
Pls don’t delete this vid. Mine comes in December. I’ll be doubling back for some lessons :)
"I can't believe I pulled that off. That one's getting saved in the ol' spank bank" 😂 Your knowledge of synthesis is something else.
You've got the best personality voice talent and experience for a channel like this.
Great sounding synth huh!
Case for loving new boards more than the classics
Haha thanks. Super fun little unit for sure, hopefully there's a wavetable update on the way at some point but aside from that I can't complain much for the price especially. Lots of fun to play with and solid sounds.
Great Q&A walkthrough + sound design with some pretty cool patches VT! And thanks for playing Neon Turbo at 14:25
I too love the microfreak. for cheap modular, you could get Brains from Behringer $159, Behringer 1006 filtamp $89,
Behringer 1006 Filtamp,Behringer SPACE FX $49
Scans through to see if the keyboard will ever be acceptably straightened (spoilers: yes). Back to the show.
🤣💀
Love the Takumar on top !
Great video, thanks
Had a good laugh when he busted out Redneck. Definitely a departure from the ambient/sound design roots of the channel. Cool to see I'm not the only one who came from metal roots.
Great video and so gutsy for you to do on. Stream.
solid design
My girlfriend just gave me one early for christmas! I'm in love with this thing. This is my first synth outside of VST's and a controller.
thanks
I'm listening to ur albums.
I'd be down to hear some Oberheim styled patches especially since this thing has an SEM filter
Watching this and my gf in the other room literally ran in and asked if that was the taco bell bell.
Cool noodle! ✌️
This is an awesome experimental synth that sounds as good as any other in its $ range.
Where it excels is the ability to take you places you cannot with the other same $ synths, the dual synth engines, the various engines on offer, that radical sequencer (no I don't mean radical as in Bart Simpson RAD), FX, Macros, list goes on and on.
@@GrootsieTheDog no they're the same $ here, XD is more expensive actually.
Looking forward to the Minifreak VST; Such a cool new trend for manufacturers releasing identical plugins to their HW synths! I’m interested to hear how close they get the sound, given that the HW includes analog filters.
Same! Excited to give that a spin when it's out to see how it matches up.
It’ll probably sound the same with more polyphony. So better
I wish Arturia made iPad apps as well. Plugging an iPad Pro into a synth so you can immediately see what’s in a patch is v cool. Modal do this for their synths so you don’t need your laptop.
@@symbiat0 i wish they made iPad apps again .. they entered the iOS market briefly with some fantastic synths, an Oberheim and Model D emulator, iSem and iMini .. iSem is the only one they’ve bothered to maintain- still works great. Moog’s own Model D emulator more than makes up for the loss of iMini though.
Its a different layout, than Pigments, but the sounds are pretty much the same - minus the analog filters.
Hey Cameron, you ever considered a Kawai K5000? Yes, they are as old af, but if you like interesting textures it might be worth checking one out. I recently bought a K5000W (workstation model) and am having a lot of fun tweaking patches I've downloaded from the net.
No wavetable but it does have the Mutable and Noise Engineering oscillator programs among others. There is plenty to explore.
First time seeing this channel. I feel like I'm being taught sound design by Jeff Goldblum, which seems like a fun learning environment.
dats my fav synth now. would be cool to have more features, but sound is insane good
MORE features??😂 this is one of the most feature packed synths at this price
Does the audio input go to all the voices? Could you, for example, have a keytracked bandpass or comb filter applied to the audio input and play chords on the keyboards?
I have an important question…maybe I do not understand music theory…
How to tune that thing?!?
For reference, I like tune knob on Minimoog…it is quick and does something more then only shifting pitch…it stretches or squeezes whole octave. MicroFreak has tuning option A=xxxhz
MiniFreak doesn‘t have that. It has only “tuning” in form of moving pitch up or down. Or did I miss smth?
Might be cool to try using a compressor to duck your music output slightly while you are speaking.
How did you increase the line in volume? I know about choosing line in and holding a key but it’s still crazy quiet.
Thanks for the demonstration. Fun as it seems, a Hydrasynth it is not.
I’m lucky that you remain a creator on TH-cam. I can’t begin to imagine, but my goodness…you have to be Exhausted!
Hey Venus! looks Amazing!!! Wondering if you could do a redux on the Massive X now that it's 1.4. all the content I can find is from when it came out. Would like to see how it shape up now. Had some amazing potential.
You da best.
Not really all that interested in new plugins but maybe I'll give it a look!
@@VenusTheory oh, sorry...it's the one that came out in 2019 but was a disappointment. I know they've improved it, just wanted to see your thoughts
I had the same audio in epiphany
No, I'll buy only a PCB keys version! It's another KS37 plus a poly synth with digi-oscillators.
At least it should be multitimbral. Or what's the point of this portability?
Would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the mini freak vs hydrasynth explorer?
Hard choice! Hydra is extremely unique and does a ton of interesting stuff and offers MPE support - Minifreak doesn't have much sonic overlap with it beyond maybe the Virtual Analog stuff so I don't know that they're all that comparable. Suppose it comes down to if you want more 'waveshapey' synth stuff (hydra), or more oscillator options(freak).
Thanks 🙏
@@VenusTheory I would be interested in an answer to this question for someone who is new to synths. I don't have enough experience to know which of those I want! I know what kinds of sounds I like but not which tools would be better for me, and I would really like to get a synth keyboard.
I don't k if it's common that vts had low volume.
I'm trying to put in into a MDI channel in Ableton but it's annoying that volume of minifreak vts it's lower that other instruments. There's a solution for this?
Paraphonic mode is 12 voice not 4. Just caught that at the beginning? Sounds great though!
I know this is 6 months ago, but he was referring to the Microfreak being 4 voice paraphonic.
Thinking to sell my Keystep 37 and buy the Minifreak. Will I lose any MIDI controller function?
Arturia Minifreak or Modal Cobalt 8?
Looks very promising! Does anyone know if the effects parameters can be modulated via mod matrix or sequencer mod lanes?
Yep! They can but I don't think it offers polyphonic modulation of the parameters but I haven't tested that in detail at this point so grain of salt.
@@VenusTheory Thanks for the quick answer, so I guess I will find out around Christmas ;-)
I literally bought a Minilogue XD three days before this was announced. If you had to choose this or that, for a casual, analog-sounding sofa synth, which would it be? For Depeche Mode, 80s new wave, 80s/90s house, 00s vocal trance, Kaskade/tiesto/deadmau5? Just to make up simple riffs and bass-ic sequences, etc., to layer put into a DAW/MPC Live setup?
You made the right choice
@@BaltimoreReese Why?
@@CentaurusRelax314 it’s more of a versatile synthesizer in my opinion and being analog I feel like it’s just creamier and not as harsh sounding as the mini/micro freak , microfreak sounds like a vst
@@BaltimoreReese Thanks. I appreciate the clarification.
I’ve only had the Minilogue XD for less than a week, and hadn’t put in enough time to go through more than just the first half of the presets, but I’m not impressed yet. I just have a feeling that there are some synths that ‘pass’ for analog as well as some real analogs do analog. I almost bought the IK uno synth pro, because demos make it sound even more analog and rich (and Fun) than the XD, but I went with the more WYSIWYG Korg approach. Now I’m sorta regretting that. But, it’s still early, and maybe i just need to invest $20 in a different set of presets to use as starting points.
@@AngMoKio8 Thanks. You're right, of course. I do need to put time into it. I do already have a Deepmind and an SE-02, so i didn't need this new synth to have all the controls and be a traditional 'sound design' tool. I just wanted quick and easy ways to get ideas down. But i'm going to proceed with the XD and also dedicate some time to the MPC Live II. I shouldn't need anything else. But, you know how it is-we're like pigeons. A new shiny object appears and it's like, "Want."
Venus, I will be listening to your music on wee...d. I like that
Tonight 😊
Haha well enjoy the ride 🍁
Regular keyboard 🎹 a plus
I'm torn on how I feel about the baby keys. Sorta miss the weird pcb feel of the micro, but keys make playing feel more 'musical' I guess. Petition for an MPE Megafreak next?
@@VenusTheory I always wondered how the pcb keys felt they sure looked cool 😎 never got to try them. I noticed that and the missing vocoder not sure 🤔 if that is missed,megafreak or maybe nanofreak with pcb .
Good Stream, this synth seems to be really fun . But right now iam torn which one i should spent my money on: This one or the ASM Hydrasynth Explorer........Since i own a microfreak already im leaning towards the ASM but i like the worklow of the "Freak" so it could be a lot easier to handle the Minifreak....Oh dear , i hate decisions xD
Hydra has a great keybed with PolyAT(!)
But MiniFreak has real filters. Hydra's filters sucks IMO. They all sounds the same on high frequencies.
Strange question maybe, but does this have any master keyboard functionality at all? e.g. ability to switch to other MIDI channels to target other devices (and automatically turn local response off in that case) - I'm mainly using my Keystep pro for this purpose (and not using the sequencing or CV outs) - to control 4 different devices.. and this is a tempting replacement (especially as it looks like the same dimensions). Being able to optionally layer other MIDI channel targets would be cool too - seems like a simple thing to forward keyboard events. (Yes I'm aware I could do it via a DAW/MIDI host.. )
It does! You can change the input/output channel, and it has a local control toggle so you can just use it as a MIDI keyboard with aftertouch. The KSP 'multi out' function can't be done on this since it doesn't have the same 'layer' features/channel switch but you could use it as a more conventional controller or swap channels as you record parts. I don't think it's necessarily a replacement for the KSP in that regard but if you wanted to swap it out you wouldn't be missing much other than the four 'layers' to the KSP.
The dude who wouldn’t shut up about Phaseplant in chat really got on my nerves😂
Why did you take out your iridium comment? I’d like to hear the rest of that. 😊 ….after listening a bunch, that may not have been intentional. I heard allot of drops like the threshold on vocals may have been slightly too high.
$600+ tax? I’ll wait for for the Minifreak V plugin when it becomes available to everyone (I know the hardware owners will be the first to have it available)
Will be interested to see how the plugin turns out! Might have to do a stream with that to do some A/B testing live.
Digitone or Minifreak? .... decisions decisions 🤔
Wait wtf why does it not have wavetable engine. Bruh
Fingers crossed for a 2.0 update!
Be interested in anyone's thoughts as to why would I want to buy a hardware synth, besides the fun of twisting knobs, when everything it does can done software. Or am I missing something?
It’s an instrument, software can’t replace that. It makes you play music, not clicking a soulless mouse for hours.
@@chrisrevel2801 Wrong, there’s numerous people who even use MPC style instruments that play live. Your limitations are not other peoples.
@@chrisrevel2801 No.
@@chrisrevel2801 JD800, D50, M1…. want me to continue?
@@chrisrevel2801 You know they invented MIDI In? It allows devices to talk to each other. Check it out! This has it too! Welcome to hardware :)
Does anyone know why he's called venus _theory_ ? Why theory?
Too much gating/compression on the mic. Kept cutting out your words.
Trying to drown out dog chewing bone in the background 🤷♂️
@@VenusTheory use him as the gate/compressor kek.
U need a swear jar dude
Pentax lens - hipster confirmed.
For some reason it looked like an herb grinder when watching on my phone. Lol now I want a grinder that looks like a lens!