Arturia MiniFreak Review - Is it any good?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 ก.ค. 2024
- I get my hands on the @ArturiaOfficial MiniFreak and take a look at some of its key features. My rambling is interspersed with a bunch of audio examples.
0:00 - Intro
01:27 - Build + Design
03:52 - Connectivity
06:00 - Features
09:29 - My thoughts
12:45 - Outro Synth Jam
The 'paid promotion' box is ticked as Arturia sent me this over to check out. I wasn't actually paid any cold hard money, or told what to do.
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An important note: While the MiniFreak's keyboard only transmits monophonic aftertouch, the sound engines of the MiniFreak support polyphonic aftertouch when used with a controller that supports this.
So really, the best answer might be: get this AND the ASM Hydrasynth Explorer
Haha that's always the answer
@@Jobotubular Or MiniFreak + MicroFreak.
@@qwe1231 - true gearslut that I am, I now have all three (actually full size Hydra, not Explorer, but whatever). And the MiniFreak really is about halfway between the Hydra and the Micro, seemingly able to do what either of those can do.
now that's TWO synths I got because you reviewed. No more til next year, okay? ;)
Great breakdown! I was between Minifreak and Hydrasynth Explorer for my first foundation synth and went with the Hydra (started with Volcas). I have no regrets, but it was a tough decision. Both are so amazing. May just add a Freak down the road...
It is a tough call between the two to be sure!
I really like your outro. It gave me kind of a fresh set of ears for this synth actually.
😸👍
Hey thanks! I'm glad you liked it. I was fairly pleased with how it came out for a quick wee track. :)
Glad you decided to review this. My own reaction to its announcement was very much driven by my ambivalence about the microFreak's limitations -- I thought nah, I don't need a bigger version of that. But it seems they have addressed all the issues, from the keybed to paraphony to built-in effects. And your experimental jam sounded nice :)
Thank you! Aye, it's cool to see that Arturia listened to what folks were asking for and implemented that in this version. Unusual...
Great video. I like that beat at the end bro!
Hey thanks a lot!
Stephen ,wonderful work as ever.Thank you .Ordered mine this afternoon .I think it's gonna be 'deep down and dirty' enough for my power electronics filth .
Nice!! Hope you enjoy it!!
Recently got one as well and love it! Great follow up to the microfreak for sure
Hell yeah!
Loved this video Stephen, pick up my Mini F tomorrow 😍😎
Nice one! Hope you love it
Love my Minifreak, such a great synth. Just sitting down with it starting with an init patch and making some weird sounds is so relaxing. There are so many options for sound design it's like a meditative experience. Also helps that it can deliver some absolute bangers and the free VST that it comes with it is handy when I'm too lazy to hook up any hardware.
I think that appealing to the lazy demographic is under-rated!!
@@StephenMcLeod It’s a curse. I’d do something about it but… can’t be arsed.
@@rasphodamus8793 I was going to reply but I couldn't be fu
Always wondered what that little input with the lock symbol was! Ya learn something every day! The Kensington Lock! 💪🏻
The unsung hero of students in libraries everywhere that need to go piss!
of course! this thing rocks
Hell yeah! Thanks!
Highly recommend looking at custom shape LFOs you can make - lets you create a sort twang sound using the filter. the ribbon strips in macro mode let you control 4 parameters simultaneously and of course the mod matrix still affects everything so you can have some crazy modulations where things you modulate with the macro strips modulate each other.
I hear what you're saying about the minikeys - they're surprisingly fine. I didn't really get it since my first midi controller was a minilab 2 and then later I got a keystep 2 and I always thought the minkeys were fine. Turns out arturia just makes really decent minikeys compared to others. This keybed feels and looks identical to the keybed in the keystep pro.
I really like the effects section, and having 3 pages of 3 custom destinations instead of just 3 custom destinations gives you a lot of room for subtle modulations you might not have had room for in a minifreak. I think the presets aren't really representative of what this machine is capable of, although there are a few decent ones in there. There are also some additional effects/filters etc in the 2nd oscillator you can feed the first oscillator into that are kind of neat too.
I really wish the engine and keyboard were MPE - I actually really like the crazy keybed of the microfreak and the nutso things it lets you do without taking your hand and putting it on a touch strip or whatever. It would be a lot more more interesting with MPE.
Coming to this machine from a microfreak was 'ya most of the stuff you had before, two oscillators and LFOs, and then effects"' plus even more interesting stuff hidden behind the controls like the custom lfo shape. It feels a lot more complete than a microfreak and very easy to approach and learn from.
They're supposedly already working on a new wavetable engine for this that will play better with the device and the VST than the minifreaks ever did. I hope its good!
Top tip! I will need to check out the custom LFO shapes. Agree with you on the FX! It's been implemented really nicely. I suspect there may be more to come in future updates. Arturia have been really good at incremental improvements. I don't think they could make a standard keyboard with MPE - it would need to be polyphonic aftertouch - but it's a shame that wasn't included.
hi guy, thanks for your video, I was wondering a question, at the start of the video at 1:24 the LEDs of macro 1 are in red, in what mode do you go to have them in red?
I love how you're morphing into Gloria Hunniford! 😅
Seriously though,great video as usual. I have the white Microfreak,but this does sound amazing.
A woman of great taste and fashion sense.
@@StephenMcLeod Indeed! Your new look suits you.
@@themetamorph Why thank ye.
@allmyfriendsaresynths Great video! I 100% am glad that Arturia sent that to you and I recommend they send you more products to review as you give honest reviews and to the point. Arturia is the only synthesizer company that actually gave me a chance to review and use (at that time) their V Collection 5 software suite. For a hardware synthesizer I use there Artuira Microbrute which is a monophonic analog synth.. I think that mini freak would pair up well with that... Arturia makes great stuff. Have a great upcoming weekend! - MrTom
The V Collection is pretty awesome. It's one of the only suites of VSTs I actually like and use!
@@StephenMcLeod Absolutely! Arturia makes very great software and hardware... And they always have something unique style and sound on what they make. But again "TO ME" a company that loops me in as an old 1980s songwriter/composer and gave me that shot to test out and demo' of their software / gear a few years back.. That meant a lot me and it's companies like theirs, that I always give a shout out to because of their professional courtesy to me. Cheers.
the regular keyboard made me a bit sad. release a touchplate version Arturia, you cowards!
Haha, now that would be quite the thing to behold.
Polyphonic after touch is the best part of the original. Super sad that the sequel is missing it.
@@middaymeds yeah! they could probably bring that back with a bigger touch plate, I'm sure.
Why would you want a downgrade? How about a metal stylophone keybed while we're making it objectively harder to play?
@@timburlingame5893well it's not a piano, but it's been downgraded (removal of poly aftertouch) by people thinking it needs to control like one. the touchplate was demonstrated to work on the Microfreak so your Stylophone comparison is weak.
the ideal for me would be a Serge TKB type situation with a knob for every segment of the touchplate - you could have that as an auxiliary sequencer, you could tune every note to something different, do microtuning, on and on.
I got the vst and I love it
It is pretty sweet.
I bought myself one for Christmas, it's definitely worth the money.
The price of a MI Plaits, and a single Noise Engineering module alone would cost more than the price of this, very capable, instrument.
I was so impressed I finally bought the Drumbrute Impact - dark version, - for my birthday, also very fairly priced.
Would be great if Arturia made a 2u rack mount effects unit, balanced XLR i/o, realtime front panel control, maybe throw in some CV modulation options?..
That's a great point about the price of the Mutable/NI modules!
Yes but plenty good MI Clones also available
Your sweater is my spirit animal
Why thank you. I have embraced the weirdo jumpers over the past wee while.
Fire sweater
Back to the 90s!!
Would this be good paired with a Dirtywave M8, or maybe the Micro is better suited as it's smaller and more portable. I know it comes down to the artist but for someone that likes to tinker and isn't that serious is it worth the extra?
It depends what you want to use it for! The Micro is fun but it's not polyphonic, and it doesn't have the keys or built in FX. I do think it's probably worth the extra cash for the MiniFreak if you're only buying one device.
Oh man this thing sounds and looks friggin sweet! Pretty sure my lab partner is going to grab the VST and now I'm leaning toward this! 😆🐀
YOU CRAZY RATS
How did you hook up the MiniFreak and the Polyend Play together to sync up and then output to speakers? Sorry, I am a newbie and I love this video!
I can't actually remember for this one! I think I synched them both to my computer over MIDI though. :)
I was eyeballing this the other week. Went and played with one. The next day I was talking about it with my buddy. He put the ASM Hydrasynth back in my head, and by pure chance, they announced $100 off Hydrasynth for the month of April. I couldn't argue with that and picked up the Hydrasynth instead. Had that sale not been going on, I probably would have picked this up instead.
Edit: Grammar sucks. 😅
Down with grammar! 100USD off the Hydrasynth would make it an even bigger steal!! How you liking it?
@allmyfriendsaresynths It's been fantastic. I've been on a bit of a deep journey, finding different ways of having it play itself and seeing what kind of things it can create with minimal input on my side. I very often can get something super dreamy (and what I personally consider VERY Cyberpunk) and just sit back for 30-60 minutes at a time, getting lost in what in hearing where it goes. I thought with the Explorer, I'd have to do a lot of menu diving, but I have been quite surprised that anything I want to do or mod is only 1 or 2 button presses away. Everything just made sense after my first hour with it. Even if you can't get it for $100 off, I think it's hands down the best bang for your buck. I've made about 40 patches so far and have thoroughly enjoyed every second of my time with it.
I do think it comes down to this or the small hydrasynth if looking for this "type" of synth. I believe we will see a full size bi-timbral freak (basically 2 minifreak engines) from Arturia by some time in 2024. Hopefully with the same keybed as the mk2 Quantum or simlar, stereo outs per layer, and priced between the full size hydrasynths.
A MAJORFREAK!!
The ability to use unipolar vs bipolar lfos is also great. You can use the LFO shape editor to create an envelope and set the LFO to run once and not repeat - boom, custom wacky envelope shape you couldn't get anywhere else.
Good point! The control over those elements is really cool - though admittedly not something I've dived into extensively yet.
Been eyeballing the microfreak for a while, think I might just get this instead now 😂 Does look nice to be fair. Do you get it to keep it or has it got to go back?
This is a keeper!
@@StephenMcLeod Nice one, enjoy!
love the workflow, but I need a bit more grit to the sound so I'm orbiting toward a peak. I already own the micro, and I might pick up the vst still, love those noise engineering algos. The arp-seq part really seem top notch in this.
OOoh I would like a Peak as well...
Interested to know whether you miss the magical Microfreak key style? Seems like the only piece it’s lacking. I’m looking at both of these tomorrow and trying to weigh up all the pros and cons
I don't miss it because I have both! That said... the controller on the Microfreak is excellent, and I bought it partly to use as a controller for my modular. It's great value for what it is - the synth was kinda secondary.
If I was looking to buy just one synth, then I would go with the Minifreak out of the two. It's got aftertouch (though not poly), and feels much nicer. The polyphony is also great. I guess it depends what you want to use it for!
@@StephenMcLeod Awesome, thanks. This clarifies things a bit.
Nice jumper.
You need one for the rig.
The Minifreak is a fantastic value in my opinion. I really like the engine. I dislike Minikeys, but I liked the concept so much (and own a Microfreak) that I bought one anyway. I would have paid more for full-sized keys. Maybe we will get a "Superfreak" that has 12 voices and a full-sized keyboard. The competing version of the Hydrasynth is the Explorer, but why buy that if you can get one with full-sized keys? Okay maybe size + budget. I agree about the heft. The unit is surprisingly heavy for its size and cost.
Agreed. When I first heard about this my guess was a SuperFreak as well - though to be fair I didn't guess it with that name. That would be excellent haha
What is it with Scottish people and synth videos? This guy and the unperson have got to be some of my favourite people on the platform for how they put together these videos.
Thank you!! Unperson is awesome. It must be our trustworthy accents.
Unperson wears a colander on his head, he once told me it was to tune his alpha waves to 440HZ so he could maketh the musak on his gear.
Everything I just posted is very true and inaccurate!!!
I like my Minifreak a lot! Very few omissions, though I do wish (for all the sound design elegance) for performances it sadly lack ls 5-10 dedicated buttons or shortcuts to instantly call up a favorite patch. Maybe they’ll add that to the next one (Superfreak??).. hope so!
That's the name I guessed at as well ha. SuperFreak would be stellar.
The synth is cool and all, but I want the sweater more.
I mean, to be fair I am the pinnacle of style and good taste.
This looks to be a great synth and at a very reasonable price.
No bad for everything ye get!
I’ve been tempted for a few weeks now sounds great, I’m trying to downsize to take gear to gigs tho 🤔
It's not too big!
@@StephenMcLeod it could be on the purchase list then lol(my gas is real yo!) I’m not even American speaking street talk 👀🕺🏻🌝🤌🏻
I have a terrible confession. I bought the mini freak, which comes with the VST version. Didn’t really like the vibe of the mini freak hardware(knobs, gearsize/screen size ratio, pad button sensitivity) but liked the free VST version so I returned it and now I have a minifreak to sample with my SP ...at no cost :p
I'm telling Arturia!
@@StephenMcLeod
Played it whilst in Manchester. Great synth that I did think about buying. Went with the ASM Hydrasynth as (for me) it's a piece of piss to create a complex patch from scratch.
Fully expecting the apocalypse as how can synths get any better at decent prices....£500! I mean c'mon it's berserk what we're getting these days.
It is pretty wild right. The amount of awesome options out there now in respectable price ranges is great.
When can I expect a SuperFreak?
That was my guess at the name too. It's about time!
me thinks that sweater would also go quite nicely underneath that fancy jacket from the polyend tracker mini vid. ;-)
hahaha
@@StephenMcLeod ps... the minifreak of the bee's knees!! I'm glad you see that you're into it too. yaaay!!
micro has chord mode too...good stuff nice vid. Ta. Vocoder?
No vocoder on the minifreak... at this point at least. Love the microfreak, but tbh the vocoder is not great
@@boojibomb It's fun tho..and as a free update pretty good, but I know jacknowt about how a good vocoder should be, haven't faffed with the (Arturia suite+other eg's) 'nuff to get an opinion and am both too old and too young to care ;-)
No vocoder... yet, but I would expect it to be added in an update later on.
@@corradomorgana I think it's very cool they included it! You can get some fun sounds from it. But if you were in the market for a vocoder specifically, I wouldn't suggest the microfreak. It's actually the reason I bought it. I found the vocoder didn't suit my needs (lacking intelligibility) but was BLOWN away by the synth itself and had to keep it.
It's not a bad synth at all, what got me was the VST counterpart is almost exacting sounding, which somewhat devalues the whole value for me when you compare price.
I think this is where they made an error, the work flow is great but I'm not sure they did the hardware justice by pricing the software so low.
The VST is pretty awesome. I'm not sure it devalues the hardware as it's so nicely built and the physicality brings a lot to the table... though tbf I know hee haw about VST pricing. I guess one way to look at it is that the cost of the actual synth also includes the VST.
@@StephenMcLeod For me this is how it stands Steve, they had the price @ 99 USD as an introductory price, then back to 199.
99 USD = ~ 130 AUD, but the Minifreak here is on sale for $919 AUD.
When you see that it was almost 7 times more for the hardware, both @ discounted price, it makes it a hard pill to swallow.
This is where I think Arturia shot themselves in the foot when it comes to how we perceive value.
The psychology behind it, once you see that rock bottom $, it's hard to go back to asking $ if you know what I mean?
This is what I was basing my OP on, not current pricing but that special Arturia waved in our faces.
I was looking at this and Hydrasynth Explorer, just for something small & portable. I decided on “neither”.
What did you go with in the end, if anything?
general hint for your videos: instead of showing your face 95% all the time, give the gear itself more visual focus. It makes the content more interesting.
Thank you for this very helpful hint.
I want one too. If I didn't have a TI2
I wish I hadn't sold my Virus B...
@@StephenMcLeod now you have a very nice synthesizer with Minifreak. I like it. I'm willing to get Microfreak and then sample into Akai sampler or EMU sampler.
It's one of the easiest synths to execute a complex matrix routing on with so little diving.
My only gripes are the touch transport controls and the fact it doesn't have wavetable yet. I'm sure it will though. Also you can't use chord in osc 1 and that's disappointing because I love the chord osc and really wanted to try running it through the various filters you can use the second oscillator for. Especially comb filter.
Oh and FM. I wanted to FM the chords osc.
Word on the street is that we may see some of those features in a future firmware update.
Microfreak is awesome but your sweater is more
I'm glad it's getting recognition!!
I’m not a fan my fridge sounds warmer .
lol. Digital synths definitely aren't for everybody!
I have been eyeballing this baby for awhile, But you know they will come out with the Freak and then? SuperFreak? Only time will tell.
SuperFreak! SuperFreak!
I'm still waiting on an Ultra Freak tho