arturia minifreak In the Lab: Arturia MiniFreak

[Stephen Fortner]

Power up the MiniFreak, and the words “Welcome [your name here], we’ve been expecting you. Let’s get started” scroll across the display. I haven’t yet found the place where you enter your name and personalize it, but I do know this much: It may have been expecting me, but I wasn’t expecting it.(Full disclosure: I have worked on manuals and tutorials for Arturia. I did not work on nor receive compensation for anything related to the MiniFreak.)

 

Arturia’s marketing characterizes the MiniFreak as experimental and unconventional. That it is, but that’s also like saying a Ferrari FF is “fast” and ignoring the fact you can stick a similarly-priced load from Whole Foods in the hatchback and that it has all-wheel drive. I don’t think $599 can buy you any more sonic flexibility and downright musical usefulness anywhere else.

 

I’d even go so far as to say that for synths in this form factor, destined to occupy the second tier above a Nord whatever and looked at through unnecessarily thick-framed glasses over an ironic mustache, this thing is the new MicroKorg. In this thread I hope to explain why.

 

Overview

 

I have both a MicroFreak and MiniFreak in my studio currently. Simply put, the MicroFreak screams “Look at me, I’m weird!” and the MiniFreak does not. Maybe that’s because of the swapping of the Micro’s capacitive touch-keyboard for three octaves of mini-keys with aftertouch (!) but I think it’s more than that.

 

The MiniFreak is a “hybrid synth,” meaning it marries digital sound sources to an analog filter. It offers six voices of polyphony. Those sound sources are two digital oscillators controlled from the section with the orange knobs. Each oscillator offers a number of algorithms, which are better described as oscillator types or methods of sound generation. There are basic waveforms, virtual analog, Karplus-Strong, two-operator FM, harmonic (additive, sorta), and many more, including an external audio input on oscillator 1 only.

 

The filter is straightforward enough, with everything you need and nothing you don’t. There are lowpass, highpass, and bandpass modes, cutoff and resonance, and a clever dual-purpose knob that adjusts envelope amount before 12 o’clock and velocity-to-cutoff sensitivity after.

 

The envelope section is a standard ADSR, but this is also where you switch between mono, poly, paraphonic, and unison modes. In addition, a “cycling envelope” offers independent rise and fall times and can be set to run one-shot or loop.

 

On the left of the panel is an LED-festooned modulation matrix, allowing you to map seven sources to seven destinations — three of the latter are assignable. Since we don’t have room for all the buttons of a MatrixBrute or PolyBrute, there’s some scrolling with a knob involved, but it’s really pretty quick to make assignments.

 

The sequencer-arpeggiator is wild and has more real-time control than any other mini-synth — heck, than most other full-sized keyboard slab synths — I’ve seen. Sixteen buttons access step control in sequencer mode, then select patterns and octave ranges in arpeggiator mode. You can set odd, proggy sequence lengths.

Pitch-bend and mod are touch-strips, which have alternate modes accessed by buttons immediately above: Macros (programmable settings to sweep multiple parameters at once), and gate/splice time for the sequencer-arpeggiator.

 

We’ll get into the details of all these sections in future posts, but at the outset I cannot emphasize this point enough: I would reach for the MiniFreak for almost any “synthy” sound for which I wouldn’t reach for a ROMpler or clonewheel organ. Really. Pads, leads, basses, synth strings and brass … it can do it all and sounds gorgeous doing it.

 

I’m painting with very broad strokes here and bastardizing technical realities, but in terms of “vibe,” where the MicroFreak was like a Buchla for people afraid of Buchlas, the MiniFreak comes off like the amicable best friend of virtually any multi-keyboardist. It’s like a punk rocker with a very positive attitude — all those facial piercings can’t wipe the big bright smile off its face.

 

Next, we’ll get into the multifarious dual-oscillator setup. There isn’t a lot it can’t do.

[nursers]

Great stuff @Stephen Fortner looking forward to hearing more! At a broader level I'm an ever increasing fan of Arturia. Love their software and own a KeyLab Mk 2 and have been as impressed as hell with it as well

[Anderton]

What is the musical value of the paraphonic option? I don't have any synth with that feature - everything's polyphonic with the ability to go monophonic. I can see where it was handy back when hardware was expensive, but not sure how it fits into the virtual world.

[Al Coda]

17 hours ago, Anderton said:

What is the musical value of the paraphonic option? ... I can see where it was handy back when hardware was expensive, but not sure how it fits into the virtual world.

 

I agree and wished, p. ex. Cherry Audio offered user selectable paraphonic-/ polyphonic- modes for Quadra, Polymode and Surrealistic MG-1 Plus.

It´s nice to have all as "original" as possible, but it would be also welcome when emulations offered functionality removing, from today´s perspective unnecessary, hardware limitations from the past.

But that´s software.

 

For today´s hardware, I have the impression manufacturers think "paraphonic" sounds "vintage" and sells better.

There´s no reason at all releasing paraphonic hardware synths at all,- but that´s only me.

 

 

A.C.

 

 

[Stephen Fortner]

Gents, I’ll have to get back to you on the paraphonic thing as I haven't gotten there yet, though Dr. Mike Metlay, who wrote the manual, may have something to say. For now I’ve been working on the digital oscillator, a post I hope to have up later today.

[David Emm]

Dang, the Minifreak measures 22.75 x 9.09 x 1.57 INCHES. Dr. Fortner sensibly compares it with the MicroKorg as an ideal top keyboard, but that's not a mini synth, its a bulked-up Casio VL-1. I'd call it a prime candidate to be placed above a serious controller or DP as a near-module, but that would take part of the charm away from the touch strips. Oof!

 

No slam on the instrument intended at all, as I'm fascinated by it. I'm just measuring that tiny creature in my head, so I have a practical space for it...

[RABid]

I really like the concept of providing a VST of the instrument being able to use the VST as a source of patch programs. Hope this idea catches on with other companies. While I don't really care for the overall digital nature of the sound I am intrigued by the inclusion of oscillator codes from both Make Noise and Mutable Instruments.

[Al Coda]

On 11/10/2022 at 5:23 PM, Stephen Fortner said:

Gents, I’ll have to get back to you on the paraphonic thing as I haven't gotten there yet, though Dr. Mike Metlay, who wrote the manual, may have something to say. For now I’ve been working on the digital oscillator, a post I hope to have up later today.

 

I recognized it´s 6-voice polyphonic and user selectable paraphonic as well,- so that´s perfect !

 

 

A.C.

 

 

[Stephen Fortner]

Ok folks, thanks for being patient with me. Here's my overview of the...

 

Digital Oscillator

 

 

Make that two of ’em. Each oscillator performs a different Type of synthesis (think of these as sound engines), and the two are identical except for the first one having external audio input as one of the Types. The next three parameters: Wave, Timbre, and Shape, do different things depending on the Type. Turn one of these, and the level in a little flask or beaker changes in the display — presumably to invoke a mad scientist’s laboratory.

 

 

The Types are the big deal here, and if you’re familiar with Pigments, you could be forgiven for speculating that MiniFreak’s types might partially or wholly subsets of the code behind Pigments’ sound engines. (To be clear, I have no inside knowledge about this.) So let’s see what they do. Warning: This is about to get a bit geeky, and though I (or others) may correct me down the line, I’m going to write this strictly on what my ears are telling me.

 

Basic Waves: As the name implies, basic waveforms. The Wave knob morphs the oscillator from triangle through saw; Timbre adjusts the “symmetry” of the waveform (audibly this most resembles changing pulse width); Shape adds a sub-oscillator.

 

Superwave: A riff on the stacked-and-detunable “supersaw” we all know from Roland, but with more waveform options. Wave: selects (doesn’t morph) sine, triangle, square, saw. Timbre: Detune amount of stacked waves. Shape: Volume of detuned waves relative to base wave.

 

Harmonic: This appears to be a very pared-down version of some features from the harmonic/additive engine in Pigments. Wave: adjusts partials content. Timbre: “sculpting,” which seems to tilt the overall spectrum around the content setting. Shape: simply adds a chorus effect.

 

Karplus-Strong: This type of synthesis models a bowed or struck string by passing a waveform through a filtered delay line. Whether the result sounds bowed or struck will depend on your envelope settings, but Wave adjusts the hardness of the bow/hammer, Timbre its position, and Shape the decay of the string. The basic sound is very bright so its harmonic profile depends on your filter settings.

 

Virtual Analog: Well, it’s called “VAnalog” onscreen and maybe this stands for something else, because the Basic Waves oscillator type is more how I’d expect virtual analog to behave. This is more a sort of waveshaping synthesis, with Wave adjusting a detune amount; Shape doing the, um, shaping (certain settings provide some clangorous “bad FM” sounds); and Shape controlling the actual waveform. Interesting because the next Type on deck is …

 

Waveshaper: Here, Wave adjusts the brightness from something like sine to something like a very dirty triangle; Timbre is the overall waveshaping (i.e. phase distortion) amount); Shape balances the symmetry/asymmetry of the distorted waves.

 

Two-Operator FM: Just like the name says, it’s one sine-wave carrier and one sine-wave modulator. Wave, Timbre, and Shape adjust ratio, amount, and feedback, respectively.

 

Formant: To me this Type sounds more like a way to get varieties of hard-sync, Cars-squawk sounds than the vocal vowels I associate with formant synthesis. Left to right, our three familiar knobs control interval, formant, and shape.

 

Speech: Now this one is wild. It speaks/sings various words (presumably sampled) in a more or less robotic tone whose character you can vary with the Timbre knob. Think Casio SK-1 meets Daft Punk. Shape chooses the words, which include things like “analog,” “filter,” and “synthesizer.” Yet Wave further determines the words. It seems that when Wave is all the way open, Shape gives you a selection of multi-syllabic words. Then turning Wave down reduces the number of syllables — or rather, it switches to words with fewer syllables. For example, with Shape on the “synth words” list, turning Wave down a couple of notches gave me the military alphabet (alpha, bravo, etc.). I am not yet sure how big MiniFreak’s vocabulary is, nor whether you can sample your own words using the audio input.

 

Modal: This sounds like some kind of physical modeling well suited to struck and plucked sounds. Wave, Timbre, and Shape control inharmonicity, harmonic content, and decay, respectively. If you wanted to emulate a rack of glass bottles each containing a different amount of water, this is where you’d go.

 

Noise: Noise buffet is more like it, with Wave continuously morphing the noise type from standard white- and pink-noise fare through more pitched/tonal sounding stuff that could be based on FM or ring modulation. Notably, the Shape knob brings in a plain-jane triangle wave — presumably to give your ravaged ears a place to put their feet down.

 

Bass: This Type is meant for, you guessed it, bass sounds. The base waveform with all knobs at minimum sounds like a very muted sawtooth. Turn up Wave, and you get more saturation and increased harmonics. Timbre adds a sharper edge using a wave-folding function, and Shape adds a trashed-speaker-cone sounding noise element.

 

SawX: As best as I can figure, this Type cross-modulates sawtooth waves, resulting in anything from, again, a Cars-sync sort of sound to more aggressive fare with considerable inharmonicity. It’s good at nasal, band-passed sort of sounds. Tweaking it carefully, I got one hell of an honest oboe out of it.

 

Harm: Wait, don’t we already have a type called “Harmonic”? I don’t think that’s what this means. I think it means “harm,” as in what you can do to your psyche with this oscillator Type. It seems to be a baseline-brighter and potentially nastier version of Bass, with Timbre doing dastardly things to the waveform using a recitifer function. Turn the knobs up all the way and the Cenobites show up.

 

Audio In: Available on oscillator 1 only, this is more than just a blank path to the MiniFreak’s filters and effects. It does … things … to whatever’s coming in the audio input. Wave applies wavefolding to the audio, meaning it turns over the positive and negative peaks of the waveform, which can add anything from a few interesting harmonics to the sort of sonic destruction we’d associate with Trent Reznor before he became America’s cuddly Goth dad. Shape brings the noise. Edit: Presumably this Type is involved in using MiniFreak as a vocoder, an application that was more straightforward on MicroFreak. Will investigate.

 

I should mention that for the oscillator types I’ve described as aggressive, that’s only the case at higher settings of the knobs. You can get a lot of subtlety out of all of them, which speaks again to the MiniFreak’s versatility. You can push it and get weird, or you can push it a little less and get, well, anything.

 

More to come soon!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dr Mike Metlay]

Having written the Owner's Manual on this little beastie (yes, "I wrote the book on this thing"), I will be sorry to have to send it back to France, but it was an early production sample and eventually I can buy one of my own. The beta forum just announced the completion of the Golden Master firmware, locking in the feature set for rev 1 of the hardware. Should be a blast!

 

For the record, I really enjoyed working with it. Small, compact, well laid out, and full of cool performance features. A real winner!

 

 

[realtrance]

Only thing I'd add to this excellent overview is a reminder that a lot of the original engine Arturia developed was done in conjunction with the person who did some modules as Mutable Instruments; some of the later oscillator engines as well are from Noise Engineering. If you review their work, you'll discover more about the characteristics of the oscillator types. There's also the influence of Buchla and Verbos (particularly in the latter case with the Harmonic engine) present in the design.

 

Not worth at this point discussing what was originated and what was borrowed; all synthesizer designs are at some level borrowed from other designs, that's always been the case with instrument design (and music, for that matter! <G>), so I don't give those issues any credence.

 

I got the Minifreak, after having the Microfreak since launch, and they're each wonderful in their own way. I love the effort to capture the capacitive touch aspect of the Buchla Easel, along with some other aspects, on the Micro; and on the Mini, there's also lots more Arturia have produced for this new synth.

 

I agree it's a bit more conventional in design than the Microfreak, which is a good thing, as it will appeal to a wider audience. The overall physical design takes many cues from Arturia's Keystep Pro, which is a fantastic MIDI as well as CV controller; but it also improves on its sequencer, which is already a monster.

 

Arturia's really hit its stride here, along with in its software; the FX Collections they've released are second to none, and again provide some of the substance, I suspect, for the excellent FX section on the Minifreak.

 

All in all, an incredible value for the money, as is the Minifreak.