The outstanding MicroFreak gets a big brother. Greg Scarth finds out how the new MiniFreak takes Arturia into exciting new territory.
Since turning their hand to hardware synths with the release of the original MiniBrute back in 2012, Arturia have been clever at expanding their concepts into an entire range. The MiniBrute spawned the MicroBrute, MatrixBrute and PolyBrute among others, and now the Arturia MiniFreak follows on from 2019’s MicroFreak. We loved the MicroFreak for its quirky approach, teaming digital oscillators with analogue filters and an unusual touch-sensitive keyboard. The MiniFreak follows a similar hybrid approach, but it’s a bit more serious in a lot of crucial areas, from the synth engines all the way through to the effects.
A gross oversimplification is that the MiniFreak is a more polyphonic version of the MicroFreak. The MicroFreak is technically a paraphonic synth with four digital oscillator voices and a single analogue filter. The MiniFreak is capable of genuine six-voice polyphony thanks to six analogue filter circuits and VCAs. As a result, the MiniFreak can do far more expressive filter effects thanks to its separate voices (and it’s worth noting it can also do 12-note paraphonic sounds if you really want to stack up big layered chord shapes or longer release times so that notes overlap). That’s one of the main differences here, but there’s a lot more to it than that. In terms of the synth architecture, there are lots of similarities and shared features, most notably in the oscillator modes, although the MiniFreak benefits from a few new oscillator engines, including FM/RM for frequency and ring modulation, and Audio In to use an external signal as the oscillator.
Crucially, the MiniFreak also offers dual sound engines, meaning that you can combine two oscillators or take advantage of five new audio processor engines. With Osc 1 set as a standard oscillator, Osc 2 offers a new digital Multi Filter mode, a precise Surgeon Filter, a distinctive Comb Filter mode, the interesting Phaser Filter and the unique Destroy engine, a combination of wave folding, demication (‘throwing away’ samples from the signal) and bit crushing. The result is that you can layer or chain the sound engines to create much more varied and complex sounds than the MicroFreak can achieve, especially when factoring in advanced modulation options like a looping envelope generator and customisable LFO.
Sonically, the MiniFreak follows in the footsteps of the MicroFreak. There aren’t any big surprises in terms of the general approach and the character of the MiniFreak, but what’s impressive is how those tweaks to the basic formula expand the range of creative options beyond what we already expected this hybrid synth architecture could achieve. The more conventional oscillator engines cover all the bases of virtual analogue, additive and Karplus Strong synthesis, but it’s the more experimental modes where the MiniFreak really shines, particularly with the excellent Mutable Instruments engines and the way they interact with the esoteric options among the new audio processors; the Comb Filter works nicely with the Modal engine for acoustic-style FX and otherworldly sounds, while the excellent Phaser Filter is nice with the Formant engine, giving you phasing effects which are more controllable and precise than a traditional phaser.
Once you dig deeper, the MiniFreak proves itself to be a supremely capable all-rounder which offers character in lots of different areas. The effects are impressively high quality, with versatility seeming to be the main aim across most of the options, including the routing options. The Multi Comp effect is particularly good, simplifying four compression algorithms down to three user-friendly controls each: time, tone and amount. Likewise, the sequencer/arpeggiator builds on the MicroFreak’s automation and Spice & Dice randomisation to offer countless ways to program and manipulate patterns. The versatile digital oscillators and characterful analogue filters are the main draw here, but it’s the almost-modular approach to creating a synth patch which adds up to more than the sum of its parts. The way that you combine synth engines, arpeggiator/sequencer modes and effects turns the synth into much more of a self-contained sound design environment than the MicroFreak. The MicroFreak felt like a very playable little synth but the MiniFreak certainly feels like a large step up, with plenty of physical knobs for key parameters and minimal shift-button action required.
There are a couple of reasons why you might still prefer the MicroFreak to the MiniFreak. The Micro falls short in terms of outright synth power and features, but it’s a lot more compact and, crucially, it features that unique capacitive keyboard with polyphonic aftertouch. The slim keybed of the MiniFreak has a nice, responsive feel and it’s a perfectly good solution for any synth, but you do miss out on the more esoteric control of the MicroFreak. Similarly, the MiniFreak doesn’t offer any CV/gate connections for hooking up with Eurorack or semi-modular synths, while the MicroFreak offers CV, gate and pressure out from its touch-sensitive keyboard. Those little differences might tempt a few potential buyers to the seemingly more basic MicroFreak, but on balance the more advanced options of the MiniFreak probably tip the balance for most. The two assignable, touch-sensitive ribbon strips also add a nice layer of physical interaction which compensates to some extent for the more traditional keyboard, while the whole package is sprinkled with nice little professional touches like balanced stereo outputs and the option to hook up a sustain pedal.
The MiniFreak manual mentions that the main idea of the instrument is ease of use with musical results (“Enough said”). In that respect, Arturia have nailed it. The MiniFreak makes it easy to work you way into all kinds of different sonic territory, from straightforward virtual analogue to much more interesting glassy digital pads, futuristic non-linear bass and phase-modulated supersaw madness. The MiniFreak is a logical move in the expansion of Arturia’s synth range, building on existing models in a way that we’ve seen before with the Brute range and the KeyStep and BeatStep sequencer/controllers. We don’t know whether this is the endpoint of the Freak project or just the start of a new series – DrumFreak or MatrixFreak, anyone? Either way, the MiniFreak takes Arturia into exciting new territory once more. Where next?
Greg Scarth
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