I'm OBSESSED With the Microfreak!
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- Опубликовано: 5 фев 2023
- I'm OBSESSED With the Microfreak!
I've owned my Microfreak for well over 2 years, but I feel like I've only recently started to understand it's full potential! Lately, I've been getting into sounds with a lot of movement in them, and with the depth of the Microfreak's modulation matrix, plus it's incredibly powerful arpeggiator and sequencer, it has become an absolute obsession of mine. Be on the lookout for more Microfreak content coming soon, as well as hopefully some Minifreak content! Enjoy the video :)
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GEAR IN THIS VIDEO
Arturia Microfreak: amzn.to/3lfthKr
Zoom Livetrak L-12 (audio recorder):amzn.to/3lfthKr
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I picked up one of these in the box, hardly used at a garage sale for ................ get ready for it .............$100.00 Yep a hundred smackaroos., and it came with the vocoder mic.
Wow, that's a great deal!
Why, in the name of bacon can I never find a deal like this???
Good for you though my friend!
My white vocoder edition is the first thing I turn to every day in my studio full of lovely machines-I can never believe how amazing it is sonically and also in a tactile sense. Playing it and designing sounds is always a joy.
That's awesome!
I discovered a little trick with the 'Dice' feature (can't recall where...): You can actually lock in the dice setting (rather than how it always resets to zero as soon as you take your finger off of the 'Bend' strip) by hitting the 'Spice' button before taking your finger off of the bend strip. This way the Dice setting will stay locked wherever it is, until you hit Dice again and then touch the Bend strip again, at which point it will again reset to zero.
Hope you find this useful. (If you didn't already know...) Always enjoy your videos.
The Microfreak is the Synth that just keeps giving and giving.......
Thanks for sharing!
thanks for making all these videos on the Microfreak. I ordered one to take on a trip, it seems powerful but compact enough to play in my hotel room. Looking forward to learning it!
It's my favourite synth as well. What I really like about it is that it doesn't have a steep learning curve but at the same time can get pretty deep. I really like it for soundesing too. It can do a lot of cool things and is portable. I sometimes take it with me in a small laptop case when I travel.
Absolutely! Thanks for watching :)
I agree, the MicroFreak is a great little synth! Unfortunately I’ve barely used mine lately! I’m working on my jazz and since my piano upbringing was in classical (and my music genre is metal) learning piano rolls in every key using 7th 9ths and 13ths is practice, practice practice! So I’ve been sticking with the Korg Module app just because of the simplicity of the hook ups! And it’s got a great a few great pianos, let alone everything else under the sun. Lol. I finally pulled the trigger and got a SP404 mk2 and will be spending a lot of time with that and the Boss DR880. A very fancy arranger I’ve put together. But I can carry this set up. The Korg Kronos is amazing but weighing in at 100 lbs it’s not going anywhere! EVER!
Thanks for watching as always!
Glad to see you rediscover the Microfreak. I’ve been continuously exploring mine for a while and it always surprises. I got the MiniFreak and it’s blowing me away. Can’t wait until you get one and see your enthusiasm for it. Rock on.
Stay tuned for today's video :)
hi ! I have minifreak VST and love it so much ! DO you think it makes sense or posible to control minifreak VST with microfreak as specific MIDI controler ?
Yep, I enjoy mine a lot. Fantastic little machine!
This little machine is so cool! I am glad you start digging deeper.
Thanks so much!
Sound design "clicked" with you! Le Freak really is a gem. Way to get your FREAK ON!
I'm starting to get it!
Such a great feeling/moment when you start to sense that you've mastered an instrument, and are unlocking it's full potential. I share in your joy FB!
(Love the worn keypads - they don't affect performance, and mean it's being used as intended). 🙏😉
Yeah I'm really loving it now! Thanks for watching :)
There's a similar milestone part way there, when you're finally at the stage where you look at your instrument, let out a satisfying sigh of relief, comfortable that you know what all the controls do.
@@CatFish107 So true! 👍
I'm going to be picking one up shortly, used from a local pawn shop. (for $275 usd)....It's on layaway now. I've looked at a lot of stuff online about it, and really enjoy your videos. I already have patch banks made by others; the free ones from the Arturia site, and a manual. I feel I've already got my head around a lot of the functions and workflow of it...minus the hands on knob twisting. I'm probably going to be spending a lot of time with it. Thanks for your very informative tutorials...
That's awesome, I hope you love it!
Talking about movement, there are 4 lanes of hand modulation you can record in the sequence. Using those and setting the steps to whole notes you can get some great ambient morphing sounds.
is there any videos showing this technique?
@@PortervilleMusicSociety I don't know.
If you have a MF, just record some steps, go low with the tempo, set the seq sync to 1/1, press rec while the seq is running and move a knob. That movement will be recorded in one of the 4 modulation lanes (the corresponding led will light up). The result is much better with some long delays and reverbs added, of course. I use the Zoom MS-50G (modded to include the MS-70CDR effects).
Yeah it's awesome! I believe I actually covered it in a video a while back haha.
this synth is an absolute beast - i can entirely relate :)
Your dice button is like mine, if you take your finger from the strip it reverts to zero. I got around this by keeping my finger on the strip and pressing it back to spice. Dice now has the value you want, and not zero.The spice value jumps up to meet the new setting but u can reset your spice, let go, and your dice is whatever you set it as, not zero.
I assumed it was a bug of mine. Hope that makes sense. Great vid btw m8.
I think that's just how it works haha, thanks for watching!
Dice is supposed to work that way. When you have dice selected and you touch the strip, it “rolls” the dice and randomizes the pattern changes. After you do this, the new changes stay until you “roll” the dice again. Holding it in dice mode doesn’t do anything. The higher up you hit the strip in dice mode, the more it changes… so you can make subtle changes with low dice and bigger ones with high dice. Slice just controls how much the random “diced” offsets are applied to the arp/sequencer, and you can always get back to the original by zeroing out slice, and bring it back by bringing slice back up.
It’s really an ingenious feature I wish more synths had. I believe the Polybrute has it as well as the Minifreak.
I am big fan of Arturia products. I have several midi controllers as well as the V collection of classic synths and Pigments is my go to soft synth for sound design. I popped for a Micro Freak a couple of years ago and like you only recently started really exploring what it can do for my music. I love the tactile nature of synthesizers for sculpting sound, and the Micro Freak has a lot of possibilities in a easy to use form factor. Thanks for the video and reminding me of what a Jen I have in my rig,
The Microfreak is indeed awesome! Thanks for watching :)
Eagerly waiting for mine to show up today!
Nice, have fun!
I've really liked the microfreak for a while. nice to see that you're enjoying it too now :)
Thanks! Do you not like it anymore?
@@FreeBeat I still like it!! Actually used it in a video a while back, the sequencer is great and it really has a vibe all its own :) Occasionally I get a bit tired of it but it's just such a flexible synth within its genres, especially for the price
I had the same thing when I had the Freak. Never connected it to any gear - just played standalone and enjoyed the sound design. Sold it as it had some issues with rotary encoders.
I'm having a blast with it now that it mostly stays hooked up to my computer haha, so much potential!
@@FreeBeat One downside was that it doesn't have USB-Audio - strange thing nowadays...
I have a video I did of soundwaves from the microfreak. I've had mine about 2 months now and I am still learning and your video helped. Thanks
Thanks so much for watching!
Of all my synths, the MicroFreak is absolutely my favorite! I like mine teamed up with a Zoom G3n. I did buy the software version of the MiniFreak, and TBH, it doesn't "grab" me like the MicroFreak. At this point, I'm glad that I haven't' popped for the MiniFreak, despite it being almost exactly what we asked Arturia to make a couple of years back. Surprisingly, I'd be more likely to buy a second MicroFreak and G3n over the MiniFreak.
Yeah it's a beast!
The only synth I kept when I had my studio purge
That's high praise!
Pretty much the best value mono synth out there - I have two of them. While the Minifreak doesn’t have all the same features just yet, it has some things the Microfreak does not and I expect it to get great updates just like the Microfreak did.
Thanks for watching!
I liked mine so much, I bought a second one too 🙂
@@TheScreamingFrog916 I could not resist the all white finish of the Vocoder edition 😂
The single wish I have for the microfreak is to make one of the cv outputs an assignable destination to send modulation out to. It's nice to have pressure and note, but the option to send the cycling envelope or lfo out to modular gear would be a dream.
That would be pretty cool!
Excellent observation
I love the microfreak. I also got a steel on the roland jd xi. My first syhinthizer was the korg pa800. Love the videos
Nice! Thanks for watching :)
Its amazing. Youre right. 👍
Thanks for watching!
Regarding the matrix, I recently discovered by reading the manual that you can actually modulate the modulation... you can put your matrix "patch" as a destination for one of the assign button sources you choose :)
Yup! I've actually done a video or two about that, super powerful :)
i tried to tie arpegio rate to any modifier, but failed to hear the result
nothing happened
5 days ago I found an old Bang & Olufsen amplifier in the garbage room. I sold it on FB, and earned around 288 US dollars, and was really happy because I have been dreaming about buying the Microfeeak. Stupid as I was, I told my wife about the “Garbage Tresure”, and the the money ended up in the household budget…
SOUR ASS.
But I haven’t given up yet, and I guess I have to sell some of my electric guitars to buy this awesome synth!
Thanks for watching!
I have a Microfreak and also have not been giving it the attention it deserves. I’ve been mulling over selling some stuff to get a Minifreak. But perhaps before I make the leap, I’ll dust off my Micro and play around some more. Your video has spurred me on.
Do it!!!!!
i have mine running into an Alesis Ineko fx box, and from there into the mighty Strymon Darksky, which basically brings MicroFreak level experimentation to reverb... neverending lush textures
That's awesome!
Hello, I think about buying a microfreak, however seeing your video made me wonder : did the touch strips wear off through use ?
Anyways, great video !
This and get yourself a drumbrute impact and you got a killer set up! Each on there own are awesome....but together, you can make anything u want. Then add a sampler later, and you have everything you could ever want
Absolutely!
this is literally my exact order! Got a microfreak 6 months ago, just got a drumbrute impact to go with it - and I'm in love - and now I am dead set on buying a SP404 to go with the two of them!
Also, a couple times you’ve mentioned recording tracks to Ableton. It may be out of the realm of your channel here, but I’d love to see some quick takes on what you do with your tracks in a daw. Thanks man.
My upcoming show "Sample Something" will probably dive into that, at least a little!
I'm obsessed with mine as well, however I'm having problems getting the audio to my phone/tablet. I was curious if you could maybe test the smpltrek as an interface going into fl studio mobile, because I can't find any information on if it's compatible or not. I'm very interested in the smpltrek but I want to make sure it can do that before I make the leap. Love the vids keep them coming!
It’s USB is really finicky with mobile devices for some reason. I often have weird issues, particularly with syncing clock tempo over USB. I actually have to run a separate midi cable to sync clock, which is a bit annoying.
@@Munkhood interesting, the way I see it is if I can't get it to sync to a DAW on the phone, I could at least create scenes and export (I'd hope) to a mobile DAW lol, thanks for the info!
Interesting, I've never really used it with a mobile device. Maybe I'll give it a shot in the future!
Fantastic device! I don't feel like I am missing anything by not upgrading to the Minifreak. However I did snag the VST of the Minifreak.
With that said, after I watch you review the Minifreak later this year, that might change!
Great job!
Yeah I'm very excited to try the Minifreak!
You're really freaking it up.
:D
Can I make the awesome sounding ambient music you created in your Volca Keys + NTS-1 video? I love how that sounds so not sure if I should buy this or the Volca setup, I’m a newbie looking for a budget setup. Thoughts? Can I do more with the Arturia?
A driving force of those ambient sounds are the effects, of which the Microfreak has none. Ideally, I'd recommend the NTS-1 and the Microfreak, but if you're looking to stay in a lower budget, the Volca Keys and NTS-1 will get you far! The Volca Keys is a proper analog synth, whereas the Microfreak is digital. So if you're looking for that exact analog sound, the Volca is the way to go.
Thanks so much for the response!
It's a great synth. Now the real question is what pedal / effects do you use with it?
Mine always goes into reverb / delay or lo-fi distortion.
I really like it with the NTS-1 or Zoom MS-70cdr, but lately I've been using it with a lot of the Ableton stock effects!
Well I play ambient bass so have multiple pedals to choose from including Neunuber Immerse 2,Meris Polymoon,Enzo,Red Panda Raster 2,Chase Bliss Mood, Strymon Zelzah, Earthquaker Devices Astral Destiny and more 😁
I've had a break from my microfreak for the last year but I'm it's back out now and exploration has started again
Awesome!
I'm looking at this an the minifreak and still trying to work out my use for a synth (I'm a guitarist). I know there's a price difference between the two but is that so large if you have to buy an external effects unit for the micro?
It really depends on how badly you want the effects. I think both are more than worth it at their given prices!
Can this also be used as a midi controller for virtual instruments?
...so your favourite key is a-minor pentatonic ;-) Nice vid btw!
I just ordered the Microfreak after some time of thinking it. It seems it's an amazing instrument overall, but I still find the Spice and Dice function very disappointing. Apparently, at low values it has almost no effect on the sound and at higher values it is too obvious, not quite having a middle ground. Given the really cool name, you would imagine it could have more parameters to spice up, like the filter etc, or add glitches like Glitch2 for example, or it could act like a modulation wheel in some way. I personally don't like randomized pitch or note durations (so it might be that), but there's already the LFO which has a sample and hold function.
I don't know, I feel like it's quite of a missed opportunity to give the synth that extra "wow" factor, more than it is anyway. But you can't have everything, can you? Hehe.
Hi think you can get the minifreak as a vst, which would mean less hardware, I would'nt buy myself, learning a new synthe would take me along time if not forever.
Yeah it's a pretty cool VST, $99 USD seems to be a good price.
I have it too...in german: eine Eier legende Wollmilchsau.....a pig who have got wool, give milk,lay eggs ......Jack of all trades🤣.....best synth in my collection!!!!
Thanks for watching!
While the sequencing capabilities and the Buchla style keyboard are great, I’ve yet to get even a half decent sound from any of the oscillators. I find it best used to control other synths and devices that produce more pleasant sounds than the phone ring tone like output of the Microfreak
Ah, to each their own haha, I really like the Microfreak sounds, and have used it in a lot of different places!
Ooh you like a bit of tweaking and sequencing and jamming weird stuff? *whispers softly* Korg Volca Modular
Did anyone else hear that? Strange ghosts of the west coast up in here.
How do you plug a pedal into this and hear the sound?
Do you know that you can transfer the arp to the seq and edit it
No I did not! How do you do that?
@@FreeBeat with the arp active, hold shift and select the sequencer track (a/b) you want to copy it to. When the sequencer is active, the same combination will just reload to the saved sequence.
The keyboard looks really worn down. I wonder how it will hold up in the long term.
It's just cosmetic on the microfreak
Are presonus 3.5 monitors compatible with this unit?
provided you run it through an audio interface or mixer first - which applies to anything you want to put through your speakers.
It has a standard 1/8" audio out and a standard 1/4" audio out :)
Look forward to the video, I like your RUclipsr style. But TBH, my Freak mostly sits quietly at home since the sounds are just good, but not that inspiring. At least not so far... I haven't watch this video yet!
Try using it as a rhythm/percussion based synth instead of a melodic synth.
How about after the video?
@@FreeBeat I listened once with just the phone's speaker. The points you make about all the cool movement possibilities is compelling. I'll have to give it another listen on the car stereo to be fair about the sounds themselves. I'll be back!
@@FreeBeat What I'm sensing is that the MIcroFreak could be a great jamming or performance-oriented synth. I'm a big believer in muscle-memory, and I can imagine that the musician-machine interaction could be great because the Freak is very well-designed. Sound-wise, I'll give the timbre a 7 out of 10. So I'd rather hear my Moog Mother 32 tone on my PA monitors over the MicroFreak. Not a big deal.
I need those damn TRS Splitter Cable so i can upgrade my Jam Game :/. If someone have a Link? i cant find these and already bought 2 wrong ones
Is it standalone or needs computer
Standalone!
In the manual it states you can try but you will never reach the end of it. That's the french for ya!
That's awesome haha, I never caught that!
The challenge with mf for me is getting it sound less DIGITAL
Embrace it. Even Buchla and Moog made digital synths.
It can definitely be done, just needs some work haha
There is no thing such as "just a synthesizer"
I believe in the context of this video I meant that it doesn't also have effects built in.
I see a wear on the keyboard, the pattern worn off on some spots...
Yup! It's just cosmetic, it doesn't effect the actual playing at all.
@@FreeBeat
I see...I just thought it'll result in a diminshed playability with smaller contact areas, it looks a bit strange... (I started to consider buying a Microfreak.)
My question is that considering this is digital synthesis, why would someone purchase this over buying a high quality VST synth with more features + a great hardware controller?
Can you take your VST and plug a powerbank & headphones to it? :)
Because some people don't use a DAW at all. Can your vst put out cv and gates to your eurorack?
yep @@snorrevonflake
Cleaver.... but what a horrible row !
What?
It have a slightly better screen than the SmplStarTrek ! But I think you are obsessed with small screens... Something bad in your childhood ??? Get an Akai Force, your life will change !
What? lol
He's got a Tracker. That's a pretty big screen.