Arturia MicroFreak Synthesizer Now Available & It’s A Bit ‘Naughty’

Arturia let us know that their MicroFreak synthesizer – a unique touch instrument introduced at the 2019 NAMM Show – is now available.

The company says that, since The NAMM Show, “Top sound designers have added their flavor, creating all the classic presets you’ll need from a synthesizer, with the addition of the unusual and crazy.”

The MicroFreak is a 4-part paraphonic synthesizer that mixes wavetable and digital oscillators with an analog filter. It features a unique poly-aftertouch flat keyboard, sequencers and arpeggiator, the matrix, and a variety of connectivity options.

“It’s been designed to be fun, naughty, easy-to-use, and a blank canvas for the sound designers,” according to the company. Just how naughty it gets is up to you, though.

Performance Demo:

MicroFreak Tutorials:

Pricing and Availability

The MicroFreak is available now for $349/299€. See the Arturia site for more information.

18 thoughts on “Arturia MicroFreak Synthesizer Now Available & It’s A Bit ‘Naughty’”

  1. Best Stocking Stuffer for Xmas 2019 so far. I like the freaky aspects, but it also handles a lot of mainline sounds well, so treated gently, its a serious tool. Being based on a PCB board, its hard to say what its useful lifespan might be, but the capacitance touch range is an expressive beast in an ergonomic package. I’d like to have one of these, just to clear my musical palate with a trip to Mars once in a while.

    1. first of all how big is your damned stocking? but seriously I have had it for about a week and it is super fun – my biggest criticisms are about the keyboard – that I like playing actually but a couple of tweaks would make it a lot better. I like the aftertouch curve that you can adjust but hopefully an update later will add aftertouch sensitivity vs overall keyboard sensitivity because I kind of want to turn down the key sensitivity and turn up the aftertouch to make it a little less error prone on the notes but also more expressive. that leads me to the other criticism – the black keys ar etoo small and have the pcb between them so it is too easy to mistrigger a key – Idon’t think they need full sized keys but if they would have not had the pcb printing between it would make it easier to play
      they are small criticisms though – it is still totally worth getting

  2. The “naughty” bit was when they claimed to be a collaboration with Mutable Instruments when actually all they’d done was forked the Mutable Instruments source code. Would be nice if they atoned by making a donation to the free software foundation or some such. On the other hand, it does look and sound very nice.

    1. Live by open source, die by open source. I am not sure why we are supposed to have sympathy for those who give away the keys to the city.

      1. Not so much sympathy as paying it forward.

        There’s no question Arturia (and we consumers) benefitted from that code that cost them nothing. But Arturia then went a bit beyond and suggested that this was a “collaboration” when it really was not – this, in my opinion, is taking more than was offered.

        It’s all settled between the parties involved, but considerable goodwill and trust could be gained by financially supporting these obviously talented and generous coders.

      2. No problem with using open source stuff, I’m a big fan of it. No problem with including the MI oscillators in a synth, great idea. No one is complaining about that. The Arturia mistake was suggesting that the instrument was an endorsed collaboration with Mutable Instruments, when it wasn’t.

        1. “Turning Arturia into an enemy – those talks of boycotts and those tweets demanding justice – is only adding fuel to the fire and increasing the risks of getting me attacked in ways I don’t expect and I am not protected against.

          If you care about me, move on! I need a lot of strength and energy at the moment, and it should all be focused on finishing new products.

          So please let Arturia enjoy their release party, it’s hard work to ship a product. Buy their product if you think you’ll have fun and make good music with it, don’t buy otherwise. Buy Mutable Instruments products (or the Softube clones) if you want to fund me, or build your own and give the money to charities.

          Love,
          Émilie”

          It was a mistake Artuara as well as Mutable Instruments corrected and verified it via blogs etc.. But, for some reason humans like to keep the circle of anger just going round and round even when the issue is dead.

  3. Borrowing a buddy of mine’s while his studio is in flux.. It’s great, no matter your synthesis knowledge, you can get some great sounds out of it. Can be kinda harsh in the upper freq, but the analog filter has some good roundness too it. for $299, its a steal.

  4. It seems like they’re under selling this synths capabilities, because it’s fully polyphonic on the digital side, it’s only paraphonic when you bring in the analog filter.

  5. Looks like fun, i use an iPad into a micro brute sometimes to add paraphonie or just extra oscillators.it brings a whole new dimension to an otherwise slightly boring synth.Im going to wait because i have a feeling company’s are going to start jumping on the affordable touch controller wagon, at least in the eurorack scene.

  6. The keyboard takes a bit of getting used to, but as Stimming and others have shown, it’s quick and useful. Great modulation from what at first appears to be limited engines, too. Also note Arturia released new firmware for it a few days ago that solves a few issues. It’s probably the best value you can find right now.

  9. I just got the microfreak today. It’s pretty cool. I like the mod matrix and the filter. It just sounds kinda thin and the unit itself is kinda light and plasticky. The pre-sets are definitely the worst ones I’ve ever heard on a synth. I’m gonna
    Play with it for the weekend and see what I can come up with and decide if I want to keep it or not.
    I gotta admit I’m slightly disappointed but I’m gonna dig in during the long weekend. Hopefully it grows on me.

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