MiniFreak 49
Spontaneous algorithmic synthesizer
L’art
du sound design
Meet the people behind MiniFreak 49’s sound: nine designers turning its hybrid architecture into patches with character, movement and a life under your fingers.
From granular clouds and plucked tones to trance leads and cinematic swells, each contributor found a different way into the instrument.
Hear their favorite presets and discover the choices, experiments and moments behind them, in the designers’ own words.
Martin Rabiller
"MiniFreak 49 brings its versatile engines to a 49-key keyboard. Granular engines Cloud Grains and Raster open up textures from ethereal pads to tempo-synced chopped rhythms. Modal and Harmo deliver quick, great-sounding physically modeled percussion and plucked tones. The new Filter FM adds grit to any sound, and Stereo Spread widens pads and keys across the stereo field. For MiniFreak 49, I aimed for modern, avant-garde patches with real usability and expressivity. I built the source material, wavetables and samples included, to a top-tier standard. Presets use subtle velocity and random modulation, with Filter FM and Stereo Spread front and center. Each patch is production-ready, balanced for spectrum, crest factor, and stereo image. "
Goron City
I really like 'Goron City', built around a percussive Modal engine with some inharmonic content that will make all the 90s geeky kids shiver. Stereo Spread really gives it a vast place in space while still preserving the preset's pretty dry and percussive character. A tiny Filter FM amount linked to velocity gives it subtle, detailed grit on the transients. Full of character, fun to play and listen to, and definitely freaky.
Martin Rabiller
I have been an electronic music producer and sound craftsman for more than a decade. Under various aliases, including my main identity 'Narumik', I’ve released banging records on labels like Feel Free Records, The Funky Cat, and Bebert Brothers. My work also includes video game soundtracks and presets for modern synthesizers like Pigments. My sounds blend modern edgy textures, unconventional vibes, and hard-hitting harmonics.
Joseph Gilling
"MiniFreak is always full of surprises. I especially enjoy its granular capabilities; they’re a constant source of inspiration when exploring textures and movement. I love the variety of sounds it can produce, from straightforward, clean and usable tones to much more complex and abstract sounds. I wanted to start with a clean and simple sound concept, then introduce more movement and character. The idea was to elevate sounds that are already practical and usable, adding enough modulation and variation to make them feel more interesting and alive without losing their musical purpose. "
Cooper's Keys
“Cooper’s Keys” is my favourite preset. I mapped the LFO to the filter cutoff and multiband compressor, creating a really nice dynamic rhythm. It feels alive and playful, and changing the LFO rate opens up lots of rhythmic possibilities. I love simply holding a chord and playing with the macros to create layers or spark ideas for a track.
Joseph Gilling
I’m a seasoned music technology professional specializing in sound design, with extensive experience creating sample packs and synthesizer presets. In 2023, I founded Rewind Samples, a label dedicated to showcasing the work of talented producers from around the globe and inspiring the next generation of artists
Michael Feiner
"Very impressed with the scope of sound this instrument delivers. The oscillators are vastly capable, and running them through the analog filter and the onboard effects takes you very far. I love that the MiniFreak 49 now has Stereo Spread and Filter FM. I always start from scratch with an init patch: a blank slate and total freedom. Sometimes I have a sound in mind, sometimes I’m just exploring until I like what I hear. I want sounds that sit in a mix and work in a musical context, so I play a lot of chords and melodies to test them. It’s a kind of exploration and meditation. "
Sinedance
One sound I’m very happy with is Sinedance. There’s a lot of random modulation going on in this arpeggio patch with sine waves dancing around. You should try to morph the sound with the mod wheel and the macros to get some special variations and transitions
Michael Feiner
Musician and artist touring as a DJ, but most of his time in his studio. He is also mastering for other artists and sound design for synths for several big brands and top level producers.
Alon Mor
"I’ve particularly enjoyed the MiniFreak for pairing great Arturia hardware with a synth that isn’t traditional. I liked testing its boundaries and experimenting with its sonic textures alongside its playability. I was pleasantly surprised by how warm it sounds despite being digital. I set out to create sounds I’d want to play and compose with. Playability came first, given how good the Arturia hardware feels. I wanted the patches to be flexible, most still carrying an artistic signature, plus a few “bread and butter” sounds to complement the synth. The flexible modulation matrix, the digital and sampled oscillators and, at times, the new Filter FM were a pleasure to experiment with. "
Night
Probably "Night" or "Coral Reef", although I honestly enjoyed working on all of them. I've chosen these two simply because of a vivid memory I have from creating them. I was on the move from one place to another, and arrived at a very calm apartment that felt isolated. I put on a nature channel with the television on mute, and it was a rainy spring day. I was working on some presets through the evening, and those were created later at night, with images of animal life on Earth, in the oceans, and above. That moment is still vivid in my memory, isolated from time.
Alon Mor
Alon Mor, has been making music and sound design since 2009. Over the years, he released multiple music projects, worked on media projects, and built a close group of listeners. His main project at the moment is the soundtrack for ILL, a horror video game by Team Clout, expected to be released in 2027 on PlayStation and Steam.
Solidtrax
"I’ve worked with both the MicroFreak and the MiniFreak, and stereo panning was one of the features I asked for during the MiniFreak’s development, so I was really pleased to see it in the MiniFreak 49. Combined with the new keybed, Filter FM, big colorful matrix and improved DACs, it feels like a real step forward for the instrument. My approach was to explore the new features and see what they could add to the sound. Some details are easy to overlook, but even panning individual keys can make a surprisingly big difference. It gives a much stronger impression of playing a physical piano, where each key has its own position in the stereo field."
Act and Freak
“Act and Freak” is a sound I had in mind for the MiniFreak 49 as soon as I got my hands on it and discovered the stereo spread option. As a trance lover, I just had to make some kind of trance lead. It can start out really “small” and, through velocity, the mod wheel, and both macros, grow into a huge, fat and powerful sound.
Solidtrax
Since 2022 Solidtrax is a solo endeavour run by Bastiaan Barth. His passion for synthesizers, effects and music dates back to the early 90s. "I had the privilege to have my first big sound design project for u-he, followed by assignments for other companies like Roland, Bitwig, Cableguys, TAL, Kilohearts and Arturia." Latest projects include sound expanders for different synthesizers, such as the Arturia MiniFreak and the Martinic AX73.
Drew Schlesinger
"I’ve been a fan and heavy user of the MiniFreak since its release in 2022. A full-size version with an extra octave, significantly more knobs and a bigger programming interface is a treat. It’s faster and easier to use, and audio-rate filter modulation and Stereo Spread make for more dynamic, lush sounds. The MiniFreak is one of the most versatile and best-sounding synths I’ve ever used, and with so many sound engines inside, the variety it can generate is enormous. My goal was a broad spectrum of useful, playable, inspiring sounds, from classic analog timbres to sounds I’ve never heard before. Hopefully they work across many genres."
Lofi Dreamer
It's hard to choose a specific favorite sound, but one that stands out for me is "Lofi Dreamer", a gritty, lofi, dreamy slow pad that can get even more edgy and morph into a sharper, more lead like sound with the two macros. Its tone is not sample based, so it shows off a unique side of the MiniFreak's sound palette.
Drew Schlesinger
I've been a professional sound and preset developer since the mid 1980's starting with the Casio CZ-101. Over the last 40+ years I've created internal patches for more than 240 synth and effects products from over 35 companies in both hardware and software.
Florian Marin
"In my opinion, the main strengths of this synthesizer are the mod matrix with its 9 custom destinations, giving incredible modulation possibilities, the sequencer and its four automatable parameters, the "shaper LFOs", and the audio input, giving a way to process external signals, or even perform feedback with the synth itself! As I started working on our instrument kind of early during development, I tried to test and use modules one by one and see what I could get out of it. Obviously I still haven't found all the things I could do and the available modulation combinations! "
It Saw Key
Utilizing Noise Engineering’s SawX oscillator, this minimal yet evocative keys preset delivers the delicate instability and warmth that makes the MiniFreak truly shine.
Florian Marin
Si Begg
"MiniFreak 49 is a super fun instrument to work with sound design wise, so many different waveforms and with the modulation matrix so many possibilities for bending and warping them! I always like to try and find sounds that are perhaps unique or special to the particular synth I'm working with, whilst at the same time creating sounds that I hope are useful to composers and performers. "
String Theory
I'm a sucker for arpeggiators and sequencers, so my favourite was probably String Theory, which uses FM waves and randomised FM Ring Mod to create this bouncing, plucky, string like synth that is great fun to jam around with!
Si Begg
Composer / Netflix
Si Begg is a composer, producer and sound designer who, as well as being a recording artist, has also composed for Netflix Originals, programmed and produced for Rone’s Les Olympiades soundtrack and appeared on countless Hollywood trailers.
Torcrafter
"MiniFreak is the magic trick that stays mind-bending even when knowing how the sauce is made. The 37 key version was deceptively simple, but the 49 finally feels like this machine has a properly sized body. It's the perfect blend of sound design capability with the Filter FM, and expressivity with the new capacitive mod matrix and access to both oscillators at once. Going from conventional to freaky and back has been how I've explored the realm of possibilities MiniFreak 49 provides, and the selection of presets that I have made are the result of the different places I've been on the spectrum of sound design possibilities this little beast allows. "
Ocean Wash
As freaky as this new installment gets, the beast packs a serious amount of emotional baggage. Voice spread allows filling the stereo field with beautiful swells of supersaws, as evidenced by Ocean Wash, automatically swelling and exploring various overtones and timbres across this cinematic and uplifting preset.
Torcrafter
Working as a software engineer for Arturia by day, I also love making music under my Torcrafter project, exploring genres like Trance and Techno. Both classic 00s Trance and modern uplifting Trance are my favorite genres to listen and make, and sound design for as well.