Making sense of madness
It might sound a bit wild and crazy, but MicroFreak is easy to understand and quick to master.
Every feature is clearly marked and simple to access and control, letting MicroFreak enhances your creativity rather than standing in its way.
On this page, we’ll cover a few of the things that make MicroFreak a truly unique specimen.
Hearing voices
The multiple modes of MicroFreak’s digital oscillator can be easily switched and directly controlled with the 4 dedicated knobs in the Digital Oscillator section.
The Type knob switches between the engines, while the Wave, Timbre, and Shape controls let you refine the oscillator to suit your taste.
Since its inception, MicroFreak has been constantly evolving. It now contains 17 oscillator types, covering a multitude of timbral flavors from sweet to savage. Here are the oscillator modes you’ve got to work with:
Mutable Instruments
We’ve also integrated the open-source Plaits oscillator developed by Eurorack legends Mutable Instruments to bring you 7 additional synth modes. While all of the oscillators in MicroFreak are naturally monophonic, you can choose to enable paraphony to play up to 4-voices at once.
Noise Engineering
3 new algorithms designed in collaboration with LA modular heavyweights Noise Engineering. Combining wavefolding, phase modulation, and harmonic manipulation, these vicious sounds push MicroFreak further than ever into the digital realm.
Modulate everything
Despite its small size, MicroFreak has a modulation matrix and advanced functions that make even giant synths jealous.
With 5 sources and 7 destinations available, you can virtually rewire components within MicroFreak to create totally unique sounds, especially as 3 of the destinations are user-assignable!
With easy programming using the clickable Matrix knob, a clear light-up display, and extra detail shown in the OLED screen, you’ll never be left guessing what changes you’re making. To route any modulation source to one of the destinations, just browse, click, and define an amount. It’s easy, fast, and fun, and gives you super-powerful results that you’d expect from a synth ten times the price
Filtering voices
The combination of digital oscillator and analog filter is a powerful one, and the often sharp, crystalline sounds of the oscillators can be beautifully tamed or shaped using the tasty 12-dB per-octave filter, based on the legendary Oberheim ®-designed SEM filter.
Happy accidents
MicroFreak’s sequencer isn’t just any old synth sequencer, it’s a dual mode arpeggiator/sequencer with innovative features that will keep your creative juices flowing.
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The magic touch
MicroFreak’s tactile interface is like nothing you’ve ever used before. A flat, touch-sensitive keyboard with no moving parts may seem alien, but it feels so natural to use.
The 25-key printed circuit board not only track the notes you play with lightning-speed, but can also detect pressure or aftertouch on each note individually. This has some exciting applications within MicroFreak itself, but also for polyphonic aftertouch-enabled virtual instruments when MicroFreak is used as a MIDI controller.
The touch-controls above the keyboard also give you access to the key parameters of the sequencer, while the touch strip can be used as a pitch bender, or to control the amount of “Spice” and “Dice” in your sequences.
So much, for so little
Just as our debut synth MiniBrute set new standards for compact analog instruments back in 2012, MicroFreak is set to redefine what affordable digital synths can do.
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Sure, but what does it sound like?
We know, right? Bla bla bla, look at us chatting away, when what you really want to do is hear MicroFreak in action. This little synth can store hundreds of preset sounds, and here are a few of them that will give you an idea of what this little beast is capable of.
Basses
Pads
Keys
Leads
Sequences
SFX
We’re in this together
Everybody likes to go solo from time to time - but sometimes, you just can’t beat the musical magic of an ensemble.
With MicroFreak’s oscillator modes, variety is the name of the game. Alongside the 5 native oscillator types, you’ll find a selection of open-source algorithms from modular pioneers Mutable Instruments, as well as a handful of unique modes from LA Eurorack wizards Noise Engineering.
Enjoy the sonic flexibility modular, with the same parameter controls and boosted with paraphony, but in a self-contained, performable hardware synth.