The small hybrid synthesizer, MicroFreak, has become a real success for Arturia with its flexible sound and multiple possibilities. But not everyone gets along with the limited paraphony and the Buchla-style touch keyboard. The MiniFreak, therefore, has a normal keyboard with 37 slim keys, is 6-voice polyphonic and offers two instead of one digital engine in parallel. Its hybrid design featuring an analog multimode filter has been retained, as has the extensive sequencer, which is directly accessible on the MiniFreak thanks to additional buttons.
Mini vs. Micro
However, MicroFreak owners should not immediately put their copy in the classifieds, because the MiniFreak requires you to do without some rather important functions from the MicroFreak. This includes polyphonic aftertouch, which is an individual modulation of each note played, such as a vibrato or filter sweep on only one voice of a chord played. In addition, the MicroFreak offers outputs for CV/Gate and modulation for controlling analog synthesizers or a modular system directly, which is especially interesting in connection with the sequencer and can make a KeyStep superfluous. The MicroFreak could also be powered via USB, which eliminated the need for a power supply in the studio and allowed its mobile use with a powerbank. Due to the additional functions, a power supply is mandatory for the MiniFreak. The wavetable engine, into which you can even import your own wavetables on the MicroFreak, is missing on the MiniFreak, as is the Vocoder - although these two algorithms can still be added through a firmware update, if necessary.
Keyboard of the KeyStep37
Externally, the MiniFreak has grown up. The gray design featuring the characteristic orange dots has been adopted, but the casing is more robust using metal instead of plastic. In this respect, the MiniFreak is strongly reminiscent of the Keystep37; the very playable slimkey keyboard with velocity and monophonic aftertouch is identical to the model installed in the KeyStep and, therefore, belongs to
