Arturia - MicroFreak Synthesizer Keyboard - 25-Key Hybrid Synth with PCB Keyboard, Wavetable & Digital Oscillators, Analog Filters Blue

I bought one of these just after they came out a few years ago. As I was just starting out in my Synth Music career I didn't really understand what it was all about and sold it on, something I've regretted a few times. When I saw this one the page I couldn't resist ordering (it was on a special deal) and I'm really just now coming to terms with what a great little beast it is. My recommendation can only be tempered with my own experience - as a starter synth be wary, but once bitten and twice shy - embrace the foibles and you'll get some great stuff out of the little box with the funny keys.

I love Arturia products - good quality, lots of vesatility and excellent after sales support. I also have other great synths from a variety of manufacturers, but for sheer, straight out of the box fun you won't beat this. It's easy enough for beginners to get going straight away, but it's also packed with features to keep experinced synth users happy - some so unusual I don't think you'll find them anywhere else, and it sounds fantastic.How Arturia have put this on the market at such a giveaway price is beyond me. The online manual is crystal clear as well - everything is explained in detail, but sometimes with simpler explanations as well for beginners. To be fair I'm not too keen on the ketboard but so what- I know lots of people love it. Anyway all you need is a midi lead and the supplied adapter to connect it to a controller keyboard if that's what you want. If you're considering on I'd say get it. You won't regret it.

Superb little keyboard. I’ve been able to create some lovely stabs and pairs nicely with the Bass Station.

Great fun for a novice. Great for experimenting, good connectivity and great value.

Great for the price..but be prepared for some time investment to get the most out of it.

This is quite simply the best synth in my collection. What you can do with this synth, is amazing. Pretty much any sound you can think of, can be reproduced in this. With the added sequencer, and arpeggio stage. Plus you can really creative with the Digital oscillator. I absolutely love the touch keys, makes it not compete with mini keys, as I don't generally like them anyway, compared to full size keys. My only slight issue is the mono out; you need an effects box, or run through a DAW with effects. But I'll take that, as it's soooo good! Love it, makes me want more Arturia stuff....

Beautiful piece of kit

Lots written about how great this synth is especially with the software updates from Arturia which make it even better and I totally agree. My review is about the customer service from Arturia rather than the synth itself. Somehow the midi input socket broke on mine after about 3 months ( I think it became detached on the inside of the casing). Unable to return via Amazon as it was over 30 days so after a fair bit of navigating on Amazon's return process it took me a link to Arturia. Sent them an email and got a reply back same day requesting a copy of my invoice/ receipt, description of the issue and pics or video of the problem. After a couple of days I received a UPS postage slip and advice on how to return it to Arturia in France (I am in the UK) .Synth was back in week all fixed. Great product backed by great service.

Ses ve özellikleri bakımından beni bayağı tatmin etti. Tam olarak Synth'lere 0'dan girecek insanlara önerilecek bir ürün olduğunu düşünüyorum. Firmware 5 güncellemesinden sonra 300'ün üzerinde preset ile birlikte kullanabiliyorum ve Ableton üzerinde de Minifuse 2 ile birlikte muhteşem çalışıyor. +'ları +Boyutu acayip iyi ve kompakt, +0'dan kendi sesinizi yapmak çok kolay, +Ses kalitesi çok iyi, DAW ve Efekt kullanmadan bile bass amfime takarak çok iyi ses alabiliyorum, +Klavyesi çok iyi, fiziksel olarak tuşa basmak yerine parmağınızın ucu ile basarak ya da direkt olarak parmağınızı koyarak aynı ayarda farklı seslere erişebiliyorsunuz (Bazı tonlarda bildiğiniz LFO'lu gibi geliyor ses) +Aşırı ilham verici, eğer boşta durup müzik ile ilgili fikriniz yoksa bile bu cihazı kullanarak yeni sesler keşfedesiniz geliyor. +16 notaya kendi art arda kendi basışlarınızı bir sekansa çevirebiliyorsunuz ve bunu mevcut BPM'e göre yaptığı için kulağa her türlü hoş geliyor. +Eğer USB-B'den USB-A'ya bir kablo alırsanız ürünü prize bağlamak ve bilgisayara takacağınız zaman MIDI-IN VE MIDI-OUT kablolarını takmak yerine bir kablo ile iki dertten birden kurtuluyorsunuz. (Tabii ki sesi bilgisayarınıza vermek için Audio Interface(Ses Kartı) ve enstrüman kablosuna ihtiyacınız var.(Gitar Jackı) Malesef Vocoder'ını kullanma şansı bulamadım. -'leri -İçerisinden USB-B'den USB-A'ya bir kablo çıkmadığı için güncelleme yapmak için böyle bir kablo satın almanız gerekiyor. Ben ürünü severek kullanıyorum ve bayağı beğendim. Bence başlangıç için çok iyi bir Synthesizer ve fiyatına göre aşırı iyi.

El Arturia MicroFreak es un sintetizador súper divertido si te gusta experimentar con sonidos. Tiene 25 teclas y una combinación de osciladores digitales y filtros que te permite crear una cantidad infinita de sonidos únicos. En serio, podrías pasar horas jugando con él y siempre encontrar algo nuevo. El teclado PCB lo hace único, las variaciones de sonidos que puedes crear según cuanta piel esta tocando la tecla se siente genial. Es uno de mis sintetizadores favoritos porque te da mucha libertad para explorar y ser creativo. Ideal si buscas algo versátil y fuera de lo común.

I was ready to spring for my first Behringer clone...the 2600, when I realized that I was about to pay a lot of money for something that I already had...mono analog synths. I love the old Arp sound, but it is a nuance that I consider nonessential at this point. And, quite frankly, I miss being able to save my sonic creations to memory. Polyphony would be nice too. So, after watching tons of Youtube videos, I decided on the Arturia Microfreak...and I'm glad I did! It has a LOT of sound design potential, and using the Mod Matrix is a joy. The arp and sequencer are very fun and flexible, and the whole design seems catered to evolving and expressive sounds. The capacitance keyboard is odd, but just adds to the quirky expressiveness of the instrument. The firmware updates are awesome and easy to install. And btw...with a little patience, the vocoder works surprisingly well! And yes...besides being a decent four voice polyphonic synth, it now has a powerful unison mode. Thick! No onboard effects though. :( For a great video that covers all the features in detail, I recommend "Loopop" on Youtube. Very informative! I'm very happy with my Microfreak. I love my analogs, but adding a digital synth to my audio arsenal filled that void perfectly and opened up many new avenues of sonic exploration for me. There are literally years of tweaking sounds in this amazing yet inexpensive synth! And it's nice knowing that all my careful crafted sounds can be stashed safely away on my computer for future use...no more use it or lose it programming sessions! Five stars!

Lmad/crazy sounds, gets freaky..

It's not very often that I get a piece of gear that's completely novel. I got the MicroFreak mostly out of curiosity and figured it would be a fun toy to noodle around with from time to time but it's turned out to be so much more. This thing makes a massive variety of different sounds and with the poly-pressure sensitive keyboard it can be played very expressively. It's well built for it's price and despite being mostly plastic it feels solid. I needed to consult the manual to figure out all the sequencer features but besides that the thing is very intuitive. I've spent hours just creating patches and sequences and the novelty just isn't wearing off. Arturia took a chance on this thing and I'm glad they did. It doesn't really fill a defined niche but instead kind of creates its own little space in the industry which has been drowning in vintage re-issues and analog nostalgia. The interface seems to be taking some cues from the Teenage Engineering OP-1 with it's cute little icons and animations. It's not perfect though. I would say not including some onboard DSP effects is a bit of a shame because the Microfreak really comes alive when you add some reverb/delay/chorus. In order to get the keyboard pressure to respond well with my fingers I had to turn the sensitivity up and change the response curve. Strangely, the midi implementation was not included in the manual but it was on the online Arturia FAQ. I will say that the 3 "chemistry flask" parameters in each engine respond much better when they're mapped to faders so if you're going to do a lot of editing add a midi controller to save yourself from knob twisting fatigue. One other slight omission (maybe fixable in a firmware update?) is the ability to set up custom phrases in the "speech" engine. I hope that Artirua will continue to make interesting products like this and perhaps adopt the great update and feature adding mentality of Novation. With the flexible digital engine inside the MicroFreak I bet they could do a lot more to make this awesome little box even better!