Synthesizers have been enjoying growing popularity not only since the boredom of the first corona lockdowns. In search of new hobbies, music fans made sure in 2020 and 2022 record sales – also because more and more affordable devices combine the strengths of analogue and digital technology, above all the Arturia Microfreak.
The French manufacturer’s hardware synthesizer, which was released in 2019, costs 349 euros and is worth this price more and more every year thanks to the exemplary product maintenance. On May 30, 2023, Arturia Version 5 of the firmware released and thus expands the device almost four years after its appearance with new complete functions.
The device now masters the playback of samples, granular synthesis and even becomes a vocoder with a connected microphone. Golem.de has installed the firmware and tried out the latest features of a musical instrument from whose update policy many other hardware manufacturers could learn something.
The synthesizer becomes a sampler
Probably the biggest innovation in firmware 5.0 is the ability to transfer samples to the Microfreak and play them back. As usual, the new sample engines can be played monophonically or polyphonically.
After selecting the sample engine, a sample can be selected using the Type control while holding down the Shift key. The pre-installed sounds range from individual instrumental sounds such as e-piano and guitar to drum and synthesizer loops to found sounds and birdsong.
Arturia supplies 52 of them. You can also load your own samples onto the device. A total of 128 slots are available.
Own samples are transferred via USB with the Midi Control Center on Windows or MacOS (where the app unfortunately runs extremely unstable). The same software is also required for the firmware update. Mono samples can be up to 24 seconds long, a total of 3.5 minutes can be stored on the Microfreak.
Although the Microfreak also has a microphone input via the combined headphone jack, it is still not possible to record your own samples – at least so far. Who knows what future updates will bring.
The three most exciting new sample engines are also based on the import of samples: The Microfreak has mastered it for the first time with firmware 5.0 granular synthesis. A sound is divided into just a few milliseconds short pieces, so-called grains, which can be manipulated and reassembled in various ways.
The three different variants are Scan, Cloud and Hit Grains.