NAMM 2020: Arturia’s compact MicroFreak synth was one of the highlights of NAMM 2019. Now, one year on, that characterful digital synth is a v2 firmware update adding a host of new features and improvements.
Top of the list is a new noise oscillator mode. This has multiple types of noise on offer including particle, white and metallic noise modes, the latter of which Arturia describe as sounding like a synth cymbal. What’s more MicroFreak can morph between these modes, allowing for the creation of interesting textures and percussive sounds.
Aside from this, the v2 update also adds a new Chord Mode, whereby users can input a chord shape and then replay it at vary pitches using a single key. The firmware adds scale quantisation, allowing users to assign a variety of scale modes to the keyboard in order to jam without the risk of playing a wrong note.
The update also adds a number of other tweaks and improvements, such as a simplified way to copy and paste sequences and an initialise function for the modulation matrix.
You can find full details over at the Arturia site. Existing users can update for free using Arturia’s MIDI Control Center.
