Arturia MicroFreak

I'm used only bunch of good VST before, i'm totally satisfied with them. But once i wanted to have a not virtual, a "real" instrument to have another workflow style, and, therefore, different paths thinking of creativity. Portability was a big criterion too.
After long researching of some variants, microfreak had becomes my choice. I had bunch of fears and skepticism about it, but price of the synth is a very tasty.
Also it's hard to estimate all possibilities with only dry sound. I was thinking, good additional effects will make the sound very awesome, but wasn't too sure. Sound demos, what i found in internet almost all was with dry sound or slightly slurred to me.
When i received and try it on my own- all good expectations were confirmed.

This little thing can a lot of things, but at first it's not so evident. It's really cool to play with it, i understood how to use it very quickly. In some ways It's not so easy, as using virtual instruments, but it's a lot more pleasant.
Microfreak has its own sound style, and this is awesome, because uniqueness is advantage. Some aspects, with comparison with some my VSTi's i have not so powerful, but microfreak has its own powers and possibilities, what i'm haven't before.
Microfreak does not have its own effects. Some patches obtaining good without it. But If use third party effects, sonic possibilities and power increasing a lot.
I'd advise to buy good effects with the synth, gear or plug-ins, at least one good reverb, this really worth it.

Sound of the synth is digital, and very quality. It's really sound better than some of my vsti's, sometimes even without additional effects.
Microfreak full of good sides of digital sound.
The synth have ability to create analog- style sounds, but i doubt, what they so cool, as true analog. Anyway the synth sounds a very cool in digital sonic style.
But filter here is analog. Some oscillator modes have features, what making filter not so important to use with them, but the filter is real cool, it's work smooth and sometimes making sound "warmer".

Modulation matrix is awesome. It's really easy, if get used to it, and give a lot of possibilities. You can even modulate amount of other modulations!

I love the keyboard. In some ways not so good as "traditional" keyboard, but i'm, as pianist, don't feel conservative negativity about this sensor decision, it's just different way to play.
For me it's comfortably and fun to use. And it's really expressive. I'm sure, this flat keys better, then cheap keys with bad velocity control or without it.

I don't very like a sequencer and arpeggiator, because i accustomed to DAW's with their surgical control of everything, but anyway seem's useful. But i really like a possibility of modulating something from sequencer/arpeggiator.

If you want affordable, little, fun and interesting digital synth- the Microfreak is a good decision, i think.
But if you want just only features, and you not obsessed about possession of real instrument, or about unwonted workflow; or you don't like digital sound- maybe it's can disappoint you.

First of all let me say I am dealing with synths for more than 30 years.
I am professional music producer and audio engineer, and bulk of my work was always directed towards music synthesis, be it music composing, sound design or just pure love for the machine.
This synth is many types of synthesis packed into one. With 2.0 firmware update, even more features are offered, such as additional oscillator and scale mode. This synth might be too much for a beginner but only because of so many features, but they would witness first hand all classic synthesis they have been reading or being thought about. So entry level can and will enjoy this synth.
Features I love - versatility, cycling envelope, matrix, arp and seq, and so many great things under a hub of this little beast.
Filter is extremely good piece of analog gear and its a shame external devices cannot be connected to use it.
Front panel misses arp gate, it is back in the utility menu, but that is just me asking for too much. Just like connectivity - this thing does everything it is supposed to do.
Great and fun feature, spice and dice is there.
Keyboard is pressure sensitive, and i love all additional settings you can assign.
Think about any, literally any synth with so many options that actually has analog filter!
And to top it all, this esoteric finish/design is making me happy to have this device purely just to look at it.

The mod matrix is where a lot of the strength and versatility is. For example: assigning pitch to tempo. You record a melody/sequence and you can tell the Microfreak to play the high notes slowly or quickly. Or the low notes, and you can control how fast or slow. There are more things here that much bigger synths can't do so it really is a gem. The 4 orange knobs, where you change the basis of the sound can feel quite limiting compared to a 'knob per function' synth but the mod matrix is too good.

The capacitor keys are brilliant for very quick response playing. Run your fingers across the 'keys' really quickly and lightly tapping in melodies.

The sequencer is fun and user friendly once I got my head around it. Every sequence you make has A and B parts, both have 64 steps. So yeah 128 steps. A 4 note chord is still one step. You can go back and forward and change any step. Listen to it and go back and change it again. I think it's a great little powerful synth and you are going to enjoy it.

MicroFreak is my first hardware synth - before that I was using VST's but I don't feel like I want to go back.

What's great about it is that it let's you to choose what type of oscillation do you want to use and shape the general sound and then real fun begins with matrix mod, that simply put lets you define the relations between the components of the synth. You can create harsh or smooth basslines, drums, ambient pads, arpeggiated sequences - versatility is what makes it worth checking out.

Moreover it has built in sequencer, that lets you to use it either as a step sequencer or record in real time. There's also a possibility of randomising sequences via slice and dice function.

Keyboard might feel a little weird at first, but it has it's pros - it features aftertouch, you can assign it to control other parameters depending on how you use it, it has hold function that comes in handy while playing live or tweaking with sound texture. It's also super responsive.

The amount of functionalities might seem a bit overwhelming for a beginner, but there are a ton of instructional videos on Youtube that will help you to get through the learning process, Arturia is publishing resources as well and they are still supporting the synth - it had free firmware update in January 2021 that introduced new features. Upgrading process is quick and seamless via dedicated software that you can download from their website. Software also allows you to tweak certain functionalities but I didn't feel the need to make the adjustments yet.

Since I'm a fan of digital gear, I'm really fond of MIDI functionalities (works great when paired with a sampler - Elektron Digitakt in my case) and possibility of saving your own presets. If you create an interesting preset but you want to experiment a little bit, you can always save what you adjusted as a new preset, without overwriting the previous one. The OLED screen might seem a bit small at first but it does exactly what it needs to and helps to navigate through the menus without any issues.

The way the MicroFreak is designed is also very well thought out in my opinion - once you get a hold of it (I totally recommend checking instructional videos or reading a manual), the whole interface gives you a lot of information by just looking at it thanks to all the leds it features which comes in handy while playing live or jamming with friends.

I used it both for music production, jamming and on stage and I'm very happy with how it works and how quickly you can apply all the changes to shape the sound depending on circumstances (I love that it features responsive lowpass, bandpass and highpass filter, so you can quickly adjust it depending on your needs). Moreover even if you think that certain sound that you came up with is not satisfying, try pairing it with effect pedals for completely new flavors - I totally recommend using it that way!

I've bought it when it came out, then sold it, and missed it so much I bought it again 2 years later. Sound design: dream. You can get so many sounds from this little guy it's crazy. However, take into account these things:
- Output is LOW. You'll need to crank it up a lot with a compressor, gain, etc. Headphones output is fine. The issue is with the line out.
- No reverb/delay! But especially reverb. Add it on the output via a pedal, another synth, computer, etc. It's a totally different beast, sounds are instantly useful when processed. Otherwise it will sound pretty sterile.
- Some people (like myself) have issues with the PCB keyboard, it's like the skin is not totally conductive, so when you touch it instead of sending one signal it sends hundreds of micro signals and you get completely weird random sounds to the point it's impossible to play any note. I've searched a LOT on the web trying to find a solution other that using an external keyboard, and the only thing that worked for me was to wrap the keyboard with a thick nylon. That mitigated the issue about 90%. Keep it in mind if this happens to you.
So one less star on each category for me: features (keyb issue), sound (sterile if not post processed) and quality (extremely low output)