Arturia - MicroFreak Vocoder Edition

The MicroFreak is a versatile hybrid synthesizer with a capacitive keyboard, digital oscillators and an analog SEM-style multimode filter. The Vocoder Edition keeps all of that and adds a 16-band vocoder plus a detachable gooseneck microphone, wrapped in a white finish. The sound engine runs 21 digital oscillator modes, from wavetable to sample playback and granular processing, with many of the digital oscillators built on the well-known algorithms from Mutable Instruments and Noise Engineering. So you get a wide, proven palette, playable paraphonically with up to four voices.

The vocoder lets you shape a carrier oscillator with the moving formants of an incoming signal — your voice, or any external source such as a drum machine or synth — routed in through the headphone socket, which doubles as a TRRS input. A dedicated Vocoder oscillator mode supplies the carrier, with Timbre and Shape on hand to dial in the frequency range and bandwidth, and there are 16 presets to start from. The same vocoder reached every MicroFreak as a firmware update, so this edition is really the bundle: the engine, the microphone, and the new look in one box.

The OLED display, modulation matrix and the many knobs and switches make working with the MicroFreak quick and direct, while the arpeggiator and sequencer invite you to play even more. The 25-key keyboard is the other thing that stands out: the capacitive keys respond to velocity and to polyphonic aftertouch, which makes for exceptional expressiveness — not something you'd necessarily expect from a synth in this bracket. A capacitive touch strip adds another way to shape parameters in real time. And thanks to its generous connections, including CV/gate in and out alongside the usual audio and MIDI, the MicroFreak combines easily with a modular system or works as an expressive controller for other gear. Good for robot vocals, formant textures and processing outside sound sources into something that talks back.

Features:

• Hybrid digital/analog synthesizer with a 16-band vocoder, in a limited white finish with Swan graphic
• Detachable gooseneck microphone; vocoder also available to existing MicroFreaks via firmware update
• Mic and external sources connect via the 3.5mm headphone socket (TRRS)
• Vocoder oscillator mode with carrier waveforms (sawtooth, variable pulse, noise) plus Timbre and Shape controls; 16 vocoder presets
• 21 digital oscillator modes — wavetable, sample playback and granular — with engines from Mutable Instruments and Noise Engineering
• Analog state-variable filter, 12dB/octave, resonant (low-pass, band-pass, high-pass)
• ADSR envelope plus a cycling envelope with Envelope and LFO modes
• LFO with sync: sine, triangle, sawtooth, square, random, slew random
• Modulation matrix with 5 sources and 7 destinations (3 user-assignable)
• Monophonic or paraphonic, up to 4 voices
• 25-key capacitive keyboard with polyphonic aftertouch, plus capacitive touch strip
• OLED display
• Powerful arpeggiator
• 64-step sequencer
• 512 preset slots, 320 factory presets
• CV / Gate / Mod outputs
• USB, clock and MIDI in and out
• 6.35mm master output and 3.5mm headphone output