Arturia MiniFreak V

Having emulated practically every significant synth ever made, Arturia turns its attention to one of its own creations

€199 PC MAC

The power of Arturia’s Freak range of synths comes from the algorithmic oscillator that was developed for the series. These oscillators can load different synthesis engines – ie algorithms – allowing them to completely change their sound and character. Cleverly, Arturia has arranged things so that each algorithm has just three editable parameters, and these always have a certain similarity of function, no matter what the algorithm is.

Two of these oscillators sit at the heart of this new software iteration of the MiniFreak, and Arturia has included a whopping 21 different algorithms for you to load into them. These offer users a veritable showcase of all of the different synthesis systems that exist out there, from the more common approaches like subtractive and FM, right the way through to rarer and more exotic techniques such as additive, Karplus Strong and formant synthesis.

The algorithms can do more than just synthesis too: the first oscillator can load the Audio In algorithm, allowing you to process signals through the synth’s engine, whilst six of the algorithms (four types of filter, a bit crusher and an FM/RingMod processor) are available only to the second oscillator where they process the output of the first oscillator.

Modelling and modulation