Arturia’s MiniFreak 49 makes its Freak synths more professional

is the Verge’s weekend editor. He’s covered the tech industry for over 18 years and knows a thing or two about synths.

Arturia is adding to its Freak line of proudly weird digital synths with the MiniFreak 49. Under the hood, it’s almost identical to the current MiniFreak, but it adds a number of more professional features and some interface improvements.

The most noticeable change is that, rather than the MiniFreak’s 37 minikeys or the MicroFreak’s 25 “key” touchplate, the MiniFreak 49 has (as you may have guessed) 49 full-sized, semi-weighted keys. Though it’s somewhat disappointing that they feature only mono aftertouch instead of polyphonic aftertouch. It also trades the touchstrips of the other Freak instruments for proper aluminum pitch and mod wheels.

The MiniFreak 49 also has a larger LCD than its siblings and dedicated controls for its two sound engines, so you don’t have to switch between them. Like the MiniFreak, it offers over 30 digital oscillator types, each with analog filters. It also adds audio-rate filter FM for even freakier sounds and has 256MB of storage for user samples and wavetables, which were just added to the original MiniFreak in a firmware update last month.

Lastly, there’s a new XYZ touchpad that not only replaces the mod matrix’s intuitive but slow knob-based interface, but also adds performance features and speeds up preset browsing. You can swipe through presets, control macros, manipulate the filter, and more.

MiniFreak 49 is available now with an MSRP of $849, though the street price is likely to be lower.

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