Good news! aka the Look What I Just Got thread

[SP-USER]

Did you buy…..A SP404 mk2??

Nope, I mean apart from that. Cash for the 404MKII has been put aside until the retailers catch up with stock demand, and it's a no-brainer I'll be buying that, but I just bought a synth to feed it.

Anyway here's a clue ... 'Like owner like synth'

[SP-USER]

!!!FREAK!!!
I bought a MicroFreak

I thought seeing as the 404MKII is going to open up a whole new way of making music for me, what's the point in me buying a huge synth when I could buy a very versatile MicroFreak and sit it along-side the 404MKII. I have no furniture in here at the moment anyway, so this means I can fit the 404MKII and the MicroFreak along-side each other on my kitchen worktop that is currently acting as a worktop, table, desk, whatever.

So that'll be my humble (but powerful and versatile) little music-making kit list, basically just a 404MKII and a MicroFreak. I also like that the MicroFreak doesn't have any effects on board, making it perfect for feeding into the 404MKII getting my effects that way, which is also extra nice when changing presets and not wanting the effects to change.

I was going to buy a MicroFreak originally and changed my mind after it suddenly shot-up £100 in price (I won't be screwed like that). Good news is they just got new stock and I got one for just a little more than the original price was before the price hike, so I jumped on it without hesitation. It was a relief to see the original colour back in stock as well cause I bloody hate that white one!

Anyway, the MicroFreak just got another firmware update, seems you can upload custom wavetables to it now, although personally I'm not sure I'd use that feature much. There's also some improvement allowing polyphonic sequencing mode or someting like that.

[Ill Green]

MicroFreak? I heard about it at mpc-forums, just saw the thread but been jittered by the MK2 bug. You know, like my mind on the MK2 and the MK2 on my mind.

They did leave this for those that own one: https://filebin.net/pptm89vykawegkje/tm ... 794414.zip

[SP-USER]

Currently viewing on mobile so not opening it, but what is at the link?

I've never been a fan of wavetable synths to be honest, mainly because it felt far too limiting only being able to scan through a wavetable that has a fixed order of waveforms. I know that on the Sledge and now the MicroFreak you can create your own wavetables, which is cool, but as far as I'm aware you still can't re-order the waves within a wavetable directly on the synth.

Better to have it than not, but it's not something I'll be willing to involve a computer for. Instead, what I'll do is think very carefully about the waves I want to make a custom wavetable, upload it to the MicroFreak just the once, and have done with it.

Once I have the 404MKII and a custom Wavetable permanently uploaded to the MicroFreak, the computer will be well and truly retired as far as music making goes.

[Headphones]

Ah yes, the MicroFreak. Talk about non traditional keys! At least they shouldn’t need to be replaced. But I’ve been on the fence on wanting one. But version 4 support, means Arturia is making it a worthy investment. I have no clue how they cram all the new features in such a synth, but sooner or later I oughta just get one. I’m stuck paying off my Yamaha CS2x! (I got plenty of time as long as I pay each month)

But I don’t know about the touch keys. I guess it’s possible to just trigger it from any midi controller if I didn’t dig them?? But how are you loving the sounds? Was it easy to upgrade to 4.0? Was it fast or did it take awhile?

All I know is, I’m working more & more the next 2 months before things slow down. But my company gave everyone a $2 raise, so with mad ot I should be able to keep the bills at bay & start actually saving some cash. I might actually be staying put where I live. I thought we were gonna have to move. But nobody knows nothing. Soooooo, I figure: cool. Get caught up, get rid of some shit, buy an IKEA Kallax record case, and make a little space. But a dj mixer, and possibly 2 of them. (One for my 1200’s, the other for my drum machines/SPs)

Really want to get a Eurorack case, but can never seem to get around to it. Because then I’d be buying modules to fill it in, and have a rats nest of cables connected to this & that. Which reminds me: I understand the MicroFreak has CV connectivity. Have you tried it with anything?

Anyway, congrats!

[SP-USER]

It only arrived this afternoon, haven't even opened it yet. If I open it now I'll never get to bed tonight so I'll open it tomorrow!

Yeah, totally non-traditional keys but on this synth that's actually one of the things that attracted me to it. It's more a versatile sound design tool ideal for sampling, and those keys along with the touch strip allow for some neat performance goodness while being sampled.

I know I'll be happy with it before I even open it, and to be honest, if the 404MKII had been announced earlier, I wouldn't have even bothered looking at any other synth, because pairing the MicroFreak up with the 404MKII is the perfect duo for a non key-based workflow. I already pointed out the verasatility of the MicroFreak, and it having no built-in effects is a bonus when paired up with the effects of a 404MKII. But last night I realised yet another thing that makes them the perfect pair.

The audio out in the MicroFreak is mono, and that means that rather than use up the inputs on the rear of the 404MKII, I could plug it in via the front input and get access to the extra Input Effects. Another benefit is that it leaves the rear stereo inputs and outputs available to connect my Marantz SD-60 without having to remove the MicroFreak - I can leave both connected permanently without needing a mixer.

I seriously cannot wait to hear the MicroFreak piped through the 404MKII. The versatility of the 404MKII as a creative sampler/resampler/recorder along with the versatility of the MicroFreak as a synth is going to be pretty epic in my book, and both are compact enough you can sit them side by side and sort of slouch over them, relax.

My finalised gear list then is as follows:

- Roland SP-404MKII (Ready to buy)
- Arturia MicroFreak (Already own)
- Marantz SD-60 (Already own)
- Beyerdynamic DT770 PRO 80ohm (Already own)

Extra cool is I'm left over with just enough cash to get the following too:

- Panasonic Lumix FZ330 (Ready to buy)
- Tascam DR-40X (Ready to buy)

Even more cool is that the Tascam DR-40X will serve two purposes. It will act as a field recorder for capturing sounds I can bring back to my SP, but it will also be used as a professional recorder that attaches to the Hot-Shoe on the FZ330.

So there's only six pieces of gear there in total, and considering those six pieces include music making, film making, professional quality cassette production, monitoring and even field recording equipment, I think I've made a whole bunch of right choices there. Everything in that list is very good at what it does, even down to the field recorder which allows you to put your headphones on and adjust the angle of the microphones until it matches the stereo field of your ears perfectly.

Back to the MicroFreak though, pretty sure I'm going to wax lyrical about that, although I'm not in a position to even check the CV functionality I'm afraid. I literally have no other gear, no modular or anything like that. All sound design will be done on the MicroFreak, that's why I chose it, versatility. And whenever I want to get really fancy in a sample-like way, I intend to layer multiple samples from the MicroFreak using the 404MKII to basically give me an endless pallette of sound, effects, and polyphony.

It's been a long time coming and a lot of hardship saving for it, but I'm totally hyped bro

[Headphones]

It’s all good. I’d recommend a Behringer Crave if you’re ever curious to dip your toe into the crazy world of CV. I thought I knew what I was doing as soon as I got it, but it was like a $200 electronic fart machine until I got to know it better. I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered it, but it’s fun to get crazy FM with it when I pair it up to the Moog CP251. I had to order a bunch of 1/4 to 1/8th cables to do it, but it’s really showcases what sounds you can make with a little extra CV connectivity.

[SP-USER]

Have just been looking at the CV for you but you'll have to take anything I say with a grain of salt as in compatibility etc. I suppose it's compatible with CV on any modular gear though.

Looking at the menu under CV/Gate I see options for the following:

- Pitch Format
- Gate Format
- Pressure Range
- 0V Reference
- 1V Reference

Then on the rear you have outputs for:

- CV
- Gate
- Pressure

Then for the keys themselves, you have settings for how they behave:

- Keyboard Sensitivity
- Aftertouch Curve
- Velocity Curve

Have to say the sequencer and chord functionality is very cool, and I believe the sequencer also drives the CV, but other than that I can't really help on the CV front other than it does strike me as a cool little machine for sequencing external gear like CV-driven modular.

BTW, what you mentioned about playing it with an external MIDI keyboard, yes, you can do that, at least I assume so as it comes with two full-size MIDI adapters. I'll likely buy a MIDI keyboard later on, but will have to do some more saving first since I'm going for that setup listed in my previous post before buying anything else.

But yup, seems pretty deep even as far as CV connectivity goes!

[Headphones]

Maybe I oughta consider the MFreak since Arturia are supporting it as a digital synth that keeps getting new updates every so often!?? And they had more CV connectivity than I thought! Which means I really should try to check it out. I’m off tomorrow so maybe I’ll head up to Seattle and hit up a music shop that might have one to try. But I have to invest what I can on my synth first! My roommate just got us enrolled in a program that will get us rental assistance. That’s great news for me if we get it. It means I’ve got more cash to work with for keeping! And I can probably start saving up for a 404 mk2.

How does it sound though? What is it great at? And what seems to be it’s weakness? Just do a gear review when you feel you’re ready!

[SP-USER]

You'll probably turn your nose up at it in an instant and run a mile if you tried it in a shop. It's really a synth you need to get to know to appreciate, and the presets it comes loaded with don't help matters (with a few exceptions).

It'll probably strike you as dry and boring due to not having built-in effects, and the methods used to make it sound warm and organic not being obvious. For example, I wonder how many people out there realise that if you disengage the tempo sync on the LFO, you can pump it up to much higher levels, and if you do that using the smoothed-random LFO, this can be used to modulate in a way that makes the MicroFreak take-on a whole different feel. Suddenly loses it's Digital and sounds all warm and fuzzy - love it!

There was even a preset I came across the other day that sounded as if it had reverb applied. Will have to find that one again and dig into how it was done. But yeah, I think it's one of those synths that sadly the presets don't do it justice.

Something that might surprise you though, is that it does have quite a major flaw in its design, and I'm amazed no one reviewing it has ever pointed this out. Because of the way the MicroFreak is designed, you have to remember that while you have a lot of versatility with many oscillator designs, those oscillators can only be modulated, they cannot be repurposed to provide modulation to other parts of the system like you could on a modular. So for example, you could not take that new noise oscillator and use the result to drive the filter, but you can use any modulation you like to drive any aspect (parameter) of the oscillator itself.

I'm guessing this is why Arturia keep updating it with more oscillator types, because they not only dictate versatility, they dictate the sort of stuff you can do with it. The benefit of this approach, though, is that it is very good at producing the tonality you associate with various kinds of synthesis, and it does that very well.

Tell you what, pissed-off that I am right now wondering about the keys, this little synth is a very inspiring piece of kit. It will not only satisfy in making Hip-Hop, but also Industrial and Noise music (which it really makes me want to have a go at).

I don't know if Merzbow has one of these, I'm guessing he'll be going ape-shit if he does

[Headphones]

Usually when I see a synth I’m interested in, it boils down to price, functionality (knobs are great, tiny LCD screens with endless menu diving not so much), sounds, and bells & whistles like fx, sequencer, yadda yadda. Like my Behringer Crave for instance. I was aware it was just a cv synth with no fx, traditional keys, but no screen to squint and look at or menu dive. And sounding interesting as you patch this to that. I bought a Akai Miniak because I felt sorry for it at a pawn shop, so I bought it and brought it home. It’s ok, but it’s hard to navigate the sounds you want when you have to sit there twiddling through the main dial to find a sound I’m happy with. I don’t use it too much right now, but it’ll be great to use later when I have a decent keyboard stand.

I had a chance to do layaway on a Korg Triton for $600, but I can’t commit to that. It was too big & heavy, and I’d need a friend to help me get it home on the bus! I had to sadly walk away from that. I’ve wanted to invest in 19” Roland, Emu & Korg rackmount synths, but just never got around to it. If they take sound cards to get more sounds, great. But most might have a tiny LCD and tons of menu diving just to edit the parameters of it. That’s how it goes when you only have the brains of a synth.

I really can’t wait until Behringer drops their PPG clone, but they mentioned on SonicState that the MicroFreak 4.0 can actually play PPG patches. But only 1 at a time. So I would need a computer to swap the sounds back n forth if I get one.

[SP-USER]

I decided to request a refund instead of a replacement. I already touched upon why in the MicroFreak thread, but in a nutshell, they appear to be very prone to hardware failure these weird MicroFreak keys.

Other than that I think it's an awesome piece of kit, very versatile. Funny you should mention the wavetable though, because before I bought it I had no interest in it. I noticed though, that when you modulate a wavetable it centers around the waveshape you choose and modulates it in a bi-polar fashion around that waveshape. Initially, for some stupid reason, I thought that when modulating through a wavetable it would always start from the first wave, but thankfully not.

So I really like the idea now and would definitely have put some thought into the single wavetable I would have loaded into it if I had chosen to keep it (therefore avoiding the computer after the fact). Anyway, back to the drawing board for me in as far as choosing a synth goes, I haven't looked into the Behringer PPG thing at all yet, and I'm not sure what I'll go for now either.

[Headphones]

It’s another Behringer clone, but with microchip shortages, and all the products they promised to drop, I have no idea when the PPG clone will drop. So you could choose anything for a synth at this point.

[Danswift]

^^^^
Maybe take a look at the Virus synths? ..these are very dope machines .

https://www.virus.info/virusti/overview

[Headphones]

I got a free Galaxy tablet computer from work today. I’m sure there’s some music synths/drum programs worth check out. Now I kinda have the best of iOS and now Android to play with.