Arturia MiniFreak Stellar – Getting Freaky in Space
Already a stellar synth in every sense of the word, the Arturia MiniFreak Stellar now has a colour scheme to match!
It’s fair to say that the Arturia MiniFreak caused quite a stir when it was originally launched in late 2022. Arturia took their unique digital Freak oscillators and made a polyphonic synthesizer that was small in stature but huge in sound. It was a huge hit!
The Arturia MiniFreak Stellar
Now Arturia has given it a new paint job! Mirroring what they did with the MiniFreak, we now have a dark and brooding user interface. The all-black keys might not be to everyone’s taste. However, they do look quite cool!
Under the hood, nothing has changed. You still have two digital sound engines, each with 23 modes. Six voices of polyphony are channeled through polyphonic analogue filters. These give the user an amazing blend of both digital and analogue.
There’s a wealth of modulation with configurable LFO shapes, FM and ring modulation and the brilliant Spice & Dice randomization feature. The FX section is no slouch either. Three FX slots with eleven FX types. As with all Freak-based products, the Arturia MiniFreak Stellar can sound warm and lush as well as biting and scything.
The Black Keys
The all-black keyboard is of the Mini Key variety, similar to that found on their KeySteps and is both velocity and pressure-sensitive. It’s a really nice keyboard to play! Oh that it had the PolyAT keybed found in the ASM Hydrasynth Explorer!
MiniFreak V
Just like its sibling, MiniFreak Stellar is supplied with MiniFreak V. This one-to-one software recreation allows you to use your MiniFreak in a software or hardware environment. It also functions as an editor/librarian and is used to keep the MiniFreak’s firmware up to date.
The Arturia MiniFreak Stellar – More Information
If you already own a MiniFreak, this will probably be of little interest to you. But if you’ve been teetering on the edge of buying one, this stylish re-skin is pretty cool! MiniFreak Stellar is available now for €589.00.
The original MiniFreak is still available, along with accessories that will fit both units…
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4 responses to “Arturia MiniFreak Stellar – Getting Freaky in Space”
It might’ve looked even cooler if they’d replaced the orange felt and knobs with red. More Darth Vader vibes.
#musthave
<3
i hope astrolab comes in black as well!
Despite not having polyAT, it does respond to poly AT messages (i.e. the sound engine responds to poly AT), so you could use your DAW or whatever else you have that sends Polyphonic Aftertouch messages to the MiniFreak to enhance its capabilities – works very well with the Expressive E Osmose
You could use the poly AT on the MicroFreak keyboard to control the Mini:(