Utility & MIDI Control Center

Key combinations

UTILITY

Opens the Utility menu.

Turn PRESET

Scrolls through menu entries, or changes the value being edited.Utility menu

Press PRESET

Opens the highlighted submenu or setting for editing.Utility menu

Change a preset setting

1. 1Press UTILITY.
2. 2Turn PRESET to Preset and press it.
3. 3Turn PRESET to the setting you want and press it.
4. 4Turn PRESET to change the value.
5. 5Leave Utility and save the preset to keep the change (Saving presets).

Voice

Modulations

Preset Volume, Scale, Seq/Arp and Vocoder

MIDI

Sync

CV/Gate

Controls

Knob catch

Jump

The knob sends its physical position as soon as you move it. If the stored value is 12 and you turn the knob from 3 to 4, the value jumps straight to 4.

Hook

Nothing changes until you turn the knob past the stored value and “catch” it.

Scaled

The knob nudges the stored value up or down from wherever it is: turning from 3 to 4 takes a stored 12 to 13. If the knob is already at an end, turn it the other way first. This is the default.

Velocity and aftertouch curves

Lin

An even response across the whole dynamic range. The default for velocity.

Log

Loud notes need the least force, but quiet dynamics are harder to control.

Exp

Less jumpy at low levels, but it takes more force to reach the top.

Global Scale, Master tuning and Mic Settings

Misc

Get connected

1. 1Download and install the latest MIDI Control Center from Arturia’s downloads.
2. 2Connect the MicroFreak to the computer by USB and switch it on.
3. 3Launch the MIDI Control Center and select MicroFreak from the DEVICE menu at the top left.
4. 4Open the Device tab for settings, or the Wavetables or Samples tab (Loading your own wavetables, Loading your own samples).

Device tab — left column

Device tab — right column

Worth knowing

• The MicroFreak sends and receives on a single 16-channel MIDI port.
• USB connects straight to a computer without a MIDI interface; MIDI cables can run over longer distances.
• Local control off is the DAW-friendly setting — see Local control.
• The Sync clock settings are for interfacing with pre-MIDI gear such as old Korg and Roland drum machines (Clock and sync).
• Mic Gain, Noise Gate and Mic Detection are for the TRRS microphone input and the Vocoder oscillator (Vocoder settings and mic levels).
• FW 5.0.0’s bank of 64 new presets is loaded from the MCC.

The tab

• The left pane shows the banks and wavetables on your computer; the right pane shows the wavetables inside the MicroFreak.
• Below them, fields show the names of the selected wavetable and its bank, next to a 3D animation of the wavetable. Click a field and type to rename — up to 21 characters.

The buttons across the top

New Bank

Creates an empty bank on the computer side and asks you to name it. Fill it by dragging wavetables from other banks onto its name.

Del Bank

Deletes a bank after a confirmation. Factory banks can’t be deleted.

Import

Offers Replace Wavetable (.mfw) and Replace Wavetable (.wav/.aiff) to replace the selected wavetable with a file, and Import New Bank to add a .mfwb bank to the computer side.

Export

Saves the selected wavetable as a .mfw file, or the selected bank as a .mfwb file, wherever you choose.

Delete

Deletes a single wavetable after a confirmation, replacing it with an init wavetable that morphs between simple waveforms.

Send to MicroFreak

Sends the selected computer bank into the MicroFreak’s memory for the User Wavetable oscillator.

Recall to Computer

Copies the wavetables currently in the MicroFreak into a new bank on the computer side, named with the date and time — rename it in the Bank Name field.

What happens when you import audio

• A MicroFreak wavetable has 32 cycles, each 2,048 samples long. WAV and AIFF files are resampled and converted to the MicroFreak’s .mfw format.
• Every 2,048 samples of the file count as one cycle.
• The file’s first and last cycles are kept unchanged as cycles 1 and 32.
• With more than 8 cycles, the cycles are spread evenly across the table with linear crossfades, so the result covers the whole file from start to end.
• With fewer than 8, a custom algorithm spreads them across all the slots so WAVE still reaches every cycle.
• In short, you don’t need to edit files first — any audio file can become a wavetable.

Dragging and dropping

• Drag wavetables between the computer and the MicroFreak in either direction. The destination slot turns blue as you hover; releasing overwrites it.
• Drag within a bank, on either side, to reorder it. On the computer side, drop a wavetable on another bank’s name to move it there.
• Drag WAV or AIFF files straight from your computer’s file browser onto either side.
• Shift-click or Command-click to select and drag several at once.

The tab

• The left pane shows the banks and samples on your computer; the right pane shows the samples inside the MicroFreak.
• Below them you see the selected sample’s and bank’s names, the sample’s length, how much memory all the samples use and how much is left — all in seconds.
• Click a name field and type to rename a sample or bank — up to 21 characters.

The buttons across the top

New Bank

Creates an empty bank on the computer side and asks you to name it. Fill it by dragging samples from other banks onto its name.

Del Bank

Deletes a bank after a confirmation. Factory banks can’t be deleted.

Import

Offers Replace Sample (.mfsz) and Replace Sample (.wav/.aiff) to replace the selected sample with a file, and Import New Bank to add a .mfsbz bank to the computer side.

Export

Saves the selected sample as a .mfsz file, or the selected bank as a .mfsbz file, wherever you choose.

Delete

Deletes a single sample after a confirmation, replacing it with an init sample.

Send to MicroFreak

Sends the selected computer bank into the MicroFreak’s memory for the Sample, Scan Grains, Cloud Grains and Hit Grains oscillators.

Dragging and dropping

• Drag samples between the computer and the MicroFreak in either direction. The destination slot turns blue as you hover; releasing overwrites it.
• Drag within a bank, on either side, to reorder it. On the computer side, drop a sample on another bank’s name to move it there.
• Shift-click or Command-click to drag several at once.

Delete samples

1. 1Select the samples you want to remove, on the computer side or the MicroFreak side.
2. 2Click one of the two Delete buttons at the top of the Samples tab, or press the Delete key on your computer keyboard.