Power on and play
How the MicroFreak makes sound, how its touch keyboard works, and the octave buttons and volume knob.
The MicroFreak has no moving keys. Its 25 keys are flat touch pads. Each key tells the synth which note you played, when you touched and let go, and how hard you pressed. The sound starts in a digital oscillator, passes through an analog filter and an analog amplifier, and comes out as one mono signal at the main output and the headphone socket.
- The path a note takes: digital oscillator, analog filter, analog amplifier
- How the touch keyboard works, and what finger pressure does
- Moving the keyboard up and down with the octave buttons
- What the screen shows when you touch a control
The steps6 steps
- Look at the screen. It shows the sound that is loaded: its name and its category. Whenever you turn a knob, the screen shows that knob's name and value for a moment.
- Play some notes: click the keys, or use your computer keys A S D F G. Each key is a touch pad that senses which note, when you touch and let go, and how hard you press.
Stuck?
Click the keys at the bottom of the model, or press A, S, D and F on your keyboard.
- Press Octave up twice. The keyboard now plays two octaves higher, and the button's light changes to show you are off-centre. (The real synth goes up to three octaves each way.)
Stuck?
Octave up is the right-hand one of the two octave buttons, bottom left.
- Now go down: press Octave down until you are one octave below the middle.
Stuck?
Press Octave down three times to get from +2 to -1.
- Return to the middle: press Octave up once. The octave is saved with each preset, so a sound can load at its own register.
Stuck?
You are one octave down, so one press of Octave up gets you back.
- Turn Master Volume down and up while a note plays. It sets the level at both the main output and the headphones.
Stuck?
Drag or scroll the Master knob at the right end of the top row.
You can play it, move it up and down in octaves and set the volume. Next: finding sounds with the Preset knob.
On the real MicroFreak
The octave buttons move the keyboard up to three octaves either way, and their lights blink faster the further you are from the middle (the Oct LED Blink setting in the Utility menu can make them steady). The Master Volume knob sets both the line output and the headphones. At power-on the MicroFreak loads the preset you saved most recently. After a preset loads, the knobs may not match what you hear: press Panel once to make the sound match them.
Where the model differs
Mouse and touch play every key at one fixed pressure. On the real keyboard, more of your finger on a pad means more pressure.
Questions2
Why do the keys not move?
They are capacitive touch pads, like a phone screen. That is why there is no key travel, and why the MicroFreak can read pressure from how much of your fingertip is on a pad.
Is it polyphonic?
Not by default. It plays one note at a time (mono). Press Paraphonic and it plays four notes together, but they share one analog filter. The Voices lesson covers it.