Arturia unveils MiniFreak 49 synth with 49 keys and XYZ touch matrix

Arturia unveiled the MiniFreak 49 on 20 October 2026, an expanded version of its MiniFreak hybrid synthesizer with 49 keys instead of 37, upgraded panel controls and a new XYZ Touch Matrix.

The core is familiar: six voices, two digital engines with more than 30 oscillator modes drawn from Arturia, Mutable Instruments and Noise Engineering, a per-voice analogue multimode filter and three effects slots with 13 algorithms each, from chorus and reverb to distortion and vocoder. Presets from the original MiniFreak remain compatible. The full-size, semi-weighted keys are the same keybed used on the KeyLab 49 mk3, according to CDM, with mono aftertouch and aluminium pitch and mod wheels.

The XYZ surface, developed in-house as Arturia confirmed to CDM, is a multitouch capacitive pad that tracks up to eight touches plus finger pressure, with a 7x7 RGB LED grid. It handles performance, modulation and preset navigation, and its Freak Control mode adds touch macro faders and Gate, Spice and Hold controls. Other additions include voice panning across the stereo field, borrowed from the PolyBrute, filter FM, dedicated controls for each engine, 256 MB of sample memory versus 32 MB on the base model, and a larger OLED screen. Arturia says that with the new unit, playing a patch “is only the beginning”.

The original MiniFreak arrived in late 2022 and received its 5.0 update, adding sample and wavetable import, the previous month, MusicTech reported. In October mbuzz reported that Arturia had released version 2.0 of the firmware for its AstroLab stage keyboards.