Quantum Fold Vol.2 on MicroFreak: user banks and wavetable families

New oscillator material, with the patch still yours to design

Quantum Fold Vol.2 for MicroFreak contains 135 WAV wavetables organised into nine families, plus nine ready-to-load MicroFreak sets. These are starting materials for the oscillator. They do not supply 135 complete hardware presets with envelopes, modulation and filtering already assigned.

The distinction matters when you want a particular result. A wavetable gives you a sequence of changing wave shapes to explore. Your note, scan position, modulation and the rest of the patch determine how that material becomes a bass, lead or evolving texture. The prepared sets make the hardware transfer more direct; they do not remove that creative part of the process.

Load one MicroFreak user bank and preserve your current material

Arturia introduced the WaveUser oscillator with MicroFreak firmware 4.0. Connect the hardware to MIDI Control Center, select its Wavetables tab, import a bank and send it to the synth. The prepared sets are intended for this hardware workflow; Phase Plant is not required.

MicroFreak holds one user bank of 16 wavetables at a time. Replacing it can alter existing presets that refer to those tables. Recall and export the current bank in MIDI Control Center before replacing anything you want to preserve. The nine supplied sets are choices to load, not nine banks stored simultaneously inside the instrument.

Select the table, then listen to its scan

In MicroFreak's WaveUser oscillator, Wave selects a table, Timbre scans its position and Shape adjusts bit depth. Start by moving Timbre slowly, then choose the part of the scan that suits your phrase.

In the overview at 3:19, Black Marvin uses slow scanning in Phase Plant to make the changes within the material easy to hear. Treat that as a listening method you can adapt to the hardware, rather than an identical patch recipe. The synth engine and surrounding processing affect the result.

For an initial MicroFreak experiment, hold a low note and listen across the table, then repeat an octave higher. Find a useful fixed position before introducing movement. Next, try a narrow modulation range around it. This gives you a way to compare the table's core tone with its more animated behaviour without changing several parts of the patch at once.

Choose a family by the movement and texture you need

The family names organise different characters, not separate synthesis engines. Use the overview chapters to compare them, then audition the same material in your own MicroFreak patch. A table that sounds aggressive in one register may provide a subtler colour elsewhere.

Match the edition and demonstration to your instrument

The MicroFreak edition includes the complete WAV library as well as the nine prepared hardware sets. The software compatibility list includes Serum, Vital, Phase Plant, Pigments and Hive 2, each using its own import workflow. The standard Quantum Fold Vol.2 listing focuses on the software wavetable library, so compare the contents when choosing between editions.

The narrated overview above is a Phase Plant demonstration. A separate session, Jamming With Microfreak + Quantum Fold Wavetables Vol.2, provides the hardware context. Use the overview to hear the families and the hardware session as an additional reference, while keeping the role of the synth and effects in mind.

For a more focused first patch, choose one family and one kind of movement. Try Limes when you want an acidic direction, compare Meckano with Fog Horns for heavier tones, or begin with Wormholes and Warps when the changing sweep is the main attraction. Then shape the envelope and modulation around the musical part you want to play.