Korg Monotron Delay Analog Ribbon Synthesizer

You can tune the oscillators to make some pretty fat signals. It’s tricky but possible. Also the pitch of osc 2 increases the xmod rate even if it’s set to only run one oscillator which is pretty cool. There’s a ton of sounds you can make with this. Super smooth risers with the potentiometer strip. Basses and modulated effects.

If you plug this into your daw and tinker with it you can slice some good samples. It’s limited in what it can do outside of that but it is 100% usable for making interesting music.

Comprei para minha namorada como um mimo de aniversário e ela adorou. Unica reclamação é que o preço poderia ser um pouco mais em conta, mas aí é culpa do dólar.

I love this and bought on3 after hearing one used in a live twitch set. It is great to be able to make a sound look using the I put. Great effects cane be made.

I bought this because it seemed fun to play with, and because I wanted to learn more about the very basic features of an analog synthesizer. It delivered on both accounts and then-some. The filter is great (featuring both cutoff and peak controls), and the dual use of the LFO (for the pitch and filter cutoff) allows for a wide variety of sounds. I love this thing. See following rant for details.

Best features (so far):

-Auxiliary input: based on the circuit layout, the aux input comes in after the VCO, so whatever sounds you put through it can be manipulated by the filter; moreover, the VCO can still produce sounds even if you have an external input (though the filter will apply to both of them). In practice, this means you can run a beat through it AND play a melody at the same time, and both will go to the same speaker. Or, you could hook-up a computer mic and filter your singing voice while playing a song. Pretty fun.

-This damn thing produces surprisingly rich low-frequency tones. The internal speaker won’t pick them up, but better speakers (or subs) will if you connect them to the head-phone port. I was playing with them for hours at work because I couldn’t believe how rich they were. (FYI, drop the pitch, turn the cutoff down fairly low, crank the peak, and it produces some rich bass tones–mix with the LFO, and you have some nice bass lines and/or bass drum rhythms, depending on how high or low the interval of the LFO is set at when it is modulating the cutoff).

-Many people have noted the quality of the filter, which is fair, because it is nice. However, the LFO is similarly versatile–just move it a bit more carefully and you’ll fine that you can control much more of the modulation than it first appears.

-*Update*: I thought the “click” sound that you hear when you place your finger on the ribbon to play a note was only avoidable by keeping one finger on it (just time it right when playing), but there is a way around it. If you have another unit (Monotron, Delay, or Duo), run the sound of one through the other, and the “click” is gone! I am sure there are other ways around it, but this is definitely one.

Downside(s):

-Like I said, it is kind of small, and I am worried that its plastic body may eventually break, but I suppose that just means I have to be somewhat careful.

-The ribbon keyboard is fun for sliding around the scale, but it makes playing individual notes difficult–its small, and the boundaries between notes are not always spatially clear.

-The internal speaker makes it seem cheaper than it really is–DON’T BE FOOLED! This synth produces richer and a wider range of sounds than its internal speaker lets on.

It’s kind of a toy, but also kind of a proof-of-concept for Korg. The Monotron duo is awesome. It’s about the size of an old audio cassette case. The knobs are responsive, but a little wobbly. The ribbon is great – very responsive, and it’s easy to use. You can make some fun and funky sounds with this. There’s a little button on the left shoulder of the unit that selects between continuous and several quantized modes. The two oscillators are controlled with a pitch knob (labeled VCO1), and the second oscillator is tuned relative to VCO1 with the VCO2 knob. This actually caused great frustration for me, because they were not perfectly in-tune on my unit when the VCO2 knob was straight up and down – it had to be a little bit to the left. This no doubt has to do with the analog circuitry and cheapness of the product, but the imperfection was annoying enough that I sent it back.

The VCF sounds fantastic, and the cross modulation knob adds a lot of character to the sound.

For those who have seen the original Monotron, you’ll notice that there’s no LFO on this unit. You’re trading the LFO for the second oscillator and the quantization button. The result is a much more musical machine, but the tradeoff is real.

You also get an aux in jack, which allows you to run external audio through the excellent filter.

I said this was a “proof-of-concept,” and it is – where the concept is, “A ridiculously affordable and fun analog synth that proves people want analog synthesizers, so Korg can go on to make tons more at other price points with different features.” It *seems* like this device made other instruments, like the Volca series and the Minilogue, possible. And for that, I am tremendously grateful. And I really like this product. But having returned the unit I purchased, I would not buy another since I purchased the Volca Keys instead. The bottom line is that if you can afford this unit or the Volca Keys, you want the Volca Keys. But this is an excellent toy and a surprisingly fun instrument, if seriously limited in application.