KorgMonotron Delay Analog Ribbon Synthesizer

Was suggested by a friend(who repairs synths and has a noise project) to get this and it's been an amazing gadget for my setup. Love the fact I can sit outside with it and mess with it, the sounds you can make are rather fantastic. I've already incorporated it into my project. This thing packs a punch, it looks like a toy but oh man, hook it up to a few pedals and watch it pop off. Budget friendly gear and it truly added something that I needed without having to drop a bunch of cash I don't have currently.

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Back in the 1960s, you were faced with these giant modular Moogs. You heard them wherever Paul Beaver was involved, like in the Monkees (Aquarius, Pisces, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.) and the Turtles ("You Showed Me"). Also Simon & Garfunkel recorded "Save the Life of My Child", which the Moog was programmed by none other than Robert Moog. This beast was also featured on the Beatles' Abbey Road, and Keith Emerson used it extensively with Emerson, Lake & Palmer in the early '70s. And we can never forget Wendy Carlos' Switched-On Bach from 1968, which inspired a mass-market flood of similarly-themed classical Moog albums up until about 1972. Tomita also made extensive use of the Modular Moog in the mid to late '70s when other musicians were turning to more portable synths like the Minimoog and ARP Odyssey. In 1970 you had the ARP 2500, a boxy modular synth with lots of knobs, matrix pins, and additional modules and even keyboards. This monster was featured on Close Encounters of the Third Kind to communicate with the aliens, but with a modified cabinet to make it look like a glorified organ. ARP realized they needed a more user-friendly version, so came the ARP 2600, and a little later, the Odyssey.Now technology has came where you can own a synth on the very extreme opposite end from the modular Moog and ARP 2500. A handheld, pocket synth from Korg called the Monotron! Powers on two "AAA" batteries, it's all you really need to power such a small thing. I am really blown away with it. Certainly, it doesn't feature a standard keyboard, it features a ribbon controller, but I love the sound effects and features it can do. It's extremely basic, but that's what I expect from something this small, but I found it so much more interesting than those cheesy battery-powered toy keyboards I received as a Christmas present as a kid. It has a headphone jack so you can hear it through your headphones, or hook it through an external audio source. There's also an auxiliary jack so you can get an external sound playing through the Monotron, like another synth or a Walkman (be it cassette or CD) and you can alter the sounds through the VCF filters. It's also really easy to create that synth intro to Steve Miller's "Jungle Love" on the Monotron. Perhaps the most interesting sound I was able to create off it was the sound of a catfight! In essence, the Monotron is a glorified Stylophone (minus the wand, you just use your fingers, or an object like a pen would work just fine if you wanted a wand), with real synth features! Unlike your regular synths you keep at home, if you run across a synth junkie while out in town, you can bring your Monotron with you and show that person what it can do, since it can easily fit in your pocket.

My first thought on opening the box from Amazon was "this thing is even smaller than I thought." It's tiny, all right- I keep mine in a case designed for a pocket-sized camera. And yet, it has all the functionality of a 1960s era one-VCO synth, something that would have cost you the equivalent of several thousand dollars back then. It's all you'd ever need to compose soundtracks for Sci-Fi films of the pre-Star Wars era. In short, it's very flexible, and a heck of a lot of fun.It does, however, have a few drawbacks. The description says it's a "16 key" synth, whereas it's really a zero-key machine. There are no keys- just a ribbon controller with a keyboard printed on it. Out of the box, playing an octave on mine yielded a major 9th, but some careful tweaking with a small screwdriver fixed this- there's a tiny pot accessible on the rear for this very purpose. Even with the "keyboard" adjusted, it's difficult to hit the note you want, though this becomes a little easier with practice.You're not limited to the ribbon controller for signals. There's an AUX input that allows you to bypass the "keyboard" and run your own signals through the VCF. I've been having fun feeding the output of my iPod through it, running various sound producing apps. I tried to feed the direct output of an electric guitar through it, but I think it needs a more gain to do that. If I had a few more 1/4" to mini stereo adapters I'd use my old Audio Buddy to step up the gain a bit and try again. One cautionary note regarding use of the headphone jack: Even though the Monotron is a monophonic device, Korg warns you not to use mono 1/8" plugs- you must use the stereo plugs. I'm not sure if this is to avoid damage or simply to make the unit perform properly, but I'm not taking any chances.The biggest drawback is the price. At $60, it's not cheap. For about a tenth that cost you can buy Moog's own "Filtatron" app for the iPhone/iPod/iPad that does everything the Monotron does and then some. If you've got one of those devices, I'd recommend you go with the app. But if you find yourself with $60 burning a hole in your pocket and the need to own a pocket-sized synth, there's nothing else even close on the market. (And if you happen to own a Korg Kaossilator, I'm told that this is a great add-on.)Update: Korg is currently offering a $20 rebate on this box, which brings the price down significantly. I suspect this will only last until the currnt stock is exhausted, as there are two new Monotrons out- one with echo, and one with dual VCOs.