MONOTRON-DELAY Analog Ribbon Synth with Delay Effect and Built-in Speaker

In terms of hardware synths, I have a microKorgXL and a Moog Slim Phatty which I love to pieces and use all the time... However I don't think either of them get as much use as my montron and I think that is purely down to the in built speaker... I have yet to use it in any of my productions and purely play around with it for fun, but I would like to include it in a tune soon. It is sooo much fun for when your chilling and wanna play around with the possibilities of what you can create. I bought this and my housemate loved it so much he went and got the original monotron so we now chain them together and run them through our guitar pedals and kaoss pads to see how far we can push the sounds... if you are a tech head you will know that although sometimes utterly pointless, this experimental process is a lot of fun. Specifically for the duo: I have found that it is definitely the only real monotron designed for playing melodic lines due to its quantizable ribbon keyboard. If you have a chromatic tuner at hand it is very easy to set a key and a scale and get some sweet lines and hooks out of it. The second oscillator is wicked for creating interval based sounds which are reminiscent of retro video game music and electro due to both oscillators being square waveforms. The x-mod on the duo is essentially a frequency modulation effect that routes the output of each oscillator across one another other (hence cross or x mod). The second oscillator can reach inaudible low frequencies and therefor the effect can also be used as an LFO using the square wave of oscillator 2 to modulate the pitch of oscillator one. When turned up to a higher frequency, oscillator 2 modulates the first oscillator to create harmonically rich tones not present in either oscillator creating some interesting distorted and metallic sounds. I am definitely going to buy more monotrons once my next load of pocket money comes in to chain them all together :)

This thing is great fun. Amazing quality and sounds for the money and I love having the built in delay. My almost 3 year old daughter loves it too!

Having had this a few days now I have to admit that after the initial play around I haven't picked it up again. But this is more a reflection on me than the instrument. I did experiment recording it into my DAW and found the result was rather more 'angular' a little rougher, than it sounds through the headphones. I am hoping it was the method I used. Having said all that the instrument itself is of the quality we have come to expect from KORG. A delightful little thing with great potential. For the price you couldn't do better. I haven't yet tried linking it into my other gear but realise the potential that lies there. I heartily recommend this to anyone who enjoys playing with synthetic sounds. Its great. Please note this reivew is for the Monotron DELAY.

Wish a tiny Monotron? This is the gift that keeps on giving. I have been playing with it for a while now and it is truly wonderful. Acts like an early seventies looped tape, synth with none of the bother. I know that for a tiny synth with limited cqapabilities the £44.00 price tag may seem expensive but this is well worth it. Records a treat and gives all the noises you would hope for. I love it.

I was given this for my birthday and just love it! Yes it is small and the ribbon "keyboard" is pretty much unplayable but my word, it makes some amazing sounds! I'm using it to generate backgrounds for the "space music" that I play and it does that really well .. I find the best thing to "play" it with is the stylus from a Nintendo DS . works really well. I also feed a keyboard through it for echo and reverb effect .. its a tad noisy but nothing you cant lose "in the mix" . for £34 or thereabouts its a great fun thing to have :)

Great range of sound manipulation

Hours of fun

This was great craic for about an hour and then stopped working. Changed batteries... no joy. Cheap rubbish really. Though not cheap for an hours entertainment.

I love everything about this synthesizer. Im known as the one who carries his synth everywhere he goes and its a really great device. As a single instrument you can make some really good sound effects. However it doesnt have enough on it to create a excision or skrillex sound but definetly something like deadmau5 or Mord Fustang is achievable on this. The fact it isnt a midi is something that not everyone likes but i actually prefer to have it with the aux jacks because im an on budget person and have some mild Daw's and Music creator 6 cant really make a electro or dubstep beat. You can run a song through it and play sounds over it and that feature is pretty cool. you can also find some pretty good combo's on this thing and its interesting every time you turn a knob. ALSO get a headphone splitter if you plan to record the sounds because once you plug it into your microphone jack you can hear hat your playing, this way you can hear and record it. Belkin Speaker and Headphone Splitter Overall a really great buy for the beginner and maybe even a professional who would like something to carry around and make sounds on. Really Fun, Very Portable, Great Device Korg!

astrein

Monotron Duo von Korg ist ein schönes kleines Gerät. Trotz der Kleinheit lässt es sich gut bedienen. Ich halte es in einer Hand, mit der ich zugleich die "Tastatur" (Ribbon-Controller, Bandtastatur), eine Oktave) bediene, mit der anderen Hand kann man die verschiedenen Knöpfe einstellen. Die Tastatur hat verschiedene Möglichkeiten: kontinuierliche Tonhöhenveränderung oder drei verschiedene Tonleitern (Dur, Moll, chromatisch). Die Lautstärke ist nicht allzu groß, aber völlig ausreichend. Man kann auch einen Kopfhörer oder einen Verstärker anschließen. Das Gerät hat zwei Tongeneratoren, hierdurch kann man Schwebungseffekte erzeugen. Für Kinder ist es geeignet, aber nicht für sehr kleine Kinder. Man kann von außen Signale zuführen, das habe ich aber noch nicht erprobt. Die Bedienungsanleitung ist etwas kurz ausgefallen, insbesondere werden die Effekte nicht erklärt. Trotzdem ist sie ausreichend, um das Gerät zu bedienen, benötigt man sie nur begrenzt. (Für mich war die Beschreibung zum Umstellen der Tonleitern wichtig - sie werden mit einem kleinen Knopf an der Hinterseite der Reihe nach umgestellt - alles andere habe ich auch durch Probieren herausgefunden.) Die Beschriftung ist englisch, das ist aber ebenfalls kein Problem. Es werden die üblichen englischen Bezeichnungen "Standby", "Peak" (Tonhöhe, Resonanz), X-Mod (Kreuzmodulation), Cutoff (ungefähr: Höhenbeschneidung) und Peak (ungefähr: Höhenverstärkung) verwendet. Die Lautstärkeregelung erfolgt mit einem Knopfregler an der Hinterseite. Ich kann das Gerät empfehlen, weiß aber nicht, ob man es auch für "ernsthafte" Musik einsetzen kann, denn der Ribbon-Controller ist recht klein. Am interessantesten ist die Möglichkeit, bei gehaltenem Ton die Effekte zu verändern. Man kann den Ribboncontroller mit einem Finger bedienen, aber auch mehrere Finger verwenden. Bei Mehrfingerbedienung kann man einen kontinuierlichen Ton halten. Bei Einzeltonbedienung (nicht bei gleitender Bedienung mit kontinuierlichem Ton) entstehen am Anfang und Ende eines Tones je nach Einstellung der Regler eine Art Knackgeräusche am Anfang und Ende des Tones, vielleicht eine akustische Täuschung durch den plötzlichen Einsatz bzw. Abbruch des Tones). Ergänzung: Korg schickt auf Anfrage mit E-Mail den kompletten Schaltplan. Das ist sehr interessant, weil man genau den Aufbau verfolgen kann. Außerdem könnte man auch Ergänzungen anbringen, natürlich unter Verlust der Garantie.

Muy buen producto para usarlo incluso en estudio de grabación.

J’adore ce petit instrument. Très ludique, exploration facile de sonorité. Si on ne cherche pas un astrolab ( Arturia) mais juste un petit outil pour s’amuser et glisser des effets sonores dans une bande son ou un morceau c’est ce qu’il faut.