The Korg Monotron is a very basic but powerful palm sized monosynth.
I've been messing around with my new Korg Monotron for a few days now and I have to say that it’s definitely worth the £50 price tag. The Monotron is the first analogue product from Korg in nearly 30 years.
The first thing that struck me when I unboxed the Monotron was the size of it. Pictures and videos on the net can be a bit misleading and it’s hard not to be surprised of how tiny it actually is (It’s only just slightly bigger than my iPhone 4).
The little palm sized wonder is made up of three simple elements. A sawtooth wave, a low pass filter and a LFO. It may not seem like much but I can assure you it's all that this little beast needs.
The fact that it has the VCO and VCF have the same circuitry as the legendary Korg MS-20 makes the Korg Monotron extremely desirable, the sounds that it produces scream pure analogue.
The filter is phenomenal and the option to process external audio via the aux in is a godsend.
As well as the analogue filter the monotron also boasts a very nice saw wave oscillator, it too from the MS20.
You can get a wide range of sounds out of this little monster such as deep bass sounds, High-pitched squeals and even some nice little analogue percussion hits. But it really starts getting interesting when you start messing around with the LFO.
The Filter and the oscillator may give the little synth its huge voice but the LFO is at the heart of the device. The LFO is capable of controlling ether the pitch of the oscillator or the cut off frequency of the low pass filter.
The sounds that you can get from the monotron are truly unbelievable for the price.
Below there are two audio demos; The first one is of the monotron with just a little bit of delay from the Korg Mini Kaoss pad and the second one is a drum loop from the iPhone FunkBox app running throiugh the filter section of the Monotron.
Monotron by synthersizer-sounds
Drums Processed with Monoton Filter by synthersizer-sounds
Keep a look out for more on the Monotron in the future including a free sample library.
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