Korg monotron DUO Analog Ribbon Synthesizer

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.

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 cheap but for what it can do it's very powerful and has many qualities that make fantastic value for money.I will get the bad(ish) things out the way:It is a little noisy. The signal isn't the cleanest but, in some respects, this adds great character to the sound.It's not a keyboard. The little ribbon "keyboard" is more like a picture of some keys that acts more like tactile theramin. It's almost impossible to pinpoint notes so you wouldn't be able to play along with the band, unless you are adding crazy sound effects in the backgound, in which case it's perfect.Now the good things:It's light and tiny and runs on AAA batteries, fits perfectly in your hands, you can plug your headphones in and mess with it anywhere.The knobs are pretty sturdy and have a good range of motion for a handheld device.You could play with it for hours and keep coming up with interesting rhythms and sounds.The aux input means you can run external audio through it and use the filter and delay functions to add extra effects to otherwise dry instruments and samples.I recommend recording everything you do with it, even if you are having a reckless jam. That way you won't miss the happy accidents that you will never be able to get back.It's also a great introductory tool for anyone interested in analogue synthesis or electronic music in general.