Korg Monotribe

[darkartois]

I was really hoping that Korg would do this based on the success of the monotron. The only downside is the ribbon again



http://www.gearjunkies.com/news_info.php?news_id=6268

[Pedro Sánchez]

Promising, I never got round to copping the monotron so this might have to be a purchase.

[Demian]

I'm just waiting to hear if it's stereo in/out for the filter. If so I'm getting one, that filter sounds like sex. I got the monotron for the filter, but it is only mono....

[skwiggo]

looks amazing, will be getting this to add to my monotron and my nanokontrol live setup im working on

[frank grimes jr.]

Into it.

[FSTZ]

where is the valve tube??

[alphacat]

Ribbon synths are easy to make.

[slothrop]

Out of interest, has anyone had a serious go with one of these yet?

Obligatory dubstep head question - how low can the oscillator go?

[narcissus]

where is the valve tube??

heh heh.

man i want this. i am such a fiend for things like this. it even has cool little CR78 style percs!

[slothrop]

The percussion seems like a bit of a bad compromise tbh - from what I've heard, it sounds pretty rinky-dink on its own (just because it's analogue doesn't mean it's any good), it's not tweakable, and the whole thing only has one output - so you can't process it separately from the synth sounds to make it sound good and if you're using the percussion you can't use loads of effects on the synth without mangling the drums as well. I'd far rather they'd either given it a separate output or left it off and either made the whole thing a bit cheaper or the synth a bit more powerful. As it is, it seems like a gimmick that makes for some cool youtube demos but has almost no actual use.

The synth looks cool, though.

[charliefoy]

(bump) Looking into this thing, going at dv247 with a free monotron. Is it actually good or just a gimmicky type thing? And can you connect via midi through a soundcard for a midi keyboard to control?

[efence]

I'm just waiting to hear if it's stereo in/out for the filter. If so I'm getting one, that filter sounds like sex. I got the monotron for the filter, but it is only mono....

the input only goes thru filter if synth gate is open....so you cant use it just as filter

[slothrop]

(bump) Looking into this thing, going at dv247 with a free monotron. Is it actually good or just a gimmicky type thing? And can you connect via midi through a soundcard for a midi keyboard to control?

Yeah I got mine from there!

No midi - there's some sort of basic sync function but I don't really know what it does. If you're after something that will dovetail seamlessly into your DAW workflow and all that stuff then this ain't it. The minitribe has a 'key' mode so you can at least hit precise pitches (if you have tiny fingers or don't mind playing it with a cocktail stick) but again, complex and expressive keyboard riffs aren't really the point.

So basically I can see two obvious ways to use it -
you could use it with a big weirdy experimental all hardware setup, with looper pedals, live guitar, lots of effects, feedback, beards, noise etc
or you can plug it into a laptop to record stuff and then fit the sounds it makes into your tunes by hand.

Soundwise they're both pretty decent - they've got a surprising amount of potential out of the limited components largely because the filter is pretty buff and the LFO can get up to audio frequencies for weird modulation effects. We're still talking weird electronic bleeps, but it's more than just a bumped up stylophone.

The sequencer on the monotribe is quite handly largely because it means that you can get something looping and then use both hands to mess around with the knobs. You can tweak the tempo in realtime as well, which is cool.

The drums are kind of fun but you probably wouldn't use them for anything serious.

I've got mine plugged into an old spring reverb, which is cool, and am thinking of getting a looper / delay type pedal for further chaos. If you get the twoofer from Digital Village you can plug them into each other as well.