Korg Monologue – Monophonic Analogue Synthesizer
korg.com
korg.com
Someone else mentioned that the Monologue seems too limited and I think that's the wrong way to look at it. What counts, imo, is that a synth has a certain something that makes you want to be creative with it. The monologue/minilogue does that for me. While there is a place for complex synths, too many knobs can turn you from intuitive playing to abstract thinking which is not necessarily what you want as a musician. An extreme example: There are more people who made a career out of tweaking a 303 or a Moog than there are people who did so by (actually) programming a dx7 or a modular system.
I use to buy chips for chip tune sound and own a few hardware synths. Now software rules for me.
However I found myself really missing the immediacy of knobs and buttons, especially when I got back into playing my Korg MS-2000 with other people. That's not a true analog synth, but it has a front panel that is comparable to them. I have used MIDI controllers to try to get the same kind of feeling from a softsynth, but there's something to be said for having your control surface's layout match that of your synth--I never had the same kind of intuition about keying in or tweaking a sound via MIDI controller as I do with the Korg.
I dream of an interface that can be physically rearranged so that its knobs and sliders mirror the layout onscreen. Like a tactile touchscreen. A good synth's signal flow can be understood by "reading" its control layout, whether it's hardware or software, and for me at least, there is a huge loss when mentally mapping a well-designed interface to a boring row of eight unlabeled knobs.
(And when korg/roland/Yamaha/teenage/Waldorf/DSmith come out with new stuff, i'll spend some time on sonicState's youtube channel and the forums (Wigglers, Slutz, /r/Synthesizers) to see what the excitement's about.
https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keyb...
Free and probably not easy: PD; SuperCollider; Csound; ChucK
Not free: Arturia Suite; NI Reaktor, Massive, Absynth; Serum; Sylenth; Nexus; Spire
They all have a different sound. Some are modular, some are straight analogue clones, some are hybrids.
I used to design analogue synth hardware. Now I design non-analogue software. The software does a lot more, is vastly less expensive, takes up much less space, is easier to keep clean, and much easier to move. :)
Starting with the monotron, then the monotribe, the volca series, now the minilogues. They're the only big 3 (roland, korg, yamaha) who has a competent analog synth division. The other two are stuck continuing to double down on their digital recreations of classic analogs (roland ACB)
"Terrible loss"? They were some of the cheapest synths out there, less than what people pay for coffee in a week.
http://cdm.link/2016/11/gallery-korgs-synth-line-gets-refres...
Advantages:
1 - it's much more fun to build your own synth out of components than to buy an off-the-shelf system designed and built by someone else
2 - and you get to build exactly what you want
3 - there are literally thousands of modules to choose from, giving you much more flexibility and features than any integrated synth
4 - lots of cables to make a patch, which can be fun to mess with and interesting/intriguing for audiences to look at
5 - audio and control voltages are the same, so you can do things like change synth parameters with audio
Disadvantages:
1 - price, typically much more expensive to get equivalent functionality to a cheap integrated synth. [A]
2 - size - much bigger than a typical integrated synth [B]
3 - lots of cables to make a patch, which can make recreating a patch a pain compared to a digital/hybrid synth
4 - can look intimidating to someone unfamiliar with modular synths [C]
5 - making a modular patch can be slower than just dialing in a digital patch
Notes:
[A] - But you don't necessarily need to replicate everything, you can have partial functionality that will still be useful and fun, and may get effects that would be hard to get any other way
[B] - though Eurorack is still much smaller than some other modular formats
[C] - But it's not hard to pick up, and learning modular synthesis is fun
The physical nature makes it easier (for me at least) to remember instinctively what does what. I've build my synth exactly how I want it... I've put module X right where I want it between module Y and module Z. Using it as often as I do, my muscle memory kicks in and my arms remember where things are. I can recognize most of the modules and controls by touch. It makes composing, experimenting and performing to be almost exactly the same process (at least the way I do it) - which is something I've been striving for for my entire musical life.
That said, I wouldn't actually recommend Eurorack to most people, simply because of the extreme price.
1 - Buy used. You can get a lot of great modules in great condition used.
2 - Build your own, either from kits or (if you have the skills) from scratch. There are tons of kits out there, and you can make some pretty unusual and interesting modules with them. Plus, making your own helps you to understand them better, and help you to repair them yourself if they break.
3 - Limit your appetite for modules. You don't necessarily need a 4 voice modular synth, with 4 copies of every module. Try limiting yourself to one voice, or even to just a few modules that perform a small number of functions. That can still be really useful.
4 - (Related to 3): Combine your modular synth with an integrated hardware synth or even soft-synths. That way you can get the best of both worlds, and the non-modular synths can make up for what you're missing in your modular, again letting you limit your modular to just those functions that you need, thereby reducing the price of your modular.
5 - Buy from the less expensive module manufacturers like Doepfer. Their modules are often a fraction of the price of many other manufacturers.
The MicroKorg is a great piece of equipment, but it's also prone to aliasing problems at the upper end, which shouldn't be present in the Monologue since it's all analog.
The MicroKorg also offers different features: FM Synthesis and a Vocoder. The Monologue has a full 16 step sequencer, wheras the MicroKorg has only an arpeggiator.
For this price point I think a lot of mucisians are going to find the Monologue is a good value. It isn't far off the MiniBrute which came out at $400 and has less features.
The aliasing can be a bit annoying indeed. You can really hear it when slowly bending a high lead. I don't think it uses band-limited waveforms. But for bass lines it is absolutely fantastic!
Given that it has digital memory I fear that live-twisting on the Monologue also will show artifacts, unless they increased the resolution a lot, but at least if you leave the settings alone it should avoid them. Having a sequencer compared to "just" the arpeggiator in the Microkorg is also nice.
But IMHO it's more important to look at the wider market: There have been tons of small-ish analogue synths in the last few years, in all sizes and price-points. On one hand, that shows that market interest is there, on the other it really will depend on how it compares to those to decide if it will be a success or not, since there are tons of alternatives.
Something I still wonder though is how serious this microtonality thing is. Is it more of a gimmick or it there a serious demand for it?
I love the look of it and it's cool they are pushing more analog gear out the door at reasonable prices. But for me I still don't know why I would choose this over the Minilogue which can be had on the used market for close to $400. The only real practical use I can imagine for this is to use it as a bass synth compatible to the Roland TB-3 or TB-03 Boutique. Or to augment aTB-3 bass synth which is digital, to give it some nice bottom end; I do that with a moog slim phatty currently when needed,which is a pricier approach but I also use the Slim Phatty for some other synth duties, it's quite a versatile bit of kit.
http://www.korg.com/us/products/synthesizers/minilogue/
Edit: type-o on # of voices.
But to me it just doesn't stack up. Sure, it's got the onboard sequencer, which you're going to need somewhere in your kit. But the voice seems too similar to the Minilogue without any of the real low-end depth you can get from the Arturia devices.
But I'm with you, I don't really see what purpose this serves that can't be better served by a brute or moog.
Because it was so bad or because it was so good?
So yeah it's really good.
Re: Color. If there is an aesthetic theme for one's act, then having a matching color is simply a nice-to-have. Personally I have a bad habit of tearing apart things, painting them, and trying to get them to work again so they're not just the average off the shelf piece of kit, and I can identify my own stuff easier.
Are bassists dysfunctional or sth?
Korg often leaves me wanting just a little more in a good way.
Play. That's the best. People can just play. Serious or fun, it's all good.