Korg Monotron Delay Analog Ribbon Synthesizer

I'm absolutely shocked by the incredible amount of different sounds I can get out of this little rock star.. Hol-lee crap.. Drones, washes, dub, FX, metallic, rhythmic, percussive. It's a toy but you put this in to the hands of someone who knows synths and I promise you'll be shocked at what comes out. I think the issue here is there are a lot of people who have never heard cheap analog equipment and don't appreciate the character it imparts. This thing is noisy as hell, it's always making some sort of hiss or drone, especially when you put the delay on thick. The delay is cheap but in the most amazing way, it just mangles the hell out of everything and it is constantly losing top end so you can keep piling more on. The LFO doesn't act predictably and when its in use you can't always know what kind of pitch it's going to make but it's brilliant! This is the simplest synth I have ever used. To be honest I thought I'd get bored of it quickly, but I find myself spending hours playing with it. You get 3 things to affect, LFO, Cut off & Delay, I'm shocked just how much I can get just by doing some knob tweaking. Some things to keep in mind. - Don't think you're going to play melodies, it's a ribbon controller, they work best for sliding notes and droning sounds (think 50's scifi). - It's noisy and might not be suited for most musical styles. I can very easily see it being used for industrial, metal, dubstep, techo, electro, psychedelic, experimental & abstract - The delay is the key part, crank the time and feedback all the way up hit some notes. Now play around with the time and the cutoff knobs.. it gets really crazy. - If you want to use it in a song you'll want to sample it. My advice hit record in your audio recording program play around with it for 10-15 mins and then chop out the stuff you like for samples. I can't wait to pull this thing open and see what I can hook some pan pots (knobs) to. This thing is just begging to be modded.

The Monotron Delay is tremendous fun, and I use it in a lot of different ways. It's great to throw in my purse and noodle around on when I have time -- it takes up almost no space, which is perfect. It's great to add as an FX instrument when I jam -- it gives great sci fi or other kinds of sounds to add to a mix, and adds something really distinctive. And it's great to use as a small, affordable delay effect to add to an instrument -- especially something like a Volca or something similar where the instrument's portable and you're already using a 1/8" jack, where it's going to be easier to deal with than a pedal effect. One good/bad thing depending on what you want is that the delay isn't a pristine digital effect -- there's some grittiness there and higher pitches will die off over time instead of being perfectly preserved. But this is pretty much by design -- perfect digital effects are available in many places if you want them, and this is intended to have a distinctive sound more like an old tape delay. I'm certainly not an expert in all the things this can do, but if you're not used to playing around with delay effects, it's pretty versatile. You can just put a decaying echo after everything, or you can turn up the feedback until it repeats everything rhythmically over time. Which is to say, you can use it as a sort of looper, though the high end will decay before long. If you can dial in sounds you like, you can even turn it into a weird sort of drum machine, repeating percussive sounds per measure or per quarter note, depending on the time interval you set. Also, like a tape delay, you can mess with the pitch as it's repeating by twisting the time knob, which yields some cool effects depending on what you're repeating. In my opinion, this is the best pocket instrument out there.

Small, travels great to anywhere. But that's not why your reading this. This little gem sounds great, delving into cool retro synth sounds. Using it doesn't require a massive knowledge of synthesizers. It's so incredibly fun. I own to 2 as a strange matter of fact. I did some left field work recording both on separate tracks, bounced them down and layered more. This is a great thing to have. The value is perfect for this kind of thing so get it now. ..............Donnie P

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.

The Korg monitron delay analog ribbon synthesizer is 100% totally amazingly awesome! I am a theremin player, and I set this synthesizer settings to sound very similar to a theremin. Of course you can set the settings to sound like a science fiction movie; I have done that too and it is really fun to play with. I don't consider this synthesizer a toy at all. I use the stylus pen when I play it and there are many, many beautiful notes that resonate out of this incredible ribbon synthesizer. The speaker is pretty loud, and the knobs are of good quality: They turn easily, and very smooth. I can see the batteries lasting a very long time, and I really intend I'm writing some beautiful music with this amazing ribbon synthesizer. The plastic quality is very good, and very strong. I absolutely love my Korg monitron delay analog ribbon synthesizer!

Absolutely fantastic if you know what you're getting yourself into. I bought the delay expecting not to use the actual synthesizer very often. I expected to mostly just run a keyboard of mine (the Arturia MicroBrute Analog Synthesizer , which I also highly recommend) through the filter and delay. It's great for doing that. Also, before I launch into my full review, I feel that it's important to talk about battery life. I've had the thing for about 2 months now and I use it about an hour a day. I go through about 8 AAA batteries a month. However, what I didn't expect were the surprisingly musical synth noises I've been able to coerce out of this thing. Don't come in expecting to be able to play real melodies on this thing. The keyboard/touchpad thing is only a couple inches wide and spans at least 4 or 5 octaves. What I found is that it's great for producing drones and effects. I recommend holding down a point in the middle of the keyboard with something like a guitar capo and tuning it with the LFO and INT knobs, turning the LFO up so that the LFO is actually making the sound. Now as for the delay effect itself, it's dirty and noisy, but if this isn't the first review you've read, you probably already heard that. What you may not have heard is how fun and actually useful the grit and feedback properties of the delay actually are. Recently, I've had a lot of luck turning the time way down and the feedback up to a point where it almost won't fade. It's good for something like a long spring reverb type sound. TLDR; I love this nasty little effects unit. At 50$ you'd be amiss not picking one of these up to put between your raw synth and your amp.

I have a classical piano background and an itch for analog synth noises, so I bought the Monotron Delay to familiarize myself with synth foundations and figure out what I liked before I splurged on a more fully featured synth. I also have the Duo, but the Delay is far more fun. It looks like a child's toy but don't be fooled; it is a pocket beast that can easily produce some of the filthiest, grittiest, dystopian space-trash-compactor sounds you have ever heard. You can get a surprising amount of sound exploration out of it, and the simple array of stripped down controls is more of a feature than a drawback in that it lets you build an intimately familiar mental model for everything you're doing. By itself, it makes some fun noises, but you'll probably tire of that pretty fast. It really shines if you pair it with another instrument that can produce predictable notes. You can't really carry a melody on the ribbon synth because it's not discretized or fixed to any scale, although you could always plug in a different Monotron that lets you play scales. I like to jam with it by running my normal 88-key piano through it, and using the delay portion as a filter on top of my piano sounds, with the LFO layered for auxiliary cosmic noise. I've also had a lot of fun running my friend's sequencer through it. The delay is addictive paired with a keyboard, as the feedback loop gives you a bit of rhythmic encouragement and you can bend the loop you've got trapped in there for a fun effect. It's a little annoying how much base noise there is -- if you run a clean sound source through the Delay, there's no way to twist the controls to get back to a clean-sounding output, which would make for a nice contrast. But I guess that's not the goal of the Delay. It's more about twisting the cutoff knob as the LFO ray-gun sound trapped in the feedback loop builds to a climax, to transform into a rocket blasting a slow burn into an alien atmosphere. FYI, it's hard to see the dial indicator indents so I painted them white. Battery life is great. Bring your own aux cables for input and output. The onboard speaker is okay for messing around but it's more fun when you have a subwoofer.

I had low expectations from the start, about a cheap plastic toy that I expected to use on one recording, and then give it to a kid or something... BUT, I was so wrong ! The first time I played it, I couldn't put it down for hours...buy the suggested power adapter for $7...it will put out what you care to put into it ! I went for "scary" analog noises first.I found a crackly moaning loop on the first try-which was EXACTLY WHAT I was looking for.I then turned back the looper a bit, to activate the theremin-there was my favorite creepy ,windy graveyard(you gotta keep turning knobs, or it can become thin and repetitive). It has limitless overdubbing capability, so knock yourself out- you really can't go wrong- the looper is powerful.. it can overpower the unit, so just remember ,"the last button IS the crazy-button"... it can turn a loop into grainy feedback-which is cool for shocking jolts of sound;Its the best of the cheap units...you cannot beat it even for the next more expensive one-the "dual has no delay ! no fun...get this cool one with the cool artwork; RUN IT THROUGH A 200 WATT ORANGE AMP, AND YOU MIGHT FORGET ABOUT YOUR GUITAR !-YOU DO NEED 1/8" TO 1/4" 10' CORD... AND SADLY, MY 1/8 HEADPHONE OUT BROKE, SO IT MUST BE REPLACED ALREADY. BUT i'LL BUY 10 ! THEY SOUND LIKE A ROLAND SH-1 FROM THE EIGHTIES ! CLASSIC !...BECOME A MUSICIAN IN 5 MINUTES; If you already know what the basic knobs are for, you learn pretty fast, that the two last knobs will be your "hands-on" control to get machine quality industrial feedback, you can expand the width of the waves(it has shark's tooth, and square, but you can't tell much at all...the flashing speed button looks cool, but its more for looks-I just use it as a flashing light most of the time, because it doesn't make strong rhythmic beats, its a lead instrument, or it can be a creepy background of whooshing, robot noises, helicopters, spaceships(well, use a little imagination !)it can sound like a $400 Roland...it has no presets... but for any live performance, it could be a MAIN INSTRUMENT-BUY AT LEAST TWO,IN CASE THE 1/8 HEADPHONE JACK BREAKS...MINE WAS NEVER JERKED OR ABUSED, IT JUST CRAPPED OUT ! but for $50, who cares-the speaker still works... give it to a child to learn on, and then let him play the good one through the 200 watt amp ! 200 watts makes most things sound pretty good, but this is INCREDIBLY USEFUL...OUR BAND CONSISTS OF A MONOTRON, A MONOTRIBE(GREAT FOR A DRUM-BEAT-BUT MUCH MORE FUN THAN DRUMS,SONICALLY) AND A GUITAR THROUGH A SYNTH PEDAL... 3 PEOPLE TWISTING KNOBS.... ITS THE BASIC BAND OF THE FUTURE !

Died after less than 6 months with only a handful of uses.

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.

So small but so much fun, the sound is thick and its fun to play around with the knobs once u connect it to a speaker it sounds even better. You can also connect any instrument to it with an aux cable which is awesome.

Comprei para minha namorada como um mimo de aniversário e ela adorou. Unica reclamação é que o preço poderia ser um pouco mais em conta, mas aí é culpa do dólar.

Man kann das Gerät über Kopfhörer oder den eingebauten Lautsprecher betreiben. Über Kopfhörer ist der Klang natürlich besser, als über den Lautsprecher. Faszinierende Klänge entstehen bei Rückkopplung mit Echo, wenn die Verstärkung nahezu 1 beträgt und damit das Echo lange erhalten bleibt, wenn es auch dumpfer wird. Wenn man die Verstärkung noch etwas anhebt, wird auch das Rauschen verstärkt und moduliert, das sonst nur wenig zu hören ist. Es entstehen wahrhaft "kosmische" Klänge. Die Tastatur ist wirklich sehr klein, und es ist schwierig, einen Ton genau zu treffen. Allerdings macht das nicht so viel aus, wie ich anfangs dachte. Zum einen kann man den Ton in der Höhe automatisch ändern lassen, zum anderen wird man das Gerät eher für Geräusche einsetzen, denke ich. Und man kann es sehr gut zum Meditieren verwenden. Mit dem Fingernagel konnte ich Töne ganz gut treffen. Eine Tastatur lässt sich anschließen, wenn man das Gehäuse öffnet und entsprechende Anleitungen im Internet beachtet. Ein kompletter Schaltplan wird von Korg auf seiner Seite zur Verfügung gestellt. Man kann also eine Tastatur nachrüsten, wenn man will, aber auch andere Nachrüstungen sind möglich.