All sounds are played with KORG monotron. KORG monotronだけで曲作ってみました。 もちろん録音＆ミックスにDAWを使用してはいますが。 指はともかく、スタイラス（DS用のモノを使用してます）を使えばそれなりに弾けますね。
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You might not expect a handheld game console, the gadget kids use to play Pokemon, to prove much worth as a musical instrument. But even in the age of readily-available computer plug-ins and iPhone apps, the DS holds its own. In the hands of two sets of artists, we find music that stands alone, independent of the gimmick of the device on which it was made. For these artists, the limitations of a fold-up touchscreen – entirely independent of doubling as a phone, or a computer, or a Facebook-browsing engine, or a powerful 64-bit DAW – apparently prove enticing. Beginning with Korg’s DS-10 cartridge, they use a stylus-operated software synth with its own unique character.
On some level, I almost hesitate to wax poetic about the fact that these were made with a Nintendo DS at all, because what these are, really, is love letters to synthesis.
And as it happens, both are available as free downloads from Bandcamp.
First up: AuxPulse is the duo of Rutger Muller and Michael Vultoo, based in Amsterdam and Kockengen, Netherlands, respectively. Late last year, they debuted their first album at Amsterdam’s prestgious Stedelijk Museum of modern art, playing a big set (two and a half hours) on small devices. Primarily employing the Nintendo DS, they nonetheless produce sounds that are rich and layered, sometimes even tending to the ambient exploration, not just the rawer chip-music sounds regularly associated with Nintendo handhelds.
Their music is trippy but danceable, unapologetically electronic, fully exploiting the DS-10′s idiosyncratic sonic character, one that’s slightly lower-fidelity than many soft synths (or even iPhone apps), without being “chippy” in the sense of retro devices. Dark textures collide with precise, clockwork rhythms, in sounds that sometimes tend to acid techno and sci fi game realms. (Lo-acid-fi, anyone?)
As you watch them live, you also see the value of the interface compositionally, both in terms of its pattern banks and its more conventional synth controls, all manipulated with the added precision of a stylus.
As they put it:
We aim to bring experimentation back to the dancefloor by expressing a psychedelic atmosphere through the use of a variety of rhythms and moods. Some of our inspirations are analogue synthesizers, acid, IDM, hardcore, gabber, ambient and oldschool electro.
Right now we mainly use the KORG DS-10 synthesizer for Nintendo DS to compose and improvise our music. When playing live we fuck with the synths as much as we can, trying to surprise ourselves with new sounds.
Our first album was recently released in Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam! Now we perform regularly, trying to open up some minds and move some feet.
The album, on Bandcamp:
Dream Stages by AuxPulse
And on SoundCloud:
Bonus: an interview with them (in Dutch, naturally)
In a very different direction, Princeton, New Jersey-based DJ and producer Christian Montoya (love and tonic records) produces music on the DS-10 that’s drier and more exposed, as he programs intricate bass music on the unprocessed Nintendo cart. Christian works as a game designer by day, and channels some of the DS-10′s game music and so-called “chip music” heritage. The results, though, are a perfect marriage of game chip-waveform rawness, nude bass and synth and percussion sounds, and carefully-concocted grooves. For anyone concerned that game systems could hinder moving your butt out of the seat, this album is required listening. It’s utterly stripped-bare dance goodness – and it turns out the DS bass sounds fantastic.
Grab the record for free:
DS-10 users, got any tips for us on getting the most out of a Nintendo handheld and this KORG synth? Let us know.
The music world was taken by surprise in 2010 when Korg announced the release of a new pocket-sized synth. Could this really be Korg – committed digital hardware manufacturer – releasing its first new analogue synth for nearly 30 years?
Even more surprisingly, was such a forward-thinking company really basing parts of the circuitry on designs found in their MS-10 and MS-20 synths of the 1970s? The hype turned out to be true and – despite its quirks – we loved the original Monotron, fiddly ribbon controller, noisy output and all.
The Monotron synth engine was included in this year’s Monotribe groovebox, suggesting that Korg was gradually working towards something bigger and even more impressive, so it came as another surprise when it was announced that two new models were being added to the Monotron range, the Duo and Delay. Korg obviously isn’t quite finished with its analogue heritage just yet.
The Delay is based on the same form factor as the original, right down to the position of the five knobs and three-way slider switch on the front panel. Both Duo and Delay feature the same basic setup – ribbon controller, integrated speaker, headphone output, auxiliary input and compartment on the back for the supplied pair of AAA batteries.
The differences start to become apparent when you check out the controls. The Duo (blue case, regular keys) adds another oscillator and a cross-modulation control to the original Monotron design. Meanwhile, the Delay (black case, reverse keys, funky Sci-Fi paint job) adds an analogue-style delay circuit.
The Monotron Delay’s name should immediately give away its unique selling point. The main attraction here is that Korg has crammed a small but perfectly formed delay circuit into the Monotron’s case, but there are a number of other small changes.
The VCO produces the same reverse sawtooth wave as the original Monotron, but the LFO now offers a square wave in addition to the original model’s standard triangle. The LFO is used to modulate VCO pitch and can’t control filter cutoff.
The four-octave range of the ribbon means that the Delay is practically impossible to play melodies on with any degree of tuning accuracy. This version of the Monotron seems to be designed specifically for FX, with the analogue-style delay circuit playing a major role in sculpting the sound.
Delay time is adjustable from a few milliseconds to around one second. The feedback control can effectively bypass the delay at its lowest setting, but turning it up moves gradually from tight slap-back echoes to dub-style spacey, never-ending repeats.
With the delay time at its shortest setting and feedback around half way, the unit can even produce a twangy sound similar to a spring reverb. For such a simple unit, there’s a surprising range to the effects that can be created, and the results are excellent.
A quick look inside reveals that the delay is based around Princeton Technology Corporation’s cheap PT2399 echo processor chip. In true Monotron style it’s not particularly quiet, with high feedback settings resulting in a rising swell of white noise along with the signal, but for a special effect tool it’s not really a problem.
Plenty of old analogue delay units are noisy, and it didn’t do them any harm. If you’re looking for clean delays, the Monotron’s not for you, but you’d be missing the point. This is meant to be dirty and nasty. The auxiliary input will even enable you to add a bit of filth to external signals.
Surprisingly, the one weakness of the Delay is its filter section. The feedback control feeds the delayed signal back into the filter for extra tone shaping before it hits the delay circuit again, but the only adjustment comes in the form of a cutoff control.
Given that the MS-20-based low-pass filter was the main selling point of the original Monotron, it’s very surprising to find that the version included on the Delay omits the ‘peak’ (resonance) control. The MS filter really comes alive as the resonance gets cranked up, turning from a mild-mannered tone shaping control to a self-oscillating monster at higher levels.
The only logical reason I can see for its absence is that the Monotron front panel and PCB are designed for a single slider switch and five rotary pots. Adding resonance to the Delay’s filter would therefore mean ditching one of the other controls or retooling to produce an entirely new case and PCB design. It’s a real shame it’s not adjustable as standard, but I have no doubt that the modding and circuit bending communities will come up with a solution before too long.
I’m absolutely certain that Monotron owners will decide to add one or even both of the new models to their collection. The Delay is the more immediate of the two units, but gets marked down slightly on versatility since it’s really a dedicated FX box.
At an RRP of £99, we’re expecting a street price somewhere around the £70 mark, making the new models pretty good value. The classic Monotron is still on sale too (now at a bargain price of £42) so if you’d prefer switchable VCO waveforms and an LFO to modulate the filter go for that.
Our only real complaint is with the way Korg are drip-feeding us new features with successive Monotron and Monotribe releases. The company now has four different analogue devices on the market, each with slightly different feature sets.
We know Korg can make stable analogue oscillators, awesome MS-style filters, step sequencers and analogue drum circuits, so doesn’t it make sense to bring all those ideas together in the same unit? Modders will relish the idea of hacking Monotrons and Monotribes together to create insane custom synths, but the rest of us are desperate for Korg to cram all that technology into one box and release the brand new analogue synth we suspect the company’s hinting at.
So, Korg, what’s it going to be next? Polytron? Drumatron? Or Monotron Pro? We can’t wait.
Read more about Korg Monotron Delay at MusicRadar.com
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The music world was taken by surprise in 2010 when Korg announced the release of a new pocket-sized synth. Could this really be Korg – committed digital hardware manufacturer – releasing its first new analogue synth for nearly 30 years?
Even more surprisingly, was such a forward-thinking company really basing parts of the circuitry on designs found in its MS-10 and MS-20 synths of the 1970s? The hype turned out to be true and – despite its quirks – we loved the original Monotron, fiddly ribbon controller, noisy output and all.
“As a pure synthesis tool, the Duo is significantly more versatile than the original Monotron.”
The Monotron synth engine was included in this year’s Monotribe groovebox, suggesting that Korg was gradually working towards something bigger and even more impressive, so it came as another surprise when it was announced that two new models were being added to the Monotron range, the Duo and Delay. Korg obviously isn’t quite finished with its analogue heritage just yet.
Eagerly pulling the Duo from its packet, we find a unit based on the same form factor as the original, right down to the position of the five knobs and three-way slider switch on the front panel. Both Duo and Delay feature the same basic setup – ribbon controller, integrated speaker, headphone output, auxiliary input and compartment on the back for the supplied pair of AAA batteries.
The differences start to become apparent when you check out the controls. The Duo (blue case, regular keys) adds another oscillator and a cross-modulation control to the original Monotron design. Meanwhile, the Delay (black case, reverse keys, funky Sci-Fi paint job) adds an analogue-style delay circuit.
The Duo concept revolves around a relatively simple twist on the Monotron: inspired by the X-mod feature on Korg’s Mono/Poly synth of the early ’80s, Korg have added a second oscillator. The Duo’s twin VCOs nominally produce square waves, but a quick check with an oscilloscope reveals that the shape is quite a bit more harmonically rich than a pure square, like a square with a bit of sawtooth blended in to add some bite.
The real magic comes from the fact that VCO1′s frequency can be modulated by the output of VCO2, with the level of modulation determined by the X-MOD INT knob. It’s vaguely similar to the effect created by modulating pitch with the LFO on the original Monotron, but the Duo’s two VCOs both respond to the keyboard input, rather than the modulation frequency being fixed.
It takes a few minutes to get the hang of the Duo’s options. With the slider switch on the VCO1 setting, only VCO1 is sent to the output but VCO2 can still be used to modulate its frequency. The VCO1+2 setting sends both to the output.
VCO1′s pitch adjustment has a range of around four octaves, while the range of VCO2 is also dependent on the setting of VCO1 – not in the sense that the audio output of VCO1 modulates VCO2, but that higher settings for VCO1 will also increase the pitch range of VCO2.
If all this sounds a little confusing, fear not. The bottom line is that, just like the original, you don’t really need to know how the Duo works in order to coax some great sounds out of it. With VCO2 pitch at lower settings, cross-modulation makes the sound get edgy and slightly atonal. Crank VCO2 up and it gets brighter and more cutting.
To add to the sonic range, the classic MS filter section from the original Monotron is still present, sculpting the tone from mellow subby basslines to ear-splitting leads. As a pure synthesis tool, the Duo is significantly more versatile than the original Monotron.
Of course, all this comes at a price. The Duo loses the original Monotron’s LFO and with it the ability to modulate oscillator pitch or filter cutoff. VCO2 can be tuned down below the audio frequency range for LFO-style pitch modulation, but the wave shape and the fact that it tracks the keyboard make it sound quite different to the original.
Likewise, the auxiliary input is still present in order to process any signal through the filter, but given that the Duo has no LFO you might be better off with the original Monotron if this is a priority.
When we reviewed Korg’s Monotribe we loved the introduction of the new ribbon modes – narrow, wide and chromatic – which affected the response of the Monotron-derived synth engine’s tiny keyboard. In chromatic mode, the Monotribe quantises your finger’s position on the ribbon to the nearest note, making it much easier to play in tune with other instruments.
The Monotron Duo expands on the idea with Major and Minor modes, each of which limits the keyboard to a basic scale. A small red button on the back panel toggles between four modes: continuous, Minor, Major and Chromatic. Hooking the Duo up to a tuner with Chromatic mode activated, its oscillators track accurately across the full keyboard range with only a couple of cents deviation from perfect tuning.
Korg tells us that an auto-tuning circuit is used to keep keyboard tracking stable at any temperature. Even taking into account the fact that the full keyboard range is only just over an octave, it means the device can be used to play melodies and riffs much more easily than the fiddly original Monotron.
You’ll still have to tune the Duo to your other gear by holding down a note and adjusting VCO1 until you hit the right pitch, but it’s a small price to pay for near-perfect intonation. Of course, continuous ribbon mode is still available for FX sweeps and legato styles.
I’m absolutely certain that Monotron owners will decide to add one or even both of the new models to their collection. The Duo’s adoption of the Monotribe’s chromatic ribbon modes make it a much more appropriate option for pitch-perfect melodies.
At an RRP of £99, we’re expecting a street price somewhere around the £70 mark, making it pretty good value. The classic Monotron is still on sale too (now at a bargain price of £42) so if you’d prefer switchable VCO waveforms and an LFO to modulate the filter then go for that.
Our only real complaint is with the way Korg are drip-feeding us new features with successive Monotron and Monotribe releases. The company now has four different analogue devices on the market, each with slightly different feature sets.
We know Korg can make stable analogue oscillators, awesome MS-style filters, step sequencers and analogue drum circuits, so doesn’t it make sense to bring all those ideas together in the same unit? Modders will relish the idea of hacking Monotrons and Monotribes together to create insane custom synths, but the rest of us are desperate for Korg to cram all that technology into one box and release the brand new analogue synth we suspect the company’s hinting at.
So, Korg, what’s it going to be next? Polytron? Drumatron? Or Monotron Pro? We can’t wait.
Read more about Korg Monotron Duo at MusicRadar.com
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The stream of iPad and iPhone apps for musicians gushes endlessly, but among that river of software, there are some visible trends. Demanded by users, features for sharing between apps – and other mobile artists – flourish.
Hardware heavyweight KORG has been one of the developers that’s been especially good at offering that kind of support. Their just-announced iKaossilator 2 app adds native iPad screen support (previously iPhone-optimized only), and a new “flex play” for fills and breaks.
But most notably, it offers options for sharing:
This is addition to WIST, “WIreless Sync-starT,” Korg’s mechanism for syncing up multiple wireless apps. That’s ideal if you’ve got a friend with a device and want to jam. (It’s, unfortunately, iOS-only based on its reliance on Apple’s wireless sharing tech.)
The upshot of all of these features is, naturally, to help ease the tablet/phone app into the larger workflow, with desktop software and other tools. Korg’s other apps are similarly flexible – their iMS-20 synth works with MIDI and SoundCloud, for instance, and it and iElecTribe will wirelessly sync.
KORG isn’t alone. An updated Intua BeatMaker – more of a full-fledged beat-making and groove production workstation – added loads of similarly sharing-focused features.
Indeed, Intua goes further than KORG. Developers have been working together to route MIDI signals between apps with something they’re calling Virtual MIDI. (That deserves its own article, clearly, but worth mentioning in this context; see discussion on Google Groups.) As desktop apps have allowed collaboration between plug-ins and hosts, or multiple apps, this allows a MIDI app to control a synth app. It’s less powerful, arguably, on the limited horsepower of an iPad than it might be on a beefy desktop, but it can still be very useful for combining one controller or sequencer with something else that makes sound.
As reported on Synthtopia, Virtual MIDI is just one of a number of MIDI-centric features in the new version:
BeatMaker Getting All Sorts Of MIDI Love [Synthtopia]
There’s MIDI Out, yes, but also Thru and MIDI-over-WiFi for talking to other MIDI gadgets. There’s Virtual MIDI for communicating with other iOS devices. You can hot-plug MIDI and the app keeps working (essential onstage). And in place of SoundCloud support as in the KORG offering, there’s Dropbox file sharing support.
You can export and import MIDI – not just audio, but actual patterns – as well as read and write slice points in Apple Loops.
In fact, Intua even support Korg’s own WIST, so you could sync BeatMaker to KORG’s iElecTribe or the modulation of the iMS-20 and get synchronized rhythms between apps from different developers.
This is not to say iOS devices are identical to a desktop experience – in fact, their limitations and unique features are clearly part of their appeal. Instead, it seems part of an increased awareness that connectivity with other applications and other users is of growing importance to musicians. iOS developers seem eager to make these central design features, both emulating what’s been done right on desktops – and where there have been missed opportunities. It’ll be fascinating to see if other, non-iOS platforms follow the same trend.
Every so often, something comes along that’s just irresistibly lovable. So it was with the Korg monotron. With a price of US$ 60 (or far less), a pocketable size, the ability to run on batteries, a nice, glowing red LFO knob, a delicious filter, and toy-like playability, everyone loves the monotron. People who have racks of vintage synths love the monotron. People who have never seen a synth before love the monotron.
Then, along came the Korg Monotribe, which grafted ultra-simplified analog drum circuitry and a sequencer, and … somehow, you wanted to love the thing instead of just loving it. I talked to a number of people who struggled to find something to say about the Monotribe – it didn’t have that magical effect the monotron did. Readers didn’t like thd drum sounds. The unit was bigger and pricier, but still lacked real control voltage or MIDI without hacking. Some of these units found very happy homes, to be sure, some mods were impressive, and it was great to see the circuit designs, which are quite clever, released. (Look closely at that design, and I think you begin to appreciate what was beautiful about the Monotribe that a lot of people missed: the circuits for the drums, while some folks maligned them, are incredibly elegant and simple.) But the bottom line: the Monotribe simply wasn’t the sensation the monotron was.
Well, Korg has wisely returned to the cute, impossible-not-to-buy, pocket-sized monotron package with two new models. And suddenly, that feeling — that “yeah, I have to have that” feeling, rather than the “I think I might want it” — is back.
The monotron DUO looks like it’s just a monotron with a new paint job, but it’s not. The X-MOD circuitry comes straight out of Korg’s ridiculously-brilliant Mono/Poly classic. And that turns to another lesson learned from the monotron: bring back great circuits (like the filter on the MS) into modern designs. Like tasting the Tootsie Roll candy you had as a kid, it remains every bit as sweet. It’s otherwise the same monotron 2-VCO square wave synth, but the addition of X-Mod should be good fun, as was the LFO on the previous model.
Then there’s the monotron DELAY. The silkscreen looks like it escaped from a movie tie-in toy for The Last Starfighter. But what you get is both that brilliant analog filter (the MS-10/MS-20) and a new “Space Delay.” I’m guessing the delay is digital, as it offers “analog-style echoes,” but no matter. Korg may have just created something more useful than the original monotron, because now you have a simple delay unit and the filter and the Stylophone-style controls in one unit, with an audio input jack.
Yeah, the ongoing emphasis on the “analog muscle” in these is a little funny, but let’s be honest: you want these. 2011 just got its first obvious Christmas list entries. And some of us will be looking for a holiday we can make up just to get them sooner.
Hope to have a hands-on — and some sound samples of the delay, which we know only by its silkscreen YouTube demos from Korg JP right now — soon.
See also DE:BUG coverage [Deutsch] – hi, guys, see you tonight at your Berlin Music Days party!
Epic Hip Hop fa sho…
Question by zachtheilen: Will the Korg Nano Pad work with Fruity Loops? If so, which version?
Just looking to make a TINY investment, and I want to make sure the nano pad will work with fruity loops before I order it. I would also appreciate suggestions on cheap solutions… Thanks!
Best answer:
Answer by 0475839216
generally, things that end up making sense are generally things that don’t develop into problems.
What do you think? Answer below!
Korg’s Wavedrum was always an unlikely product. Back in 1994, the original unit had plenty going for it but was a commercial failure thanks to its prohibitively high price.
To Korg’s credit, the new Wavedrum WD-X, released last year, brought things up to date and lowered the price to an affordable level. We loved it, so we weren’t surprised to see Korg follow up its success with the introduction of the new Wavedrum Mini, a slightly different take on a similar formula.
The Wavedrum Mini is smaller, lighter and cheaper than the WD-X, clearly pitching it at a different user – perhaps a singer-songwriter looking for accompaniment in a live setting rather than a percussion specialist or studio musician.
The inclusion of a built-in speaker and battery power option is pleasing to see, making the Mini significantly more portable and immediate than its big brother.
The front panel of the plastic case is dominated by a single large rubber pad, with the remainder housing the speaker, two-digit LCD screen, eight rubber push-buttons and a volume pot.
In addition to the (six AA) battery option, power can be drawn from a supplied DC adapter. The underside of the unit also reveals recessed sockets for the clip sensor, headphone output and unbalanced mono quarter-inch line out.
The whole Wavedrum concept relies heavily on the hands-on appeal of the drum surface, so attention inevitably focuses first on the pad itself.
It’s immediately obvious that the Mini’s pad is very different to the WD-X’s skin. Firm to the touch and non-adjustable, the playing surface is closer to a cheap electronic practice pad than the WD-X’s outstanding tactile skin.
Perhaps more intriguing is the inclusion of a clip sensor, which can be mounted onto practically any surface in order to provide a second trigger input. Hit the surface and the clip will sense the vibration, triggering the built-in sounds accordingly.
The Mini allows two ‘sounds’ to be loaded simultaneously – one to the pad and one to the clip. The terminology is slightly misleading since each sound can actually include a variety of drum sounds or melodic samples, with the output sound depending on the velocity and timbre of the hit that triggers it.
The Mini’s sounds all come from preset PCM samples rather than the WD-X’s various synthesis models, meaning that the larger unit’s editing features are no longer applicable. In fact, most of the Mini’s sounds can’t be edited at all.
Some melodic sounds can be controlled by assigning scales to control note pitches, but most of the drum sounds are essentially fixed presets.
Ten built-in effects – combinations of reverb, multi-tap delay, phaser, flanger, pitch-shifter, step filter and overdrive – allow the sound to be tweaked, but don’t make up for the absence of editable instruments.
Pad vs clip
A major part of the Wavedrum’s appeal lies in its hands-on approach. We wouldn’t expect exactly the same control from the cheaper Mini, but the unit’s pad promises to respond to velocity, playing technique, strike position and strike tone.
Korg claims that the pad allows sonic variations to be introduced using subtle differences in playing technique. In practice, it’s a lot less predictable than you’d hope.
Depending on the selected sound patch, firmer strikes in the centre of the pad tend to trigger more aggressive sounds like claps and snares, while hitting softly towards the edge of the surface tends to trigger the supplementary sounds such as hi-hats and percussion samples.
However, the interaction with velocity makes it hard to predict what sound you’re going to trigger with any given strike. Unlike the WD-X, which responds well to sticks, beaters and brushes in addition to fingers and palms, the Mini responds best to bare hands.
The clip is essentially a contact mic, with a piezo transducer nestled inside to pick up vibrations from any object you attach it to. Like the pad, the clip responds differently to variations in the volume and tone of input sounds.
Attach it to a table-top and it’ll behave differently compared to clamping it onto your shoe. The problem is that, yet again, it’s quite unpredictable. It’s possible to tone down the unpredictability with a careful choice of surface and technique, but then you lose the main appeal of the clip: if you’re turning it into a reliable, predictable trigger, why not just use a trigger in the first place?
If, like us, you were hoping for the Wavedrum Mini to be a smaller, cheaper version of the WD-X, you’re probably going to be disappointed. The Mini offers just a fraction of its bigger brother’s feature set.
Most notably, the absence of sound editing options restricts you to the unit’s presets, while the pad is nowhere near as controllable and expressive as the WD-X’s tactile head. The clip sensor adds an interesting performance option but ultimately suffers from the same unpredictability as the pad.
The differences are so dramatic that it’s probably unfair to make too many further comparisons. The Wavedrum Mini works as a simple accompaniment tool, with useful looping abilities, basic effects and the benefit of portability.
Unfortunately, there’s only so much inspiration you can draw from preset sounds. After the Wavedrum’s triumphant return, the Mini is rather underwhelming.
Read more about Korg Wavedrum Mini at MusicRadar.com
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