A cool analog monophonic/polyphonic from Korg. It has 4 VCO's which can be shared in 4-voice Polyphonic mode, or linked in Unison for a versatile monophonic lead. Each VCO has its own level, tune, and waveform type control. Waveforms include triangle, sawtooth, variable pulse wave. It has a great VCF (filter) section as well as 2 envelope generators (one for the oscillators and one for the filter). There are also 2 individual LFO's which can be used to modulate the Pulse Width, envelope and Arpeggiator independently.

A very flexible and fun synth. Other cool tricks up its sleeve include chord memory and an effects mode in which oscillators have a variety of ways to be synced. The built-in arpeggiator and sequencer can run all 4 VCO's at a time or cycle through each voice per note! There's also portamento, CV/Gate, VCF and VCO mod inputs, white noise generator, and the pitch/mod wheels can be assigned to control LFO, pitch or the filter. Its sound quality is nice and very Korg. This synth is used by Hardfloor, Tangerine Dream, The Orb, 808 State, Juno Reactor, Megaton Matt Haines, Freddy Fresh, and the Chemical Brothers.

Son of MooG

April 24, 2010 @ 9:28 am

This was a longtime loan and i learnt a lot about sound-design. As polysynth it's useless (only one filter,like the Poly800) and sounds indeed thin, but as a 4osc-Monosynth it blew me away. It was the perfect (Mono)compagnion to my Juno-6, and when i had to give it back, only a Minimoog seemed to be suitable, which i couldn't afford. So i bought my first digital synth, a DX 100, that opened the door to a new sonic universe.

Louxien

January 31, 2010 @ 3:14 pm

Response for Korgist:
1) No, unfortunately, the mono-poly can not process external signals such
the MS 20 (I possess them both)
2) Yes, the mono-poly has a hold / Latch function

mr. b

December 31, 2009 @ 1:30 am

Wikipedia has a lot of info on this synth including that quote I just posted on how to get a sine wave out of your mono poly.

mr. b

December 31, 2009 @ 1:26 am

Info to know for aficiandos for sound is the filter will self-oscillate (and blow an amplifier) but can also be scaled 1:1 with frequency so that the resonator can act as a 5th oscillator (sine wave).

Big Chris

December 22, 2009 @ 11:35 am

In unison mode I usually have to turn two of the four oscillators off in order to make it sit in the mix. The review mentions cycling the arpeggiator through all four oscillators in turn, and this is definitely one of my favourite Mono/Poly tricks. Add in a little delay, and it makes for some great patterns.

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