Quote ~Paul:

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Miditron is working nicely

Paul

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Wow. Nice one!

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http://ryanmead.net

Paul, is that from a kit or something you knocked up yourself? Still not tinkered with mine, partly as it was a gift from the missus, so I'm considering getting another to modify (or break).

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http://soundcloud.com/richie-royale
http://www.mixcrate.com/richieroyale

It's a cheap Midi to CV kit that was originally intended for some other midiless synth. I think it was around £15-20, although with shipping from Japan, it was more like £30 all together.
http://beatnic.jp/monotron/midi-kit.html
There is no shop however.. If you want one, you need to email him using the address at the bottom of that page (His english isn't great, but it's much better than my Japanese!).

You do need to be fairly good at soldering to do this. The Midi-CV board is fairly straight forward, but a tiny surface mount resistor needs to be removed from the monotron PCB. It was quite easy for me, but I imagine it might be a bit daunting for many people. One slip and you can easily scrap the board.
The mod also breaks the ribbon controller, so the Monotron can't be used standalone any more. But the ribbon is utter crap anyway, and midi is infinitely more useful to have
I'll probably experiment and investigate some other mods before I house it all more neatly.

Paul

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Paul

Thanks for the info Paul. Still toying with the idea.

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http://soundcloud.com/richie-royale
http://www.mixcrate.com/richieroyale

Just bought one of these, as I was after any sort of analog filter for processing sounds, and as this says its the MS10/MS20 filter for the price it sounds good!

So not that bothered about the keyboard..

Is there a definitive page for modding these, as they seem to have taken off in a big way - I'm not that bothered about a bigger touch keyboard or indeed midi, but any mods for adding a filter (HP perhaps?) anyway i'm not sure how easy that would be?

Quote Pitchfork:

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Just bought one of these, as I was after any sort of analog filter for processing sounds, and as this says its the MS10/MS20 filter for the price it sounds good!

So not that bothered about the keyboard..

Is there a definitive page for modding these, as they seem to have taken off in a big way - I'm not that bothered about a bigger touch keyboard or indeed midi, but any mods for adding a filter (HP perhaps?) anyway i'm not sure how easy that would be?

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I've not heard of an HP filter mod, but I would guess that would need a pretty serious rework, which isn't very practical on a small SMD based circuit board.
As for a modotron page.. There is/was this: http://monotron.adornomedia.com/index.php But the spammers seem to have moved in, and no ones bothered to clean it up. But if you search for "Monotron mods" you'll find plenty of info scattered about here 'n there.

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Paul

The Monotron / Monotrtibe filters are only MS-10/20 "inspired" not complete clones... It's somewhere in the small writing.

Korg seem to be intent on only giving you half of everything.. Why no HP, that's just one thing that made that thing so special.

I got a Monotron as a present... Not as useful as my Casio VL Tone imo and the external input for the filter is useless to me but I love it as a toy for messing about with PLUS it sounds pretty damn good.
I would love that Monotron++ mod, sounds wicked, really nice... I even saw a mod where they added a second OSC, but so much fussing about for what? I already have a Korg 700s... something way nicer to my ears. I'll keep the Monotron as a fun studio toy.

Am I the only one who doesn't want to buy gear that has to be modded?! I just want to make music please. When they release something that sounds nice that has MIDI/keyboard that tracks well then I'll contemplate it. Something that could compete with Dave Smith's MoPho keyboard.
Can't really complain about the Monotron only being a 50 quid toy, but the monotribe... I don't mind a bit more wonga if it wouldn't have annoying clicking envelopes and MIDI as standard.

Edited by vinyl_junkie (15/10/11 10:52 PM)

Quote vinyl_junkie:

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Am I the only one who doesn't want to buy gear that has to be modded?! I just want to make music please.

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I see what you are getting at. For someone like myself however, that doesn't mind poking at things with a soldering iron, I don't mind it. But I can see that it might irk other people that would be stuck with the flaws.

It's hard to know what Korgs thinking is, as they blatantly encourage modding these by providing schematics and labeling the PCB's with various modding points.
I think of it as them testing the analogue waters. And by watching what people do with them, then perhaps it serves as good market research for possible future products? And all while gaining production knowhow on SMD based analogue synths? (Thats really just semi educated guesses on my part though!)

But yes, until you mod them to make them more useful, then they remain a bit toy like, particularly so for the monotron.
Stock, they are either a rather flawed instrument, or a fun and cool sounding toy. Still, good on Korg for doing it anyway It's nice to see the bigger manufacturers do something different.

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Paul

two new montrons on the way, one with a built in (assumed digital?) delay, and one with dual oscs....

http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=223451

Steps in teh right direction.

BTW; about this smd resistor you need to desolder... wouldnt bypassing it with a wire, possibly on a switch, acheive the same result? It would then be reversible, and captain clumsy here wouldnt necessarily kill his toy.

My monotron has been sadly neglected beyond the standard p' the cats off for ten minutes... =)

cheers

Ben


edit... and is there any danger of an 'email me when a post is made option here purlease?' ...

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http://www.paradigmx.com

Edited by Paradigm X (04/11/11 02:19 PM)

Yeah, I spotted the 2 new ones yesterday. Although keep in mind that for each feature they appear to add, they also take something away that the original Monotron had (And lets face it, it didn't have a lot to start with!)
Like the Duo has no LFO. The delay has no resonance control for its filter. And perhaps there is other stuff too..

As for that resistor.. It's one of the smaller surface mount ones.. I know you have done plenty of soldering before, so if you got a steady hand, then im sure you won't have a problem removing it. Im pretty sure it can't simply be bypassed with a wire or switch. And the board is so tiny, it's still easier to remove stuff than it is to add it..

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Paul

Quote Paradigm X:

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two new montrons on the way, one with a built in (assumed digital?) delay, and one with dual oscs....

http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=223451

Steps in teh right direction.

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Yes I've just seen this and was going to post the same thing!

Thinking of returning mine as not had it long and still under the returns warranty, so the dual osc one looks nice - even though I want a filter for mangling outside inputs more than doing screaming analog leads, so would think this 'update' would be a better sound for filtering ext sources?

Quote Pitchfork:

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Thinking of returning mine as not had it long and still under the returns warranty, so the dual osc one looks nice - even though I want a filter for mangling outside inputs more than doing screaming analog leads, so would think this 'update' would be a better sound for filtering ext sources?

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If you just want it for a filter, then I doubt there is any real difference between the regular monotron and the duo?

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Paul

Not even the duo osc, make a difference or you could use that for processing an ext source?

Quote Pitchfork:

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Not even the duo osc, make a difference or you could use that for processing an ext source?

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It appears the Duo has an aux input, just like the regular monotron has. But when using it, you don't hear the oscillator/s, only the audio you chose to put through the filter instead. So 1 oscilator, or 30 of them, it wouldn't make any difference for filtering external audio.

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Paul

Ok thats interesting... So there's nothing new with the filter side in these new units?

And does the Delay one still have an ext input and could process ext through the delay?

The Delay has the aux input too. And I would guess that the delay part comes after everything else, so it should affect filtered external audio too. But keep in mind you only have a filter cut off control on the Delay. It has no resonance control (I'll bet thats possible to modify, but not everyone will be up for that!?)

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Paul

Right ok, food for thought there..

I think I may wait to see if Korg introduce more of these as I believe they are good sellers, and hope for one that has extra filters and options for ext audio

Hi
I added back the resonance control to the monotron delay, here is how

http://picsynth.000space.com/monotron/monores.html

more mods coming soon!

Kevin

Well done Kevin!

It’s a shame that the only reason the resonance control was removed was because they couldn’t fit another 20p pot in the case


Martin

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YewTreeMagic