One Small Synth, Ep. 11: Korg Monotron (modified)

Published on Nov 12, 2018 Aidan Burns-Fulkerson

"This is the eleventh installment in a micro-series diving deep into my collection of minuscule synthesizers and samplers. Each episode will explore one little noise machine.

0:00 Monotron Solo

1:33 Modification information followed by demonstration.

This is a special episode: I will be talking about the modifications of my Korg Monotron and showing the new abilities that the mods have added. I’ve added control voltage and gate jacks that are wired to the existing solder pads that Korg left open for modification.

The Korg Monotron is a great little synth that excels in weird cat sounds and screaming theremin-like solos! It sounds quite powerful for something so tiny. This was the first Monotron that Korg made. It has a single oscillator, one sawtooth LFO (can modulate the pitch or the filter cutoff) and a gritty filter with cutoff and resonance control. The ribbon controller spans slightly more than one octave, and allows for precise pitch control.

Let me know if there’s a particular synth you’d like to hear, and I’ll add it to the short list for future episodes. Enjoy!"