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!"

One Small Synth, Ep. 8: Bastl Microgranny

Published on Oct 14, 2018 Aidan Burns-Fulkerson

"This is the eighth installment in a micro-series diving deep into my collection of very small synthesizers and samplers. Each episode will explore one little music machine. There will be no talking, just music or noise, depending on the synth in question and your personal taste in sound.

The Bastl Microgranny is the most recent addition to my tiny synth family. It is a monophonic granular synthesizer/sampler, meaning that it can chop up samples into minuscule bits and play those bits back in different ways. It’s a really remarkable little device that can create crunchy and gritty renditions of any sound. It’s also able to interface with midi devices, allowing it to be played like any monophonic synth, using a midi keyboard or sequencer for control. For this demo, however, I’m going to stick with using the Microgranny as a stand-alone device to highlight its sound mangling abilities."

One Small Synth, Ep. 7: PO-20 Arcade

Published on Sep 28, 2018 Aidan Burns-Fulkerson

"This is the seventh installment in a micro-series diving deep into my collection of very small synthesizers. Each episode will explore one little music machine. There will be no talking, just music or noise, depending on the synth in question and your personal taste in sound.

Today we admire the PO-20 Arcade by Teenage Engineering and Cheap Monday. This lil guy comes from the second range of Pocket Operators, and was the first PO to offer real chainable chords. Many of the sounds are defined based on the selected chords even when the droning is turned down to zero. This PO allows 16 sound polyphony, and given the variety of sounds onboard, it can make sweet, complete music all on its own. The sounds all come from an 8-Bit palette and the effects add to the mix with several glitchy repeat options, several solo options, filters, and a little arpeggio that sounds like Mario just picked up a whole ton of coins. The best way to appreciate this machine is to play it live and mess around with all the effects. Enjoy the tiny show!

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!"

One Small Synth, Ep. 2: Bastl Kastle

Published on Sep 3, 2018 Aidan Burns-Fulkerson

"This is the second installment in a micro-series diving deep into my collection of minuscule synthesizers. Each episode will shine the spotlight on one little synth. There will be no talking, just music or noise, depending on the synth in question and your personal taste in sound.

This episode will listen to the always awesome and weird Bastl Kastle. This mini-modular synth can be screechy when angry, but harmonic and beautiful when calm. All the warm organic tones and patterns are rewarding to find and surprising in depth.

The next episode will feature one of the Pocket Operators."

Aidan Burns-Fulkerson One Small Synth

One Small Synth, Ep. 1: Bastl Kastle v1.5

Published on Sep 3, 2018 Aidan Burns-Fulkerson

"This marks the beginning of a micro-series, diving deep into my collection of minuscule synthesizers. Each episode will shine the spotlight on one little synth. There will be no talking, just music or noise, depending on the synth in question and your personal taste in sound.

This episode will look at the newest addition to the tiny-synth team, the Bastl Kastle v1.5. The v1.5 brings some notable improvements over the original Kastle. The sounds it makes are more varied, more tweakable, and arguably smoother, though there’s plenty of fun weirdness left too. Let’s get patching!

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