Korg expands monotron lineup

Korg, maker of miniature synthesizers such as the Monotron and Monotribe, have two more analog pocket-synths for me to noodle around with for 20 minutes then put in a drawer: the Monotron Duo and Monotron Delay.

The Delay (above) is great for spacey 1970s-style explorations, while the Duo (below) has two oscillators. Play both videos simultaneously, if you dare.

Product page [Korg]

• [terry childers]

  seems like a lot of delay for such a tiny package. i bet it would sound cool through my mini-kaoss pad.

• [Rob Beschizza]

  Of course, the product page for this pops up a ‘buy now’ overlay, which is just a link to landing pages at “authorized retailers” who don’t sell it yet.

  So many companies have websites broken in exactly this manner. Isn’t it amazing that certain types of company are still, after 15 years of the internet, locked into relationships with middlemen who don’t give enough of a shit to even maintain working landing/pre-order pages for live product announcements?

  Perhaps they can fix it by having us select a continent, then a country, then a language, to ensure that we at least get the right retailer’s 404′d landing page.

  • [flosofl]

    There’s actually a buy direct link, but it just takes you to a link to the vanilla Monotron for US$59.99. I couldn’t find any link to buy the other two direct from Korg. Maybe they’ll put out an iPad app like they did for the Electribe and the MS-20.

• [Cicada Mania]

  I wish they would come up with a better keyboard for these things. You have to have baby fingers to effectively use them. No offense to babies. I’ll still buy it though.

  • [3lbFlax]

    Use a stylus – if you have a Nintendo DS, the stylus that comes with that is great. Usually you get a couple of spares in the box, but you can pick replacement ones up in any game shop. Or an old PDA stylus, or whatever – it doesn’t have to be a finger.

    These are problematic new releases. They’re so limited in scope you can’t help but feel infuriated, but at the same time they’ll be damned good fun – and who can refuse damned good fun? Fingers crossed they’ll lead to an expanded Monotribe, that’d be nice.

• [dculberson]

  They forgot the “buttons” half of “buttons and knobs.”  Ditch the ribbon!

• [DonBoy2]

  “Korg expands Monotron lineup” is the greatest headline ever.,

• [kartwaffles]

  These look so cool. I just wish you could chain ‘em together and use the output from one to drive or trigger the knobs on a second one.

• [EvilPRGuy]

  I’ve had the original Monotron for a year or so, and it is a really fun instrument, especially considering the price and size. The best thing is you get a fully functional ribbon controller, so you can sort of “play” it a lot more then you can your average sound source.

• [hugh crawford]

  The Monotron Delay sounds sort of like a pocket Buchla 200. About 20 of them would be fun to have.

• [Jesseham]

  Or get Reason for a couple hundred more and do all this together on your computer, along with a sequencer…

  Methinks there needs to be a flash version.

• [ace0415]

  I have to admit, this is quite literally the thing of nightmares for me.  I’m a concert pianist and have had a recurring dream/nightmare where I’m someplace with a “piano”, only there’s always something really weird wrong with the piano, like it has A TINY NUMBER OF REALLY SMALL KEYS, or a semi circular huge keyboard, and some people are always there saying “Play something! Play something!”  Even playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is nearly impossible on a keyboard like that, let alone Liszt.  Thank you Korg and Boing Boing for bringing my nightmare to life.  I will look forward to sleep tonight!! lol

  • [pizzicato]

    Heh, I bet you really like the Korg Kaossilator, it has one touchpad…

    • [ace0415]

      Na, that one’s fine, it doesn’t resemble a piano enough to trigger my id.

• [EH]

  After Korg left me with a $1500 paperweight within a year of buying my Zero4 mixer, refusing support and discontinuing the line, they can fuck themselves in the ear and go bankrupt for all I care. They will never get another penny from me regardless of their historical significance.

• [Mark Sottilaro]

  Nice.  Korg’s getting pretty good at this… now stop with the toys and make us an instrument!

• [nezzyidy]

  By the way, it is a digital delay on the “Monotron Delay”.

• [taras]

  Why do Monotron demo videos never show them being used to play tunes? Oh.

• [scruss]

  They do look as cheaply made as those dollar-store pocket pianos.

• [bbaltimorebrown]

  Hey Rob, if you have a drawer full of these gadgets I’d be happy to take them off your hands and put them to use. I have a band made up of kids from my church that things like this would be perfect for.