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  Mono/poly synthesizer At a Glance
Click for larger view arrowReleased: 1983  Specifications
arrowUser rating: 4.5/5 |  Read reviews (42)
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Leon Berrangé writes:
I have had mine since new. It has versatility and creativity almost the equal of a major modular analog setup. It is built like a tank, with heavy-duty control knobs on each pot. It lacks a patchbay, but has switchable routing which reaches a good degree of flexibility.

Nick@Sonic Says- I just got one of these and it's bloomin' marvelous! It does take a little while to get your head around this synth as it's layout is a little unorthodox. You can only detune the osc's by small amounts with the tune knobs but combined with the Chord memory you can set the intervals as radically as the 44 keys will allow.
The filter is not as 'musical' as say the Moog stuff but it's phat enuff. Theres some pretty wild sync and xmod FX - I don't know what they do exactly but they can really f*** the sound up nicely.
The 2 LFO's can lead to some fairly complex sounds. I would Disagree about the arppegiator cause it's OK. If you don't have a midi-cv box you can send it a rimshot or something and it'll trigger (with a little tweakin') in time nicely.
It's one of those synths that you reach for when you have a sound in mind cause it's very flexable so you'll get pretty close to what ya want.
Buy one if you can find it - you won't regret it.
Then get a midi-cv box too!

Hakan adds:
The arpeggiator can be *really* cool, firstly, if you trigger it (as you said) from something that not necessarily triggers each 16:th note.

But even with "every 16:th trigs" it's a really cool effect to do like this:

1. Turn on the arpeggiator in 1 octave "UP" mode, turn the latch on, jam down a 3 note, 5 note or 7 note chord. (Must not be divisible by 4!)
2. Set it to POLY mode.
3. Now fiddle with the oscillators, set different waveforms, different octaves, different levels e.t.c... way way way cool. My fav is to let one oscillator be on the lowest octave, but be given such wide PWM by LFO2 that it sometimes *disappears* out of the mix of oscillators! 4 notes suddenly becomes 3, oh it's so very kewl! :-)
Turn down the filter EG to nada, and put a *really* slow filter modulation from LFO1, add a 909 bass/snare, and you have a techno hit, instantly :-)

The filter (yes only one) is a typical Korg filter from that era...more up-front than the Prophet 5, less agressive than the Oberheim.

The arpeggiator is an absolute DREAM.

It is screwed to the wall in my studio, above my keyboard rack. It is run by a MIDI-CV converter.

Irreplaceable.

Comments About the Sounds:
This is a 4 oscillator mono-synth which can also play 4 x single oscillator poly, or 2x dual oscillator duophonic. It has a unique share mode where it will de-stack the oscillators as more keys are played. It has amazing X-Mod and osc sync sounds, and the 4 osc sounds are bigger than you can believe, especially the basses.

(Thanks to Leon Berrangé for this info.)

Links for the Korg Mono/poly synthesizer
 More Synth Gear  Best US prices on many current models
Mono/Poly Page
Zen Mono/Poly Mono/Poly Nirvana...
KORG Mono/Poly Patch Design Sheet These 3 Patchsheets per Page allow easy "storage"
ZEN MONO/POLY the new URL for Mono/poly nirvana...
The Official David Kristian Website This site features mp3s, a gear list, and album reviews - DK used the Mono/Poly on "Tacoma Narrows Bridge" and "Room Tone" CDs.
MIDI to Korg Monopoly arpegio sync converter
MIDI to Monopoly Arpegio sync converter Allowa to sync arpegiator to MIDI setup
The Patch King The Worlds Largest 3rd Party Synth & Sampler Developers. Thousands of new sounds for over 100 synths and samplers. Check us out!
DIGITAL SCREAMS Listen to a demo!
www.synthesizer.at big report in german
MIDI Interfaces for old analog Synths! MIDI Interface for old analog retro Synths like TB-303, TR-606, SH-101 ,.... Watch out!! NEW!!!
Roth Händle Studios See films and hear the Mono/poly in action
Yahoo Group For Mono/Poly Get Patches Here!!!
DEMO MP3 (MONO-POLY)

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