Analogue Synthesizers: Are you a music monomaniac?

Korg MS20 melted by monomaniacs earlier today

Love analogue synths but don’t have hours to programme sounds? Love analogue sounds but don’t have the cash to fork out for a vintage Moog? If you just want to tweak knobs and lay some awesome synth tracks, then you’re on the same path as MPF’s European Editor Chris Lee Ramsden. 

Open up Logic. Open up an AU – Arturia’s V Moog Modular. Drop it into an arrangement that already boasts a fourteen-track array of samples, soft synths, beats and audio. And sigh.

It’s all too easy.

Whatever happened to the spaghetti of patch cables and leads that connected all my dodgy old synths, sequencers and drum machines rocking on their homemade stands and racks? All those crackles and pops? All that rattle and hum? And sometimes… simply silence.

Yes, of course, a wireless virtual studio that slips into a small sports bag is a dream come true. All that hassle carting heavy, fragile gear about only to spend two hours patching it all together in some dark, dusty club that still reeks of smoke, sweat and spirits… no wonder most makers of electronic music opted for a bag of records.

But I’m a musician. I’ve spent thousands of hours of my life learning to coax sweet sounds out of my instrument, getting to know it so intimately that a sensuous relationship develops – one that goes beyond dragging-n-dropping-n-clicking.

Sound fluffy and romantic? Maybe. But it looks like Korg agrees with me.

The people who gave us the mental MS20 and the mass-pleasing MicroKorg have side-stepped the digital age – at least for one brief moment – to present us with two small boxes of wires and transistors: the Monotron and Monotribe. And they’ve also run a contest in the hope that fans of retro, hands-on gear will show the world what they can do – and how quickly you can get creative if the tools are intuitive enough.

And the winner gets a mental metal prize too.

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