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Can this tiny box live up to the hype?

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Since the late 1980s, analogue technology has simply not been on the agenda for the Japanese hardware giants. Content to let other manufacturers fight for the retro market, Korg have focused instead on developing digital technology with the occasional nod towards their past in the form of analogue modelling synths and software recreations.

Synth fans clamour for modern versions of past favourites, but the results (which include the likes of Korg's MS2000 and Roland's SH-201) have never quite recaptured the magic of the classics.

Korg, whose vintage machines continue to rise in value on the second-hand market, have finally offered a hint that a new analogue range might still be an option. The Monotron, a bare-bones monosynth, is their first fully analogue product for nearly three decades.

"The ace up Monotron's sleeve is its ability to process external sounds via auxiliary input."

As far as we can remember, Korg's last truly analogue synth was 1982's Trident mkII - everything which followed used digitally controlled oscillators. Needless to say, we were pretty keen to see whether Korg still have what it takes to build a classic analogue synth.

Tiny terror

Even though we knew it was going to be small, it's almost impossible not to be surprised by the size of the Monotron. This is truly a palm-sized synth, powered by a supplied pair of AAA batteries and with a miniscule built-in speaker.

The Monotron's synth architecture is admittedly very basic, but the limited features mean that it couldn't really be any simpler to play and tweak. The single oscillator, filter and LFO make it easy to get started creating weird and wonderful analogue sounds.

The biggest problem when trying to play melodies on the Monotron is the keyboard. You'll need the dexterity of a brain surgeon and tiny fingers if you want to hit perfect notes on the ribbon controller.

We're sure it's possible to develop precision with practice, but trying to play melodies is a lot easier said than done. If you're worried about precise tuning you're looking in the wrong place. We honestly couldn't tell you whether the oscillator's tuning was stable thanks to the imprecision of the ribbon.

The pitch control isn't really intended for fine tuning - it's primarily used for setting the keyboard's range. We found that using a stylus (not supplied) made things a little easier, but even so it's not easy to pick out melodies.

The simplest way to get interesting patterns out of the Monotron is to use the low frequency oscillator. Like the oscillator, the LFO can only produce an inverted sawtooth wave, which can be used to modulate oscillator pitch or filter cutoff.