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The next little trick on offer lies in the audio feedback circuit. This is similar to the old Minimoog jack lead trick whereby a little bit of the output gets mixed back into the pre-filter mix to thicken it up and add grit.

You set this with the white Audio-In knob on the top panel, and in practice, this is a bit hit and miss. There's a very fine line between nothing and overdone with a lot of sounds, but occasionally it's possible to find a sweet spot that adds a nice effect to the overall tone.

Next in the chain is the low-pass filter, with selectable two and four pole designs. If you want screaming, ripping and lazer zaps, then it's four-pole all the way. For mellower sounds the two-pole will keep things tasteful.

Modulation is in plentiful supply, with 22 sources and around 51 destinations. These include three envelopes with delay and repeat loops, four LFOs and a four-part step sequencer.

The LFOs can be free-running or clocked to MIDI for precise synchronisation. The clocked rates go from 32 steps down to 1/16th. The waveforms on offer are the quintessential saw, reverse, square and triangle shapes and LFOs can used to modulate each-others rates and amounts as standard.

About half of the Mopho's parameters can be MIDI controlled (mainly oscillator, envelope and filter functions). Surprisingly, you can't access the LFO rates or amounts directly unless you use one of the four general modulation slots.

One slightly odd thing is that the filter cutoff is controlled with two different MIDI CC numbers, which have to be set in a certain way in order to be able to sweep the entire range.

Other features

The Mopho also includes a nifty four track sequencer. Each track has 16 steps which can modulate a healthy selection of parameters which can lead to some interesting and bizarre sounding results.

Another notable inclusion is the Push It button. The mysterious little red switch kick starts the Mopho's sound engine when there's no keyboard handy; it can be programmed uniquely for each patch and has several different applications.

First off, it can trigger a specific MIDI note for the duration it is held down. This is dead handy for auditioning presets and sounds, and since any MIDI note can be specified, you can set a note in the relevant octave for bass or lead sounds to hear them in the proper context.

The alternative is the toggle mode, which holds the note until the button is pressed again. This suits drone and effect style sounds.

The magic button also works to trigger sequencer patches in the same way - invaluable for live shows where you don't want to drag along a keyboard just to trigger the Mopho.

Sounds

Hear the Mopho in action:

Summary

Despite the minor MIDI grumbles, there's no denying that the Mopho has bags of charm and ass loads of bass. It sounds and behaves like a real analogue should.

The sacrifices that had to be made on the interface are compensated for by the sound quality.

If you fancy some real analogue bass on the cheap, or a truly portable synth for gigs, this is an essential purchase.