Korg Monotribe in CV/gate mode [Video demo added!]

[radiokoala]

Okay, I updated my monotribe and DIY'd a CV/gate sending cable, and here's how it sounds:

http://soundcloud.com/radiokoala/monotribe-fun-times

Sputnik DWG as a modulator. Osc1 sends CV/pitch information, and Osc2 gates the envelopes. In other words, it is frequency modulation by Osc1 since voltage is continuous, and it makes it sound more interesting than sending note values. Some cross-modulation between two oscillators as well.

For receiving CV I used Hz/V mode, and for gate an inverted trigger mode, because in usual mode I had no luck triggering the gates with a VCO. (Even though with square waveforms not in CV/gate mode it worked!)

Oh, and almost forgot: yes there is delay/reverb, for added liveliness, but it is an output of a monotribe only, nothing else. (No VCO to audio in or anything...)

Regarding the patch itself, overall it looked something like that:



Enjoy.

[felixer]

For receiving CV I used Hz/V mode, and for gate an inverted trigger mode, because in usual mode I had no luck triggering the gates with a VCO. (Even though with square waveforms not in CV/gate mode it worked!)

nice sounds
old/original korg gate was 'switching', like moog: at 0V the env starts. modern/normal gate in expects 5V. so it seems your clock-osc does a nice 0V but not 5V you could check with a voltmeter ...
if you are into diy it would be easy to make some cmos osc. those can go up to 10V if you like

[radiokoala]

For receiving CV I used Hz/V mode, and for gate an inverted trigger mode, because in usual mode I had no luck triggering the gates with a VCO. (Even though with square waveforms not in CV/gate mode it worked!)

nice sounds
old/original korg gate was 'switching', like moog: at 0V the env starts. modern/normal gate in expects 5V. so it seems your clock-osc does a nice 0V but not 5V you could check with a voltmeter ...

Thanks!

They all do nice 0V, it's a lesser of all efforts to generate a 0V voltage But really I think it's +5V/-5V, or what voltage VCOs usually have. No malfunction, that's for sure, but out of interest I will check it when there's a tester around.

BTW, just a few minutes ago uploaded a vid (continuing my CV/gate explorations )

[video][/video]

[felixer]

it's a lesser of all efforts to generate a 0V voltage But really I think it's +5V/-5V, or what voltage VCOs usually have.

never assume anything. not in euroland who talked about 'assumption being the mother of all fuck-ups'? often it's 5Vpp, so -2,5V-+2,5V ... sometimes more, sometimes less
and you 'd be surprised how difficult it can be to get 0,000V. it's called 'offset' and not a welcome guest to amplifier-parties
you should def check:
-george duke live on stage with frank zappa using his arp odyssey's s&h to accompany/drive the 'idiot dancing contest'.
-brad pitt in '12 monkeys' (movie by director terry gilliam).

[radiokoala]

you should def check:
-george duke live on stage with frank zappa using his arp odyssey's s&h to accompany/drive the 'idiot dancing contest'.
-brad pitt in '12 monkeys' (movie by director terry gilliam).

haha! made me laugh

'idiot dancing contest' sound like fun, and by the way I have a Zappa t-shirt (lumpy gravy)...as for voltages, I sure will check them, now I'm curious myself.

[crippletoe]

hey radiokoala,
can you explain a little what exactly did you do in order to be able to send in cv/gate signals?
did you have to modify the monotribe or is it some new firmware feature?

[oscillateur]

It's a new firmware update. No mods needed.

[crippletoe]

is that the 2.0 firmware update? what possibilities does it give exactly? couldn't find anything on the korg site...

[oscillateur]

It's OS 2.11 but it's only on the Japanese version of Korg's website so far (probably hasn't been translated yet) :

http://www.korg.co.jp/Product/Dance/mon ... sion2.html
http://www.korg.co.jp/Support/Download/ ... monotribe/

You basically get CV/Gate input using a stereo minijack in the Trig In input.

Edit : I think it's actually a 4 poles mini jack that is needed

[radiokoala]

Yes, correct, a 4-pole mini jack. I DIY'ed my own, it's two mono patchcords on one side and a single plug on the other that is inserted in the monotribe.

When you download a firmware, despite manual is in japanese, inside pdf there is a pinout. Tip is for gate, ring 2 CV, sleeve is ground. Ring 1 is not used, but I have a madman idea that maybe in the future they will add a filter CV?!

Regarding the possibilities of new firmware, in 2.0 there is a plenty (sample&hold, 16 steps for synth...etc), and 2.11 only adds CV/gate mode.

Oh, and last: update procedure is identical to 2.0, just read it in a guide that comes with 2.0 (it's in English). To enable CV, after updating you need to power on monotribe holding SN and GATE. Then press step 1, it turns on CV/gate mode. Last, to save settings press REC. Switching between Hz/V and V/Oct mode is step 2, and trigger/inverted trigger response is selected by a step 3. That's pretty much it.

[crippletoe]

wonderful!
of course a standard camcorder has the CV ring wired to ground so those cannot be easily used... puh... still i am so impressed by KORG for doign this!
in fact, i suspect that they did not come out internationally with this yet because the next update should (hopefully) feature a CV/GATE OUT functionality (coordinated with the release of the new ms20 of course ...)



either way, GOOD NEWS!

[rockwoofstone]

I've just thrown together the appropriate cable and performed the update, and there's a couple of minor changes you need to make to radiokoala's process to get this to work with standard Eurorack kit.

Assuming you've successfully installed the Monotribe v2.11 update, go into the appropriate setup mode as radiokoala describes by turning on whilst pressing SN and GATE.
You need to make sure that step 1 is lit to enter CV/GATE mode.

This is when things need to be a little different....
Set step 2 and 3 to be UNLIT, which selects V/OCT and the appropriate gate mode for Eurorack (i.e. high gate = note on).

You finally need to calibrate the Monotribe to your input. Easiest way is to use a MIDI module in your rack, so you know exactly what you're feeding in....

Set the VCO Octave on the Monotribe to 16' (I can't tell if you need to do this now, but as it is recommended for when you are doing CV/GATE playback, you may as well do it here just in case).

Select KEY or NARROW range on the Monotribe.

Play note C4 on your keyboard, ensuring your new cable is plugged into the Monotribe (i.e. CV & GATE are both being sent). Whilst holding that note, press PLAY. The LED on the PLAY button will light for around a second then fade out.
Next, play note C5 on your keyboard, and again, whilst holding that note, press PLAY on the Monotribe and wait a second for the LED to fade out.

At this point, you have successfully calibrated the Monotribe, perfectly aligned with an exact 1V/Oct range, and effectively tuned to your system (assuming standard tuning ;-).

Press REC to save the settings, and you're ready to go.

Hope that helps!

One final thing to note is that the MT doesn't appear to be able to respond to any form of envelope, but is limited to it's own three internal envelope shapes, with the second and third picking up a sustain stage in line with the gate length you send. The first envelope has it's own decay, but that cuts off abruptly when the gate closes. Still, better than nothing!

[rockwoofstone]

Of course, as an addendum to the above, that all only applies if you want a "vanilla" approach to controlling your Monotribe. If you want to be somewhat crazier with your sounds, the videos radiokoala is churning out have some great approaches in them!

[radiokoala]

Of course, as an addendum to the above, that all only applies if you want a "vanilla" approach to controlling your Monotribe. If you want to be somewhat crazier with your sounds, the videos radiokoala is churning out have some great approaches in them!

Thank you!

You know what else I'm thinking -- if sometime cv/gate out will be added, then you could also have a vanilla chromatic quantizer in the face of monotribe In KEY mode I believe any incoming voltage is quantized to the nearest semitone.

But that's not everything - you could also use monotribe to transpose your sequences! So you could send the same CV to a VCO and to another VCO thru monotribe, where you will use octave selector and transpose the incoming stuff octave up/down, or more. If you have a spare VCO, you could give it some sub-oscillator credentials for example That's very nice, there's not even many modules (quantimator comes to mind) that allow you transposing stuff...

As you see, I still have some ideas, alright

[rockwoofstone]

Hehe!

The quantising idea got me thinking that as the facility is there to calibrate the MT, you could force some further transposition which isn't full-octave focussed by calibrating at something other than C4-C5.

In other words, you can set the 1V/OCT scale to be whatever you like by just substituting C4-C5 calibration to be whatever you'd like 1V to represent, based at whatever note you desire.

[radiokoala]

Hehe!

The quantising idea got me thinking that as the facility is there to calibrate the MT, you could force some further transposition which isn't full-octave focussed by calibrating at something other than C4-C5.

In other words, you can set the 1V/OCT scale to be whatever you like by just substituting C4-C5 calibration to be whatever you'd like 1V to represent, based at whatever note you desire.

And last, you could just use it as a simple offset. At 16' mark it is initial voltage, but since the selector goes down (and up) to 64' and 2' respectively, there are possible offsets of -2, -1, +1, +2, and +3V, which could come in handy. (Say, you are using low-amplitude LFO to scan through wavetables, so you patch it to monotribe and with octave selector then can choose the different waves to morph between!)

Things like that. 8_)

[hamildad]

when using the Monotribe MIDI mod, there is significant clicking as the internal envelope gate cannot sync with the incoming midi note on/off, this means its fine when filter resonance is high, but dial it down and the clicking is noticable and unwanted.

How is the monotribe when using the CV/gate for sequences/keyboard?

sounding nice?

cant believe the functionality that this unit has, I had written off another firmware update after 2.0.

[rockwoofstone]

@hamildad It can be a bit clicky, very dependent on the envelope selected, so judicious setting of the knobs is in order to minimise that. I got some reasonably usable output.

[phono1337]

awesome thread guys, just added cv/gate jacks to mine, quick video

[video][/video]

some pics of the solder points on my blog

[Cozmic023]

Wicked news guys, I've still got my thoughts on getting a desktop module like the Monotribe.

They are very tweakable, and can be modified for midi. (And now CV)

I'm still undecided, but i'm looking at either:
Korg Monotribe
Doepfer Dark Energy (and maybe Dark Time too?)
MFB Nanozwerg
MFB Dominion X

I do own a Blofeld desktop synth (which i love, and is great sounding.) But want something CV synth based that can be used with the modular.)

Cheers
Lee

Edit: Bought a Monotribe this week, great little box!!

[darenager]

[video][/video]

I also made a video documenting how to scale for V/Oct

[video][/video]
The cool thing is it stores the setting once done, gotta love the Monotribe

[felixer]

I do own a Blofeld desktop synth (which i love, and is great sounding.) But want something CV synth based that can be used with the modular.)

just as a suggestion, you could go the other way around and use cv to control your blofeld. doepfer makes the a192-2 for (pitch) cv/gate->midi and the a192-1 for cv->midi controllers (although you can also send note-on etc. with it). i use that one to control my digital mixer from the modular and it works like a charm. midi is slow, so you obviously can't do a lot of things you can do with cv->cv, but for 'general shaping' it's good enough .... to get something like the blofeld in euro you'd need to get the e350 morphing terrarium. plus a pretty versatile filter ...
hope this helps you to make up your mind

[mfk]

Whats about trigger-in while using CV/Gate-in?
Seems to be dysfunctional.
If I use the 4-pole-plug for an extern seq., the trigger-in funtion does not work. (After hitting play, the built-in seq. runs independent)
That's awful. So I have t buy the midi-in-modul to get synchronized drums.
Please correct me if I am wrong!

[Cozmic023]

Thanks for the tips Felixer. I do have a 190-3 Midi / USB interface, but it's been used as USB in Ableton 8 Suite. (Soon to be 9 next week!! )

Since i started this eurorack craze last year, my wishlist is getting longer!! (And yes the E350 is on that list too!!)

I've now got to the point where my case is full, but then a shuffle of modules will help. And by selling something first creates funds to by new modules!

Cheers
Lee

[robman84]

Whats about trigger-in while using CV/Gate-in?
Seems to be dysfunctional.
If I use the 4-pole-plug for an extern seq., the trigger-in funtion does not work. (After hitting play, the built-in seq. runs independent)
That's awful. So I have t buy the midi-in-modul to get synchronized drums.
Please correct me if I am wrong!

Wonder what the unused ring is for on the 4-pole? Could it be sync maybe? Might make up a quickie cable.