Hacker News Reader

Comment by tlibert | Hacker News Reader

The Korg Monologue is a brilliant piece of kit with the demo patches and microtunings done by Aphex Twin (who worked very closely with Takahashi on the development).

If you are interested in what a deep, respectful, and meaningful relationship looks like between artist/engineers, this interview is a must-read: https://warp.net/editorial/richard-d-james-speaks-to-tatsuya...

View on HN

Although a lot of people would shy away from them, Behringer has all sorts of cheap, interesting synths (read: knockoffs) that would be fun for hobbiests for a while.

While I don't trust their stuff to last, a nice modular or SH-101 ripoff for $300 is hard to compete with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JBFoXgtHvE

>Although a lot of people would shy away from them, Behringer has all sorts of cheap, interesting synths (read: knockoffs) that would be fun for hobbiests for a while.

They also threaten to sue journalists for unfavorable reviews and for calling them copycats...

That's always such a weird flex to me, if you make a decent priced knock off why shy away from that label?

I could see unfavorable reviews but their existence now is obvious knockoffs. I'd expect them to invite those comparisons

I can't sing enough praises to Korg Monologue.

Got it for my 6-year-old niece as her first synth. Thought a bit, and got one for myself too.

I like it quite a bit but the tuning has gotten wonky, and very sensitive to cold. I've got low confidence it will be working in ten years time whereas my ~18 year-old Nord 3 is a rock.

The Monologue is $300 new.

I don't think it's fair to compare it to the Nord.

This is true!

The Nord is also all-digital, so it should never have tuning problems.

I've considered making digital audio hardware that "ages' like the analog stuff. Goes out of tune over time, has some capacitors that you need to replace every 10 years, a manual with a trim pot calibration process, etc.

The Monologue is a delight to play and experiment with. After years of using software synthesizers exclusively, I decided to dip my toe into hardware, and after some research, the Monologue became the clear choice.

At first, its feature set seemed very limiting, coming from the world of software synthesis, but I quickly found the Monologue to be a prime example of constraints breeding creativity. While it’s not about to replace Synapse Antidote in my recording work, it’s still a surprisingly flexible instrument.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com