This video, via Brent Kallmer, offers his take on the new Native Instruments Monark synthesizer – a new software emulation of the classic Minimoog sound:
The Minimoog is probably the most famous hardware synthesizer of all time—and likely the most emulated in the world of software. So does the world really need another Minimoog emulation? Native Instruments thinks so: Their new REAKTOR-based synth, MONARK, is based on years of research—but how does it sound?
It looks and sounds awesome. I wish it was a normal vsti. I cant really stand this reaktor box-in-a-box concept.
Just save a VSTi-preset with Monark already opened in your sequenzer.
Why? An instrument is an instrument. Enjoy it for what it is. Personally I like the fact that I can “lift the hood” via Reaktor and change some things if I want, unlike a “normal” VSTi. Some people have already tweaked it to make it poly for example and I’m sure that’s just the beginning. With a “normal” VSTi, a few new features and a v2.0 in the nameplate and you could be shelling out a whole lot more money.
There’s an interesting thread over at KVR on how to edit it to make it polyphonic.
It does indeed sound great.
I’m sticking with either Arturia or Minimonsta for minimoog emulation…. mainly due to it’s ‘loaded in Reaktor’ build….. but there’s one thing that doesn’t do it for me… and this is not an excuse to brag that I have a Minimoog… but the Triangle wave isn’t right. It doesn’t have the character of the real thing. it’s too perfect… smooth to the point of sounding like a Sine wave.
NI’s Reaktor embedded stuff just looks horrible to me. They really need a UI make over. There sounds which I guess is the important part sounds like a plain old open source audio framework, on a good day.
Nihil Novi I’m afraid… Love NI stuff, but have too many Mini emulations that sound really good (if not better) already…
For better or worse, I bet this is the Mini emulation that will be most widely used, because after a couple of years tons of people will have it simply from upgrading Komplete at some point. It’s a crafty long term strategy from NI.
Too expensive – – $ 99.00 is way out the value – – it should be half of the price