This video, via Switched On Austin, takes a look at the new Future Retro MondoVox – a rack-mount module that lets you manipulate MIDI in a lot of interesting ways:
In this demo we go through some of the features of the Future Retro MondoVox with Korg’s most recent line of analog monosynths. The Mondovox turns these 3 MIDI capable monophonic synthesizers into a 3-voice, 8 oscillator polyphonic synthesizer with 4 independent filters!
The Mondovox takes polyphonic MIDI data and translates it to so that each voice is on its own MIDI channel. This allows for new ways to engage a spread of monophonic synthesizers or anything with MIDI! This can include multi-timbral, polyphonic, or virtual synthesizers.
Awesome! 🙂
Agreed, that is awesome. 8 Microbrutes? 8 of the new(ish) SEM modules = new Oberheim 8 voice?
Makes me want an MS-20 mini too. Or 8 of them.
My gearlust did not need a device that adds to the already far too regular thoughts of “ooh a cool new synth, maybe I should get one” with “ooh a cool new synth, wonder if I should get 8 of them”….
And then there’s the midi Swiss Army knife MIDIpal from Mutable Instruments.
I agree, you get more features in smaller package with the MIDIpal or the MIDIbud…
Basically this is just a dispatcher on steroids, with some nice features I admit it… but it takes up a lot of space and is limited to just doing voice allocation.
Rack mounts are my favourite, and this looks great
The MIDIpal is very cool, but in order for the “dispatcher” feature to work like the MondoVox it would require a secondary device like a MOTU Midi A/V or something similar. It could still work if all of your midi devices happen to have thru, or if you were using 1 multi-timbral synth with assignable MIDI channels or several virtual instruments. The “Bend” features in the MondoVox with a multi-timbral synth like a Virus or Blofeld are amazing. Imagine spreading 16 voices in unison up & down simultaneously to get a massive swarming/detuning effect!
Though the two share some features, the MondoVox has a more immediate UI and explores the specific purpose of Midi channel allocation to achieve polyphony. It would be most useful for a studio environment with multiple boards/modules/etc. The fact that it is in a rack space seems more convenient if you have a stack of rack synths too.