23 thoughts on “Polytron – The Polyphonic Monotron”

1. With all the money he spent to buy all these crappy Monotrons and the stuff needed to play them together he could have afforded a definitely better synth, either in the DIY or in the ready-made domain.

   1. Yes, you’re right. there should be more smart way to do the same thing. but in this experiments, the goal is to build and hear it’s sounds and to find the things what I must do for polyphonic system in DIY or in the ready-made domain.
      I’ve got from this experiments so many things to learn about and a little fun!

2. All that trouble to sound like a horribly reedy Casio. Good job.

   1. You’re hearing the 1/2 inch monotron speaker recorded with a crappy camera mic…

3. Monotrons sounds great when you don’t play them through their internal speakers. You would have thought with all the work he put in, he would have used direct outs. 🙂

   His fingers are louder than the synths.

4. The joy of connectivity with real analog! It may sound like a cheesey Casio now, but through a decent mixer with prober EQ’ing and effects, I’ll bet it’s a killer phat analog sound. Plus it has MIDI! Bravo!

5. nice but the sound of the keyboards clanking was louder than the synths themselves.

6. Now imagine a polyphonic MS20-mini. I’d buy 4 MS-20s to be able to do that.

   1. thats pretty easy to do

      1. I am not a midi wizard by any means, but is there some kind of software or simple means of achieving such a thing? I ask out of curiousity, and if yes, I think someone should get 5 MS-20 Minis!!

         1. All you need is something like the MIDIPal or a simple software.
            Moreover, the MS20-mini has USB, too, so if you wanto to control them with a computer is even simpler, just create one track per note and send each track to a different MS20 mini.

7. I really appreciate the effort a lot. I bet it was a lot of fun putting all that together and having the satisfaction that he got them to be polyphonic. It isn’t really about how awesome it sounds (or doesn’t sound), it’s about the excitement of getting it to work, and work well!

   I wish I could do this with the Spectralis’s internal 4-voice monosynth…

   1. I once ate an entire pack of hot dogs (10) with buns, sauerkraut and mustard. Just because something CAN be done doesn’t mean it SHOULD.

      1. If something can be done it should be done… By someone else and put on YouTube for the rest of us to see.
         This is pretty cool. I assume you could have different modulation on each voice with its own LFO. I’d like to hear that, and not just through the crappy monotron speakers!
         What’s that red monotron?

         1. About the red one, my friend lives in UK send it to me. he made it by plastic injection or so. I’ve modified it into MIDI version. it’s so cool.

            1. Hi, I think it was my bandmate who sent you the Red Case. He also did a White / Cream one

               http://instagram.com/p/Qhztjinmwl/

               Pretty cool stuff!

               Nice video BTW 🙂

      2. Scott?You’re exactly right. You never do the same things with me.
         I want to learn that what kind of things need for analog polyphonic system. it’s just a experiments for me.

8. guys, it’s EXPERIMENTAL !

9. Can’t wait until Korg bring out an actual Polytron – it’d be big news!!

   1. It is called Volca Keys.

10. The comments section is always a place for a good fun read!

11. Thank you for watching it. I’ve got a little fun in this experiments. Please, imagine what the things can be done from this experiments and enjoy it

12. Goddamn. The level of hate in this post is astounding.

    Motohiko, I applaud your efforts, bro. I can appreciate the sense of accomplishment felt when something is created alone. I’m sure this wasn’t easy. Then again, anything worth doing never is. Thank you for sharing this with us. I appreciate the fruits of your labor.