KORG appears to be introducing two new monotrons, the monotron DUO and the montron DELAY. What's in a name? Well everything in this case. The monotron DUO will sport an extra oscillator for super-thick analogue tones and the monotron DELAY will have... well a built-in delay of course. It appears that KORG has taken the original monotron concept and taken it to it's two most logical extremes making one monotron specialized for fat, musical, analogue tones, and making another for spacy sci-fi sound effects.
What is most exciting to me is it looks like the DUO at least has the option to trigger fixed-pitches in either chromatic, major, or minor scales. This is exciting because anyone who has tried to play the original monotron as a musical instrument as I have (see the post below) as opposed to simply as a noise-maker will attest to what a challenge it can be to find and stay on pitch with the little beast. The monotron DELAY looks like it may not have the fixed pitch option which makes sense as it appears to be geared more toward noise and sound effects side of things. Needless to say I will be purchasing both.
I am glad to see KORG expanding its analogue-line of synths. I can't wait for them to come out with a dedicated analog drum machine and also a microKORG like poly-synth. I would even hazard a guess that KORG at some point may recreate its legendary mono-synth the MS20 in miniature form, as it did with its software controller for the original KORG Legacy Collection, but this time instead of it being a simple controller for software it will be an actual true analogue mono-synth. One can dream anyway.
