Elektron make Monomachine music
Elektron make Monomachine music
Maintaining the reputation for eccentricity established by their Sidstation and Machinedrum, Sweden’s Elektron have at last produced the Monomachine SFX6.
Announced at Frankfurt in 2003, the Monomachine is a keyboard synth that, like its predecessors, is at once retro and innovative. Perhaps the strangest thing about the Monomachine is its dimensions: its brushed aluminium and steel body is just 17.5cm deep yet almost a metre long! The keyboard’s synth and sequencer controls, backlit display and four-direction joystick sit to the side of the 37-note, velocity-sensitive keyboard, rather than above it as you might expect.
But expectations are not something it pays to have when it comes to this synth. For example, the Monomachine is in fact six-part multitimbral, with five individual monosynths at the user’s disposal:
• Super Wave, an analogue-style subtractive synth, with saw, pulse and ensemble modes;
• SID, based on the Commodore 64’s SID chip, as used in Elektron’s own Sidstation;
• Digi Pro, based on the percussion synth from the Machinedrum, which specialises in electronic drum sounds;
• FM+, an FM synth;
• and VO, a formant synth for synthesizing vocal sounds.
Each synth is completely independent, with its own sequencer track and effects section featuring five effects: an EQ, a 24dB-per-octave resonant filter with low-pass, high-pass and band-pass modes, tap-style tempo-sync’ed delay, distortion and a bit reducer.
On the evidence of the Machinedrum, Elektron have clearly decided that step sequencing is a programming paradigm that doesn’t need replacing, and they’ve given the Monomachine what they claim is the world’s most advanced step sequencer. The six-track device can control practically all of Monomachine’s features, and synth and effects parameters, as well as note data, can be programmed in to any step. Each track is also equipped with three freely assignable LFOs, and individual triggering tracks for amplitude and filter envelopes and LFO control.
The Monomachine has a headphone output, six analogue outputs and two inputs all on quarter-inch jacks, plus MIDI In, Out and Thru at the rear. It’s available now to order direct from Elektron, priced at 1950 Euros (currently equivalent to £1360). A smaller version, the Monomachine SFX60, with all the same functionality but without the keyboard and steel joystick, is also available, priced at 1350 Euros (currently £940).
T Elektron +46 31 743 744 9.
F +46 31 743 744 9.
E info@elektron.se
W www.elektron.se
W www.monomachine.com
