Korg Monotribe Midi in and out mod kit

Michigan Synth Works Presents:

MiSW Kit#1: Korg Monontribe Midi in/out mod Kit

This is an easy to install kit that will add midi in and out functionality to your Korg Montribe.  There is no soldering required, simply plug the circuit board to the serial header on the Monotribe and install the two sockets.  Two 1/4" holes need to be drilled to accommodate the 3.5mm sockets for the two included midi cables that have a 3.5mm TRS tip one side and a standard midi DIN5 connector on the other.

This kit includes:

1 x Circuit Board, plug and play
1 x  Wire harness with two sockets (midi in, midi out) with knurled screw nuts
2 x 6ft. long midi cables
1 x Installation Instructions

INTERNATIONAL BUYERS PLEASE READ: Delivery times have been very inconsistent, especially to Europe with Germany having the most issues.  Sometimes packages get stuck in customs for long periods of time (7 weeks is the worst so far) for no apparent reason some times they are delivered under a week.  I include as much documentation as required by any customs office (commercial invoice etc) but please expect 6 weeks delivery.  It will likely get there much sooner but the LONG delivery times have occurred enough times that I have to make this something you must be aware of before ordering.

This kit works with the iPad/iPhone iRig midi interface (http://www.ikmultimedia.com/irigmidi/features/) and can be directly connected to it by using a 3.5mm to 2.5mm adapter cable (i.e. no midi cable is needed).  These cables are available for $5 on request, please contact me for a total and I will add it to your order.

Details about the midi implementation of the Korg Monotribe (as reviewed by Gameboy Genius)

• Sync: It will both send and accept MIDI sync, start and stop messages, meaning the sequencer can be reset over MIDI, which can’t be done remotely if you’re only using the regular sync input.

  Quirks/problems: When you’re using the miditribe as a MIDI slave and remove the sync clock, it will keep waiting for a MIDI clock indefinitely. You can fix this by either turning it off and on again, or plugging something in and out of the sync in jack, which will restore it to the internal sync clock.

• Notes: It will send and receive notes within the limits of the sequencer. It’s using channel 1 for notes. Notes outside these limits will be ignored. It does not react to varying velocities. It does however react to pitch bend MIDI messages and is able to record and play back pitch bend in flux mode! I don’t have MIDI out hooked up at the moment, so I can’t confirm this right now, but I’m assuming it also transmits MIDI pitch bend messages when it plays notes in flux mode.

  Quirks/problems: It has a stuck note issue when it doesn’t receive a note off message for a note. Let’s say you send a note on message for D4 and then a note on message for E4, and lastly a note off message for E4. This can happen in Renoise, for example. In this situation, D4 gets stuck, and a new D4 note is played as soon as you release all other keys. Sometimes multiple keys can get stuck, and you need to go through each key to depress each one.

• Drums: It’s using the standard General MIDI specification for drums, which means the following notes on MIDI channel 10.
  
  

  Name	Note number	Note name	GM drum name
  BD	36	C1	Bass drum 1
  SN	40	E1	Snare dum 2/Electric snare
  HH	42	F#1	Closed hi-hat

• Control change messages (CC): It can send and receive CC for all the knobs and switches marked green above. The parameters are mapped as follows:
  
  

  Name	CC number	Values	GM parameter name
  LFO rate	16	–	General purpose controller 1
  LFO int.	1	–	Modulation wheel
  EG shape	80	32=decay 64=sustain 96=attack	General purpose controller 5
  LFO target	81	32=VCO 64=VCO+VCF 96=VCF	General purpose controller 6
  LFO mode	82	32=Fast 64=Slow 96=1shot	General purpose controller 7
  LFO wave	83	32=Saw 64=Triangle 96=Square 127= Sample & Hold (V2 OS)	General purpose controller 8

  Quirks/problems: It’s practically useless as a MIDI control surface because it is really slow at sending CC messages. If you wiggle one of the knobs a few times really fast for a few seconds, it will continue to transmit CC commands for several seconds.

  I’ve noticed that when controlling the LFO rate/int. knobs remotely, the value will sometimes jump back to the value that the knob is at. I’m guessing that this happens because there’s a small fluctuation in the voltage that the microcontroller will pick up as a change in the value. If you only want to control these parameters over MIDI, you can minimize this effect by turning these knobs fully counter-clockwise.

The Version 2.0 OS adds velocity sensitivity to the synth section and adds the sample and hold waveform to the CC83 (LFO mode)

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