Korg Forums

[Decades]

Hi all,

Brand new to the world of analog synths, and loving the monologue. I come from the world of digital synths. General quesiton though: Are VCO1 and VCO2 supposed to be slightly out of phase/tune? For instance, if I set both VCOs to triangle wave, all other settings totally initialized. If I look at the oscilliscope for VCO1, the triangle wave is perfect and does not "drive". If I set the Mix to only VCO2, the triange wave is defintely "drifting" on the osciliscope. Of course, when playing both at the same time, same wave, same pitch, it does not yield a straight triangle wave (it drifts a bit leading to pitch bends while holding the note). Is this normal with analog synths and by design? or is something out of tune with VCO 2 on my monologue?

Thanks for any help all!
Brian

[synthpeter]

No, there seems nothing wrong with your Monologue. It's an analog synth, so unless you hard sync VCO2 to VCO1 (switch set to SYNC), there is bound to be some frequency difference between VCO1 and VCO2.

Although the Monologue does a trim on start-up, once it really warms up, the difference becomes more pronounced, and you can have the Monologue do a re-tuning by pressing SHIFT+REC, or use the VCO2 PITCH control to adjust for differences.

Being an analog synth, where each component acts differently on temperature changes, tuning will never be perfect and 100% stable. But that is the charm of the Monologue, the slight detuning between the VCOs and the slight drifts form its character. Mine is never exactly the same from day to day..

And by the way, the Volca FM, which is as digital a synth as they come, even has a detune ability on all it's oscillators to add flavour to its sounds.

[Decades]

Makes total sense. Just making sure and thanks for your help!