The MonoWave is a monophonic 2U 19" rack synthesizer by Modulus Electronics, UK.
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The MonoWave is a monophonic 2U 19" rack synthesizer by Modulus Electronics, UK.
This synth was first shown in 2001 by its inventor Paula Maddox on a PPG user/fan meeting. Because its attraction to some synthesizer players at the event, the project was started with 5 beta-test units to test the software and hardware. By spring 2002. the serial production of a 25-piece limited run started. About a year later, all units were sold.
Late in 2005, after many attempts at designing new products, Paula decided to close Modulus Electronics and its website (modulus-music.com). In order that people could still enjoy the Monowave, she worked with Elby Designs to create a kit version of the monowave offering the same features. The software was released at the same time under the GPL license, in the hope that others would continue to develop its features.
It features two digital oscillators with 256 different single-cycle waveshapes selectable individually. There is also a unique de-res, a function to lower the digital waveshapes' sample resolution, to give a sound very much like the famous German PPG wave synthesizers from the eighties. The signal of these oscillators and their suboctave signals are mixed together and then feed in the pure analog part of the synth, a Moog-style 24 dB transistor-ladder lowpass filter and a VCA. Both of them are controlled by their own ADSR envelope. Depending on the installed operating system version, it may either have an arpeggiator or a MIDI-velocity to wavenumber function.
The MonoWave has no patch memory. It can be played via MIDI by sequencers or MIDI keyboards.
Wavetable synthesis is a sound synthesis technique used to create periodic waveforms. Often used in the production of musical tones or notes, it was first written about by Hal Chamberlin in Byte's September 1977 issue. Wolfgang Palm of Palm Products GmbH (PPG) developed it in the late 1970s and published in 1979. The technique has since been used as the primary synthesis method in synthesizers built by PPG and Waldorf Music and as an auxiliary synthesis method by Ensoniq and Access. It is currently used in hardware synthesizers from Waldorf Music and in software-based synthesizers for PCs and tablets, including apps offered by PPG and Waldorf, among others.
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The Serge synthesizer is an analogue modular synthesizer system originally developed by Serge Tcherepnin, Rich Gold and Randy Cohen at CalArts in late 1972. The first 20 Serge systems were built in 1973 in Tcherepnin's home. Tcherepnin was a professor at CalArts at the time, and desired to create something like the exclusively expensive Buchla modular synthesizers "for the people that would be both inexpensive and powerful." After building prototypes, Tcherepnin went on to develop kits for students to affordably build their own modular synthesizer, production taking place unofficially on a second floor CalArts balcony. This led to Tcherepnin leaving CalArts in order to produce kits commercially, starting in 1974.
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The OSCar was a synthesizer manufactured by the Oxford Synthesiser Company from 1983 to 1985. It was ahead of its time in several ways and its later versions were among the few mono-synths of its time to have MIDI. Around 2000 were made.
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The ARP Chroma is a polyphonic, multitimbral, microprocessor controlled, subtractive synthesis analog synthesizer developed in 1979-1980 by ARP Instruments, Inc. just before the company's bankruptcy and collapse in 1981.
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