teCHNEWS IN ASSOCIATION WITH POINT BLANK’S PRODUCTION TIP OF THE WEEK PlaYiNG CHORDS WitH KORG’S mONOtRON


PAUL YARROW TURNS THE KORG MONOTRON INTO A POLYSYNTH USING LOGIC PRO


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This week Paul Yarrow shows you how to open up a new world of performance capabilities for Korg’s most affordable monosynth.


“In this Logic tutorial we explore using the inputs, routing options and plug-in features of Logic Pro to turn the fantastic Monotron into a kind of polysynth that can play diatonic chords. Diatonic chords are all of the chords contained within a given scale, and here we are working in the key of C. “The Monotron is connected to input 1 on the computer (in this case the mini jack input on the side of a Macbook Pro). In order to hear the Monotron, input monitoring needs to be enabled on the audio channel. “The output of the audio channel is routed through the Bus 1 output rather than the default output. This is because we’ll be making a few channels, but would like to treat the sum output of these as one instrument. Working with Bus 1 will enable easy recording of


performances and adding any effect inserts. “As the Monotron is to play chords in the key of C, the next step is for it to play an accurate C major scale. To do this the pitch correction plug-in is inserted into the input channel with the major scale selected and the response is set to fast. Now when played, the Monotron should produce an accurate scale played with clear intonation between scale pitches rather than the smooth glide between notes you normally get from playing the ribbon. It’s a good idea to tune the Monotron if you are going to visually use the ribbon to perform with, as I demonstrate. “Now that the root channel for the chords is set up, we need to duplicate the track in order to set up our next interval. To do this, click on the duplicate track button in the Arrange Page. All of the previous settings will be duplicated, however now we’re going to add our fi rst interval, which is the 3rd note of the chord. In order to do this we add the pitch shifter plug-in, set the Mix to 100% and adjust the interval to 4, which indicates a rise


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