Panel reference

The Oscillator section

Here is where you choose oscillator waveforms and set the pitches for the two oscillators. You can also add noise and frequency modulate Oscillator 1 from Oscillator 2.

Waveform selector

Turn the Wave knob to select one of four wave shapes.

The wave shapes are:

•

Ramp

Also known as sawtooth. Generates a rich tone with both even and odd harmonics (overtones).

•	Square (Pulse in Oscillator 2)

The square wave has a symmetric square shape and contains only even harmonics. The Pulse wave is basically a square wave with non-symmetrical shape, i.e. a duty cycle that is not 50%. The Pulse wave generally sounds a little thinner than a perfect square wave.

•

Triangle

The Triangle wave only contains odd harmonics, and at lower intensities than the square wave overtones. This makes it sound a little “rounder” and with less bite than the square wave.

•

Sine

The Sine wave doesn’t contain any overtones - only the fundamental. This makes it sound dull and makes it perfect as a sub bass an octave or two below another waveform in the other oscillator.

Oct

Set the pitch in octave steps.

Range: 5 octaves.

Osc Mix

Set the mix of the Oscillator 1 and 2 signals.

Noise

Turn up the Noise knob to introduce white noise to the oscillator signal mix.

Detune

Change the pitch in steps of 1 cent (in opposite directions for the two oscillators).

Range: +/- 50 cents (down or up half a semitone).

LFO

Turn the LFO knob to introduce pitch modulation to both oscillators from the current setting of the LFO section (see “The LFO section”).

FM Env

Turn the knob to have the oscillator 2 signal frequency modulate the oscillator 1 signal according to the current Envelope settings (see “The Envelope section”).

Range: 0% (no tracking (constant pitch)) to 100% (1 semitone per note).

Osc 2 Semi

Set the pitch of Oscillator 2 in semitone steps.

Range: +/-12 semitones (two octaves).

The Filter section

The Filter in Monotone is a classic 24 dB/octave lowpass ladder filter. If you raise the Resonance high enough, the filter will start to self-oscillate.

The picture below shows the lowpass filter’s basic characteristics at four different resonance levels:

Drive

Turn the Drive knob to amplify and introduce an overdrive type of distortion to the signal fed into the filter.

Freq

Set the cutoff frequency for the filter.

The cutoff frequency is where the filter starts to cut out/dampen the higher frequencies of the signal.

Resonance

Set the resonance amount.

This controls the resonance peak level at the currently set cutoff frequency (see “Freq” above).
The picture below shows a ramp oscillator signal lowpass-filtered at three different Resonance levels:

Be careful when using high Resonance values as this could generate quite loud audio levels!

Env

Turn the Env knob to set the frequency modulation amount from the current settings of the Envelope (see “The Envelope section”).

Key

Turn the Kbd knob to set the keyboard tracking amount.

At 0% the filter cutoff frequency is static and doesn’t track the keyboard at all.
At 100% the filter cutoff frequency tracks the keyboard 1 semitone per note.

LFO

Turn the LFO knob to set the frequency modulation amount from the current settings of the LFO (see “The LFO section”).

The Amplifier section

The Amplifier section contains a standard ADSR envelope, which controls the amplitude of the audio signal.

The picture below shows the various stages of the ADSR envelope:

The ADSR envelope stages.

A(ttack)

When you play a note on your keyboard, the envelope is triggered. This means it starts rising from zero to max level. How long this should take, depends on the Attack setting. If the Attack is set to “0”, maximum level is reached instantly. If the Attack value is raised, it will take longer time before the maximum level is reached.

D(ecay)

After maximum level has been reached, the level starts to drop. How long this should take is governed by the Decay parameter.

If you want to emulate the volume envelope of a note played on a piano for example, the Attack should be set to “0”, the Decay parameter should be set to a medium value and the Sustain level should be set to “0”, so that the volume gradually decreases down to silence, even if you keep holding the key down. Should you want the decay to drop to some other value than zero, you raise the Sustain parameter.

S(ustain)

The Sustain parameter determines the level the envelope should rest at, after the Decay stage. If you set Sustain to full level, the Decay setting is of no importance since the volume of the sound is never lowered.

If you want to emulate the volume envelope of an organ, you theoretically only really need to use the Sustain parameter set to full level, as a basic organ volume envelope instantly goes to the maximum level (Attack “0”) and stays there (Decay “0”), until the key is released and the sound instantly stops (Release “0”).

But often a combination of Decay and Sustain is used to generate envelopes that rise up to max level, then gradually decreases to finally land to rest on a level somewhere in-between zero and maximum level. Note that Sustain
represents a level, whereas the other envelope parameters represent times.

R(elease)

The Release parameter works just like the Decay parameter, except it determines the time it takes for the volume to drop back to zero after you release the key.

Vel

Turn up the Vel knob if you want the maximum level to be controlled from Keyboard Velocity.

The harder you play, the louder the maximum volume.

Chorus

This is a stereo Chorus effect, which can be used for generating a fatter and wider sound.

Amount

Set the Dry/Wet amount of the chorus effect.

Set to 0% for a completely dry (unprocessed) signal.

Rate

Set the rate/speed of the chorus modulation.

Spread

Set the stereo width of the chorus effect.

Set to 0% for a if you want the signal to be in mono.

Delay

This is a stereo delay, which generates delayed copies of the original signal.

Amount

Use this parameter to adjust the send level to the Delay effect.

Set to 0% for a completely dry (unprocessed) signal.

Time

The delay time is synced to the main sequencer tempo.

Set the sync division to the main sequencer tempo with the Time knob.

Range: 1/16, 1/8T, 1/8, 2/8T, 3/16, 1/4, 5/16, 4/8T, 7/16 and 2/4.

Feedback

Set the number of delay repeats.

Ping Pong

Activate Ping Pong to have the delay repeats alternate between left and right in the stereo panorama.

The LFO section

An LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator) is used for generating cyclic modulation. A typical example is to have an LFO modulate the pitch of a signal to produce vibrato, but there are also other applications for LFOs. The LFO section features an LFO which can be set to control Oscillator pitch (see “LFO”) and/or Filter frequency (see “LFO”).

Rate

Set the LFO rate/speed.

Range: 0.06-94.0 Hz

Shape

Turn the Shape knob to select one of three LFO wave shapes.

The wave shapes are: Sine, Triangle and Square.

The Envelope section

The Envelope section features a standard ADSR envelope, which can be used for controlling Oscillator Frequency Modulation (see “FM Env”) and/or Filter Frequency (see “Env”).

The various envelope stages work exactly like those of the Amplifier, see “The Amplifier section”.

The ADSR envelope stages.

A(ttack)

Set the time it should take to reach from zero to maximum level.

D(ecay)

Set the time it should take to go from maximum level to the Sustain level (see below).

S(ustain)

Set the level the envelope should rest at, after the Decay stage (see above).

R(elease)

Set the time it should take to go from the Sustain level back to zero, after you have released the note.

Vel

Turn up the Vel knob if you want the maximum level to be controlled from Keyboard Velocity.

The harder you play, the higher the maximum level.