Monotribe Problems

godzillinois · Post by **godzillinois** » Tue May 03, 2016 3:00 am

Hey all, just got a used Korg Monotribe (my first synth) and I think I'm having issues with it. If I connect headphones to it everything is fine (messing with the LFO etc sounds normal) until I press play and the drums come on, then everything sounds distorted (in a bad way) and won't return to normal until I turn the Monotribe on/off. Sometimes it takes a few times, the other weird thing is when the drums are playing its like it plays both in the headphones and the speakers, but the synth parts only play in the headphones.

I just did the 2.1 update but I'm not sure if that's what caused it, I actually didn't try to use headphones yet until after I updated it. Does anyone else have this problem? Is there some sort of diagnostic mode I can run on the Monotribe? Appreciate any help I can get.

OpAmp · Post by **OpAmp** » Tue May 03, 2016 8:43 pm

Mmh, seems strange to me.

I don't think it has something to do with the software. It is something physical. Especially because it seems to sound on both the headphones and the speaker...
Can you check you headphone connector carefully? Does it fit tight in the headphone output of the monotribe?
What about the sound without headphone? Same question, but using the output?

Bye.

godzillinois · Post by **godzillinois** » Tue May 03, 2016 10:16 pm

Since you mentioned that you don't think its software related and its probably the hardware, it got me thinking, so I tried different headphones and it worked fine! The other headphones I was using has a cord where you can change the volume and press play for iPods, so maybe that was messing with the signal inadvertently somehow? Either way I believe the problem is solved!

I think I was just unsure because I've never owned a synth before, so I didn't know what the "stock" sound was supposed to sound like for this. I knew the drums were supposed to be weak, but the weak sound of the drums still surprised me. Had tons of fun being able to mess around with it without annoying my wife now! Hopefully the problem doesn't resurface for some reason later on down the line.

Thanks for your reply!

OpAmp · Post by **OpAmp** » Tue May 03, 2016 10:23 pm

Fine, it confirms what I was thinking.

It will not come back as long as you use regular headphones. Meaning, no special features on it, and 3 contacts on the jack (tip, ring, sleeve).
Probably the one you used has 4. When you plug it, internally the plug breaks a contact so that the sound is cut from the speaker and sent to the headphone. Probably this breaking is not very clean using the Iphone plug.

Have fun!

two505s · Post by **two505s** » Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:58 pm

For the record, Monotribes are weird with their connections. Some otherwise perfectly fine mini jack cables don't work for syncing, and some other mini jack cables don't work on the audio in. If anything on the Tribe don't work, first thing to try is different cables.