Native Instruments Monark - Review

[@stevehenderson1248]

Another fantastic, informed and unbiased review from Sonicstate.... Great job Nick, thanks!

[@leave-trace]

Monark plus a touch of nice reverb, like ValhallaVintageVerb, is a totally joy to work with. I often wish I had an extra midi controller with a load of knobs to turn into a dedicated Monark controller. It really begs you to tweak and explore, but using the mouse for that really dampens the exploratory process.

[@epicon6]

You can buy a real modern Moog and map all the knobs :)

[@Rgdonaire_07]

Great review Nick! Showing the real gnarly character of this emulation. Learning loads with this video!

[@mootbooxle]

Love it!! I think it's a very good emulation! Nick, I like your reviews a lot. You always hit the key features without a lot of fussing about. Cheers!

[@sonicstate]

I mentioned it during the later stage of the video 15-50% on an i7 2.4

[@sonicstate]

I just checked and it was okay here - maybe the MP4 encoding got messed up in YT?

[@newbiadk]

i use that synth a lot love it

[@therealKINDLE]

It makes no sense to me how so many people are so partisan & fussy about the sound, feel & purity of a synth when they inevitably get to the mastering stage where they just totally rape all dynamics & quality out of the track anyway. "What that? Your latest album is much louder? How very creative of you!!"

[@Heathcliff_hensel]

Of course, your reviews are the best on the net. The only thing that would make them better is if you had a swedish supermodel as an assistant. But I guess Gaz will have to do. haha!

[@SharpblueCreative]

Sound has disappeared on the video at 6:51 -thought is was my ipad went to another video it's fine. Reloaded this video and the sound stopped again at 6:51. Would have liked to heard it all.

[@sonicstate]

Yes it would, unfortunatley we dont have either to hand

[@jdrukman]

Nice review. Regarding the price, it makes much more sense to buy it in a bundle. If you're already a Komplete owner you can upgrade to the latest for US$150 which gives you Monark, Battery 4, new effects, Kontakt libraries, etc. That's how I did it and I think it is well worth the price.

[@PrinceLX]

If your only quibble is price, wait 'til summer or Christmas - NI often have crazy sales and get it then.

[@sonicstate]

Not sure what you mean?

[@SuperNegawsklov]

One thing everybody agrees for shore... your reviews are always TOP...

[@watchtheskies]

Quite impressed with the sound, although I do love PWM so a bit disappointed that it's not included, even if they wanted to keep the look authentic to the original, they could have snuck a PWM into a menu somewhere, or given us a cc to map to?

[@epicon6]

0:07 some inconsistency here :) Nick calls a Moog a Muug but doesn't call Monark Munark

[@sonicstate]

Moonark?

[@epicon6]

@@sonicstate That's it :)

[@zwete]

How does it stand to U-He Diva, wich has about the same high cpu usage and gives you more flexibility?

[@NigDub]

How does it compare to the arturia minimoog?

[@ValourTV]

are you using ableton now over logic for production after using the push?

[@kiqyou]

How can you play the filter? I thought filters only shaped oscillators.

[@JohanBrodd]

Self oscillating filters.

[@MediaMusik777]

Like a digital minimoog but still hash to my ear... I ended up spending time trying to warm up vst's more than i did enjoying them ...my minitaur is already warm going in and all i do is add reverb/delay and some chorus.The growl on this monark is a digital and stepping in the higher part of the res.

[@infinitedepthscustomerserv8796]

Yeah that's what I was thinking.

[@floatershaw]

I can not find a answer to whether the Monark sound,s as good as Uhe's Diva personally i have not found a vst that sound,s as very near to the real thing as Diva does.by the way your review,s are the best i have found all so,,,,,thank,s very much.

[@aikighost]

Sounds good, what is the CPU overhead though?

[@niallos1]

is there anywhere I can here this against a model D or even a voyager?

[@SPAZZOID100]

Niall O'Brien-Bird "hear"

[@bigdotdot]

what is the spectrum above monark hes using? thats prettttyyyy nice looking :)

[@chakko007]

It's the free s(m)exoscope plugin, you can download it here: armandomontanez.com/smexoscope/ Hope you're still interested in knowing after 3 years. :D

[@liamdonaldson6449]

It stopped after about 2 minutes - looked like the rest had failed to upload from your end. Seems OK now

[@liamdonaldson6449]

Something parts missing?

[@infinitedepthscustomerserv8796]

Those high frequencies hurt. xD

[@SWANbeats1]

Nick I was hoping you would compare it to a Mini or a Phatty! Anyways I think it sounds pretty good - best emu yet. Envelopes and Osc preferable to Diva.

[@SPAZZOID100]

SWANbeats1 creamware did it better in 2006!!!

[@pcuimac]

Does it sound 'better' than the Minimonsta? Have you ever put a real analog and a simulation through a spectrum analyzer? And what would be the difference? The square wave looked like it had a sawwave added to it!? Maybe thats what makes a minimoog sound like one? A bad osc that does not produce what's written on the knob? Have no real Minimoog so can not test it.

[@Heathcliff_hensel]

Great review Nick, it was informative yet you didn't waffle on too much.

[@sonicstate]

I _guess_ thats a compliment right ? :-)

[@aspirativemusicproduction2135]

If you want to play chords i guess you have to record it as wave and than play it with a sample player. What else can you do?

[@SPAZZOID100]

No sampler necessary. Simply record each note of the chord on it's own track, then bounce them together.

[@aspirativemusicproduction2135]

What if I record it and play it with Absynth? After all I paid money for it. I have Komplete 9. By the way Bazille is also a good synth. It came out after I bought Komplete. To be honest I bought Komplete because of Massive. Massive is probably the best of Komplete package. It sounds kind of O.K if you spend a little time programming it. There is no instant gratification with the patches they made for it. Most of the patches it comes with are shit. Anyhow, one should be happy with what they have. I tried a lot of synths and I am back to messing around with Massive. If you hook an LFO to the wave table you get more lively sound. Now that I have better ideas what I can Do with Massive I can say it's not a bad choice.

[@el_dani]

Nick we like you to waffle! and very nice sound of this synth, strange that it's monophonic. are they afraid of exploding CPU's?

[@SPAZZOID100]

Bibi creamware minimax was 12 note poly.

[@custardgannet]

Great review as usual. Always the best source on the net

[@juanguajardos]

Diva rocks, but Monak it's fantastic, yeah it's only monophonic, but it's also half the price.

[@Barefoot67]

what's he talking about in the end? Arturia, a physical mini moog for four times as much?! no sense

[@Brainbox97]

Arturia Minibrute. Comparison of the relative value of Monark vs. a physical analog synthesizer

[@noiselabproject9659]

Yess seems a bit weird & 99 Euros for this level of software Emulation seems quiet cheap really, especially when other big software SYnth players can be more like 150 Euros

[@rt-uh6mt]

I like Monark a lot, $100 is arguably a fair price but if you're patient you can get it for $50 - it usually goes on sale once or twice a year. I do think this is great plug in and very handy when you're not at your desk with your equipment but at the same time having a physical synth where you can tweak real knobs is easier for me and more satisfying - and less taxing on the CPU. If you want a real moog on a limited budget a used minitaur or mother are decent options - but they have their limits.

[@FreeThink1984]

sounds awesome

[@LFOVCF]

You are my 'go to' guy. You talk my language! (leakage..unpleasant lol)

[@basstradamus1]

Only when you own analog hardware, se-02 or model d (or whatever similar) you will understand that Monark sounds just, let's say, flat and boring.

[@WBWelcomeBack]

Another fantastic review. Thanks :)

[@pontification7891]

dude - awesome review!!

[@Achilleion]

I use NI, but I'd rather have a Moog Matriarch

[@bytex666]

That's what makes the minimoog sound like a minimoog. The waveforms are not perfect at all. These analog modelling softsynths try to recreate the exact spectrum of the original synths waveforms. Not perfect saws or squares. That will just sound like every other perfect saw or square. All analog synths have slightly different waveforms, a result of the surrounding electronics.

[@SPAZZOID100]

Prefer my Creamware Minimax

[@noiselabproject9659]

I have the Plugiator module ( a Plug-Out Synth ) which has that engine in it as well as a few other synth engines from Creamware and I must say although getting a bit old now tech-wise the Minimax, Pro One and Odyssey Synths on that do still sound very good to my ears plus 100 patch memories for each too. Plugiator was apparently an unsanctioned release of Creamware tech and had a short life which meant that a few bugs were never fixed like it not playing nice at all with Step Sequencers like my Beatstep Pro which is a bit of a pain, although thankfully most Arpeggiators seem to work OK with it. Does the actual Creamware Minimax have this kind of problem too ?

[@SPAZZOID100]

Noiselab Project i had the plugiator but could not get into the interface or form factor. I don't care if it's old tech. My novation nova is from 1999 and still sounds great. I have cd's from 1986 that blow away HD audio files available now.

[@SPAZZOID100]

Noiselab Project actually, i don't experience any MIDI hickups or stepping.

[@SPAZZOID100]

Noiselab Project and 12-note poly.

[@noiselabproject9659]

Yes I have a Supernova 2 and although alot of patches are a bit dated nasal Trance Cheese it`s still very good and got a very decent `woody` New Order Blue Monday bass out of it yesterday

[@Chevytravelleruk]

Hmmm.. nothing new here and the lack of any polyphony is poor for this price.. DIVA offers so much more and a nicer company to deal with

[@SPAZZOID100]

Chevytravelleruk creamware MINIMAX

[@SuperNegawsklov]

...or send to izotope trash2...

[@JSprayaEntertainment]

reaktor 5.5 is a beast .. when you buy the program you get access to all the old libraries and user stuff .. Monark i dont think is worth it at all ... you can build that with fl studio synth maker 2 , or reaktor itself .. ( smh)