I’ve been doing some research but I’m a total CV noob. With the latest Monotribe update you can control it using CV into its sync jacks.
What kind of cables do I need for this? Would simply running a TRS from the CV out of the A4 to an adapter to fit it to the Monotribe’s small jack (1/8"?) work?
Thanks for your help, proper CV control over the Monotribe would be more fun than a barrel of monkeys.
You need a TRRS jack, You may be able to get one on eBay searching for Nikia phone stuff and then do a bit of rewiring. See here:
http://www.elektron-users.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=28&func=view&id=214202&catid=11&limit=10&limitstart=40
You might need to reload a few times, the server is finicky.
Check ebay user micro.tech, who I believe is also a user on this forum. He will occasionally do a run of dedicated cables to go directly from A4 to Monotribe CV/gate. It’s the least fiddly solution, if, like me, you are useless with a soldering iron.
you dont need to do anything special just order a Nokia phone cable. The cable is 4 pole at the top, and has a square that says nokia at the bottom where the yellow,white, and red cables meet. If you put female rca, to male mono minijack adapters on the yellow, and on the whte then put mono 1/4 in jacks on top of that, you can plug it into the sync in on the monotribe, and put also put them into the A4 and away you go.
I also have a cord which is a stereo 1/4 jack that goes into AB CV on the A4, and then has two female RCA slots on the other end. I plug the white and yellow from that 4 pole nokia cable into that, and plug the other end into the sync in of the monotribe… and away you go again.
Got some cables from Daren last week and now running two Monotribes (Thanks Daren!)
The instructions provided with the cables talk about using LFOs and envelopes to modulate the CV and gate. Now, I know that modulating the CV will do fun things to the Monotribes’ pitch, but I’m less clear about what I can achieve by modulating the gate. As far as I understand it just turns a note on or off so the best I can think of is randomising the speed of an LFO to create random rhythms. Any other ideas?
I considered asking Daren about this directly since they were his instructions, but since it’s not a technical support issue I decided to stick it on here to see what ideas people have.
it’s really any mod you want it to be, sure gate should be gate, but why so, i like the idea of subtracting some voltage to get random ‘trigs’ the monotribe is safe i think, but rtfm!- i’ve two cv’d monotribes (my own custom cables) and it is a hoot, they sound gorgeous thru the 'verb
you can use trigs or clock to trig it (or manual voltages) - don’t forget to recalibrate if u swap V/oct to hz/v
I agree, they do sound lovely through the A4’s reverb - they remind me of some of Squarepusher’s old lead sounds.
I think I’ll stick with regular gating for now - there are plenty of other ways introduce randomness without sending risky voltages to the gate.
There’s nothing risky about setting a CV source (e.g A) as Value Lin with a Min of 0v and Max of 5v - then you can fire anything at the gate or the pitch (e.g B) of the monotribes with no fear - Triggering the gate with an unsynced LFO (& not just a square) is lots of fun - likewise pitch via value lin gets you into different territory easily (don’t forget that the MT Wide/Narrow/Key toggle will affect quantization) … and then there’s the unsynced MT LFO too 
Oh cool, I didn’t realise you could set the min and max voltages.
I’ll try your suggestions! Thanks 
Yeah gotta love the Monotribe, I think it is one of my favourite machines ever, amazing considering it is by far nowhere near the most sophisticated, I think the Volcas are good too but the Monotribe has some kind of special mojo with me.
Back on topic yes it is a lot of fun to drive it from the A4 and run it back into the input, sounds huge with some big reverb with the low end rolled off, and of course with that dubby delay simply amazing.
The one thing that seems to bug a lot of people about the Monotribe is the click on the VCA when low filter cutoff is set, it can easily be reduced by soldering a 47nF ceramic (473) capacitor from pin 10 of IC17 to ground, pin 10 is the 3rd pin up from where “IC17” is printed on the PCB. This will significantly reduce the click but not completely eliminate it.
that ^ and a switch to keep the click in the locker ! i’ll pop that in when i do my midi mod
@darenager i know you’re all over the mt ! - d’ya think there’s scope to wire up a ‘spare’ sync in for when the mt is configured for cv ? #drumsync
I did think about a switch but I have 7 of the buggers, so no need
I am not sure that sync can be implemented when CV mode is active, I think the tip is used for sync so it would just gate it if in CV mode. Midi sync still works though when CV mode is set.
I have some new mods coming for the Monotribe, been working on a little external box for Midi’d Monotribes that has trigger outputs for the drum sounds and synth part, also some new drum mod boards coming, and the long awaited VCO mod will be available in the new year, finally!