(Sorry, I tried registering on korgfuroms.com, but that site is totally borked. Not letting me register, and I get the mailer deamon when trying to contact admin. Hopefully somebody here can help me out.)

Bought a Monologue at a pawn shop the other day. Guy at the shop didn't know anything about it, other than it's in perfect physical condition (seriously, 100% like new), and it powers on.

I get it home and start playing with it. It plays the built-in preset sequences just fine, all the knobs and toggle switches seem to work, the little oscilloscope is jumping all over the place as it should.

But I can't for the life of me figure out how to make any sounds when manually playing the keys, as if a live performance.

I download the manual and, referring to the section called Creating a Program from Scratch on page 13, try to make it work, but am unsuccessful.

This guy's video (

, watch from 40 seconds to 55 seconds) walks through the basics, including the series of buttons you need to push to create a patch, and I copy those moves exactly, but still no dice. Still silence when I press the keys, oscilloscope still flatlined.

I'm hoping I'm just missing a step or a setting or a mode or something like that and the internals of this thing are OK. But right now it just seems like the keys are 100% detached from the rest of the synth.

Anybody know what I'm doing wrong? Anybody care to write out the exact steps I need to do to get this thing jamming with keys?

 

buying from a pawn shop.

 

Turn of the sequencer that's it

And local on for the keys

 

What does this mean? How do I do it?

 

Well, actually it was a pawn shop selling stuff on ebay, and it has a 30 day guarantee, and I've had it for only a week. So I have some time to figure it out or send it back.

 

from the manual:
1. Check that the monologue is in Play mode. In Play mode, verify that the EDIT MODE button on the front panel are unlit. If the EDIT MODE button is lit, press the EXIT button.
2. Turn the PROGRAM/VALUE knob to select a Program.
3. Play the keyboard to hear the sound.

do not press the "play" button in the sequencer section.

 

Is it in Play mode all the time as long as the sequencer isn’t playing anything? Or is there some button I need to push or some mode setting that I need to switch to get it to Play mode?

 

my interpretation of those instructions is that you just need to make sure it is not in edit mode and that the sequencer is not engaged. but i do not own a monologue nor have i ever played one.

 

try to Factory Reset it.

monologue

1. Begin with the monologue turned off.
2. While holding down the WRITE button and the EXIT button, turn the monologue on. “FACTORY RESET” will be indicated and highlighted in the display. ...
3. Press the WRITE button. ...
4. Turn the PROGRAM/VALUE knob to select “Yes”, and press the WRITE button.

 

Hey, thanks to you all for your help with this. I've tried all your suggestions and everything else I can dig up, and have come to the conclusion that this thing has issues. I'll track down some Korg customer service contact info to see if they can fix it on the cheap. If not, it's going back to the seller. Many thanks.

 

yeah good luck

 

Last edited: Dec 11, 2021

See monologue manual page 53, under the section:
Configuring the MIDI "LOCAL" setting when connected to an external MIDI sequencer or computer

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1617080/Korg-Monologue.html?page=53#manual

 

Factory Reset will always return a midi device Local setting to On.

 

Faulty as charged, M'lud!

 

AH YES! I figured it out. It was that Local on/off setting.

After I factory reset it, the Korg guy said that setting should default to On. For some reason, mine defaulted to Off. I had no idea about that setting or what it did, but the Korg guy said that this setting was one of the things I should check, and sure enough, he was right, and that was the culprit all along.

Now working 100%. Thanks for all your suggestions and for tolerating my nonsense.

 

Congratulations! Perhaps you've got the old firmware, don't forget to update it and get some nice presets
https://www.korg.com/us/support/download/product/0/733/#software

Some more useful stuff:
for Live: https://github.com/tekfunk/monologue-live
for Reaper: https://github.com/odditica/FX4Reaper/tree/master/monoctrl

logue tools https://github.com/gazzar/loguetools

 

Last edited: Dec 11, 2021

Congrats on the Monologue. That's a great synth. Check out some of the third-party preset packs on the sister site. There's also some kewl free presets on the interwebs - a great starting point for your own patches.