Novation Circuit Mono Station: Fat Bread

Let's have a look at the Novation Circuit Mono Station. It looks like a nightclub, doesn't it? There's a dancefloor with glowing floor panels, and a DJ's mixing desk. But it's not a nightclub. Oh no. It's actually a surprisingly fully-featured synthesiser with a built-in pad-based sequencer.

Just look at all those colours:

Novation released the Mono Station in 2017 as part of their Circuit range of groovebox sequencers. Sound on Sound liked it, but while the other Circuits were updated or replaced circa 2020 the Mono Station was quietly discontinued. I think the problem is that it was marketed as an all-in-one analogue sequencer workstation, but it's really just a synthesiser with an admittedly smart sequencer, a kind of super-sized Korg Volca. Unless you do some clever programming it can only play a single bassline with no drums.

At heart the Mono Station is a Novation Bass Station 2 synthesiser combined with a Novation Circuit sequencer. You can in theory just use it as a Bass Station 2, ignoring the sequencer entirely, in which case it's actually cheaper on the used market.

Let's talk about the bits. The original Novation Bass Station came out in 1993. It was a two-oscillator monosynth housed in a cute little case, with a two-octave keyboard. At the time it was sold as a clone of the Roland TB-303 acid house bassline synthesiser, but it was much more versatile. It could do analogue lead lines as well. For a long time it was the only affordable analogue synthesiser on the market and it sold like hot cakes.

Novation upgraded the engine in the following years. The Super Bass Station rackmount of 1997 added a sub-oscillator, ring modulation, white noise, and a distortion effect, which meant that it could also double as an analogue percussion generator. For the next few years Novation concentrated on the Nova digital synth, but in 2013 they launched the Bass Station 2, which added a bunch of upgrades including oscillator sync and (with a firmware upgrade) duophony, essentially turning the Bass Station into a modern analogue of the ARP Odyssey or Sequential Pro-One.

The Mono Station's synthesiser engine is a Bass Station 2 minus one of the LFOs, minus one of the envelopes, minus the TB-303 filter emulation, minus oscillator cross-modulation, but what remains is still pretty versatile.

It has two mixable oscillators, sine-triangle-saw-square, with variable pulse wide on the square, although you can't set this manually. Pulse width has to be modulated. There's a slightly underwhelming sub-oscillator, plus white noise and an audio input. The audio input goes through the envelopes and the filter.

It also has ring modulation and oscillator sync. The Mono Station's manual does a poor job of explaining how to make oscillator sync sound good - it works best if you apply a bit of pitch modulation to the sync source. At that point the sync effect makes the distinctive beoooo sound.

There's a single, multi-envelope, sync-able, key-syncable LFO that can be assigned to pitch, pulse width, filter cutoff, and the distortion effect. The distortion has three types, all of which have a digital-sounding crackly crunch. There's also a relatively subtle overdrive effect. As pictured above the Mono Station uses glowing LED lights to show the depth of a modulation source.

The six-part, button-driven modulation matrix is easy enough to use, although it would be nice if there was a way to quickly zero out the modulation. Sometimes I found that my patch sounded odd, at which point I had to click through each of the six modulation destinations to make sure that they weren't interfering with the sound. The modulation depth knob doesn't have detents, so you have to be really precise to zero out the modulation.

The Mono Station has one envelope and one LFO, which is reminiscent of the original Roland SH-101. Sadly this means that you can't combine a slow-running filter sweep with fast-moving pulse width modulation, for example. But it's work-around-able.

There are two filters. The 12dB filter has a bright sound. The 24dB filter is darker-sounding, more Moogy, very powerful. I've always had a penchant for Doctor Who-style chunk-a-chunk bass sounds, and the 24dB filter is good at that.

Unusually the two oscillators are independently addressable. Ordinarily the Mono Station acts as a two-oscillator mono synth, but if there are any notes in the second sequencer channel they're assigned to the second oscillator. This also works with incoming MIDI information, with the two oscillators using two selectable MIDI channels. By default the Mono Station's single envelope is only triggered by the first sequencer channel, so oscillator two only appears in the shadow cast by oscillator one, but there is an option to trigger the envelope from both channels.

As a MIDI synth module the Circuit Mono has one problem that annoyed me. It transposes incoming MIDI notes to the selected scale. It puzzled me for ages until I realised I needed to set the scale to chromatic if I wanted to address every note. A subsidiary issue is that the scales aren't labelled. It would have been nice if Novation had simply cut the range down to eight scales - there are sixteen scales, which feels excessive - and labelled them underneath the lower row of pads.

The clock output is compatible with the sync ports on the Korg Volcas. The CV/gate output is tied to sequencer channel one.

Which brings me to the sequencer. There are three channels. Channel one controls oscillators one and two. The second channel controls oscillator two. And there's a third channel that contains modulation data, which is useful if you want to layer a pattern of accents on top of several other sequences. A later firmware update turn this into a fully-fledged third sequencer channel that can drive external gear from the Aux CV output.

The sequencer has some clever ideas, but also some limitations. Each channel can have an independent pattern chain. You can set channel one to loop after four patterns while channel two loops through three patterns, and the patterns themselves can be shortened from sixteen steps. Chaining them together is a simple matter of holding down the first step and then pressing the other steps in sequence, but as with the Korg Volcas you can only step through the patterns in order. You can't program a song that goes 1-1-1-2-1-2-3-4, for example.

The process of programming the actual notes reminds me of the Arturia BeatStep Pro, but it's clunkier. With the BeatStep, you can cue up a sequence and then selectively mute notes while the sequence plays, or add notes transparently, which is great for live sequencing. On paper you can also do that with the Circuit Mono, but in practice pressing the keyboard immediately triggers a note, which interrupts the sequence. There doesn't seem to be a way to cue up notes silently, or at least if there is I couldn't find it in the manual.

A second issue is that the current view is tied to the playing pattern. If you want to edit pattern 1, and you're playing a chain of patterns that goes 1-2-3-4, you have to wait for the Circuit Mono to loop back to pattern 1 before you can edit it, and you have to implement your edit before it moves to pattern 2. In general I find the BeatStep superior as a live sequencer.

The Mono Station will synchronise up with the BeatStep Pro via clock sync, and vice-versa.

The sequencer has one major limitation. The two melody channels are hardwired to oscillators 1+2 and 2 respectively, as if Novation really wanted to interest you in paraphony. In practice this means that anything you put in sequencer channel 2 triggers the second oscillator. It would have been nice if channel 2 could have been used purely to drive external gear. The aforementioned firmware update essentially does this with the modulation channel, which is nice, and it's less of a limitation if you just use the Mono Station as a clock source, but it's a problem if you intend to use the device as the heart of an analogue studio.

Now, this is more of a feature request than a limitation, but it would have been great if the Mono Station simply had four individually assignable sequencer channels that could be set to drive any combination of oscillators or external gear. I have the impression the designers started with the Novation Circuit's two-polyphonic-synthesisers-plus-drums arrangement and simply transposed it to the Mono Station, but it doesn't make as much sense on a monophonic synth that hasn't got a separate percussion engine.

Are there any other limitations? The Bass Station 2 has an arpeggiator. The Mono Station doesn't. You can in theory program a pattern as an arpeggio, but there's no way to transpose it, either with the keyboard or with incoming note data.

The Mono Station will also synchronise via MIDI clock, although this requires a chain of 3.5mm-to-MIDI-to-3.5mm adapters. The Mono Station and BeatStep Pro both use the same 3.5mm-to-MIDI protocol, so in theory a direct stereo 3.5mm cable connection should work. I tried this, and it worked, but it's apparently bad form.

This is why I think of the Circuit Mono as a Bass Station 2 with a built-in sequencer rather than as a fully-fledged groovebox. The original Novation Circuit had rudimentary reverb and delay effects, and a drum channel. The Circuit Mono Station doesn't have that, so if you plan to use it as a portable ideas notepad you'll probably get sick of sixteen-step basslines, at which point it becomes very limited. A simple Tangerine Dream-style delay would have been nice.

If you plan to take it on a journey with you the Mono Station is roughly the same size as two Korg Volcas. It'll synchronise with them using simple mono Eurorack patch cables, but you would of course need a small mixer as well. The Mono Station has an audio input, but it goes through the filter and envelope, which can't be bypassed. You can of course pair it with a MacBook Air, but you'd need some kind of audio interface, because the Mono Station's USB connection only carries MIDI. Of note the Mono Station relies on a 12v mains adapter for power.

How would I have implemented the Mono Station? I would have taken one of two directions. If money was tight I would have dropped the paraphonic, duophonic aspect, dropped the ring modulator, added a delay effect, and also added four individual, assignable sequencer channels, with channel one optionally driving the internal synthesiser and the others driving either the CV output or a selectable MIDI channel. If there was room for a simple drum synth on the unit, or even just a bunch of drum samples, I would have thrown that in as a bonus.

Or, if the economics were viable, I would have given the Mono Station four individual, assignable sequencer channels, and four separate single-oscillator synthesiser engines, one per channel, that could be combined in different ways. This would have turned the Mono Station into a Vermona Perfourmer with a built-in four-channel sequencer. The end result would probably have been very expensive, but I can't think of anything else like it on the market. The end result would have been Depeche Mode's Speak and Spell in a box.

It also synchronises with the original BeatStep, although you have to remember that the original BeatStep had its own MIDI adapter.

So, that's the Circuit Mono Station. On the positive side, it's a cheap way to get hold of the guts of a Novation Bass Station 2 in a compact case, and the sequencer is handy. On the negative side the sequencer has some major limitations, but on the positive side again it's much easier to use than the sequencers built into Korg's Volca modules. If you think of it as a kind of super-Volca it makes a lot more sense than it does as the sequencing heart of an analogue studio.

Korg iM1: A Slickness in the Sky

There was a famous slogan in the punk era. "This is a chord. This is another. This is a third. Now form a band."

Let's fast-forward a decade to the late 1980s. How could we update that slogan? "This is a Korg M1. This is a copy of Zero-G's Datafile One. This is a second-hand Akai S950 sampler. Now come up with a band name, but you don't need to actually form a band, just come up with a name. You will be the band. You, and samples."

You might also need an ADAT recorder and an Alesis Quadraverb. And possibly an Atari ST with a cracked copy of Cubase. Maybe a little mixing desk to tie it all up. And some old records, although Datafile One covers that. This being 1989 all of the aforementioned would have cost you several thousand pounds, but it was all you needed to make an actual chart hit. To be an actual, bona fide pop star. To appear on Top of the Pops, standing awkwardly behind a keyboard while dancers did their thing in front of you.

You might also have wanted to hire a really good singer. And a model, who would appear in the video, but not on the record. You would have one, maybe two top ten singles.

Then it would all go wrong. Your first album would reach #14 in the charts on the back of the singles. Your second album would spend a week at number sixty. The record label would void your contract. And now it is 1993, and tastes have changed. You're baffled by the new sounds of trip-hop and jungle and big beat. You can't catch up, but it was fun while it lasted.

iVCS3 running on an iPad Mini

But let's talk about the Korg M1. It was launched in 1988, but it took a few years to become ironic, and then it had a second wind. Now, whatever your opinion of Apple, you have to admit that the company has a wide range of interesting musical apps for the iPad and iPhone. Near the top of the tree is Apesoft's iVCS3 (pictured above). It's a software recreation of the impenetrable-but-fascinating EMS VCS3. There's also Moog's Model D, which recreates the Moog MiniMoog, and Olympia's Patterning, a drum machine with a novel circular interface. And iM1, a modern interpretation of the Korg M1.

Modern-ish, because it was launched in 2015, but Korg continues to update it, and it works fine with modern versions of iOS. As of 2025 it sells for £29.99, but it's occasionally on offer. For that money you get a simulation of most of a Korg M1, with the original presets, plus some more presets from the expanded M1EX, and an in-app option to buy more presets from a bunch of voice cards.

Which isn't a particularly appealing option, because the key to the M1's success was the iconic range of sounds that came with the original keyboard. Extra sounds are nice, but do you really want a batch of b-list sounds from a 1990s digital synth? Neither do I.

What is the Korg M1? It's a sample-based synthesiser with a built-in sequencer and multi-effects. For many years it was the best-selling synthesiser of all time. Why was it so popular? There were essentially two reasons.

Firstly, it was a miniature studio in keyboard form. It had an eight-track sequencer that could play eight separate instruments at once, including drums. The architecture was built on a pool of samples, including guitars, electric basses, pianos etc, which meant that it was one of the first synthesisers that didn't necessarily sound electronic. It could do rock or orchestral arrangements, not just techno.

It also had a built-in multi-effects unit with a mixture of reverbs and delays - standard stuff at the time - but also distortion, EQ, an exciter, a phaser, even a rotary speaker simulator. As a result the M1's presets sounded unusually slick, as if they were part of a finished record. Korg's preset designers didn't just splash the effects onto the sounds arbitrarily, they knew how to make the built-in samples sound good.

The second and most important reason was the M1's range of preset sounds. As a synthesiser - as a means of generating new tones - the M1 was very limited. Nowadays it's often called a ROMPler, because it was really just a sample playback unit with a bunch of waveforms stored in a built-in ROM chip. The synthesis engine had a bank of four megabytes of 16-bit, 44khz samples that could be layered and fed into the multi-effects unit. There was a simple non-resonant digital filter, although it was more of a muffler than a proper filter. As if to compensate for its stiffness the envelopes were unusually complex, partially to enable a simple form of wave sequencing and partially to disguise the lack of real-time control.

But very few people minded the limited synth engine, because the preset sounds were fantastic. For the first time, a relatively affordable keyboard synthesiser had lengthy, professionally-recorded 16-bit sampled presets, instead of compressed little sound snippets. The traditional instruments were impressive enough to use as stand-ins for their real-life cousins, while the sci-fi sounds were perfect for ambient techno. As far as I can tell literally the first sound on The Orb's "Back Side of the Moon" is a Korg M1, specially the Universe preset:

Unfortunately the M1's sounds quickly became overused. I don't know exactly which instruments Livin' Joy used to make "Dreamer", but to my untutored ears the whole track sounds like Korg M1 with some drum samples layered on top:

Beyond the house piano and heavenly choir the M1's other popular preset was a boop-boop, boopy-boopy organ sound. It was bassy, but it also had enough treble that it didn't get buried by the drums. It was used prominently on The Nightcrawlers' "Push the Feeling On", which is another record that seems to have been created entirely with a Korg M1 and drum samples. The M1 also coincided with the Nintendo SNES, which used sample playback for its music, so a lot a SNES games had M1 samples because the composer owned an M1.

Apropos of nothing here's a recording of Japanese ambient radio station St. GIGA, which might not have any M1 on it as far as I can tell, but it reminds me of the era (nb there's a really good track at the 24:30 mark):

On the whole the M1's mixture of clean samples and digital reverb have a slickness that got old quickly. If music was a big circle, the Korg M1 would be on one side, and Johnny Cash's American Recordings would be on the other. Even in the field of dance music it dated badly. But some of the synth strings and pads have a timeless quality, and it has a lot more character than the General MIDI keyboards that followed it.

But what of iM1? It doesn't have the sequencer, presumably taken out because there are better options. I admit I haven't tried sequencing iM1 with my iPad. Instead I used Logic running on a Macintosh. The iPad has terrific integration with a Mac. It acts as both an instrument and a digital audio input, so I don't have to run a cable from the headphone jack to my audio interface. When hooked up in the fashion iM1 essentially operates as a virtual instrument within Logic, but running on an iPad.

As far as I can tell it's 44khz, stereo only, but so was the original M1. What if you don't have Logic, or a Macintosh? That's a good question. Technically it's two questions. Two good questions.

As with the Korg Volca FM there's a certain pointlessness to iM1. Korg also sells a VST version that can run directly in a sequencer, although at $49.99 it's not an impulse buy. For the record I paid £12.99 for the iPad version, which is slightly more awkward to use than the VST version and doesn't save any money if you don't already have an iPad. Compared to an actual M1, however, iM1 has a much nicer interface, and real-time parameter control. It has limited support for automation.

As a proof of concept I recorded the following piece of music using the iM1, plus Nils Schneider's free VST recreation of the Kawai K1. I was going for an early-90s SNES soundtrack / synthesiser demo song feel.

The Kawai K1 was a blend of M1 and Korg Wavestation. Each patch could be created from four samples layered on top of each other, mixed with a joystick in real time. The samples were 8-bit and very muffled, and there was no filter at all, and some things still baffle me. There's an LFO, but seemingly no way to assign it to anything. A complex modulation section, but no way to assign the envelopes to anything except volume, which is a shame because the amplitude modulation feature would have benefited from pitch modulation of the amplitude source. But it's free, so I shouldn't grumble.

While playing with iM1 it struck me that if you didn't grow up in the 1990s its sounds probably don't come across as cheesy and dated. And for an early ROMPler the recording quality of the samples is surprisingly good, so in isolation the M1 doesn't sound all that old-fashioned today. And perhaps you do want to evoke the sounds of Culture Beat or Whigfield.

Anything else? As with the original keyboard iM1 is eight-part multitimbral, but it only supports a single stereo output. This is one thing the original M1 has over iM1, because the original M1 had four separate audio outputs. It has limited support for automation, which is undocumented in the manual, but it will respond to MIDI control codes. The M1 was 16-voice polyphonic with dual-sample single patches, whereas iM1 raises this to 64 voices. On my first-generation iPad Pro it never slowed down, but then again the application is quite old and is at heart only playing back a bunch of samples.

As mentioned up the page Korg sells extra sounds as in-app DLC. The two expansions are £2.99 each. I'm sure there are some gems, but a large part of iM1's appeal is the M1's ironic, original set of preset sounds. The Korg T1 was probably fantastic, but what does it mean in 2025? The M1 has meaning, that counts for a lot.