Bad Gear - Novation Circuit Mono Station 

Audiopilz: *slaps roof of YT channel* Full Tracks, Extended Jams, Sample Packs: www.patreon.com/audiopilz

At the first glance this Bad Gear video is ticking all the boxes. Moby lookalike, tons of random memes, controversial gear that will rise in price after this video and sick jams in genres that I didn't know existed but now need to hear a full album of.

Mission Completed! With this one, all the hardware synths I own now have a Bad Gear episode!

Appearance in the Bad Gear is actually a seal of approval for a synth. Finally Mono Station gets recognition it deserves.

I recently got a perfect condition Circuit Mono Station for around 270 bucks US, which is by far my favourite 303 emulator. The sound engine of CMS is somewhat a downgrade version of Bass Station II given only 1 LFO and 1 single EG are available. However, I would never imagine how the sequencer would change my opinion for an analog synth before CMS, which is so powerful and versertile that you could pull all your imagination into reality. People yelled that they would exchange CMS for Arturia Minibrute 2S for better sound design possibility, but I came the other way around. CMS is really a good combination of analog sounding richiness and digitally control versatility, the two separte paraphonic sequencer really made this unit shine among the synth world.

It isn't a proper Bad Gear episode without a piece of gear I own and love.

Easily my favorite under appreciated synth. These were $599 when they came out. I got mine a few months ago in mint condition for $300. I think these were confusing for a lot of people because of the original Circuit. Was my best kept secret synth till now!

I loved this so much I sold it. I then bought another a couple years later after I learned how to use synthesizers. Now I'm a happy mono station user 😄

Aww the mono station was supposed to be my hidden gem that nobody is talking about and I'd eventually buy for dirt cheap. Now it's been found >_

Monostation is one of the most useful synths I own. It sits somewhere in most of my tracks effortlessly. Never could figure out how so many missed on this one. Their loss!

That Volca Cowbell looks sweet! Especially the big "more" button!

My baby!! This is a surprisingly great synth... especially if you got it when the prices dropped. The sounds do get tired pretty quickly but I found running it through some decent pedals really opened up what you could do with it. With the Deluge sitting next to it I have more than enough colourful pad controllers... Whatever I get next is going to have keys.

Sounds good to my ears ! By the way i must confess 90% of my hardware setup has been reviewed on your channel and i am proud of it !

I really love your videos. I dont even have any synths, just digital ones, but even just the short cut scenes are gold . Thank you!

The Volca Cowbell would usher in a new era of musical renaissance for us all

It sadly came out when i just made the switch from multiple external sequencer to sequencing everything in my DAW. Otherwise i'd probably have bought one. I'm a huuuge Novation fangirl and really like their synths. It's a pretty nice synth in itself and the sequencer is one of the best in this kind of synths. I guess, it might really be worth a look, if you want to get away from those usual and overused 303 acid lines. Besides the various 303 clones there aren't many synths that offer an accessible, performance oriented sequencer like the Monostation does. If you look at it as some kind of specialized analog groovebox, it really doesn't have any competitors. Maybe that's also a reason why it failed. If there would be demand for a "groovebox synth" like the monostation, i guess there would be more competition.

Outstanding as always, love looking forward to these very friday!

You mastered the art of showing the bad side of each gear while making it sound good, showing *at the same fucking time* how can it sound good if held in good hands. Well... Also - Speach 100 - Smart ass quotes - Fantastic movies and cartoons references - amazing script - bulet speed memes and inside jokes coming letf and right -- the rare ablity of knowing how to make a little fun of yourself sometimes - great jams everytime - lots of episodes in little time spam How you are able to do all this and wrap it up so fine its beyond me. We can just be grateful. You run now the best electronic music oriented series on the internet Florian.

I have two of them you can write a baseline and melody line and then run it through a ton of different patches and do it all in the dark

thank you for doing this one! I have to admit I have a lot of fun rocking my monostation. It pairs nicely with tracks, and rhythm as well. man, I'm digging you jams this week. keep up the fantastic work you do. I look forward to your content every Friday ⚡️

In addition to his many other talents, Mr Pilz is a chap who knows the value of a well placed guitar pedal

I'm starting to think there might be a correlation between 3.5mm midi sockets and bad gear status

I didn't realise this beast existed! A bass station 2 groovebox ticks all my boxes!

Wow, that dual circuit jam was tops man! I love this piece of gear, the whole Circuit line is so much fun imo. Great video as per usual!

This has ticked all the boxes and turned around a crappy week and I can pass out happy! That second jam was fire, btw. Loved it!

I was randomly searching for MS stuff, and being away on vacation last week I missed Bad Gear and low and behold this is here. This is lovely as usual

Can't wait for the episode with the Circuit Rythmn and see the three circuits playing together.

I remember asking for this. U have made my life since 2020! Thanks for this again

Korg marketing: "We need more cowbell! Release the volcas!!"

It's like you can read minds. I have this device, and I really like the quality of everything, and it's a good machine to get results really fast. I was thinking of getting myself a circuit and something something bass (had a bass station 2 in mind, even), and then discovered the mono station which a French seller had on massive discount. Now I have a reduced bass station 2 which looks like a circuit 😁 What I particularly like is that your can get easy results fast, but when you dive into it, you can do really sophisticated stuff with it. And as always: nice video! Thanks for all the work you put into your channel. It's become a valuable resource for synth related information. 👍

Minor correction on something you said about the CV/Gate outputs - in the 1.2 update they allowed using the mod sequencer to send the CV/Gate, decoupling it from the internal sequence. Makes it way more viable.

Just realized I wasn't subbed. I love what you did with the intro tune. You never fail to make me laugh. You're one of my favs!

Nicht nur hier auf, aber insbesondere wieder mal hier fällt mir Deine musikalische Kompetenz auf. Hinter dem klasse Konzept (Intro, Phrasen, Struktur, Closing) baust Du Dir einen ganzen Haufen Erfahrung mit Geräten und deren musikalischer "Ausschlachtung" (ok, der ist etwas heftig) auf. Konsequenz daraus: Deine Meinung zu Geräten hat für mich hohe Relevanz! Klar, gibt es noch persönliche Vorlieben, aber so breit gefächerte Erfahrung ist selten. Also nochmals: ganz klasse Format und Inhalt. Danke!

I used to have the Bass station 2. Got this. The Bass sound is amazing, but it took some time to get around the sequencer and editing. Now I love it!

I feel a little bad for Novation with this product as it feels to me like it’s a victim of behind ahead of it’s time. Behringer proved there’s still a great market for selling analogue mono synths and DAWless jamming is currently all the rage. Had this product been priced right (cheaper than a beatstep pro + Model D) it would have been a great “first synth” that gives a taste of subtractive synthesis plus a really powerful sequencer to expand into when it’s time to buy the next synth. I think a few tweaks to make the sequencer handle say 3 lanes + an external drum kit, this product could be re released with better success today given the current trends. It was an idea that came too soon and really, Novation probably deserve some praise for seeing the future even if they released it too soon to know it yet, lol

Rewatching this I realize that at the end listening to your summary it almost sounds like you fell I love. Seldomly have I seen so much passion about a bad gear device coming from you. Need to check this out. I had it 4-5 years ago but never used it cause I was irritated by the workflow but now the video made me feel like I need a challenge. Damn you !

That's it: for the forthcoming thermonuclear winter I'm only keeping the Timber Behr and Circuit Mono Station. The one thing about the Circuit Monostation is that it's a badass machine that sounds absolutely amazing in every way.

It may have taken you a long time to get a balanced sound in your "patch flip" jam, but I love how it turned out!

Me: Comes in Me: Hits Like Me: Watches video. Me: hits like, causing unlike Me: Slaps forehead Me: Slaps Like again.

Loved Morpheus unfolding his paper-doll cutout. Good review, funny as always, and informative. Thanks!

There’s some really good music in this episode.. well done!

I have two Mono stations, its unique in its kind, very hands on. Too bad that novation abandoned the synt, I hope someone do the hardware of software mods for it.

My favourite small synth! I love this thing! And yes I do understand it's a bit of a strange concept. But it's so much more versatile than it has any right to be. The patch flipping thing is great for drum sounds. It can become a unique drum machine, an acid bass machine, and a lead machine, sometimes in one sequence. This is the thing I'd rescue if my house was on fire.

Had one of these for about 5 mins, sent it back when I realised having a Bass Station 2 pretty much negated having this.

I have the cms and I love it! Excited for this one!!

I have two. (One is still brand new in its cellophane - I knew its time would come.) The under-rated "TB303" of the 21st century.

Wow that looks amazing instrument. I like the knobs are like on Peak (not like bs2). Great episode like always, cheers

And i keep desiring it... The jams you do, the sound is awesome! Bravo

EMU MP7 Command Station. The PurpleNurple extra pretty please with sugar and such on top 😻

And now with the Mono Station that's almost every piece of gear that I own covered on this channel lol, I'm pretty sure you'll get to the rest eventually but I'm not going to tell you what those are :D The Circuit Mono Station is a little bit of a strange beast, but the sequencer and automation on it are so good, really a shame it got discontinued! The workflow on it is one of the best of any analogue synths I've used

I had one of these and absolutely loved the concept, but no matter how hard I tried, just could not get a sound I loved out of it, which was a shame, as for ages it seemed like the perfect 'secret weapon' synth. Ended up sitting in a corner unloved. Sad to give up and sell it, but life is too short for synth-uninspiration

Great Video!!! I completely forgot about Mono Station Thanks for covering it. Also Would love to see a Kawai XD-5 Video.

For I am new to this, now that I have Bad Gear Reviews whats left are some Bad Synth Tutorials.

Finally a bad gear synth I own! I'm prob biased but I love it. I think there were three main problems: Firstly, despite it actually being pretty powerful, it kind of looks and feels like a toy. Second, the single envelope turned alot of people off. But most importantly, the original price was entirely too high, especially considering the early bugs, and by the time they had fixed everything and lowered the price, it was too late and any buzz they could have created was long dead. But I got mine for just over 200 bucks, and at that price, these are a steal. Especially after they released the sample flip feature, which allows this to be used in a myriad if different ways, not the least of which is a simple drum machine. The sequencer is highly underrated and super versatile. They are still readily available for around $300 in mint condition; anyone wanting a simple but great sound mono with a sequencer that has patch memories, this is def a candidate to keep in mind.

really like the sounds of the bassstation 2 for some reason. also really liked the jams in this video :)

1:14 LMAO, volca cowbel would be great. And fever, prescription and MORE knobs should be on every synthesizer from now on!

This was my first synth, great machine that Kick-started my addiction, never selling it

Love mine and the drumbrute impact I use with it. A lot of these videos seem less and less “bad gear” these days though.

It’s gorgeous and I’m shocked I’d never seen it before! Shame it didn’t have a built in drum sequencer though, as a self-contained groovebox that would’ve been 🤤

I saw one of these in a bin of old NES controllers at a charity shop a while back.

Its rare for novation to discontinue a product that quickly like bass station 2 is over 10 years old

Still amazed at the amount of skill shown in these demos. They always sound amazing. I also really enjoy the knowledge and explanations on synth related functions, I actually find actual tutorials harder to follow than this. Memes are also always on point. Will we ever see a Good Gear channel ? :) Novation.. how about the Novation supernova ? they are kinda bad, right ?

I think I recognize that "internet troll".

$260 CAD on Kijiji (after talking down the price a bit) - straight up sweetest purchase I ever made. The only thing I now regret is not getting the MicroFreak instead when it was available for $300. But with the CSM the way you can send LFO to velocity and modulate one oscillator with another, - the sound has some real character to it, I swear it feels like playing a real analog instrument of some sort. Also this little thing was the best intro into the world of pads a traditional piano guy like me could wish for.

I had buyers remorse at first but Im glad I kept the circuit mono station, mainly because I use mine as a midi/CV master controller. It replaced my Korg SQ-1.

"Hey! People love the circuit, people love the Bass Station 2! What if we did the unique and intuitive groovebox interface, but for the Station!" "So a Circuit with one Monophonic Synth voice?" "Yeeeah! But it's like, intuitive!" "So it's a Bass Station 2 with a slightly better sequencer." "No, no, It's a Circuit, but with Bass Station sounds. It's Paraphonic!" "And drums and a digital poly synth or something to round it out and make the interface worth using?" "Well, no, but -"

Absolutely love mine! Just needed some reverb and delay to really shine. 😊

i did not even know that this gear existed. Thank you for you ongoing motivation to show us all the stuffs in your conviction. ^_^

I've got 2 of these. Super underrated. I use them way more than my bass station. Built in pads give totally unique basslines, especially when played paraphonically. And they pair fantastically with circuit. I'll get a polyend medusa before long. Novation sells them refurbished for $199 when in stock.

This would have had a better chance if it was marketed more clearly. At the time the circuit was hot and was getting updates left and right. Much like today, even then, there was a lot of speculation about a new and improved circuit. And then this dropped and despite everything felt like a huge step backwards. No one saw the analog synth, no one saw the potential because it just felt like Novation completely missed the mark. No one asked for this. And that's a shame because it really is cool. I get the feeling this little thing will be "rediscovered" by some indie artist who buys one for like $50 in 2034 and then writes a top 40 hit with it,

Always a pleasure watching bad gear!

I love the synth/sequencer concept of things like this, the Polyend Medusa and the Minibrute 2S.

I had one. To me it is the ultimate tb303 without being a clone. But I hate pads and it's frustrating to not be able to name the pattern and patch.

DSI Tempest is a very devisive instrument. I wonder if there is anything else to say about it that hasn't already been said.

Jam 2 is the most interesting thing I've heard here, really well done !

Great video! I once owned the Circuit Mono Station and was very fond of it, but alas, we had to part ways. Good Stuff: The sequencer was amazing and after one of the firmware updates, it allowed me to enter a different patch to each step which made for some interesting results. The cut-down synth engine sounded nice and beefy, which gave some of my Moog's a run for their money. Not So Good Stuff: While the synth engine was OK, I do wish they would have simply migrated the full BS2 engine to expand its sound palate. I never got comfortable with the pad-based interface. Another annoyance was its garish, plasticky look. However, with all that said, your excellent tracks using the Mono Station brought back nice memories of my days with it.

I just got this yesterday used off of Reverb. I wanted a cheap, portable mono synth with patchy memory that is easy to sequence. So far I really like it. But not for its looks.

I have a BS2 and I got this to save space in my live set up. I just never understood it. The 2 voice mode was just weird. I tried for a few weeks and then had to get rid of it. I’ve had a lot of synths and this actually made me quite angry. I have no idea why. It had such potential.

Great episode! IDK, I love mine to pieces!

it sounds very nice and warm, love ur vids bruh

Imagine if this also had sample-based drum tracks

I love my circuit tracks so I could only imagine a similar sequencer on something that makes real honest to god beefy analog sounds with a nasty sounding filter. I'm assuming this would give me something like that. Obviously the sampler on the tracks is a big part of its appeal but it's synth engine doesn't come close to those sounds and I generally use it to sequence other hardware because of that.

The best reviews ever, love it.

I FUCKING LOVE YOU BROTHER. The only person that ever took it into consideration. Fukin love man

There's too much good gear on stage lately :D

As a proud owner of a Korg Volca Cowbell, I'm tired of you complaining, it's almost perfect although I have to say the cowbell is a bit disappointing.

Cosmic themed streaming service tune very good Quality as usual mate

He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty synth nerd!

It's Friday! Time for a cold beer with a new episode of Bad Gear

Novation: the substitution of an old contract for a new one.

Dam it! Now I want a Volca Cowbell. I can’t unsee it!

I wonder what people think of thing these days, since Elektron has released the Syntakt. With 12 tracks and a lot of drum sounds to pick from it's more of a fully featured groove box, but it's still got 4 analog monosynths crammed into the chassis too.

Omg you’ve now done both of my hardware synths 😅 This synth is fucking awesome and really fun to use. I’m reserving judgment on this video until I actually watch the whole thing.

great video once again.... Where's that violin playing space robot from!? Freakin cool. xD

sounds pretty cool to be, especially in the jam :)

Thanks again for the legendary videos. Would like to mention though that this synth does perform parameter locking akin to an Elektron box by holding down the sequencer step and moving any parameter. Loopop video demonstrates this. Now I’m waiting for mine to be delivered!

Spinal Tap edit made my day. Love it.

biggest mistake they made was shipped with pot pick off??? WTF doesn't want pot pick on?? Person needs sacking? Killed this awesome synth! Have two😁😁😁🙌

Sounds sick!!

I got one when they dumped them for 150€. It's such a nice mono synth and fits my Circuit v1.0 perfectly.