Phase Monkey — Poly Synth

Still, years later, this developer has demonstrated their inability to fix both the broken pitch-bend as well as the broken modulation control on at least the iPhone 12. The app slides instead of the sliders. I will no longer support incompetent developers any longer.

There aren’t a lot of Phase Distortions synths on IOS…. as of 2023 we only have Shockwave and the vintage yet still excellent Phase84. The newest one, known as Phase Monkey, may be the best of the three. The sound is excellent, no getting around it. If you’re a preset surfer, there aren’t a lot of built-in presets … but the ones there sound great. Now if you’re a sound designer like me, however, you’re gonna have a lot of fun with this little monkey. Creating patches is a breeze, and this fella is deep, yet set up in a way where it’s deceptively simple to use. Ooga Booga yourself to the ape store I mean AppStore and grab this synth posthaste… you’ll be glad you did

The envelopes surprised me, because the interface doesn't immediately suggest the eight-parted nature of their function. In fact, this is something I wish the dev would rework. Fully visualizing the envelopes (perhaps tracking the timing visually, as the signal progresses), which are a key feature of the synthesizer, as it turns out, would call user attention to their use while making the synth easier to patch. All that said, this Monkey sounds really good, with appropriate bite (all monkeys, as we know, bite - in fact, I have an appalling song with that name from some years ago). It is priced right, so everyone should go ahead and get in phase.

8-stage envelopes! :-o It’s still not completely sunk in yet…the power that is. My breakfast got cold ‘cause of this. Breakfast’ is my most important meal, being thin. It got cold! Lol, Phase Monkey is ‘serious fun’. I have every serious gran/synth app and this is both something fresh in concept, UI, and especially, in sound and sound tapestries. I mean 8-stages up to 10 seconds each or for milliseconds Between the detuned dual oscillators, some of the ‘standing wave’ kind of effect between the LFO and the Envelopes, then add polyphony snd you can make some pretty interesting and complex sound textures/tapestries. Phase Monkey is real easy to use, physically with my sausage fingertips on my iPhone 12! I can not overemphasize that point for those who care. After figuring out a lot, it was off to the manual where I discovered the 8-Stages of sound. I dare you to try and NOT make an interesting sound with Phase Monkey!

I bought app and downloaded it but it does not open!? P.S. Problem was fixed! Developer responded right away and issue of not starting was solved! App works smoothly, is very intuitive, fun to use, and sounds great! Highly recommend!