Hungry Robot The Monastery – Polyphonic Octaver

Hungry Robot The Monastery

The Hungry Robot Monastery is a Dual Preset, Polyphonic Octave Generator.

Octave up and octave down, at the same time, with minimal latency is possible as is excellent tracking anywhere on the neck.

This is possible even with multiple notes.

The Monastery is inspired by the rich, multi-layered, timbre of vintage organs. With its subtle Leslie warble,  Hungry Robot draws its inspiration for pedals from many interesting sources.

The Monastery has highly intuitive controls.

I deviated from the standard three-knob “Dry, Up, Down” controls used in many octave pedals and went for a more intelligent crossfade and pan arrangement.

The biggest advantage of this setup is that the volume remains at unity-gain no matter where you set the knobs.

The left knobs are the “Dry and Wet” controls.

They adjust the ratio of wet and dry and can go from 100% wet to 100% dry with an even split at twelve o’clock.

The right knobs are the “Plus and Minus” knobs. They work in a similar manner but control the ratio of octave up and octave down.

The dual preset function is compelling because you can seamlessly cycle between two presets with the right footswitch.

The top LED denotes which row of controls is active. The top row of knobs are active when the Led is on,and the bottom active when unlit.

Controls

• Dry|Wet: Cross-fades between 100% dry signal and 100% wet signal, with 50:50 at the centre position.
• Plus/ Minus: Crossfades between octave down and octave up. 50/50 split at 12 o’clock

Full details are here in the user manual

In Use

Switch seamlessly between two octave settings inside one compact pedal.

If you want all three signals equal in strength, set both knobs to 12 o’clock.

The Monastery switches preset with the right foot-switch, therefore, allowing drastically different settings across the two channels.

This makes the Monastery very versatile.

There is a small amount of “warble” in the wet signal. This is normal and gives it an amazing Leslie/Hammond feel for outstanding organ tones.

Requires 9V DC centre negative supply. Draws approx 74ma