The Mopho , by Dave Smith , is a little yellow box with a very powerful synth inside.
As you can read on the manual , the Mopho is a MOnoPHOnic synth with a full analog audio path, this is the main difference with the other DSI monosynth, the Evolver.
The Mopho was born as a single voice from the Prophet 08, with added sub oscillators.
The carachter and presence of the synth is the same of the big brother but the Mopho has a plus , a more powerful bass because of the suboscillators.
The synth structure is simple: 2 DCO with subs(1 oct down, 2 oct down) , the classic DSI Prophet Curtis lowpass filter with 12/24 dB slope 3 LFO, 3 ENV with delay.
There are no effects , but the synth has the Feedback to sound more raw and aggressive.
Another interesting function is the Filter Audio Mod, in simple words dco1 can modulate the filter frequency creating FM sounds, very interesting when the filter is near to self oscillation.
As all the other DSI synth the Mopho has a 4 track motion sequencer that can control every parameter you want, in order to create, sequenced phrases, evolving textures or powerful rhythms.
The last interesting thing is the Audio in to process external sources thru the synth engine.
The mopho has a different layout from the other DSI products, it has ten knobs with 5 of them assigned to classic controls as pitch, filter cutoff, resonance, attack and decay/release (useful for a realtime tweaking without getting into menu) and 4 are “assignable parameters”.
The editing on the machine isn’t super fast as you have to scroll the menu, but if you get into it , it can be quite easy, however using the free editor making a patch is really fast and simple.
The strenghts of the mopho are the powerful sound, the 100% analog timbre that reminds the Sequential Circuits Pro-One , the realtime controls and the dimensions, and not to forget the Price!
The down side is the editing on the machine that can be overlooked by the ones who like software editing or who use an external controller/programmer.
The Mopho is a good machine for those who are looking for powerful analog monophonic sounds for classic tasks as bass or leads but is also a good machine for who is working on more experimental sounds thanks to the motion sequencer and modulation capabilities as the fm filter mod.