MATRIXSYNTH: Knifonium


Showing posts with label Knifonium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Knifonium. Show all posts

Friday, March 15, 2024

Knif Audio : Knifonium Synthesizer • HYPERION Vol.1 🎛️ Custom Presets


video upload by ultimateXsounds

"Hyperion Vol.1 - Custom Presets for the Knifonium software synthesizer. Inspired by the evocative soundscapes of cinematic masterpieces such as 'Oppenheimer,' 'All Quiet on the Western Front,' and 'DUNE,' this collection showcases the raw power and sonic beauty inherent in the Knifonium."

https://www.ultimatexsounds.com/

You can find additional posts featuring the Knifonium, both hardware and software, here. Knif Audio's software emulation was announced in 2020.

Thursday, June 08, 2023

Knif Audio Knifonium Monophonic Analog Tube Synthesizer

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.


via this auction

You can find demos of the Knifonium in previous posts here.

"Incredibly rare Knif Audio Knifonium monophonic tube synthesizer keyboard. These are no longer in production or available to purchase new and limited to only 45 units made worldwide. Features include 26 tube monophonic synthesizer with two oscillators and a 4th order ladder filter and a ring modulator. Beautiful wood cabinet and reverse black/white keyboard. A true work of art. Don't pass up on this rare chance to own a unique custom build synthesizer. From original owner's smoke free home studio. It's fully functional and in excellent shape. Includes external power supply, hardcase and spare tubes."

Saturday, February 04, 2023

Jonte Knif's KNIFONIUM - Handmade Miniature 1/6 scale.


video upload by Ronaldo Lopes Teixeira ROLT

And the original: (see the Knifonium label for more)

Knifonium team on fire (!/?)

video upload by Jonte Knif

"It was a rare occasion. Six Knifoniums in a row. We had to do something."

Testing the Knifonium batch of 2022

video upload by Jonte Knif

"Getting a bit out of control during test procedures. Too much fun. 100% live. No externals. No sequencers."

Jonte Knif: Knifonium [from 2013]

video upload by BRQ Vantaa Festival

"Jonte Knif esittelee rakentamaansa analogisyntetisaattori knifoniumia.

Olli Virtaperko: Ambrosian delights, konsertto knifoniumille ja barokkiorkesterille
Kantaesitys Ke 7.8. klo 19 Pyhän Laurin kirkko, Kirkkotie 45, Vantaa
Suomalainen barokkiorkesteri
Jonte Knif, knifonium
Ville Matvejeff, kapellimestari

Info: http://www.brq.fi/en/ohjelmainfo/ambr...
Tickets: https://brq.mycashflow.fi/product/6/k...

Olli Virtaperko: Ambrosian delights, concerto for knifonium and baroque orchestra
Premiere: Wed August 7th at 7 pm The Church of St. Lawrence
(Kirkkotie 45, Vantaa)
The Finnish Baroque Orchestra
Jonte Knif, knifonium
Ville Matvejeff, director"

Tuesday, July 07, 2020

Plugin Alliance Announces Enhanced Emulation of Knifonium Tube-driven Synth



Knif Audio Knifonium - Playthrough


Knif Audio Knifonium - Overview with Matthew Wang

Plugin Alliance


"SANTA CRUZ, CA, USA: Plugin Alliance, supporting all major plugin formats and uniting some of the best-known international audio companies under one virtual roof, is proud to announce availability of Knif Audio Knifonium — solidifying sister company Brainworx Audio’s new plugin partnership with Finnish pro audio equipment extraordinaire Knif Audio as an enhanced emulation of the extraordinary Knifonium, an exceptionally beautiful-sounding monophonic synthesizer that is driven by a whopping 26 vacuum tubes — as of July 7…

As an upscale synth sensation, the Knifonium features two tube-driven oscillators, a 4th order ladder filter, a ring modulator, and a gorgeous ‘steampunk’ aesthetic (worthy of American science fiction author K. W. Jeter — originator of the term — himself). Handcrafted in small batches by high-end audio device designer Jonte Knif, the original hardware unit really reflects his incomparable attention to detail. But beautiful as it is, the Knifonium is not just expensive eye-candy capable of making ‘weird noises’ but rather an exceptionally musical and inspiring instrument that offers countless possibilities for shaping and modulating sounds.

Although a new addition to the Plugin Alliance family, the notable Knif Audio name is revered by hardcore synth freaks and audiophile engineers alike. And although lead designer Jonte Knif has been making vacuum tube-based hardware for mixing, mastering, and sound design for years, his Knifonium synth sensation is carefully crafted to be second to none. No one sums it up better than Jonte himself, however, who simply says: “It sounds like nothing else.”

Engineers at Brainworx Audio have taken a great thing and made it even better. Because not only is the plugin version of the Knifonium even more accessible and easier to use than the original, it also adds features that just aren’t possible in the analog world.

With eight independent voices added to the synthesizer, Knif Audio Knifonium opens up an entirely new universe of possibilities as an enhanced emulation — for instance, imagine an atmospheric-sounding pad produced by a total of 208 vacuum tubes!

The software version also adds M/S (mid-side) and stereo Spread capabilities, a powerful Unison mode, as well as the carefully-curated FX section, including a well-known vintage-style Phaser, plugin partner brand SPL’s EQ Ranger, Wavefolder, and more as a wide range of effects that Knif Audio Knifonium users will actually want to use.

Ultimately, Knif Audio Knifonium sounds uniquely rich and captivating — even at its most basic. But best of all, Jonte Knif confirms that it sounds and behaves just like the real thing. This should come as little surprise since Brainworx Audio meticulously modeled the complete circuits of the original hardware — including all 26 tubes, and applied its patented TMT (Tolerance Modeling Technology) to recreate the natural variations in Envelope parameters, Pitch, LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator) speed, and so many more characteristics to make this digital recreation sound as realistically analog and natural as possible.

Knif Audio Knifonium is available for purchase (as an AAX AudioSuite-, AAX Native-, AU-, VST2-, and VST3-supporting, fully NKS — Native Kontrol Standard — compatible virtual instrument plugin for macOS 10.9 through 10.15 and Windows 7 through 10)
at an attractive introductory price of $199.99 USD until August 10, 2020 — rising thereafter to an MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price) of $299.00 USD — from here: https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/knif_audio_knifonium.html"

Monday, November 05, 2018

darkenergymedia labs livesream


Started streaming 23 minutes ago darkenergymedia

"livestream of indefinite length.
knifonium manipulation, recording, and sound design."

Monday, January 15, 2018

Knif Audio Knifonium Tube Mono Synthesizer

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
Published on Oct 5, 2017 Olli Virtaperko

"Olli Virtaperko: Ambrosian Delights, concerto for Knifonium and chamber orchestra
Part I, Fat & Filth, the Knifonium Cadenza
Jonte Knif, Knifonium
Recorded 31 March 2017 at Hannikaissali, Jyväskylä, Finland.
Released by Ondine in CD Romer's Gap/three concertos (ODE-13052)"

O. Virtaperko: Ambrosian Delights for Knifonium & Baroque orchestra

Published on Oct 9, 2017 Olli Virtaperko

"Olli Virtaperko: Ambrosian Delights
Concerto for Knifonium & Baroque orchestra (original version)
Jonte Knif, Knifonium soloist
Finnish Baroque Orchestra FIBO, conducted by Ville Matvejeff

I Fat & Filth – Cadenza (0’00-7’30)
II Ambrosian Delights (7’30-12’41)
III Passacaglia (12’41-17’08)
IV More is More (17’08- 27’25)

Recorded 6 September 2014 at Vaasa Church, Vaasa, Finland
Full orchestral score: http://www.virtaperko.fi/ambrosian-de..."


via this auction

See this post for additional demos.

"Jonte Knif is a genius designer of top-top-top-notch audio equipment. He makes some of the best mastering gear in the world, notably the unparalleled Soma equalizer. A few years ago he decided to put his mastery of electrical engineering and tube topology to the test by building an all-tube analog synthesizer, the Knifonium. The first batch of 6 saw two bought by Hans Zimmer (they are used subtly in the Interstellar soundtrack, and less subtly as a guest synth in the Blade Runner soundtrack). The second batch of 6 brought improvements to the routing and performance-based usability. This is from the second batch, and is currently one of 12 in the world - and the only one in this colour! (all the others are reddish wood, as opposed to this dark stain).

Simply put, this is the biggest sounding raw-sound I've ever heard from an instrument. The all-tube build allows you to overdrive various tube types at various points in the signal chain, layering nonlinearities into complex tones that react to your performance. And it's not just the core sound: there's a ton of performance tools, such as a buttery-smooth XY joystick that's assignable to tons of parameters, velocity sensitivity, aftertouch (also assignable to various things), a very shapeable LFO, and a second full assignable envelope besides the standard VCA. It's honestly absurd. The best instrument I've ever played.

This is a unique, rare piece that will add real tonal power and texture to your work. Take advantage of my momentary lapse in judgement and need for funds and grab this. Jonte will be building more, but the wait time is very long.

Includes the huge power supply, solid flight case, and a full set of extra tubes!"

Friday, April 22, 2016

Knifonium Joystick Manipulations


Published on Apr 22, 2016 darkenergymedia

"stripped the knifonium down to two slightly detuned saw waves. manipulating filter cutoff with the y-axis of the joystick, and 12 semitones of pitchbend with the x-axis. very little resonance on the filter. output amp set to pentode, VCA boost disengaged.

there is NO POSTPROCESSING on the knifonium with the exception of mild limiting which was applied to the output of the track as a whole. other than that, no compression, EQ, or other effects have been used.

this is pure, unadulterated tube madness. utterly satisfying. other than the unfortunate wubby dubstep feel to the whole affair."

See the Knifonium label below for more.

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

KNIFONIUM SteampunkSpaceSpies - 25 Tube Monophonic Synthesizer


Published on Apr 5, 2016 darkenergymedia

"25 tube monophonic synthesizer.

This piece of music is done entirely (including percussion and sound effects) with the Knifonium Tube synthesizer, made by Jonte Knif. For purchase information contact Geoff Farr at GSF Agency (http://www.gsfagency.com).

---

This was recorded and edited using MOTU's Digital Performer. I started working on this back in November, capturing some wild performances, effects, and percussion sounds.
Native Instruments Kontakt was used for building up and temping the tracks, then many were augmented or replaced by doing repeated multitrack passes directly from the Knifonium.
A pair of Lexicon MPX500s were used for pingpong delays during tracking on a few parts, but all other FX were within Digital Performer.
Final mix was captured to an Apogee Ensemble.

I felt that there were plenty of demos of the instrument in its raw state (not multi tracked) so I had to see how far I could take this. The tune had been hanging in my brain for about 3 weeks, and the Knifonium seemed like a very Steampunk Sci-Fi instrument, so this is what I had to do...
Enjoy!

Drew Neumann

Knifonium SteampunkSpaceSpies Copyright 2016 Drew Neumann, Droomusic (ASCAP) www.droomusic.com

---

directed by chris morgan | darkenergymedia
http://www.darkenergymedia.com

produced by GSF Agency
http://www.gsfagency.com"

See the Knifonium channel below for more.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

New Details on the Knifonium 25 Tube Monophonic Synthesizer


See the Knifonium channel for previous posts including video.

"Knifonium is a 25 tube monophonic synthesizer with a 4th order ladder filter and a ring modulator.
Basic Specs:
Oscillator 1 (5 tubes)
-Sawtooth, Triangle, Pulse, Sine
-Sync
-FM
-Octaves 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 -Coarse tune in semitone steps-Fine tune in +/- 100 cents.

Oscillator 2 (3 tubes)
-Sawtooth, Triangle, Sine
-is master for sync and modulator for FM
-Octaves 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 -Coarse tune in semitone steps-Fine tune in +/- 100 cents.

Noise (2 tubes):
-Noise generator is a special tube that is subjected to strong magnetic field. -White, Pink and Red.

Ring modulator (3 tubes)
-Input is sine waves from both oscillators or anything from external inputs, feedback et cetera, drive volume can be adjusted
-Very wide nonlinear range available.

Mixer (2 tubes)
-A tube op amp, virtual earth mixer with one external input.
-3 of the input levels can be modulated.

Filter (7 tubes)
-4th order ladder filter.
-Can go from clean to messy to violent depending on levels and resonance.

VCA (2 tubes)
-Transformer coupled variable mu pentode design.
-More than 40dB of linear range. Capable of total shut down. A switch to increase internal level by 10 dB for nice distortion.

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Knifonium Tube Syntheszier Demos


Published on Jan 19, 2014

"In this video I try to demonstrate the Knifonium tube synthesizer. I start with the basic oscillator sounds and then add various "extras" such as changing the amplifier modes and boost, oscillator sync, FM, filter and amp feedback controls, the amazing ring modulator, and the sample and hold modification of the filter cutoff. Along the way I play with filter cutoff and some resonance stuff and basically have fun with it. The joystick controls filter cutoff in the Y direction and pitch in the X direction.

Most of the video is recorded with the Knifonium sound raw into my DAW (Sonar X3 Producer) with absolutely no processing or EQ. I wanted to give people an idea of what it sounds like as you are playing. Towards the end of the video I introduce effects from my Strymon Mobius, Timeline, and Big Sky. It's pretty obvious when they kick in."

Run Away Sound Track

Published on Jan 18, 2014

"This is a first video made with two new pieces of gear. The background sequences are done with my Juno 106 that has been modified with the Kiwi 106 board. This gives it a lot of new features including a sequencer. At the very beginning I use the editor to start the sequencer remotely. The synth you see me playing is the Knifonium which is an all tube synthesizer developed by Jonte Knif of Knif Audio. Everything was recorded live without any overdubbing at all. The only effects are the Juno 106 is going through a Lexicon PCM-80 and the Knifonium is going through an Eventide H3000 D/SE.

The original inspiration for this was me fooling with the Knifonium which I have just had for a day and putting it through the H3000 D/SE and feeling like it had a movie sound track feel. Like if you were walking into a bad situation. On the same day I finished installing the Kiwi 106 upgrade and when I used the sequencer they just seemed to mesh into some sound track like feeling. So...it was snowing all day and I just put it all together for fun.

The Knifonium has a HUGE sound to it. This video doesn't really show it off much but it was just a lot of fun to make so I figured why not since there is not much out there on the Knifonium yet. More to come on that!"

Friday, November 09, 2012

Knifonium Tube Synth

Knifonium vol1 by Jonte Knif
"This is the first dirty demo of my Knifonium tube synth. Dry, directly to line, unprocessed. Ignore the "music" enjoy sounds."



Pics of the inside below.  Check out the keys. Some details from the creator Jonte via the sequencer.de forums:

"Hello folks,

I've spent several months with this project, and now I'm beginning to believe, that I will actually finish it. Missing from the photos are of course front panels, keys, power supply, all semiconductor stuff etc. Photos and early CAD drawings here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/jonte.knif ... 7611939218

https://picasaweb.google.com/jonte.knif ... 3748053346

Shortly: Oscillators, ring modulator, mixer, moog type filter, noise source, Vari Mu type VCA and output amp are tube units. Everything else is IC and some discrete. Don't ask for schematics, I spent full three months on the circuits alone.

Tuning systems can be changed with small plug in boards. Oscillators have saw, triangle, pulse and very crude sine. There is sync and FM modulation. Keyboard will have after touch but not dynamics. Three octaves of keys, in imitation ivory and imitation tortoise shell.

-Jonte"

Followed by:

"Hallo!

Let me drop in and clarify some things, the concept, my thinking and some techinical details for those who understand English. I understand German pretty well, but don't want to humiliate myself trying to write it, sorry. It would look terrible. :)

First of all, tubes are super stable compared to solid stated devides when it comes to temperature drift. Typical tube originated tuning drift in Knifonium at 440Hz is 2Hz per hour after initial warm up period. On strictly component level typical triode will change transconductance much less than a fet or transistor when temperature changes. Long time aging effects are of course much more important in tubes. Solid state devices stabilize after a couple of days, and only break. Tubes slowly get weaker and weaker. I have now kept the synth on for a couple of months, and can not note any aging effects so far, but they will eventually appear. Then you just change tubes.

Noise? What? :) Yes, I have a noise generator there, an old concept where you place a strong magnetic field on a thyratron tube. Makes very fine white noise. Othervise this thing is dead silent, no humm, no buzz, no noise if not wanted.

It is funny that someone here was sceptical about the ring modulator. in fact it is most fun and interesting when done with a primitive diode tubes+transformers topology and in Knifonium it is surely is one of the most effective ways to get sounds with a little bit of something extra. it is NOT the same thing as IC based state modern ring mod or transformers + diodes topology, they all have their own uses and sounds. IC thingies are the mathematically most perfect and most boring etc.

My past includes a lot of cembalo playing and building, formal "classical composition" and instrument acoustics. That and many other things made me want to specifically create something *I* like, a very "traditional" synth, but with more personality and versatility than those synths I have used myself, Moog Prodigy and Mini Moog. Fine synths, but still not quite there. My main job is to build mastering gear, and that stuff I like to keep absolutely neutral, so it was super fun to let things really get out of controll in the synth.

I have not used tubes in such parts that would not make any difference, all controll electronics is IC based, and I have even put a couple of semiconductors along tubes where they make no difference. It is impossible to hear from the crude first clips what it really means to have a proper tube VCA (not some crude single tube piece of crap, but complex variable mu VCA with transformers). It reacts in a very different way to different signal levels, and the distortions produced can not be simulated with just putting a tube amp after some normal synth.

You might not believe it, but Moog filter is very easy (well, easy if you understand how to...) to make with tubes, and it works beautifully. And still, because the non linearities are quite different and there is broader over load margin it will sound different.

Same applies to oscillators, the waveforms are very different than from typical solid state oscillators.

There is a lot of "iron" on the signal path, i.e. a lot of transformers. This is not to be overlooked. They produce a lot of different low frequency saturation distortions and most importantly the way magnetic iron works creates a "thickening" effect to sounds, this is probably due to Barkhausen effect, "barkhausen noise".

No doubt many of the subtleties are not to be heard by some people, but make no mistake, difference there is.

I have no special needs to brag about the project, I will only manufacture 6 units next year, (I have my mastering gear business to take care of) and those 6 units will be sold in no time. There are now 2 or 3 sold, so if interested, you got to hurry. BUT I do want to make it known that I am not a person to build something based on improper knowledge or non-experience or dubious motivation. But surely I am *a bit* crazy, this was huge work! And yes, of course esthetics played a part in the motivation.

More sounds will follow after I find time to finnish the synth. Probably in January. FM, PW modulation, most modulations, after touch, joystick, feedback, all unfinished at the moment. So what you hear in the "demo" is just oscillators, noise, sync, ring mod, filter and VCA. Not even the output amp which will include more distorion modes and more "sound of iron"

There is no need to argue about the sense to use tubes. I only use them in ways that produce different sounds compared to solid state or digital, and one can like it or not, one does hear it or then not, but difference there is. In my mastering gear the differences to best solid state gear are in deed small, but oh-so-important for the engineers. In the synth's case the differences are *huge* compared to that mastering stuff world ;)

-Jonte"
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