{"id":96,"date":"2021-08-12T01:32:21","date_gmt":"2021-08-12T01:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/?page_id=96"},"modified":"2021-08-21T06:35:13","modified_gmt":"2021-08-21T06:35:13","slug":"knifonium-versus-vacuum","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/knifonium-versus-vacuum\/","title":{"rendered":"Knifonium \ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb versus AIR Vacuum \ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Knifonium is a hardware subtractive synthesiser which features 26 vacuum tubes as part of its circuit design. Being somewhat like an antique radio it has complex behaviours \u2013 sounds saturate and distort in complex but not entirely unpredictable ways and you would over time learn the quirks. It\u2019s that which leads Knif to claim it to be \u2018a musical instrument in a very traditional sense\u2019 \u2013 an idea I think worth examining. He also says, \u2018It sounds like nothing else.\u2019 That, I will challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The construction of this thing (valves! polished wood!) will cost you around $17,500 + tax. But it keeps selling out. That could be due to the sound \u2013 but here comes a virtual Knifonium<\/em> made by Brainworx in Germany \u2013 \u2018and Jonte Knif confirms that it sounds and behaves just like the real thing\u2019. For a discount of $17,200 you can have a Knifonium with 8 times the voices, patch memories, extra effects and tweaks\u2026 and I guess the price difference is in the scarcity of the polished wood. Is this also \u2018a musical instrument in a very traditional sense\u2019? Of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually $300 is only the sucker price. You do some dealing and the price comes down to $99, which I paid, because I am your humble servant in synthesiser bullshit detection. But then I also paid the princely sum of $5 for a much older \u2018vacuum tube-based\u2019 synthesiser \u2013 AIR\u2019s Vacuum Pro<\/em>. Which I am pretty sure also lies in that \u2018traditional sense\u2019, because every grunt, gronk and shag that comes out of the one comes out of the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me explain the gronk. Both are subtractive synthesisers. Oscillators are mixed together, with optional ring modulation and sync, passed through one or more filters and amps and out to the ears. There are thousands of similar synthesisers, but these two have an essential difference under the hood. Take for example the tedious and insipid AAS Ultra Analog<\/em>. I love AAS physical modelled synthesisers to death, but their Ultra Analog<\/em> is simply a couple of oscillators fed into a filter which can then have a bit of burn added in. Same goes for Steinberg\u2019s better Retrologue<\/em>. But Knifonium<\/em> and Vacuum Pro<\/em> follow the idea that audio signal can overwhelm each part of the modelled circuit, the oscillator can hurt the filter, the filter can hurt the amp and the whole thing can swirl back again causing more insult. Like water sloshing around in a bath, it\u2019s anywhere, everywhere and whoopsie-daisy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Possibly Knifonium<\/em> really does use a model of the whole system based on the behaviour of the hardware. If so, it\u2019s not immediately apparent especially from the uninspired presets. My own adventures seem to locate the pain in the gains of each synthesis stage with some small gestalt \u2013 for example in the feedback modulation. Instead Vacuum Pro<\/em> explicitly places a vacuum tube visual in each synthesis stage which glows more fiercely as the volume goes up. Both instruments respond to the kind of tricks I play with my own (cheap) hardware but in different ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than copying a limited hardware instrument, Vacuum Pro<\/em> uses all the advantages of virtuality \u2013 two complete sounds can be layered (plus an annoying \u2018doubling\u2019 effect that needs to be turned off), quad oscillators with delay feedback which adds lovely overtones, continuous waveform morphing, synch, dual filters with complex crossings, dirt, warble and the \u2018vacuum tube burning\u2019 of each stage of synthesis. All of this quickly overwhelms the novice who complains the instrument is overcooked. AIR now sells it as a stocking stuffer, but I honestly think that for $5 or sometimes less you are getting \u2018a musical instrument\u2019 that takes time and patience but will reward you for it. For its part Knifonium<\/em> is also a better analogue synthesiser than most, but don\u2019t overpay for the virtual wood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Knifonium is a hardware subtractive synthesiser which features 26 vacuum tubes as part of its circuit design. Being somewhat like an antique radio it has complex behaviours \u2013 sounds saturate and distort in complex but not entirely unpredictable ways and you would over time learn the quirks. It\u2019s that which leads Knif to claim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-96","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","tag-virtual-analogue"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/96","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/96\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}