Who says modular has to be all about monosynths? Certainly not Knobula, who followed up their Poly Cinematic with this 8-voice polysynth in just 12HP, packed with multiple oscillator and filter modes, built-in reverb, and full MPE support.
Even if you don’t plug anything into the MIDI input minijack (it’s tucked in there in the lower left-hand corner), you can still trigger 8 chord presets via CV and gate or arpeggiate polyphonically. But it’s the MPE support via that MIDI input that’s interesting – that makes it possible to just stick this in a little skiff and play, or add a couple of modules. So they also play this with the excellent Bela.io Gliss controller – a great compact solution. And thing of this with your Linnstrument or MPE controller of choice.
They also have a lovely layout here with envelope, filter, and oscillator with a big mode controller:
I’m a huge fan of that approach: Eurorack doesn’t have to mean a massive sprawling rig that you can’t afford or get in the plane carry-on. For $449 (£345.00) you get a gorgeous multi-oscillator, multi-filter wonder – it sounds really quite lovely in monophonic mode, too, for all I’m talking about polyphony here (and means you get those overlapping arpeggios if you increase delay time).
• 16 oscillator Modes • 6 Filter types • 8 voices • 24 bit stereo reverb • 8 Chord Memories • 4 CV inputs ( 2 assignable to anything) • “Adaptive intonation” (there’s at least just intonation support – need to look into this more)
It’s easiest to follow in their demo:
But it’s really all about the multiple oscillator modes here, including (copy-pasting here, sorry):
- Roland super-saw
- Polymoog vox humana
- Casio phase distortion
- Solina string synth
- Percussive drawbar organs
- “noisy cassette” strings
- pulse width modulation
- asymmetric sync saw
- sync square
Plus 6 filter types:
- Vowel filter for vocal effects
- Low Pass Butterworth 24db/oct
- Low Pass SVF 12db/oct
- Dual peak notch filter
- Phase shifter
- High pass and SVF
This is really the kind of everything-in-one-voice approach that could be as popular here as it was in Mutable Instruments’ creations.
Available now direct (pricing excludes VAT), and US$449 from Perfect Circuit who have it in stock now – so no need to fret over tariffs chaos:
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Knobula Monumatic Polyphonic Synthesizer
Here, have reviews – like 18 patches:
Or this terrific in-depth review:
Red Means Recording did a beautiful demo with Echo Cinematic, too, which, despite the name, is a lot more than an echo. And it’s a sort of rock musical of a review:
Knobula give you various choices of polys now, but I have to say the Monumatic is the one that really grabs my interest personally.
Now that being said, Kobula also makes what I think is bar-none the best kick module out there, partly because of all the wild stuff you can do with sidechaining or even treating it like a synth voice.
It is my only friend. (This is Kickain speaking … I can make you do anything for me. Um, sorry.)
That’s also available from Perfect Circuit (including used):
I can’t be without it, really.
