Composer Drew Neumann (Aeon Flux, The WIld Thornberries) has shared a new composition, Steampunk Space Spies, created entirely (including percussion and sound effects) with the Knifonium vacuum tube synthesizer.

The Knifonium, made by Jonte Knif, is a unique 25-tube monophonic synthesizer, with a 4th order ladder filter and a ring modulator.

Here’s what Neumann has to say about the gear and process used in making the music:

“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!”

We wrote about the Knifonium and outlined its specs and features earlier this year.

You can find out more about Knifonium by following their Facebook page. For purchase information contact Geoff Farr at GSF Agency.