Knobula
Poly Cinematic
Poly Cinematic
AVAILABLE FOR IMMEDIATE DELIVERY
Poly Cinematic
8 voice Polyphonic Synthesizer Module
- 7 oscillator super-saw per voice
- 3 oscillator detuned wave shaped square/pulse
- 3 oscillator detuned tone wheel organ
- 8 chord memory controlled by cv/gate
- Detune control with unison/5th/sub octave sweet spots
- 3 filter types: lowpass, notch and highpass
- Built in high quality 24bit 96khz Reverb
- True Stereo Output
8 Voices, 56 Oscillators, 0 Presets
Introducing Poly Cinematic. The powerful compact synthesizer that brings big synth polyphony to Eurorack. It's simple to use with a dedicated knob or switch for each parameter, giving you immediate access to all the controls that really matter in the world of polyphonic pads and stabs. No presets, no menus, just a good honest tactile experience that puts pure sound synthesis at your fingertips.
Poly Cinematic can be played via midi as well monophonically over CV/Gate. As a monophonic module it can play one of 8 chord stacks, selectable using CV control, so it is as much a 56 oscillator mono synth as it is a luscious poly synth.
Where does Poly Cinematic fit with the culture of Eurorack?
Eurorack modular synths allow you to take your imagination anywhere. There’s no limit to their flexibility - unless you want a pad or a polyphonic stab. Polyphony is hard with modular: it’s not designed for it - and yet you need polyphony in almost every composition. Poly Cinematic provides CV and Gate control that works together with Midi. So it feels at home in a Eurorack.
Midi in Eurorack is viewed with some suspicion. But Knobula just uses it to get polyphonic notes in: nothing else, much the way it was in 1983 when midi was invented. Poly Cinematic is aimed squarely at modular.
In many ways Poly Cinematic sums up the eurorack culture perfectly: you can’t store patches and if you want LFO modulation you have to bring your own. It’s totally patchable and CV friendly. It could be the first module you ever buy or it could be a final addition to a rack. It can be integrated into any rack and we’re really looking forward to seeing how creative people use it for their music.
How to fit a poly synth in a Eurorack module?
It’s digital, with a great-sounding, powerful, synth engine. We’ve taken this engine and built our ideal Eurorack poly synth around it. We’ve harnessed the power, tamed it and made it easy to get extremely usable polyphonic sounds.
Like most Eurorack modules, this one is focused. It’s for pads and sounds that need polyphony. Pads need a certain type of filter, they need reverb, and rich voices, each made up from multiple de-tunable oscillators.
A general purpose polyphonic synth would need either a gigantic control panel (typically with 40 or 50 knobs and controls) or a baffling, impossible-to-use-live selectable parameter control system. We ruled both of those options out and focused on designing the smallest number of controls that would give the biggest results.
Even with our low control count, you’re never far from the sound you want to make. And with fewer controls, the speed and intuition of muscle memory quickly takes over.
Does it really have 56 oscillators?
Yes. Seven per voice in super-saw mode. You can detune them for dramatic effects or bring them closer together for a wonderful ensemble sound. This is an extraordinarily powerful synth module.
Detuning is central to the design of the synth and the spectacular sounds that result from it are what inspired the name “Cinematic”. Each of the 7 oscillators has its own individual tuning curve mapped to the rotation of the detune knob, furthermore each voice is subtly micro-tuned depending on what chord you are playing so the sound is always moving; always natural and never static.
What does “Cinematic” mean?
It means - literally - like you’d hear in the cinema. You could describe this with words like lush, full, warm, expansive, as well as dramatic, powerful, shimmering and big. We’d also use words like epic and all-surrounding. It’s an original soundtrack for modular synthesizers.
Why are there no presets?
With presets, the position of the physical knobs doesn’t always represent the real settings. The way we’ve designed Poly Cinematic, you can tell what the sound will be from the position of the knobs - and it’s never going to make an unexpected, unpleasant sound.
Modern synthesizers are so well specified - with controls for almost everything that most people can’t program them, particularly while performing, and it’s boring, so at Knobula we’ve taken a different approach: no screens, no menus, no encoders. Just knobs and switches, it just makes it feel more like a musical instrument and mentally more satisfying and creative to operate.
We wanted to create a module that always sounds great, with no black holes. Something tactile that begs to be tweaked without the fear of hitting something nasty. The TB303 had only 6 knobs and no presets, and yet it could bring a big room to its knees when played live. We wanted to build on that simplicity and create a module you can just play in the dark using muscle memory. We even gave it different sized knobs for a strong haptic image, so you can recognize the controls with your fingertips.
technical specs
- Width: 12 HP
- Depth: 40 mm (1.57 in)
- Power: 80mA @ +12V , 80mA @ -12V