Is it OK if it isn’t AI?
Some people might know I once had a hit record in the ’90s with Thunderbirds Are Go! Fewer will know I was also part of the Oscar-winning VFX team behind The Golden Compass.
My childhood obsession with building electronic synthesisers was matched by a curiosity for computer-generated imagery. Over a 30-year career in the entertainment industry, I’ve drifted between these two seemingly disparate worlds, VFX production and electronic music production, which to me at least feel fundamentally the same (a nod to the VFX and modular synth crowd).
Learning C++ for high-end graphics became the hinge point. When I stepped away from VFX, it left me well positioned for the Knobula journey, a rare chance to fuse those scattered skills into something coherent.
In a way, it was also a return to something familiar. My late father had done it before me, starting an electronic manufacturing company. Only this time, the machines would make music.
But this year, while finessing my launch video for Drum Farm, it struck me that this once-exclusive skillset had been quietly undermined by AI. The ability to produce standout graphics and eye-catching films no longer reads as craft, but is too easily dismissed as cheap AI slop. In reality, it was built the old-fashioned way, using Blender, Nuke, and Mark’s cows. Mark, a childhood friend, keeps rare-breed cattle on the outskirts of London and kindly lent me his herd.
Then it clicked. This isn’t new. My early days of synth playing unfolded in a climate where bands proudly declared their records free of analogue synthesisers. Later, VFX-heavy films marketed themselves as “VFX-free” (they weren’t), catering to audiences numbed by CGI.
It isn’t the technology that unsettles us, it’s the loss of distinction. As the barrier to entry falls, the scepticism rises, and what once stood out becomes background.
Same thing, different problem.
So please enjoy the launch videos as “AI-free”. And of course, no cows were harmed in the making of this film.
#modularsynth #eurorackmodular #modularsythesisers
Working with animals. Spent a morning in a field with my friend’s cows. #modularsynth #eurorackmodular #technoproducer #eurorackmodularsynth #modularsynthesizer
Knobula’s new Drum Farm looks like one of the more useful rhythm modules to hit Eurorack in a while because it keeps the whole percussion cycle moving inside one unit. You get 16 drum algorithms, 16 realtime effects, and a digital sampler with up to three playback voices, all built around shaping, processing, sampling, and resampling without leaving the module.
The real appeal is the workflow. No screen, no menu-chasing, no break in momentum. You build a sound, process it, capture it, then fold it back into something new. The sampler can record into 16 sequential buffers, there is an external input for pulling in audio from elsewhere, and five CV or gate inputs let you switch algorithms, effects, or samples on the fly.
At £449 with June 2026 shipping, Drum Farm feels like Knobula doubling down on hands-on design in a way that actually fits how modular users work.
