Review: Tomofon by Klevgrand

The best things in life are often multiple things working together. From Neapolitan ice cream to Whizzo chocolate samplers to Lucky Charms marshmallows — the harmony of many elements working in concert can be magical. And delicious.

So it is with Tomofon by Klevgrand, an intriguing virtual instrument with multiple beating hearts at its core. Tomofon is a synth, but also a sampler — and importantly, a unique sample processor and editor. It also includes handy onboard effects and sound manipulation tools, adding up to a veritable smorgasbord of ways to tweak and tailor sounds. Strap on a bib and tuck in.

The wavetables have turned.

A (Klev)Grand Old Time

It’s difficult to write this review.

Not because of any technical issues, nor because Tomofon is a bit of a different animal and requires some extra explanation. Though it is, and I’ll do my best.

Rather, it’s difficult to even begin a review because Tomofon features a sample import function, which encourages users to experiment with samples of all stripes – and to adjust, swap, merge and remap to their hearts’ content. Or until their next deadline comes ominously whooshing.

For someone (like me) with lots of random samples that don’t get enough use or attention (check, and check), it can be (i.e., has been) hours of fun importing everything from viola harmonics to trance stems to old movie dialogue to see what comes out the other end.

It’s not always predictable (or especially musical, in some cases), but the results are usually interesting, easily adjustable and sometimes gloriously surprising. It’s a sample-hoarding sound designer’s (or procrastinator’s) fever dream. But let’s start with the basics.

Married to a Model

The synthesizer component of Tomofon works with Audio Models, a format developed by Klevgrand for the purpose. An Audio Model is generated from a sample by first breaking the signal into individual waveform cycles, then stitching those waveforms back together. If Klevgrand had stopped there, they’d have made a nice wavetable generator — useful, but not terribly unique.

The Audio Model goes a step further. Wavetables built from the original file are mapped onto “pitch zones”, creating a pitch-categorised series of wavetables, each with a unique set of individual cycles and timbres, but morphable smoothly and musically within a wavetable, across pitches and in legato.

After all this Frankensteinian sawing apart and stitching together, an Audio Model looks like the image below, which was generated from an eight-second sample of an elephant trumpeting. (With its snout, mind – not a horn.) Tomofon split the sample into eight pitch zones of varying sizes, represented by the grayscale gradients. Lighter bands are louder wave cycles, while darker bands are softer.

Above the model are the key ranges to which the wave sets are mapped. The highlighted slice, corresponding to D4, is spread out in the Wavetable section above, where it can be further shaped and edited. More on that below, but first, let’s sort out the actual “synth” in this synthesizer.

Time and Tone and Tomofon

Tomofon opens on the Synth page, as seen below. At centre bottom is the current Audio Model, and above that the envelope section.

There are four envelopes to wrangle — Gain, Depth, Pitch and Filter — all mechanically similar but with a few enticing wrinkles. Each envelope has four stages: Attack, Decay, Loop and Release. The “Loop” (rather than the typical “Sustain”) stage is important — no matter the original sample length, the Loop stage allows notes to be held indefinitely.

Shaping of envelope stages is decoupled from the timing. Lines can be bent, and nodes moved, added or deleted in the main graph. Dials below the graph control the time for each stage, with secondary dials to tie velocity to timing, with positive or negative influence.

The Gain envelope allows sculpting of sounds from quick percussions to stretchy pads. A Strength slider on the right controls its overall influence, as similar sliders do for Depth and Pitch envelopes.

Speaking of which, the Depth and Pitch envelopes work similarly, and their effects are visible directly in the Audio Model. A yellow dot appears on the model for each key pressed; the three such dots above represent a played chord. A dot’s height corresponds to its Depth, or position within the wavetable, while the horizontal position indicates its pitch.

Both the Depth and Pitch envelopes include an adjustable LFO, and Depth adds an S&H or “sample and hold” control. With judicious tweaking of these and the envelope parameters, it’s easy to dial in sounds with constant motion — from rhythmic and regular to ragged and random.

Finally, the Filter envelope provides two flavours each of lowpass, highpass and bandpass goodness, with the same basic controls, along with adjustable frequency, resonance and drive distortion. Collectively, these options provide plenty of ways to creatively sculpt sounds from Audio Models. Perhaps no other controls are needed. But oh…

Where’s the Tomofon in That?

Tomofon’s not finished yet, adding a modulation matrix where envelope parameters can be keytracked, mapped to velocity or assigned to MIDI CCs. Controller Settings allow CC assignment, fine tuning of controllers and adjustments for pitch bend, glide, legato and MPE functionality.

Up to four voices can be toggled and tweaked, with pitch, pan, level and other controls under Voice Settings. At right, menus provide access to more than 100 categorized presets; controls for delay, reverb and resonant body; a four-node onboard EQ and gain control and meter.

Suffice it to say that Tomofon offers an impressive array of sound shaping tools, with the unique properties of Audio Models in mind. Speaking of Audio Models, the final button on the Synth page, labeled Editor, brings us back to where the wave cycles began.

Be a Model Citizen

The Editor page is where Audio Models are created, crafted and occasionally conjoined. To create a model, simply drag an audio file into the Import Audio box at top centre. There are multiple modes for importing, some allowing finer control over pitch mapping or merging multiple samples into one model.

Once generated, wavetable cycles can be deleted, smoothed over, reversed or moved — within the current wavetable or to a new pitch zone. It can be somewhat tricky to meaningfully manipulate these small clips, but rounding out a sharp sound or filling in a gap is fairly straightforward. And if you really want to roll up your sleeves and take full sonic control, the power is there.

Finally, Tomofon provides functions to save models, undo/redo edits, fine-tune the rate of wavetable traversal (Curve) and to Normalize, Smooth or Clean Up (i.e., reprocess areas with many removed cycles) the selected wavetable.

The (Klev)Grandest of Plans

Tomofon is a unique instrument in many ways, which largely works in its favour. It’s possible – often easy, in fact – to transform a simple static sample into a variety of patches that shift, evolve, skitter or glitch. With a bit of practice and creative scheming, you can compose full pieces with Tomofon patches built from a single Audio Model, which in turn might be sourced from a single pluck or chord or “oooh”. That’s pretty cool.

And while Tomofon’s synth and models are two proverbial great tastes that taste great together, they also remain somewhat independent. If you’ve twiddled the synth knobs just the way you like for a particular sound, you can swap in an entirely new Audio Model. The envelope, effect and modulation settings will stay the same, but a model built on vocals rather than, say, a trumpet or cello or possibly perturbed pachyderms can change the character entirely.

The choice of samples matters quite a lot in Tomofon – sometimes in unexpected ways. Simple brass, woodwind and string sustains often make it through the wringer without excessive mangling. The resulting Audio Models rarely sound exactly like the source instruments – but that’s sort of the point. The sounds are transformed and ready to be shaped further, but still in the same general sonic neighbourhood.

Other samples get flung apart and rebuilt all higgledy piggledy – but sometimes, that’s also the point. Klevgrand say that Tomofon samples will ideally be monophonic, in the D2 to F7 range and in mono. (Stereo files are converted using only the left channel.) That doesn’t – and shouldn’t! – stop anyone from flinging full orchestral phrases, sub-bass shockwaves and ping-pong door slams at it. Just keep in mind that the more outlandish samples may have “unpredictable” effects, per Klevgrand.

My own testing confirms that some “oddball” samples fed into the Tomofon hopper come away worse for wear, unrecognizable and screechy. But others emerge unrecognizable and uniquely interesting – beneficially mutated creations that might otherwise never see the light of day. And the envelopes in any case are instrumental in finding sweet spots within each model to explore.

There’s a certain vibe to many of the sounds Tomofon produces, which may tend toward “edgy”, “glassy” or “metallic”. For many applications, this is fine and even a plus – but if it’s not a character you prefer, it may be worth some deep testing to determine whether the results you get fit your particular style.

Overall, I’d recommend Tomofon to anyone looking for a unique tool for sound design, evolving soundscapes and vocoder-like creations (the “Natural Voices” preset category illustrates how well Tomofon handles carefully chosen vocals). It’s also great for creating plucks and swells, keys, strings and brass analogues – unless a high degree of realism is required. Tomofon’s Audio Models can produce rich and lush tones, but usually quite distinct from the specific instruments that bore them.

I’m looking forward to experimenting further with Tomofon and creating and editing Audio Models, both wacky and sane. There may be a bit of a learning curve when it comes to Tomofon’s deeper capabilities, but it seems well worth a deep dive to discover what magical deliciousness lies within. Tomofon appetite.

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