SynthFest France: Kodamo Infini FM and formant synthesizer
4,2 / 5,0 | 
At SFF2022 this weekend we were treated to a demo of the forthcoming Kodamo Infini synthesizer that features FM, Formant and Bitmask synthesis.
Kodamo Infini
The synthesizer on show is still an early prototype and so the look and arrangement of controls may change. Kodamo says that it will come with a weighted keyboard. In essence what Kodamo wanted to show was the sound engine. The presentation was in French and the auto-translating on YouTube is strange and sometimes unhelpful but we think we got the gist of it.
Kodamo Infini will take multiple forms of complex digital synthesis and virtual analogue and present them in an easy-to-fathom form. Building on the FM engine of the excellent EssenceFM synth by adding Formant based synthesis and their own Bitmask synthesis.
The main point of contact is the large colour touchscreen. It presents all the parameters and allows for direct editing. It also provides a secondary keyboard to play on at the same time as the physical keyboard. There’s a “Matrix” concept that seems to deal with the spaces between the music. It identifies the style and rhythm of playing to apply transformations to the sound.
Formant and Bitmask
The Formant synthesis starts life as 8 sine wave oscillators and a pair of filters. Through the combining of the sine waves you can pull out tones through ring modulation giving you that distinctly formant sound. This sounds similar to what we found on the old Yamaha FS1r synthesizer. With the Bitmask synthesis it’s all about generating variants from waveforms. You do this by displacement or the breaking up and gluing back together of things – I think.
Regardkess of what’s actually going on the screen interface looks brilliantly animated and appears to be engaging and easy to navigate. When operated in combination with the big data knob it seems to be intuitive and usable which is always a tricky thing to achieve with a digital interface.
Kodamo hopes to have a 37 key version for under €2,000 and a larger version for under €3,000. However, production is still some way off at this point. Anyway, check out the video and see for yourself how this fascinating new synthesizer could bring something new to the table.
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3 responses to “SynthFest France: Kodamo Infini FM and formant synthesizer”
I love the way Bitmask has been auto-translated to dick mask. (Bit is French slang for a gentleman’s private parts)
To expensive
Too soon to know if Infini FM has the full Essence engine or a reduced version. My setup doesn’t have room for another keyboard either. Otherwise it is exciting and new, so let’s hope the sounds are not a diferent way to make the same sounds as other synths.