“For some reason it's one of the quickest go-to synths for anything I want to do.”

Photo: swimfinfan (Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY-SA 2.0
What DAW does Knife Party use?
Rob Swire has said he built his studio around Steinberg Nuendo on a Windows PC, with Cakewalk Z3TA+ and GForce ImpOSCar as go-to soft synths, a Sequential Prophet-10 and Alesis Andromeda, a Brauner VMA into a Blue Stripe 1176 for vocals, Mitchell & Todd monitors and a Roll Music mix compressor.
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What studio gear Knife Party uses: a sourced gear guide
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Rob Swire: studio
“I switched over to this from Logic, I think when Nuendo 1 came out. The layout of it feels a lot better than Logic did”
“For some reason it's one of the quickest go-to synths for anything I want to do.”
“It's clean and trance-like, which is probably why I like it for leads.”
“For the live stuff we just sample everything into Kontakt and load it up onto Muse Receptors.”
“Cygnus is the best thing ever for spacey pads.”
“With the Prophet there's a sort of Blade Runner-esque thing you can't really get from anything else.”
“I love how much you can do with it. It's like the Reaktor of analogue.”
“I find the actual OSCar is shit at leads and good at bass.”
“It feels like pushing a mix into a pillow!”
“I heard these and I said 'What the fuck is that, it's like everything you want in a monitor!'”
“I can't find a better reverb than that without buying something stupid like a Lexicon 480L.”
Pendulum: guitar sounds
Rob Swire: vocals
“I recorded them with a Brauner VMA”
Rob Swire: stage
“They're the only things that are stable in a live environment, because if those things crash, two seconds and they're back up.”
About Knife Party's gear.
What DAW does Rob Swire use?
In a 2008 Sound On Sound studio feature Rob Swire said Steinberg Nuendo was the heart of his studio, running on a Windows PC. He said he switched over from Logic around Nuendo 1 because the layout felt better.
What plugins does Knife Party use?
Rob Swire has said Cakewalk Z3TA+ is a quick go-to synth for bass sounds, GForce ImpOSCar for leads, Krakli Cygnus for spacey pads and Native Instruments Kontakt for sampled drums and live playback.
What synth does Rob Swire use?
His studio had a Sequential Prophet-10, an Alesis Andromeda he used for pads, and a real OSCar he said is good at bass.
What studio monitors does Rob Swire use?
He has said his main playback system was a pair of Mitchell & Todd active monitors with Dynaudio drivers, which he called really flat.
What microphone does Rob Swire use for vocals?
He has said he recorded his vocals with a Brauner VMA, with a little EQ and then a Blue Stripe 1176 compressor.
Knife Party is the electronic duo of Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen, who also play in Pendulum. This guide covers the studio Rob Swire walked Sound On Sound through in 2008: his DAW, soft synths, analogue synths, vocal chain, monitors and mix compressor.
truerecs put this guide together from public videos, interviews and posts. Each item says how we know and links to the source. Knife Party didn't write it or choose anything on it. How we source gear guides.
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