The Note Audio has released VerbKnife and ToneKnife, two tone shaping plugins built on a shared analysis engine. VerbKnife applies it to the decay and ambience a source carries; ToneKnife combines it with a compressor and an upward expander.
The Note Audio says.
Recorded material, virtual instruments and audio samples all arrive with ambience of their own. Put a reverb on top of that and the two decays overlap, which is where the familiar dull, muddy tail comes from — and that tail gets in the way of the groove. VerbKnife reduces the decay the source carries along with the ambience that follows it. And when a source needs more space rather than less, three enhancement engines build it back out of the source’s own ambience — the most natural enhancement available, because it was there to begin with.
Both halves of the plugin take their decisions from the material rather than from a fixed setting. On the reduction side that is Auto mode: it analyses the incoming signal and places Target, the control that governs the style of the reduction, where the material suggests. Because Target decides the manner in which the decay is removed and not merely the amount, that one automatic decision is what makes a usable starting point out of an unfamiliar source. On the enhancement side it is the Neural engine, which compares the two channels band by band and lifts only the bands that behave like room — a judgement made independently for every band and updated continuously as the source changes, so nothing is applied where there is no room to raise.
ToneKnife takes the same core engine and puts it in a dynamics chain. Comp and DComp can be used on their own as a straightforward compressor and upward expander, but running them alongside the Adaptation engine produces tonal results that conventional dynamics processing does not reach. The Adaptation stage carries an inherent processing latency, so by default it responds after the transient has passed and leaves the attack of the source largely intact. Align Mode compensates for that latency and brings Adaptation into time with the other stages, so it shapes attack and decay as well. Same settings, one switch, two clearly different tonal results — which is why Align Mode is a tone control rather than a timing utility.
That also makes ToneKnife the deeper way into what VerbKnife does. Where VerbKnife works on the decay and ambience as a whole, ToneKnife puts the same analysis under level-dependent control, so the shaping can be aimed at a particular part of the signal’s dynamic range rather than applied across it. Driven harder it stops behaving like a dynamics processor at all and works as a saturation stage, with the tonal colour coming from the engine’s own response to the source instead of from a modelled circuit.
VerbKnife — Key Features:
- Analysis section for reducing the decay the source carries along with the ambience that follows it.
- Reduction sets the amount of decay removed; Target determines the style of the reduction, not only its amount.
- Auto mode analyses the input signal and sets Target from the material rather than from a preset.
- Three ambience enhancement engines for tone shaping: Classic, Neural and Hybrid.
- Classic enhances the source’s existing ambience in the time domain, widening the space without adding a reverb tail.
- Neural decides per frequency band, from a continuously updated spectral analysis, which content behaves like room and lifts only that.
- Hybrid runs both engines in parallel; the Character control sets the ratio between them.
- Works on recordings, virtual instruments and sample libraries alike.
- Built-in gate for low-level tails and residual noise; Mix control for blending processed and dry signals.
ToneKnife — Key Features:
- Shares its core analysis engine with VerbKnife, so tone shaping is informed by the spectral and temporal characteristics of the input.
- Three engines in one path: Comp, DComp and Adaptation.
- Comp and DComp also work independently as a full compressor and upward expander, with threshold, ratio, attack, release, hold and makeup on each section.
- Running Comp and DComp together shapes tonal balance in ways conventional dynamics processing does not reach.
- Puts the shared engine under level-dependent control, for shaping aimed at a specific part of the dynamic range rather than across the whole signal.
- Works as a saturation stage when driven harder, with the colour coming from the engine’s response to the source.
- Align Mode compensates for the Adaptation engine’s inherent latency, bringing it into time with the other stages so it acts across attack and decay.
- Align Mode changes the tonal result without changing any other parameter.
- Separate preset system from VerbKnife, as the processing chains and parameters differ.
Pricing
VerbKnife and ToneKnife are available at an introductory price of $139 each until October 15th, 2026 (Reg. $199 each). A 14-day full-featured trial of each is available through sign up to a free account.
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