Grain Synthesis

flippo · Post by **flippo** » Fri May 16, 2008 1:01 pm

Anyone know any good grainy synths, other than malestom in reason?

I really like the sounds I can get out of maelstrom and would like to try something a bit more tweakable. Getting a bit sick of the inbuilt sounds in maelstrom so preferably something with arseloads of waves or something you can feed your own waveforms. Hardware or software.

Yes I've tried google!

jagle · Post by **jagle** » Fri May 16, 2008 1:14 pm

em, FM8?

flippo · Post by **flippo** » Fri May 16, 2008 3:17 pm

that'd be FM synthesis, not grainular? yes?

no worries though.

look what I found:

RTGS-X Real-Time Granular Synthesizer X (for Mac OS X).
thOnk_0+2 Granular synthesis without having to think at all. Free. Non-realtime. Mac OS 9.

REplay PLAYer generative granular synthesis software for Mac

Granulab real-time granular synthesizer for Win32

Chaosynth (link) cellular automata granular synthesizer by Eduardo Reck
Miranda.

Vocal Modeler Special vocal effect for Reaktor that uses granular synthesis.

crusherX-Live! granular synthesis system for Windows

CDP granular synthesizer from the Composer's Desktop Project

WSOLA time scale modification of audio using granular synthesis

White FX White FX is a granular effect for Reaktor

Audiomulch Audiomulch is a real-time audio processing tool which has some "contraptions" which offer granular synthesis.

Atomic Cloud Atomic Cloud is an easy to use real-time grain cloud generator for Windows

Cecilia / [1] Cecilia provides one of the best frontends available for employing granular synthesis and brassage techniques. It uses the

CSound language (PC/Mac/Linux).

Reason, from Propellerhead Software released a virtual device called the Malström. The device, dubbed a 'Graintable' synthesizer, combines granular and wavetable synthesis technologies.

turns out you need to type 'granular synthesis' into google, not 'grain synthesizer'

Still, if anyone has any hot tips etc. Cheers

flippo · Post by **flippo** » Fri May 16, 2008 3:19 pm

oh look, http://www.granularsynthesis.com/ lol

"This resource has been designed for composers, musicians, researchers and who has an interest in sound design and musical composition using granular synthesis."

jackpot for the obvious crew

FSTZ · Post by **FSTZ** » Fri May 16, 2008 3:44 pm

fliPPo wrote:oh look, http://www.granularsynthesis.com/ lol

"This resource has been designed for composers, musicians, researchers and who has an interest in sound design and musical composition using granular synthesis."

jackpot for the obvious crew

GOOGLE THAT SHIT MOFO!!

hee hee

Late night man??

powerpill · Post by **powerpill** » Fri May 16, 2008 3:57 pm

are you going to make a wonky tune? really cool genre

spartan · Post by **spartan** » Fri May 16, 2008 5:31 pm

Reaktor has a ton of weird Grain based synths. Absynth as well is a good one.

Grainular synthesis is hard to produce a sound you actually intend to make, but whatever you usually make with it always sounds cool as fuck.

armada · Post by **armada** » Fri May 16, 2008 5:56 pm

Spartan wrote:Reaktor has a ton of weird Grain based synths. Absynth as well is a good one.

Reaktor for the win regarding granular synthesis. The upside with Reaktor is it being totally modular, you can do whatever you want with your grains.

keng~ · Post by **keng~** » Fri May 16, 2008 6:01 pm

maelstrom isn't granular but wavetable (that is different...)

absynth is a fisical modeling synth not a granular synth

U should use reaktor for making any granular synth

or:

Supercollider, MAX/MSP, cplug, audiomulch (very very nice and cheap) etc...

keng~ · Post by **keng~** » Fri May 16, 2008 6:07 pm

PS.

I've made a combinator path that make grains from any sound sources you put in the line mixer, you can do this using combinator,matrix for random grains, another matrix for sliceing the source with for eg a vocoder, ore other kinds of devices, malstrom for the filter section, subtraktor for adding some noises, another maelstrom running a random lfo wave to controll random matrix-grain generator, etc... etc.. etc...

keng~ · Post by **keng~** » Fri May 16, 2008 6:13 pm

PPS. basically you can do grains with a chain of any good delay...

because delay is practically a resampler of a sound source, if you use a chain U can deconstruct and rearrange the parts of the source as U like.

FSTZ · Post by **FSTZ** » Fri May 16, 2008 6:40 pm

keng wrote:maelstrom isn't granular but wavetable (that is different...)

^^^why does it say granular synthesis on the side of the maelstrom then???

abstractsound · Post by **abstractsound** » Fri May 16, 2008 6:52 pm

i was under the impression the maelstrom is somewhere in the middle of both forms of synthesis. it isnt strictly wavetable and it isnt strictly granular, thats why they call it grain-table synthesis in the manual

it breaks down the soundsource into grains like granular synthesis would but then plays them back in set patterns that are called wavetables. the index feature picks what point in the wavetable it starts to playback.

maybe im completely misled, but pretty sure thats the deal, and thats why its unique.

keng~ · Post by **keng~** » Fri May 16, 2008 6:56 pm

abstractsound wrote:i was under the impression the maelstrom is somewhere in the middle of both forms of synthesis. it isnt strictly wavetable and it isnt strictly granular, thats why they call it grain-table synthesis in the manual

it breaks down the soundsource into grains like granular synthesis would but then plays them back in set patterns that are called wavetables. the index feature picks what point in the wavetable it starts to playback.

maybe im completely misled, but pretty sure thats the deal, and thats why its unique.

this is THE POINT

yes maelstrom is "grain-table"

hugh · Post by **hugh** » Fri May 16, 2008 7:35 pm

arent the two oscillator waveforms at the top essentialy lfo's of a sort?

Littlefoot · Post by **Littlefoot** » Fri May 16, 2008 8:50 pm

Hugh wrote:arent the two oscillator waveforms at the top essentialy lfo's of a sort?

they are atleast "modulation waveforms" which are generally LFOs

FSTZ · Post by **FSTZ** » Fri May 16, 2008 9:08 pm

I'm obviously not a reason user

FSTZ · Post by **FSTZ** » Fri May 16, 2008 9:09 pm

and kinda proud of it, might I add

nothing against the program

but nothing (in my studio) sounds sexier than my hardware synth

flippo · Post by **flippo** » Sat May 17, 2008 2:50 am

thanks keng. I knew maelstrom wasn't striktley a grain synth, but it has that element in it. It's the kind of sound I'm after.

I've got absynth, wicked sounding synth. Again not stricklty a grain synth but it's certainly capable of those kind of sounds. I'm not a huge fan of it's layout though, admitedly I haven't really given it a whole stack of time to get used to it.

FSTZ. It's pretty easy to make reason sound really crap, dry and brittle. It's certinly not the most powerful program, but the fact that it's so easy for me to use makes me create better compositions I think, which makes up for it's inherant shitness. Just have to know how to make it sound good, and bounce your audio out to cubase for a polish when you're done.

and pfffft hardware

abstractsound · Post by **abstractsound** » Mon May 19, 2008 7:13 pm

i like reason, but im not going to argue with anyone who says hardware is where its at. if i could afford all the synths i dream about id be a happy man..

one thing ive thought much about recently and wishing i had the money/gear to do it is reamping.. thats the next step i think. for now i run sounds out of reason and through analog/hardware effect processors to make them a bit warmer and fuller.

Grain Synthesis

Grain Synthesis

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