In your opinion, what are some great granular synths?

slicetwo

Quanta is great, but it can be hard sometimes to dial in the envelopes and pitch to be totally usable in some situations. I've found that, even when using C note samples, it can be difficult to get it to stay in tune depending on other settings. AD did some crazy envelopes on Quanta, too, but they aren't your normal ASDR so they take a bit of getting used to. Otherwise, you can get some insane sounds with some really really cool movement and modulation out of it. The presets do it some justice, but once you start diving in, you can go deep.

I'm also loving borderlands and samplr. Both do some super creative stuff and you can create some fantastic textures.

MrSmileZ

All the granular are dope on iOS! There is no wrong choice they all sound different

Ripper7620

I spoiled myself rotten this payday, and got a bunch of stuff, pretty much everything that was recommended, and now I’m in over my head as far as learning how to use everything. I seem to be getting the best results using Auria Pro in stand-alone mode, and hosting everything in Auria. I’m gonna be stumbling around in the dark for awhile, I’ve got so many choices, I’m a little overwhelmed. One thing I don’t understand is why some apps don’t open up all the way to full screen, and some do. I got lazy working in Reaper on pc, because I’m used to it, and everything comes easy. I’m learning, but it’s definitely a challenge to learn how to work in iOS, but the sounds are so good, at this point, I’m willing to commit, no matter how long I have to work to get it down. Thank you for the awesome recommendations, and opening up new challenges for me.

Montreal_Music

What is the difference between iPulsaret and iDensity? I already have theses incredible granular synth, but I want more, any suggestions:

Borderlands
Tardigrain
Spacecraft
Quanta
FRMS

They are all unique. But I want MORE They are so fun, even for a noob like me. I feel like a kid when I use a granular synth (in a good way).

NeuM

Every time I see “granular synth” I think “Granny Smith” apples. (Shrug)

Soundscaper

@NeuM said:
Every time I see “granular synth” I think “Granny Smith” apples. (Shrug)

Strange wiring you've got there ... 🍏

NeuM

@Soundscaper said:

@NeuM said:
Every time I see “granular synth” I think “Granny Smith” apples. (Shrug)

Strange wiring you've got there ... 🍏

A granular synth a day keeps the doctor away.

jwmmakerofmusic

There are many granular synths I had no idea existed. Then again, Borderlands is my jam when it comes to granular environments.

StudioES

@Montreal_Music said:
What is the difference between iPulsaret and iDensity? I already have theses incredible granular synth, but I want more, any suggestions:

Borderlands
Tardigrain
Spacecraft
Quanta
FRMS

They are all unique. But I want MORE They are so fun, even for a noob like me. I feel like a kid when I use a granular synth (in a good way).

imo, Granular is one of the 'specialties' of iPad music-making (and touchscreens for some of these).

• iDensity can be played by MIDI, but there's no amp envelope. It can, with limitations, be used as a synced-looper with granular scrubbing, but expect a slight playback delay. I use it as a strange polyrhythmic buffer effect, with pitch-shifting and granular scrubber. Weird is the right word. Often difficult to get total control over it.
• iPulsaret may be better-suited as a playable melodic granular synth with several more forms of 'strange' synthesis. Both are incredible, but take a while to learn. Both can be effects-processors too.
• tardigrain - very smooth, my most-used granular for pretty leads. Takes time to learn, but easier than the apeSofts.
• elsa, not granular, but MIDI-control over sample-start; load it with SCWs and wavetables, and send CCs. elsa and tardigrain can be effects-processors too; record stuff, play it with MIDI, save the sample...
• Spacecraft - gorgeous dual atmospheric pad generator. Smooth. Onboard sequencer-thing and can be played in scale.
• Quanta - difficult to get smooth interpolation, so it's amazing for wavetables and death-rattle-noises that the others cannot do. Get the Galbanum Architecture Waveforms just for this one. æ
• frms - haven't got into this one yet, but it seems like a mix of Quanta and tardigrain?
• Spectrum Granular is a granular effect based on Mutable Instruments Clouds, where the input can be frozen/sampled and played by MIDI, but without Cloud's quality settings.
• Drambo, holy moly. Patch Storage is awesome. Muchas gracias. Anyone figure out how to do smooth interpolation?

burns_audio

@ocelot said:

• Spectrum Granular is a granular effect based on Mutable Instruments Clouds, where the input can be frozen/sampled and played by MIDI, but without Cloud's quality settings.

Spectrum Granular has the quality settings implemented! Really fun to freeze on low/longer quality, and then surf through the buffer with the XY touchpad

StudioES

@burns_audio said:

@ocelot said:

• Spectrum Granular is a granular effect based on Mutable Instruments Clouds, where the input can be frozen/sampled and played by MIDI, but without Cloud's quality settings.

Spectrum Granular has the quality settings implemented! Really fun to freeze on low/longer quality, and then surf through the buffer with the XY touchpad

Ah, missed it! Thanks for the tip!

rs2000

@ocelot said:
...

• Drambo, holy moly. Patch Storage is awesome. Muchas gracias. Anyone figure out how to do smooth interpolation?

oat_phipps

I like Quanta the best due to the mod matrix setup. A shame AD went away from it for Continua.

Never got along with Frms. The devs are awesome dudes, nonetheless.

Everybody loved Spacecraft except me. It’s cool but limited use like Borderlands.

StudioES

@rs2000 Epic! Muchas gracias.

rs2000

@ocelot said:
@rs2000 Epic! Muchas gracias.

De nada 😉

rs2000

@oat_phipps said:
I like Quanta the best due to the mod matrix setup. A shame AD went away from it for Continua.

Never got along with Frms. The devs are awesome dudes, nonetheless.

Everybody loved Spacecraft except me. It’s cool but limited use like Borderlands.

Quanta is excellent indeed. Lots of love put into details. It's not the smoothest sounding one (that's what I use Spacecraft for) but an incredible synth for sound design.

[Deleted User]

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oat_phipps

@ehehehe said:

@oat_phipps said:
I like Quanta the best due to the mod matrix setup. A shame AD went away from it for Continua.

What’s for them to be ashamed about, it’s working great here? I think it’s the least scary if one is new to It’s a bit economically unrealistic to expect endless features added to cheap ios synths.

For anyone having problems getting stuff in tune, just sync the grain pitch to the ordinary oscillator by ear. Problems making lush patches? Re-engineer the factory ones by changing out the samples and checking out the mod matrix. Or just compare samples. I think it is really good.

Also have Borderlands, is there anything granular these two won’t do?

I love the Quanta mod matrix

They ditched it in favor of a hold/double click knob to add modulation for their follow-up synth Continua

It is a shame they did that, because I love the Quanta mod matrix.

stown

Not that the OP requested it but I do like that Quanta, Tardigrain, and FRMS accept MPE.

I really enjoy Quanta, Samplr, Tardigrain, and Borderlands the most. I don’t ever feel like I have the time or mental bandwidth to commit to learning iDensity or iPulsaret, although I hear great things about them.

FRMS is interesting, but it hasn’t quite gelled for me. When I last tried it (a few months ago) I noticed that the LFOs weren’t polyphonic, which for my personal uses is a big deal breaker. Maybe I missed something? Or maybe they’ve been updated since. I did feel like FRMS might have some cool potential for rhythmic noise loops... so next time I need that I’ll probably dive back in.

aleyas

@stown said:
Not that the OP requested it but I do like that Quanta, Tardigrain, and FRMS accept MPE.

I really enjoy Quanta, Samplr, Tardigrain, and Borderlands the most. I don’t ever feel like I have the time or mental bandwidth to commit to learning iDensity or iPulsaret, although I hear great things about them.

FRMS is interesting, but it hasn’t quite gelled for me. When I last tried it (a few months ago) I noticed that the LFOs weren’t polyphonic, which for my personal uses is a big deal breaker. Maybe I missed something? Or maybe they’ve been updated since. I did feel like FRMS might have some cool potential for rhythmic noise loops... so next time I need that I’ll probably dive back in.

Don't pass on iDensity, it's actually pretty simple! If you just start with the AU version, which is a single stream, then you should be able to grasp it quickly. It's really only got a handful of standard grain parameters, and after exploring those you can jump into the grain window options, which are also pretty self explanatory.
The standalone iDensity is another beast though. But breaking down what you can do with a single stream first should help bring together the capabilities of the whole big picture.

I'm making a video right now on granular synthesis, and I'll be looking at iDensity, iPulsaret and FRMS, in addition to a few more. I'll bump this thread when it's up.

stown

Oooo looking forward to this video! And thank you for encouraging me to revisit/learn iDensity... will do

u0421793

In my blasphemous view granular synthesis is not a synthesis technique, it is an effect – most often used unusually early in the signal chain.

ronnieb

@u0421793 said:
In my blasphemous view granular synthesis is not a synthesis technique, it is an effect – most often used unusually early in the signal chain.

You realise applying effects to a sounds is essentially what all synthesis is?

West coast can be boiled down to adding a filter to sculpt the sound.
East coast is adding a wavefolder in the path to increase harmonics.

supadom

@NeuM said:

@Soundscaper said:

@NeuM said:
Every time I see “granular synth” I think “Granny Smith” apples. (Shrug)

Strange wiring you've got there ... 🍏

A granular synth a day keeps the doctor away.

Unless it’s the eye doctor!

aleyas

@u0421793 said:
In my blasphemous view granular synthesis is not a synthesis technique, it is an effect – most often used unusually early in the signal chain.

It's a legit synthesis technique, read up on it!

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ad03308fcf7fd547b82eaf7/t/5b75a255352f53388d8ef793/1534435933359/EvolutionGranSynth_9Jun06.pdf

Although I would agree that in practice it tends to be used more as an effect on either samples or live audio these days. I'd like to see a granular synth that has key tracking over density, which would make it possible to tune as an oscillator. Envelope control over grain length then acts as something like a filter/sync sound that builds into resonance, with grain window controlling wave shaping. Generally all granular software can do these things, but we're not given the controls to use it as a bonafide instrument (key tracked density oscillators, articulated grain length and windows, etc). FRMS comes kind of close. It has a great mod matrix, but the density doesn't scale properly on the keyboard.

rs2000

@aleyas said:

@u0421793 said:
In my blasphemous view granular synthesis is not a synthesis technique, it is an effect – most often used unusually early in the signal chain.

It's a legit synthesis technique, read up on it!

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ad03308fcf7fd547b82eaf7/t/5b75a255352f53388d8ef793/1534435933359/EvolutionGranSynth_9Jun06.pdf

Although I would agree that in practice it tends to be used more as an effect on either samples or live audio these days. I'd like to see a granular synth that has key tracking over density, which would make it possible to tune as an oscillator. Envelope control over grain length then acts as something like a filter/sync sound, with grain window controlling wave shaping.

You already own it: Drambo. See my example above. By increasing the filter resonance and modulating the filter frequency with note pitch will get you that effect without sounding too static. Another way to achieve a similar effect would be to replace the noise source and filter by an oscillator and adding a small amount of noise to it...

aleyas

@rs2000 said:

@aleyas said:

@u0421793 said:
In my blasphemous view granular synthesis is not a synthesis technique, it is an effect – most often used unusually early in the signal chain.

It's a legit synthesis technique, read up on it!

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ad03308fcf7fd547b82eaf7/t/5b75a255352f53388d8ef793/1534435933359/EvolutionGranSynth_9Jun06.pdf

Although I would agree that in practice it tends to be used more as an effect on either samples or live audio these days. I'd like to see a granular synth that has key tracking over density, which would make it possible to tune as an oscillator. Envelope control over grain length then acts as something like a filter/sync sound, with grain window controlling wave shaping.

You already own it: Drambo. See my example above. By increasing the filter resonance and modulating the filter frequency with note pitch will get you that effect without sounding too static. Another way to achieve a similar effect would be to replace the noise source and filter by an oscillator and adding a small amount of noise to it...

I'll have to try that! I guess to simulate grain windows one could trigger an AD envelope with a key tracked square osc, and then route the to offset? With the filtered noise or oscillator also routed through the envelope.. (just thinking outloud, I'll give it a shot).

Another method I think will work is to host something like identity or ipulsaret, expose density, and then scale a pitch signal with the graphic shaper to track density at standard pitch.

Zaubrer

I would say the best and easiest to get into is Spacecraft.

Borderlands Granular is a huge playground as well.

Quanta is a more „straightforward“ synth-approach I’d say.

Tardigrain is still missing in my collection but it looks incredibly fun!

Krupa

Being a granular maniac, I couldn’t resist trying monogranulator as it was 99p over the weekend (might still be...) but I’m not getting a great deal of fun out of it, maybe it’s just a bit limited after using idensity / frms / spacecraft et al...

rs2000

@aleyas said:
...
I'll have to try that! I guess to simulate grain windows one could trigger an AD envelope with a key tracked square osc, and then route the to offset?

You can do that but I've just used Flexi's built-in envelope (the Fade In and Fade Out times in the video are the best compromise I've found, it also depends on the grain window trigger rate of course.

Another method I think will work is to host something like identity or ipulsaret, expose density, and then scale a pitch signal with the graphic shaper to track density at standard pitch.

Worth a try! Got iPulsaret too.