First Encounter

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ColinP
Posts: 939
Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2020 7:46 pm

First Encounter

Post by ColinP »



An unscripted, warts and all "virtual unboxing" video showing what your first encounter with the Adroit Granular Synth might be like.

It doesn't explore much beyond what's described in the Getting Started section of the store page...
https://store.cherryaudio.com/bundles/granular-synth-1
...but a video is much more informative than a few paragraphs of text.

Future videos that dig deeper are planned.
UrbanCyborg
Posts: 588
Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2021 9:23 pm

Re: First Encounter

Post by UrbanCyborg »

One helluva module, Colin! I bought it the day it came out, but have been so busy with my own beta process I haven't had time to get down into it. This video just makes me wish I had more free time. Awesome stuff, fella. BTW, I'm going to be in England shortly, but unfortunately, not in a slot that overlaps the event in Sheffield. Too bad; I'd love to have hoisted a few with you and the other UK devs.

Reid
Cyberwerks Heavy Industries -- viewforum.php?f=76
ColinP
Posts: 939
Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2020 7:46 pm

Re: First Encounter

Post by ColinP »

Thanks for the kind words Reid. Also a shout out to Grant and Steve for their supportive comments on the other thread.

I totally understand about time pressure, plus it always seems like the final 5% of a project takes up 50% of the effort!

The next video will be about using the Chord and Chord Memory modules to gain control over the Granular Synth's pitch quantization. When nothing is plugged into the QUANTIZE socket then the scale is just chromatic and the chord is always Cm9. It sounds surprisiingly good with these defaults but being able to use a full range of scales and chords is obviously much more useful musically.
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SpaceDog
Posts: 65
Joined: Thu Dec 17, 2020 11:29 am

Re: First Encounter

Post by SpaceDog »

A wonderful module that took only a short time before I was getting high quality sounds out of it. So much so that I'm pleased that I pressed record as I was feeding it live audio as a test, once I'd grasped the essentials. I even issued the result and it's been popular, which surprised me as it's a bit more "out there" than what usually do.

Thanks for a great module, now I need to see what avenues open up with the Breakout unit.
ColinP
Posts: 939
Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2020 7:46 pm

Re: First Encounter

Post by ColinP »

Cheers SpaceDog.

A few ideas...

One thing you might find fruitful to explore is using multiple Granular Synths in a patch. It depends on your machine's power but most people should be able to get three or four instances running in a patch so long as they are not all running flat out (with each producing 500 simultaneous grains).

BTW I'll try and put together something covering efficiency tricks and tips at some point in the future.

One simple idea is just to record the output of one instance of GS into another. You can max out the number of grains on the first and end up with an incredibly complex texture in the second GS's buffer. Then you can reset the first GS to free up all that CPU and play with the resulting texture as a sample in the buffer of the second GS. So you can go from your CPU being close to meltdown to it running at less than 10% while still producing a similar sound. Then add more layers...

Another idea is syncing the seeding of multiple instances. Using the SEED OUT signal from a master to feed the SEED IN of other instances (perhaps with the odd clock divider in-lined for rhythmical interest).

Also using the GS Breakout module you can achieve modulation coherence by sharing modulation between multiple instances. So GS #1's LFO 2 might be controlling grain size in GS #1 but also filter cutoff in GS #2 and pan in GS #3. This works particularly well with slowly evolving ambient stuff (especially as the LFO rates go all the way down to 100 seconds per cycle).

Another thing about GS Breakout is that it enables you to customize randomization. When lots of things are enabled for simultaneous randomization you'll often get poor results but in compensation this helps you find crazy modulation feedback loops where you get very interesting chaotic behaviour.
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