Hi there

We have just release our new PC VST synth - Granite.



Granite is a drum synthesizer which recreates vintage drum machine, electronic bleeps and other percussive sounds. Some of its features are:

- Granite uses kits each composed of 8 percussive sounds, with the ability to load/save/copy and paste sounds to create your own kits

- Each sound uses two oscillators with 16 waveforms, two low/high/band pass/band reject/comb filters, frequency modulation and ring modulation. All the sounds are then passed to a waveshaper distortion and a tempo-synced delay

- All the sounds parameters can be controlled using a 16 point envelope with definable loop position

- 60 presets and a full manual are included with Granite,

Granite can be purchased for $24/€22/£15 from http://www.concretefx.com/DownloadSyn.htm.

Here are some sample drum-loops http://www.concretefx.com/Granite1.mp3, http://www.concretefx.com/Granite2.mp3 &http://www.concretefx.com/Granite3.mp3. A demo version which works with static every 15 seconds is available here http://www.concretefx.com/GraniteDemo.zip

Information about our other VST plugins can be found at our website : http://www.concretefx.com

Please feel free to email your opinion, suggestions and any problems to mail@concretefx.com


Cheers

Jonathan Ayres: ConcreteFx

How can anyone produce and market so many VSTi's and effects so quickly? Maybe you sould consider a "VSTi of the month" marketing plan.

Robert

this isnt an attack [i havent had chance to dl and try] but i guess the common gui elements make production quicker

anyone who has tried this comment how it stacks up against drumatic2 / attack / dr008 [synthesis] / elementP ???

slainte rob

Thanks for the feedback, in the months before actually releasing anything we develope alot of standard functions, filters, oscillators, envelopes etc this has made developing stuff much quicker then developing everything anew , similarly for the interface.

About releasing a VST of the month, I'am thinking of releasing some of the effect/synths as a bundle in the next couple of weeks, and the next couple of plugins should be a 32 eq/compressor, a vocoder and a vector sampler.

Cheers

Jonathan Ayres: ConcreteFX

concrete jonathan wrote:

and a vector sampler.

now that sounds COOL [at least i might not have to finish inVECTion now ] - any more details ???

slainte rob

The vector sampler is going to use 4 samples where you can define a path between the four sample, so the output is a mixature of these samples depending on the distance from them .Then the output would be passed through a vector filter defined by 4 filters (low/high/bp/br) where you can define a path which moves between this filters (a sort of simplified z-plane filter). This is just the an general outline and might change (it usually does)

Jonathan Ayres: ConcreteFX

thx for the info jon - sounds like inVECTion has definitely got to go on [even more of] a backburner now


slainte rob

I gave it a try. I've tried most of ConcreteFX's stuff so far so I figured, why not? Well the honest truth is I found it just a little too baffling. I'm about to give a description of how it works, but keep in mind that I found it rather confusing, so I might be completely wrong!

The synth can hold 8 sounds at a time, but spreads them across the keyboard starting at C4 (which seems to me to be very different from all other drum synths) and the group of 8 changes pitch above and below that. Which means that the kick on C4 is the kick on... E3(?) only pitched lower? I'm not sure. I would prefer to see the same sound on the same note, even if it means that some of the keys make no sound. I'm not going to review it further, since my desire for synthetic drums is low and I have Attack and Drumatic, which are enough for me (for now!) You'll have to get someone else to take the time to review the sound of it. Sorry.

There are some other things that confused me, but I know that after a little work with it, I would have it figured out, so I don't think it's a big deal.

BTW, I really like COncreteFX's QWah and even though I recently bought a $200 wah pedal, I still might buy it. It does some very cool stuff! One thing, though: it looks like there is some white aliasing at the edge of the knobs on these synths. It's a small thing, but I think that taking care of the little things is a good way to make an impression.

been having a play with granite...sounds pretty good.
but can you have the preset light up when you hit the sounds key or make the sound of the preset audible when you click on the preset button.

Jonathan,
Sounds great - but I have to agree with some of the other comments. I found myself trying to "find" where the preset was all the time (counting the keys!), so the idea of indicating with something on the GUI which preset you're hitting with your keys would be good.

Or, start at bottom C with the basic presets and then pitch them from there a la Attack and others.

I think with those changes this'd be useful for all kinds of percussion

Hi there,

Thanks for all the feedback, it has been really very useful and we have made some improvements based on these.

Granite now lights up the preset which has been triggered and is centered on middle C (midi note 60). The new version is available at http://www.concretefx.com/GraniteDemo.zip.

If you want to make other suggestions to improve Granite it would be most helpful.

Cheers

Jonathan Ayres: ConcreteFX

Jonathan,
MUCH better, thanks! I'll put it more thoroughly through its paces later on today. It'll be interesting to see how it compares to Attack and Drumatic. Usually for someone like me (ebm/electro style) it's the resulting snares which are the crunch. Attack manages them, just about, but not perfectly.

Cheers

Jonathan,
Had a nice "play" with this, and I'll be placing an order once you announce the bundles. Strikes me as great for noisy snares and other percussive sounds. It does the whole range of sounds probably better than Attack, I reckon, and is certainly easier to use than PicaDrum.
Kudos to you, this is going to be fun to use

After a suggestion from Gargolye, I've added a choke group to Granite.

A choke group means that for two drum sounds set to choke, if one is playing and then another plays the first one stops playing, this should be useful for hihats, snare rolls etc.

The new version is available at http://www.concretefx.com/GraniteDemo.zip

As always any suggestions/problems/etc just send us an email to mail@concretefx.com


Jonathan Ayres: ConcreteFX

Jonathan,
Many thanks! The choke works well... and so quick you are too
As for the noisy snares, they are no problem at all. More effective than Attack, certainly which tend to sound a bit wimpy. Got some nice ones going. Add a bit of reverb and Bob's your uncle!

Cheers - great stuff

Hi there

Slight problem with Granite, the current demo version asks for a serial number. I've fixed this problem and if you download the demo version now you should get the proper demo. The current version is available at www.concretefx.com/GraniteDemo.zip

Jonathan Ayres: ConcreteFX