KVR Audio

Neon Breath · Post by **Neon Breath** » Wed Sep 19, 2018 4:52 am

Will Saving is an independent developer, known in the Max For Live community for his unique M4L devices. He just released a plugin called Grain Stream.

https://willsavin.com/software/plugins/grain-stream

Grain Stream is a versatile grain delay plugin with a unique timeline editor to allow for fine control over a variety of grain parameters. It features 2 LFOs, a randomiser, and automatable offset sliders to modulate the grain parameters in real-time.

The granulator can play up to 100 grains simultaneously from 10 to 500ms in length, with 5 different grain window shapes, and grains can be fed back to create even denser granular textures.

Grain Stream is available as a 64-bit VST and VST3 for Windows and 64-bit VST, VST3 and AudioUnit for macOS.

Halonmusic · Post by **Halonmusic** » Wed Sep 19, 2018 8:20 am

Cool. Thanks for the heads up

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Wed Sep 19, 2018 8:23 am

Looks good

Julien Unison · Post by **Julien Unison** » Wed Sep 19, 2018 8:28 am

Interesting !

Neon Breath · Post by **Neon Breath** » Wed Sep 19, 2018 2:30 pm

Anyone had the chance to try the demo? (I didn't, no enough free time yet)

ilmai · Post by **ilmai** » Wed Sep 19, 2018 5:55 pm

I did try the demo, but the 5 seconds of silence comes in far too often, even after they increased it from every 10 seconds(!) to every 25 seconds. This, combined with a lack of presets showing the capabilities of the plugin, make it really difficult to judge what it's capable of. I'll pass for now and wait for proper demos or a demo with more sane limitations.

Neon Breath · Post by **Neon Breath** » Wed Sep 19, 2018 6:20 pm

Yeah several simple audio examples would definitely help. The video on their website is too short and a bit too simplistic.

WillSavin · Post by **WillSavin** » Wed Sep 19, 2018 7:17 pm

Hi! I'm the developer of Grain Stream, I've extended the timer to 45s on/5s off, hopefully that's a bit more reasonable. The demo version wasn't planned and I kind of rushed it out after getting a couple of requests for one, so I definitely made some mistakes in the process. Obviously I want the demo to still be enjoyable to use, if you have any more suggestions on how I can improve it then I'd be very grateful for them.
I'm currently working on putting together some presets and audio examples, I'll try and get those out for next week.

Thanks for sharing and for your feedback!

Neon Breath · Post by **Neon Breath** » Wed Sep 19, 2018 7:24 pm

WillSavin wrote: I'm currently working on putting together some presets and audio examples, I'll try and get those out for next week.

And while you are there Will, great work on those M4L devices, love them. Good job!

plexuss · Post by **plexuss** » Wed Sep 19, 2018 7:28 pm

Ok. Grain Stream is pretty cool. I have a lot of plugins. I am at a loss at the moment for anything I have that does what GS does. Still demoing....

Update: Really amazing, and nice. very musical and fairly easy to use. And, I haven't gotten into the modulation features yet.

Would be nice to have a Filter tab where the graph has control lines for cutoff and resonance. perhaps with the other filter controls clickable within the graph, for filter type and slope (dropdowns).

You should have the retails files over-write the demo files by giving them the same name. Otherwise the user has to dig into their files to remove the demo version.

Initially automation wasn't working but it was my error. Once automation was working, I bought it. It's too good and so much fun. Lots of possibilities with this. AND I still haven't touched the modulation features!

I just posted it in the Bargain/Deals forum.

Neon Breath · Post by **Neon Breath** » Wed Sep 19, 2018 8:35 pm

plexuss wrote:Ok. Grain Stream is pretty cool. I have a lot of plugins. I am at a loss at the moment for anything I have that does what GS does. Still demoing....

Update: Really amazing, and nice. very musical and fairly easy to use. And, I haven't gotten into the modulation features yet.

Would be nice to have a Filter tab where the graph has control lines for cutoff and resonance. perhaps with the other filter controls clickable within the graph, for filter type and slope (dropdowns).

You should have the retails files over-write the demo files by giving them the same name. Otherwise the user has to dig into their files to remove the demo version.

Initially automation wasn't working but it was my error. Once automation was working, I bought it. It's too good and so much fun. Lots of possibilities with this. AND I still haven't touched the modulation features!

I just posted it in the Bargain/Deals forum.

Fantastic to hear the first feedback! Niiiice, thanks for sharing here

plexuss · Post by **plexuss** » Wed Sep 19, 2018 8:41 pm

Just a strange little anomaly: I'm a MacOS Sierra, Logic 10.4.1. I copied the retail version into ../Components and removed the demo version. However in the plugin list in Logic, it still shows as the demo version "Grain Stream DEMO". But it's not the demo version when it opens.

WillSavin · Post by **WillSavin** » Wed Sep 19, 2018 9:17 pm

Thanks for your feedback and glowing review plexuss!

I'm glad you're enjoying Grain Stream.

I've looked into the cause of the anomaly with the plugin naming, it seems like the demo version is using the same 4 character plugin code as the full version, even though I changed it, because Xcode cached it without me realising, so your DAW is seeing it as the same plugin.
Luckily this is just a cosmetic issue since the full version of the plugin is still loading correctly. The solution seems to be clearing your plugin cache, which you can do by following the instructions here: https://support.uvi.net/hc/en-us/articl ... Unit-cache

ilmai · Post by **ilmai** » Wed Sep 19, 2018 9:18 pm

Lately I've been demoing different granular effect plugins (as opposed to granular synths which use a sample as a sound source), and haven't found anything that really clicked with me. I can kinda hear in my head what I'd like, but having a hard time replicating that with any of the plugins.

Grain Stream comes damn close, closer than anything else. Here's the results of a quick demo now that the time limit is 45 seconds and I can actually hear what I'm doing.

https://soundcloud.com/ilmai/grain-stream-demo

As good as that sounds (excuse the pun) as a soundscape, I still had some difficulty getting usable sounds out of the plugin. A filter like plexuss suggested would be awesome. Some other features I missed while playing with the plugin:
- Would be really awesome if pitch could be quantized to a scale, or a set of pitches (for example "generate grains at 1st, 3rd and 5th intervals").
- Snapping nodes to beats would be nice
- Modulation for grain length, although that was easy to do externally from Bitwig
- Unipolar modulation would be nice
- Visualizing grains on the stream as they're generated could also be helpful for understanding what's happening

As it is right now, it feels slightly too expensive for what it is, but there's definitely potential if you're motivated to work on it futher. Definitely keeping an eye out on where this is going!

plexuss · Post by **plexuss** » Wed Sep 19, 2018 10:10 pm

WillSavin wrote:Thanks for your feedback and glowing review plexuss! I'm glad you're enjoying Grain Stream.

It's a really good plugin and unique tool!

WillSavin wrote:I've looked into the cause of the anomaly with the plugin naming, it seems like the demo version is using the same 4 character plugin code as the full version, even though I changed it, because Xcode cached it without me realising, so your DAW is seeing it as the same plugin.
Luckily this is just a cosmetic issue since the full version of the plugin is still loading correctly. The solution seems to be clearing your plugin cache, which you can do by following the instructions here: https://support.uvi.net/hc/en-us/articl ... Unit-cache

Ugh. Ok I will live with DEMO in the title. to re-scan my plugins takes a couple hours and crashes about 10 times through the process. I have to keep re-starting Logic to get it going again. RPITA

Grain Stream, by Will Savin