Recommend a granular synth

[DJ Warmonger]

Okay, so I decided to trash The Mangle. It's notoriously impractical to use with its "multitimbrality" and tends to lose / forget samples I used for presets. Also, it appears unsupported.

So, I'm looking for something that doesn't have these flaws - easy to set up and go, with a library of dedicated samples.

What's cool out there?

Just FYI, I've got a plenty of quality synths already: https://djwarmonger.wordpress.com/about/studio-setup.

[ramseysounds]

Padshop Pro

[ohwell]

For a workflow that’s very close to the usual subtractive synthesis (oscillators into filter(s) + keyboard friendly) Quanta is very nice IMO. At it’s core it ticks a lot of the boxes the Mangle promised to cover, but with a 1 sample per patch focus, deep but intuitive modulation capabilities, a very sleek UI. The added (virtual) VCO and Noise source are a surprising boon to inject more conventional synth behavior into patches.

I see what you mean with the multi timbral capabilities of the mangle being impractical. IMO, Palindrome is a really well thought out, mature, and practical implementation of many (up to 4) samples per patch granular synthesis. I’d take a serious look at it if you’re interested in the more sound design/experimental side of granular synthesis.

[martinjuenke]

BioTek 2 (Tracktion) has granular synthesis (besides all the other usual suspects) on board.
Morphing is possible as well.

[Whywhy]

When you say: morphing, it's morphing parameters or crossfade volume ?

[UnbalancedBeats]

Audio Damage Quanta +1
New Sonic Arts Granite

[X-III]

Steinberg's Padshop Pro and NI's Skanner XT are both excellent and sound great.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Move to Bitwig and use it's Sampler and the Grid which has a sampler (granular) module. It's probably the most powerful granular synth in existence.

[Dirtgrain]

It's probably the most powerful granular synth in existence.

First I've heard about it. Tell us more.

[sureno]

Move to Bitwig and use it's Sampler and the Grid which has a sampler (granular) module. It's probably the most powerful granular synth in existence.

Even More so then crusherX?

[Echoes in the Attic]

Move to Bitwig and use it's Sampler and the Grid which has a sampler (granular) module. It's probably the most powerful granular synth in existence.

Even More so then crusherX?

That's maybe the only one that you can certainly say is more complex. I don't know it well enough to compare but I know how complicated the interface is and I'm sure it's insanely capable. Bitwig's sampler, and more so the sampler module in the grid, is simple on it's own, but when you add the bitwig modulators, which are infinite already, plus all the modules in the grid that the sampler module can work with, I'd say it's pretty limitless.

[Echoes in the Attic]

It's probably the most powerful granular synth in existence.

First I've heard about it. Tell us more.

Well the sampler in Bitwig has a few modes and one is the "Textures" mode, which is granular (in addition to normal and wavetable modes). Bitwig allows infinite modulators to be added to it's devices, which can modulate any parameter. These modulators can be per voice with the built-in instruments like sampler, and there is also voice stacking (allowing multi-granular effectively), which is also modulatable, so it's very powerful. Then when you use the sampler in the grid module, now all of a sudden it is a fully modular environment, so any routing of multiple granular modules you want through whatever combinations of filters and other effects, frequency mod, ring mod etc., as well as the regular modulators (including MPE expressions in normal modulators and grid modules, as everything is MPE compatible), so it takes it to a whole new level. For a granular playground I really don't think anything out there can compare. It does everything you could want. I wouldn't mind a high quality stretch/scrub algorithm, but that's different from granular.

[Dirtgrain]

Ah, I'm more concerned with the parameters themselves, and what sort of control is offered. The granular synths I have that work with samples have felt limited so far, but I just got Padshop Pro and will give it a go. Biotek, Glitchmachines, Granulator II, Iota, Granny--all have cool elements, but I keep thinking there could be more.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Ah, I'm more concerned with the parameters themselves, and what sort of control is offered. The granular synths I have that work with samples have felt limited so far, but I just got Padshop Pro and will give it a go. Biotek, Glitchmachines, Granulator II, Iota, Granny--all have cool elements, but I keep thinking there could be more.

What parameters are you looking for exactly? They are usually pretty similar at the sampler level. something like position/speed, grain window size (which has various names) and sometimes a grain window shape (more shquared to more rounded etc.). Aside from the grain size/shape and playback position, other controls would basically be effects.

[pdxindy]

The other thing that the Bitwig Sampler (or Grid module) allows is multi-sampling. So you can make velocity splits, key splits or switch between samples with a knob or some modulator.

And as Echoes said, you can use it in the Grid and there you can do anything you want with the granular output. Send it into a filter, modulate the cutoff with the granular output as audio-rate modulator, then send that to a mod-delay and then again to a filter... and all of those parameters can themselves be modulated. And that is all per voice.