Granular synths/engines/FX

[swilow11]

Seeing that Portal by Output is on sale, I'm contemplating purchasing it. I currently have a bunch of synths with granular capacity (Phase Plant, Falcon, Pigments) as well as Arturia Fragments and NI Form. Have also got Ashlight which has a decent granular engine too. But GAS is bubbling away, and I'm wanting some info as to what Portal may have to offer me. I'm typically making either darker psytrance genres and "cinematic ambient", both of which sound great when granularised.

My main criticism of, say, Falcon and Phase Plant is how CPU heavy they can get with granular. I'm not sure one can demo Portal so any info about its resource usage would be great. And any informed comparison between it and other granular FX/synths would be most appreciated.

[Sampleconstruct]

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... 2XHhNWgGqb

[t3hh]

My main criticism of, say, Falcon and Phase Plant is how CPU heavy they can get with granular

Granular engine requires heavy processing power by its nature and I doubt if this will change. Only our computers will get more powerful.

[martiu]

Portal is very efficient in terms of CPU consumption, it uses less than half of Fragments.

[El°HYM]

Hi!

[martiu]

. . .

[swilow11]

Portal is very efficient in terms of CPU consumption, it uses less than half of Fragments.

Hmm okay, interesting. I've got Fragments, just never really gone too deep into it. Maybe I should suppress the gas...which sounds a bit odd to reread.

[cake builder]

Maybe this would interest you:

https://www.databroth.com/blog/portal-v ... s-graindad

[martiu]

Fragment have more grain particles, it is better for soundscapes and drones, it can do glitchy stuff also with lower count, Portal shines in glitch and mangling of samples and synths, the other one to consider is Unfiltered Audio Silo, it is very good also. Graindad uses a lot of CPU, double the amount of Fragments, it has interesting modulation options but the sluggish UI and high CPU usage was a push off for me.
Another one of my favorites is Kentaro Stranular, it is pure granulator though, is not multi FX like the other mentioned here.
https://kentaro.tools/stranular

[El°HYM]

Dawesome - Love might be another one to consider.
https://www.tracktion.com/products/love

[sandandpaint]

My favourite moderately straightforward granular is Soundmorph DUST https://www.soundmorph.com/product/49/dust It works both as an effect or as an instrument. It had some bugs in the early days, particularly the fx version, but I have used it for years and any bugs are long gone.

However seeing as you ahve plenty of granulars already something like BEAM might add more - it has up to four granular engines plus convolution set up as a mildly modular system with a very lovely interface https://lunacy.audio/products/beam/

[Sinisterbr]

My advice: Go to this thread and follow the link to buy Kroto's Concept 2 for 1US$ (you can pay more if you want). You'll get a great granular engine AND a great overall synth.

viewtopic.php?t=538037&start=75

[sandandpaint]

My advice: Go to this thread and follow the link to buy Kroto's Concept 2 for 1US$ (you can pay more if you want). You'll get a great granular engine AND a great overall synth.

viewtopic.php?t=538037&start=75

what an incredible deal! Looks a great little granular - be fun just checking out the modulation

[Gribs]

Concept 2 is worth it for a buck, but ultimately falls short of the top-tier for my purposes due to lack of filter tracking for the keyboard, which IMO is essential for granular pads and playing noisier granular washes with some pitch tracking.

[bmanic]

You could probably do the pitch tracking in your DAW. Pretty sure you can do it at least in Reaper, FL Studio, Logic Audio and Cubase. Just route your keyboard through a midi router to the filter cutoff which I assume is available for automation.

Yes it's a clumsy workaround but hey it should work.