granular synths

[aMUSEd]

Don't forget Pluggo - if it wasn't PACED I'd get that in a shot (and MODE)

[allofdrab]

Some other options which may be of interest:

"A list of various granular synthesis implementations
that people have made and published for pd."

smexStretchby : Bram at smartelectronix
for use with Bidule

[tetraplan]

"A list of various granular synthesis implementations
that people have made and published for pd."

Particle Chamber is very, very good.

Groet, Erik

[robenestobenz]

Is Pure Data much good? This and buzz machine have piqued my interest a fair bit recently.

[soma]

Buzz is not a vst. Buzz is a host that has also it's own pluging format called a "machine". All the machines I know of save one are free. Buzz will not load into a vst host but will host vsts and can run as a rewire master.

[fabi]

Buzz is not a vst. Buzz is a host that has also it's own pluging format called a "machine". All the machines I know of save one are free. Buzz will not load into a vst host but will host vsts and can run as a rewire master.

machines will load into FL Studio, though...

personally, i like pseudograins very much, although in FL it is a little buggy. Anyone use it in eXT? will purchase that most likely in the coming days, so it'd be cool if it was less buggy in there.

[robenestobenz]

I know roughly what buzz is (PD, less so), but is it and it's 'machines' capable of some unusual stuff (especially granular)?

fabi: I always liked the look of pseudograins but couldn't get it to do fück all. I lie. It ran once, the very first time I tried it, and refused to shiver an inch after that. Similarly to you, however, I recently bought eXT and might give it a go in that since granular synthesis interests me an awful lot.

[tetraplan]

Is Pure Data much good? This and buzz machine have piqued my interest a fair bit recently.

PD is pretty good, but it has a fairly steep learning curve. It's very much like Max (not surprising since it's coded by Miller Puckette). You can do pretty amazing stuff with it, but it has it's own kind of dependency issues sometimes.
I've tried some of the granular patches and they're amazing.

Groet, Erik

[mute]

I know roughly what buzz is (PD, less so), but is it and it's 'machines' capable of some unusual stuff (especially granular)?

"PD, less so" isnt a very accurate description as Buzz is more based around sequencing/tracking.. but, its not off. If you want to compare it to that sort of thing buzz is quite a bit like the Pluggo suite with a few PD-ish features (peer machines, python script, audio events, etc) then wrapped around a modular tracker. You can do alot in Buzz without its more advanced features.. I'd venture to say most ppl dont get into the more advanced things in Buzz. Anyways.. thats off topic.

About the Granular plugins, theres several and they're very beefy. Specially LD Grain and LD Grain FX. Another one was just made by Fuzzpilz..

Anyways. As for the type of plugins you're wondering about.. there are loads and loads of experimental plugins for buzz. Many of which you'll find in buzz before a VST counterpart comes into existence. Like the BTDSys Pulsar (similar to Granular) plugins for example..

here's a big screenshot of some of the fun machines:
http://www.plosive.net/buzz/img/buzzx.gif (244kb)

There's a ton of FFT, Buffer, Pitch, LFO controlled, etc filters, and more. With the Peer machines you can assign LFOs, Envelopes, Amplitude events, mix and match Envelopes from one signal to another, etc.. with relative ease. Anyways, yeah, theres a ton of experimental shit in buzz if that's your fancy.

In the rare case that you can't find something you need - Buzz's VST (actually.. VST/VSTi/ VSTMIDI/DirectX/Psycle/Buzz Machine/Winamp/Soniq/and then some) loader is made by Frank (polac) of xlutop (chainer). It's one of the best VST loaders I've ever experienced, rich with features and ripe with the latest compatibilies.

There's also an assload of MIDI features thanks to the Peer and MIDI interfaces created by BTDSys and Polac.

Here's a couple pages from the BuzzWIKI:
http://buzzwiki.wipe-records.org/index.php/Audio_FAQ
http://buzzwiki.wipe-records.org/index.php/MIDI_FAQ

If you want help/support I suggest www.buzzchurch.com and the 'reviews' section (which are tutorials) @ www.buzzmachines.com

[John Vulich]

Absynth
VAZ Modular

[rs_ml]

Even though I played around with KT Granulator, can maybe someone
show me a piece of music or recommend an artist using granular
synthesis in a way it's uniqueness comes clear to me?

Sure you can reorder sounds, but I really would like to hear some
examples creating a new kind of musical or sound structure, not
just as a pure distorting effect...

Ah, and as this question maybe has hurt some people, please don't hit at me

RS

[MadGav]

Even though I played around with KT Granulator, can maybe someone
show me a piece of music or recommend an artist using granular
synthesis in a way it's uniqueness comes clear to me?

Sure you can reorder sounds, but I really would like to hear some
examples creating a new kind of musical or sound structure, not
just as a pure distorting effect...

This is a little experiment done with VAZ Modular:
http://www.monosect.com/audio/Muscle.mp3

The source material is a sample of myself chanting (surprise) "muscle", which is then processed using the Granular Osc (which is more of a granular timestretch really).

Martin

[robenestobenz]

"PD, less so" isnt a very accurate description as Buzz is more based around sequencing/tracking.. but, its not off.

I meant more that I had less knowledge of what PD was than Buzz. Anyway, thanks for all the information you guys - I've got both programs to try out now.

[tetraplan]

You'll hear granular processing on most of Aphex Twin's stuff from, say, 1996 on. Autechre have been using it ever since they got an EPS with the Waveboy disks and there's a lot of granular stuff on Squarepusher's Go Plastic (just to name a couple of usual suspects).

Folks like Kim Cascone use it all the time. Fennesz, Hafler Trio (on more recent works), Tim Hecker, and so on.

It's pretty big in the academic world, too- Curtis Roads wrote a book called "microsound" on the topic of granular synthesis (still haven't read it). AudioMulch's BubbleBlower is based on Roads' granular synthesizer.

Granular synthesis is a lot more than just reshuffling sounds in a stuttery way; you can manipulate sound on a "molecular" level- freeze it, loop it, reshuffle it, detune it, &c. Try Particle Chamber to see how you can travel though a sample, it's very cool.
My favourite techniques are particle cloning (looping a microscopic bit of sound from a sample) and granular pitch-shifting/time-stretching.

Groet, Erik

[aMUSEd]

Even though I played around with KT Granulator, can maybe someone
show me a piece of music or recommend an artist using granular
synthesis in a way it's uniqueness comes clear to me?

Sure you can reorder sounds, but I really would like to hear some
examples creating a new kind of musical or sound structure, not
just as a pure distorting effect...

Ah, and as this question maybe has hurt some people, please don't hit at me

RS

For a non "glitchy" approach you could try listening to my granular resynthesis of a 7 second long sample of GW Bush's voice to turn him into a musical instrument:

http://www.fingermarks.co.uk/music/babelonia.mp3

it has no other sound sources or instruments - it 100% Bush I'm afraid (scary)

this piece is also largely based on granular synthesis:

http://www.fingermarks.co.uk/Music/donut.mp3