Stream - Time-based linear granulator for sound design, intricate delays, and live performance

[ILIO_Official]

ILIO is proud to announce their newest partnership with US-based Delta Sound Labs and the release of Stream, a time-based linear granulator for sound design, intricate delays, and live performance.



Delta Sound Labs is an audio technology company made up of passionate artists and engineers focused on bridging analog and digital domains to create new FX and instruments for the music, film, and gaming industries. Having specialized in designing Eurorack Modules for quite some time, Delta Sound Labs has brought their talents into the software world with Stream.

Stream provides new ways to granulize and manipulate samples or live audio sources with low CPU overhead.

Stream is a highly creative audio effect and boasts extremely low latency making it ideal for live performance. A few key features of Stream include:

- Tempo Sync: Synchronize the grains with the tempo of your host

- Low latency: Ideal for live performance

- Capture: Capture an audio excerpt and manipulate the audio

- Three Envelopes: Triangle, Q-able Gaussian, and Noise

- Up to 16 granular voices

- Time stretching/scrubbing

- MIDI buffer sequencing and re-pitching


Stream is available now from ILIO.com or from a variety of dealers.

https://www.ilio.com/delta-sound-labs-stream

[ericzang]

Looks good! Very interested. I didn't see a demo download, so more videos would be helpful.

Can it be triggered/played via midi note? If so, could those notes correspond to transposing the audio by half steps. And if so, is it polyphonic?

[Kongru]

Following, I'm a sucker for granulators.

[foosnark]

There's a demo on On Delta Sound Labs' site: https://deltasoundlabs.com/tag/stream

[aMUSEd]

Looks interesting

[ericzang]

thanks foosnark! looks like yes to my questions. Seems would be nice if the start position (white vertical line in waveform view window) could be midi controlled/automatable.

Also, when shifting pitch with midi notes from a keyboard, when releasing a note the pitch jumps back to the original pitch. An option for it to remain at the last note on could be nice.

[nathanj]

I find this a little confusing:

“Granular synthesis has been known to take one of two approaches: frequency based or linear (time-based). Contrary to most Granular audio effects on the market, Stream is linear or time-based, and provides new ways to granulize and manipulate samples or live audio sources.”

Isn’t all granular synthesis “time” based? I don’t see how this offers anything “new”. I don’t mean to be a pain here but a clearer explanation of what this alludes to would be appreciated. Speaking as someone who’s always looking for new granular tools.

[CinningBao]

I find this a little confusing:

“Granular synthesis has been known to take one of two approaches: frequency based or linear (time-based). Contrary to most Granular audio effects on the market, Stream is linear or time-based, and provides new ways to granulize and manipulate samples or live audio sources.”

Isn’t all granular synthesis “time” based? I don’t see how this offers anything “new”. I don’t mean to be a pain here but a clearer explanation of what this alludes to would be appreciated. Speaking as someone who’s always looking for new granular tools.

Correct. Granulation is a time-based manipulation, nothing to do with frequency (apart from the window/grain size). So I'd also be interested to hear how the developer defends this statement. It does sound slightly mis-informed.

[ILIO_Official]

Delta Sound Labs is trying to convey that Stream is not using computer heavy processes like spectral processing for granulation. What’s most important is a plug-in that is ideal for live performance and that is not computationally expensive. Sorry about the confusion, and we’ve revised the text on our website to better reflect that!

[Neon Breath]

So, what do you guys think about this granulator? Anyone bought it and uses it? Not much talk about it in any forums....

[Dirtgrain]

I'm interested too--will check out the demo.

[Neon Breath]

I will too when I’ll be back home and have the time. Let us know what you think meanwhile if you do!

[Dirtgrain]

Welp, demo mode doesn't allow one to change number of voices (I believe at the lowest setting which it is stuck at that there is one voice, but spread seems to do something), and several other parameters cannot be adjusted. It loads a sound into the buffer (maybe 1 second or so in the demo mode--buffer size not adjustable in demo mode). So the output will always respond about a second or so after you input. At 50% wet (or whatever) it is sort of like a granular delay/reverb, but not reverby, and only one "echo."

In the demo mode, I can somewhat detect the effect of changing the spread, but without more voices, I get little sense of it. It's a shame it doesn't just have white noise every minute or something, as I don't think I can make any decision about this without more controls activated.

With Zebra 2, I got some clicks here and there when adjusting grains or play speed/direction, so I'm thinking it would't be good for automating (not granular sounds--actually clicking). Did not have the same clicking sounds with Serum. I am using the latest Ableton Live 10 version.

I did get some neat sounds that I could see resampling and chopping up for glitch music. That could actually be pretty useful, but I haven't delved into glitch much.

[Neon Breath]

Thanks Dirtgrain for your input and feedback! Much appreciated.

You haven't convinced me (I have a lot of granulators already so my standards are pretty hight) and the lack of reviews or opinions on the web is a bad sign imo. But still I might try it when I have some free time. No pitch parameter neither hmm?

[original flipper]

Hi
I found the demo to be overly restrictive - I can understand a time limit or a bit of noise/silence - but to disengage important controls such as 'Buffer size' 'Voices' & the whole 'envelope' section does not allow the user to properly demo the product.
As stated already there is a time delay involved which makes me wonder if the 'buffer' control could minimize this?

Who knows...