Granular mode as a granular processor

[Heleste]

Hello everybody,

I have just tried this and realized that Granular mode can already be pretty much used as a real-time granular processor.

There is one thing though that could made it even more usable.

Each time when you record a new sample into the pad which has a granular mode assigned to it, some parameters are kept as you have set them and some are set to default.

If only there were a possibility to make this a subject of choice: to keep the settings for a new recording or to default them, that would be awesome!

So, I found that the following changes are set to default:

• entire LFO tab
• entire Gran tab
• Output in Conf tab

maybe there is something I missed.

All of these parameter are crucial to be kept for a seamless real-time granular processing.
A use case for this is of course a live performance (ambient music in my case).

Thank you and have a beautiful day!

[Heleste]

By 'real-time granular processor' I mean of course that you record a sample and it is then played granularly.

[Klaustrophil]

By 'real-time granular processor' I mean of course that you record a sample and it is then played granularly.

Why only recorded samples? Sacrificing a pad to have a granular effect box would be dope!

[Heleste]

Yes, of course!
I mean that at the moment you can only record a sample to the pad where the granular processing has been assigned and play it back granularly right away.
You can't record and play at the same time at the moment, right?

[Georges]

To some extent, this is a limitation by design of granular “synthesis”: a granulator works by resampling over the original sample, potentially any part or the whole of it. For this task, it needs to know at any point the total size of the file either on disk and/or in (virtual) memory. This is because resampling happens within a flexible user-defined window.

If you want to do live granular processing, you have to constantly update the internal context of all the user parameters and interpret the latter within the confines of the currently applicable window. With a window which can go back into the past, I imagine this to be very processing intensive. In addition, if the window is not prefixed, the result will not necessarily yield predictable and musical results. Even Spacecraft and Tardigrain on iPad need to record a sample first before they can apply granular processing.

If I understand the specs correctly, Lemondrop does not do granulation of live signals or, if it does so, with a max window of 30 seconds. Waldorf Iridium appears to do granulation on live signals, also with a pre-set window (no going back into the early past AFAICS), at 4 times the price of the Blackbox and as a dedicated synth.