fiddlerGRAINseason-2

Sample-reduced, alias-y/bit-crush-y goodness at high grain production rates? Check.
Syncopated glitchy vibes at lower grain production rates? Check.
Subtle, chime-y embellishments? Check.
Full-on granular madness? Check.

All with or without a delay buffer? And manual or randomized filtering? And manual or randomized pitch shifting? And switchable drop-outs, asymmetric grain production, & grain position spread? With manual or randomized control of the grain windows?

Yes, yes, yes, yes… and yes-ish.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. But IMHO, to my humble ears, it’s pretty good. It’s not what I’d consider an “ideal granular pedal effect”, but it gets me a few steps closer to what I hear when I think “granular effect”.

It’s mono cuz I’m a mono rig guy. For those of you running stereo rigs there *should be* enough room for you to add a second output and some groovy panning logic. I say *should be* with qualification, because it has locked up on me a couple times while patching. Given there’s plenty CPU headroom, this is probably a RAM issue… possibly even related to the “undos” being retained in memory? Anyways, can’t hurt for you to try adding another output, audio panner, etc.

Shout out to all the apps & plug-ins that have kept my granular dreams alive: RIBS, Granulator II, Emergence and the one I’ve leaned on most heavily for this patch – EmissionControl2… thank you Curtis Roads.

Description of all controls follows. The patch as uploaded is set to “plug and play”.

Cheers!!

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When ZOIA is active (i.e., not bypassed), and with the uploaded patch default routing (ie, only the BLUE indicators illuminated), live signal passes directly through the grain engine and bypasses the buffer. *So go ahead and just start playing and twiddling.*

The effected signal can be filtered, and dropouts introduced. Grain spread and filtering can be randomized. Grain generation can be “asynchronized”. The grain “window” can be adjusted manually or randomized. Pitch can be adjusted manually and/or randomized +/- 1 octave around the adjusted bias point. The patch is your oyster. Here are the details…

Rows 1 & 2: Stomp/signal path indicators:
Right stompswitch (latching) sends live signal directly through the “grain engine” – BLUE indicators ON.

Middle stompswitch (latching) sends live signal to the *adjustable, <=16sec* delay buffer – ORANGE indicators ON.

Left stompswitch (latching) freezes the delay buffer – RED indicators ON.

– With the buffer frozen, new live signal ducks existing buffered signal. The buffer is hard-wired to the grain engine, so if there’s audio in the buffer it will be effected. BUT NOTE: There’s no requirement to use the buffer at all. With the right stomp engaged (blue indicators), live signal will be effected without the buffer being filled. Filling the buffer opens up some fun options. For example:

o With buffer “unfrozen” (left stomp disengaged) and right stomp engaged, the grain engine will see the live signal twice… one in real time, one on a <=16sec delay
o With buffer frozen (left stomp engaged), and mid stomp disengaged, your live signal can be sent through clean (right stomp disengaged) over the top of the buffered/frozen grain content, or sent through the grain engine (right stomp) along with the buffered audio.
o With the mid-stomp engaged (orange on), new audio will duck the existing buffered audio if left stomp engaged (red on), or gradually replace it with left stomp disengaged (left off).
o So, yeah… fun permutations to try out.

Signal flow:
– Row 5, Column 1 = wet/dry
– Row 5, Column 2 = adjust buffer length. Adjust during playback at your discretion… results vary from “interesting” to “destructive”.
– Row 5, Columns 7/8 = introduces “intermitency” (drop-outs) into the grain engine playback, and allows for increasing/decreasing how quickly the changes in drop-out rates occur.

Grain generation:
– Row 3, Column 1 = Grain generation rate/grain length. Ranges from 2.5ms-100ms.
– Row 3, Column 2 = “Asynchronicity” on/off. Introduces ‘wobble’ into the grain generation rate. When off, grains are generated at regular, clocked rate. When on, generation gets more wobbly.
– Row 4, Column 1 = Randomizes the grain playback posiiton. When off, grain playback position is static and when used in conjunction with a static pitch position, this gets you some sample-reduced aliasing/bit-crushed vibe… without the B-C hiss. When on, depending on the generation rate, results go from smeary to obliterated.

Pitch:
– Row 4, Column 7/8 = pitch bias, semitones and pitch bias, cents
– Row 3, Column 8 = pitch randomization. Randmoizes pitch +/- 1 octave *relative to the semitone/cents bias*

Filtering:
– Row 3/4, Column 4 = LP and hP filter bias
– Row 3/4, Column 5 = LP & HP resonance
– Row 4, Column 3 = filter randomization. A relatively small window of randomization around/relative to the *manually set LP/HP positions*
– Row 5, Column 4/5 = BP/notch on-off switch and adjustment. Works *relative to manually set bias positions*. Depending on where you set the LP & HP filters, turning this on will give you a sweepable BP or notch filter. (yay!!)

Grain Window, Row 2:
– Attack, hold, decay and sustain each have individual controls. Most apparent/effective at lower generation rates, and not without utility at higher generation rates.
– A “randomize window” switch randomizes all 4 parameters independently of each other, and independently of any prior manual position.

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  • Platform:
  • Category: Effect
  • Revision: 0.1
  • License: Do What The F*ck You Want To Public License
  • Modified: 1 year ago
  • Views: 863
    Likes: 7
    Downloads: 402
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