Whatever that means? Like Joel Korte, I hate shimmer reverb, and I had always suspected the “Shim” setting on Dark World (which, like Joel Korte, I do like) used some sort of granular delay. So, I set off trying to find that setting, but I got distracted along the way. (I think it’s out there, if someone else wants to go looking. I think I like where I ended up better. Plus, this one’s in stereo.)

That starting point has its fingerprints everywhere on this patch, from the slightly resonant filter as “tone control,” to the “bounce” options. If you’re going to steal ideas, steal good ones!

This patch makes some pretty sounds. It makes some weird sounds. It makes some unpleasant sounds (that you might like!). Play around with it. There’s a lot of cool stuff I discovered while I was putting it together.

Stompswitches:

Left, momentary: freezes the granular module’s buffer. When frozen, the signal bypasses the granular module and proceeds directly to the diffusers, which allows you to play over a frozen buffer with some reverbish sounds.

Middle, momentary: sets the tap tempo for modulation.

Front panel:

All the controls (except grain texture) work like this, going from top to bottom: a value, which controls that parameter, then a pushbutton to initiate “bounce,” and another pushbutton below it to change direction from “rise” (the parameter moves towards its maximum) to “fall” (the parameter moves towards its minimum). In a couple places (grain size and diffusion), there is a fourth control, for bounce depth.

Going from left to right:
Octave — 0.00-.499 = one octave down. .500 = no pitchshift. .501-1.000 = one octave up.

Grain size — the default setting is in the .800 range. I found this worked best for achieving a “smooth” “reverb” “sound.” The reason it has a range control for its modulation is that as grain size approaches .001, the patch gets VERY loud. I find it best, if using a falling grain size, to avoid this.

Grain position — in a lot of ways this acts like a pre-delay. The higher the value, the longer it takes for the grains to enter the mix. Modulated, especially when frozen, produces a lot of neat “pads.”

Grain density — when modulated, it almost gives a subtle tremolo effect. I generally keep it at 1.000, because this produces the “smoothest” sound, but some of the discontinuities that arise with lower values can give a cool texture to the patch.

Grain texture — a CPU casualty, because it’s not that interesting. The pushbutton either keeps it at 1.000, or causes it to modulate between 0 and 1.

Diffusion size — the patch makes use of a couple of diffusers to… diffuse the granulated sound. (Makes sense!) At its lowest settings, it produces the “cricket” sound is how I describe it, where you get… not quite echoes, I’m not sure how to describe it. Increasing it smooths out the sound. It has a range control because it can produce some… really weird textures/angry sounds when it modulates too much. When it’s reeled in a little, it adds a peculiar, almost “moaning”? pitch modulation. It also operates using a clock divider to slow its modulation. Before you use modulation, make sure you set a tap tempo, because clock dividers do weird things when they don’t have a point of reference. It’s set to 1/8th the tap tempo. If you want to change that, it’s buried… somewhere. It’s in a top right hand corner, and it’s red. Page 4ish.

“Tone control”/filter — this is a slightly resonant low-pass filter. You can use it to tame some of the highs from the octave up setting. Modulated, it can produce some very nice filter sweeps.

Mix — mix! Modulating this will produce some cool tremolo-esque sounds.

On the bottom are a few useful things: bottom left, indicator for the tap tempo. The other indicator is for the diffuser’s tempo.

Beside the diffuser indicator, in the “grain density” row, is the feedback amount for the granule module. I’ve set its range so that it doesn’t blow up (**except, sometimes, when you’re modulating the grain size to zero. If that happens, reduce this to zero and give the granular module a minute to chill out. If you plan on modulating grain size to zero, I would preemptively cut this back to at least .500, if not lower). I wouldn’t call this a decay control. Or a regeneration control, exactly. But it straddles the line of both.

Sound clip:

I honestly can’t recall the settings I used. I know I froze the buffer a few times. A bunch of different modulation.
This patch rewards trying different things out!