granular synthesis = granular sampling?

[arturnowak]

Theoretical question about granular synthesis: does it mean the same as granular sampling, which we know from Reaktor?

I could imagine a granular synthesizer, with hudreds of oscillators and very short AR envelopes, which would generate the grain cloud, every grain generated by independent osciallator... Does it make sense? I guess I must buy "Microsound" by Curtis Roads...

[leehurley]

granular sampling is pretty much the same as granular synthesis.
of course your grains could come from anywhere.
keep in mind that microsound is more about pulsar synthesis than granular synthesis. while they do seem very similar, they can produce very different results.

[sowari]

arturnowak wrote: I could imagine a granular synthesizer, with hudreds of oscillators and very short AR envelopes, which would generate the grain cloud, every grain generated by independent osciallator... Does it make sense? I guess I must buy "Microsound" by Curtis Roads...

have you had a look at GrainCloud v0.1 By Sola X in the user library?
maybe not quite what say, but along the same lines.

sowari

[sw004g]

Granular synthesis can be used as an umbrella term to refer to all sorts of granular techniques, but it specifically refers to techniques using synthetic grains (for instance, grains consisting of sine waves, sawtooth waves, FM waves, etc.).

Roads (and others) use the term granulation to refer to granular sampling (as in Reaktor's built-in modules).

Microsound is NOT necessarily more about pulsar synthesis than any other of the techniques Roads describes (granular synthesis, granulation of sound files, trainlets, grainlets, glissons, convolution, wavelet transform, etc.).

I've actually built both a Reaktor version of Pulsar Generator and a large graincloud synthesizer (which implements glissons, filtering of each grain, FM, etc.), although neither is completely bug-free. Perhaps when I become more familiar with the core, I'll try to do R5 versions.

[sw004g]

sowari wrote: have you had a look at GrainCloud v0.1 By Sola X in the user library? maybe not quite what say, but along the same lines.

Actually, my large graincloud synth is based on this, with all sorts of additions, like per-grain FM, grain waveform morphing, stochastically attracted or repelled glissons, per-grain filtering, grain pitch quantization etc. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to rid it of some annoying bugs. Some sounds made using (only) this synth:

http://www.redwierenga.com/reaktor/redklang1.mp3
http://www.redwierenga.com/reaktor/redklang2.mp3
http://www.redwierenga.com/reaktor/redklang3.mp3

[ashtangakasha]

sw004g wrote: Actually, my large graincloud synth is based on this, with all sorts of additions, like per-grain FM, grain waveform morphing, stochastically attracted or repelled glissons, per-grain filtering, grain pitch quantization etc. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to rid it of some annoying bugs. Some sounds made using (only) this synth: http://www.redwierenga.com/reaktor/redklang1.mp3 http://www.redwierenga.com/reaktor/redklang2.mp3 http://www.redwierenga.com/reaktor/redklang3.mp3

Redklang1 sounds really interesting. Nice work!

I was intrigued at how much Redklang3 sounded like water spraying in a shower stall. This probably says something about granularity of sound in the natural world (similar parameters, randomized within fairly narrow constraints).

[sw004g]

ashtangakasha wrote: I was intrigued at how much Redklang3 sounded like water spraying in a shower stall. This probably says something about granularity of sound in the natural world (similar parameters, randomized within fairly narrow constraints).

Totally. One of the primary bases for Xenakis' use of stochastics was the description of natural phenomena by means of simple rules. One of his examples, for instance, was that of a crowd at a political demonstration. Perry Cook and Barry Truax, among others, have used stochastic granular techniques to model everything from glass breaking to water dropping to maracas.

[arturnowak]

sowari wrote: have you had a look at GrainCloud v0.1 By Sola X in the user library? maybe not quite what say, but along the same lines.

Thanks Sowari, now I really know what granular synthesis means!

I's a pitty this sort of synthesis is not explored much. Granular sampling is popular for time-stretching etc, to make even faster disco music... But sythesis is forgotten...