graincloud-parameters

I am experimenting with granular synthesis using reaktor´s graincloud. By now I understood about everything, but the parameters of attack and decay, which have a range (normally) from 0...1. What does this mean. 0 of course means that there is no attack/decay. Does 1 mean that the attack/decay-time is as long as the whole grain? If it this is fact, what happens if Attack/Decay are both 1? is then the middle of the grain the amplitude peak with 50%? or with 100%? What would happen, if I tried an Attack/Decay with a value of 2 or even higher?
Maybe someone knows anything about it.

 

interesting question! ive been using the graincloud a lot recently too with fantastic results. i also assumed that, like you suggest, an attack of 1 means the slope covers the entire grain length but i dont know for sure. to be honest im not too bothered about knowing as at the end of the day you have to use your ears anyway. i think its only real purpose of attack / decay is to stop crackling anyway. (like smooth on the resynth).

 

I wanna use a grain-synth for a research-paper, where i have to exactly describe what I am doing and what the parameters of my synth do. So should better know how Attack and Decay really work. Maybe someone from NI could tell me.

 

wow

wow what subject are you studying? (or researching) that sounds like such fun?!! please let me know as my brother is interested in doing some sort of music tech degree.

 

I am going to SAE College in Cologne. It´s School of Audio Engineering. Yeah it´s interesting and really fun (when i am not learning). But the bad thing about it, is that you have to pay for it. Unfortunatly.
Does anybody know about them two parameters? Actually there are some more moduls that could be explained better in the manual.

 

For example Filters. How do Filters work when their bandpass-out is connected? How large is the passband? When raise the resonance, does it emphasize both cutoff-frequencies?

 

hello itchthrill,

for your study time you should think about
purchasing the reaktor 3 book.
it will give you alot of answers.

best wishes

self oscillate

 

I already purchased the extremly cheap programm reaktor. i dont wanna buy a book to learn using it. But thanks for the tip. Maybe its the only way to get to know everything reaktor is able to do

 

hehehe i know what you wanted so say.

i thought about the book because you mentioned that
you use it for study and for this purpose it would
be good having it. unfortunately the normal handbook
is not that good, seems to be a bit outdated too.

maybe there are some good resources on the internet,
dealing with synth basics and so on (thinking about
your filter question).
can't give you an url, just try a search engine.

best wishes

self oscillate

 

Have you checked the online tutorials here on the NI site? There was a very good tutorial on using the Grain Cloud modules... Maybe that will help.

Here's an excerpt from it that most likely answers your question:

Here, instead of a fixed value for Attack and Delay, these parameters are regulated by the introduction of two controllers. Their values determine the envelope of the individual grains, influencing the sound character. For example between “hard” and “soft” (Snapshots 1 and 2) or from “sss” through “ts” to “fft” (Snapshots 3, 4 and 5).

Here's the URL for the entire tutorial:
http://www.nativeinstruments.de/index.php?graincloud2_us

 

i have already checked the online tutorials concerning the graincloud. But that the envelope makes the grains hard or soft does not help me very much. i need to know it in mathematically exact way. If you know what i mean. Please, someone from NI has to tell me for my paper.

 

Well... It does say that it provides an envelope at the beginning and end of the grain... Gives the Attack Envelope at the beginning of the grain (fade in) and the release at the end of the grain (fade out). I'm no substitute for a response by NI, but I hope it helps....

 

If you don't have any luck finding out from NI maybe you could set it up so it produces isolated grains (from a hi freq sine sample or something) record the output for a range of settings and then measure it visually in a sample editor?? It's crude but it should give you some idea.
Yes I want to know more about the exact response curve of the filters too... so I made a "response tester" that sweeps a sine wave through all the freqs and graphs the output on a scope. It's not as good as having the maths but it helped.

Rob

 

This is a very good idea. I will do that for my research paper on grainular synthesis. Some sreenshots of resulting waveforms are surely intersting. Maybe i will post them here. so everybody knows what he attack/decay inputs reallay do.

cheers