I´m loking for a granular synth these days, watching some tuts and demos.
I´m a FL user and sometimes this is my workflow (when I´m not chasing for something in particular):
- I record a raw phrase.
- I open FL Granulizer and load the phrase.
- I mangle the phrase to get some spaced random melodies, so with some luck I found something inspiring and complementary with the root ideas.
- Render and re-arranging interesting slices.

As you see, I don´t use synthesis to get epic pads or custom drone sounds, melodic spaced drops for spreading in some specific moments are my goal. So I´m wondering if somebody here works in this way and what granular synth you choose, because sometimes FL´s is a little limitating for me. Granite looks nice because the display and source borders management. Also Cumulus looks promising because multiple scenes and sequencer, but I´m interested in your approach here. Just for 'reference' I can say that I´m making similar sounds than Múm or some Oval stuff. I´m not looking for complexity or hundreds of modulation parameters here, I tend to keep things simple and usually similar sounding to the source, but deconstructed.

Thanks!

 

yeah I pretty much do the same thing you do when it comes to granular synthesis. Because I always regard Granular Synths as an effects processor I always render out my granular sound to audio. If there is anything that should go into audio, it should be all your effects since alot of processing is used to get certain desired effects and sounds for your productions.

Right now I use Granite for simple granular jobs, it's fast and sounds amazing. But if I want to jam out and experiment and go a little more crazy, MAN I hope you guys heard of Ambitron cuz this thing kicks ASS!

Ambitron

 

Camel Alchemy is an excellent synth.

 

Two days ago, I see this

"Hardon"

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2012/11/16/free-download-hadron-the-ultimate-granular-synthesis-tool/

it's open source and look promising, I have not try yet.

 

In Ableton I offten use Granulator (max instrument) and I'm satisfied

 

no one beats the TubeOhm Pure-G ...its a very very nice soft synth ...i recommended it over Alchemy and many others out there ...just try the demo on their site here: tubeohm.com/TubeOhm/Pure-Grain.html i assure, you wont be dissapointed on this ...that guy makes awesome synths for sure ! Cheers! ...too bad i cant buy them all

 

Reaktor offers a lot of possibilities! For example Travelizer and Grainstate, and you can tweak a lot...

I remember also this one but it is a bit expensive...

 

NI absynth uses granular synthesis =)

 

I AM BEST GRANULAR!!!

 

Loomer Cumulus, New Sonic Arts Granite, Hamburg Audio Nuklear.

Those are the ones I like!!!!!

 

I agree to angie,
if it comes to granular stuff, Reaktor is THE thing!
To re-arrange, slice and pitch loops, use the 'L3'-ensemble, to destroy samples, import 'em into 'metaphysical function' and use 'fast fx' to create loops out of the results, to create ambient'ish evolving sounds, simply use 'travel-liza' or the origin 'travelizer' or 'grainstates', to create rhythmic patterns, just drop your samples into 'limelite' and let the fun begin. And Native Instruments user library contains a few hundred (!) more sample- and sound-manglers- and mashers for Reaktor which gives you endless possibilities. Just check out some of the ensembles (these are the 'instruments' of reaktor) and videos over here to get an quick overview of what reaktor is capable of: http://www.reaktortips.com/

 

Reaktor is king.

 

PSSSHHH, Reaktor sucks, it's so unstable and I hate Native Instruments Module based design. Why does everything have to be in one program? Waste of space. I don't wan't to open up multiple instances of a program I wanna open up multiple instances of VST's. Annoying shit!!!

 

Alchemy, Reaktor, Sampler tweak... i really love alchemy... no-one talk about PADSHOP Pro, i buy it and it's really amazing... I Really love it ! it's simple and it's not bad sometimes ;) it's nice to see waveform and grains... you can have it on a sampler but i think there's a bit more parameters on padshop pro because it's build for granular... experimentation

And if you like this kind of territory you will probably like Sprectral Things like Izotope IRIS, GRM Tools, This free tools from Michael Norris also : Spectral Soundmagic i also find some koresoundpack in KORE very interesting Deep transformation, Reconstruction etc... Series of 3 soundpacks (i think it use quite a lot reaktor but not sure...)

NB: and i don't see the point of a lot of people with Native Instruments (i don't mention that because of HKPotential but i heard quite a lot), commercial success and agressive marketing doesn't mean products are bad... Honestly their synth was awesome, Massive is very pleasant to program, Absynth have really powerful envelope and interesting effects, FM8 is crazy, Revamped Battery is nice and Kontakt was one of the most powerful Sampler.... Reaktor is open to a lot of geek programming... I heard also if you have same tools you sound the same ! ahahaha ok if you have 808/TB303/Elektron/Dave smith you sound the same or not ? No ! that's not the tools determine your sound, that's your skills and creativity... Also, music as code and people like it for that code... Going far away from it and the cycle will come the beginning because the things, the basics are gone... That's my observation

I'm not using only NI because i was looking for a lot of other compagny and finds different things interesting in other synths, inspire me quite a lot... so i use synths for the specificity.

 

Oh man speaking of Izotope their TRASH plugin is fucking amazing! I totally recommend it to all those industrial heads in the forum. It would totally make their music sound exactly like how they would cut themselves for pleasure *yes*

No seriously it's a really good plugin

 

I love that plugin to

 

For weird ambient drone stuff, I've been playing around with Granite (with ValhallaUberMod!) a lot lately. For playable pads/bits and boops/whatever, I use Max for Live's Granulator. You can quickly and easily make a great sounding pad from a fart sample with that thing.

 

My reaktor isn't unstable at all... never got a problem! I can program nearly everything I wish!

 

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE ANSWERS!!!
Wow.. lots of options here
It seems that never will be enough samplers out there.
I checked every suggestion, and for now I think I´m going to start with this one:

..or also Granite or Cumulus. More complex ones you suggested look inspiring, but 'learning time' is now limited for me so I need something more intuitive and 'naked' to work with. Also, I actually like when you can listen and recognize the source sample in the spitting fragments, so I don´t want to run something full of routing or softener parameters that I will never use. It´s a shame that I´m still away from watching my Kontakt tutorials for creating my own instruments (or should I start with Reaktor?) so this time I´ll try something simple so I could write something for the Adio Sexed Album project

Greetings!