grainScrubber

grainScrubber is a simple granular synthesizer very suitable for both live electronics and sound design. It is implemented in Max and based on Grainflow, Christopher Poovey's excellent suite of granulation tools.

grainScrubber allows the user to “scrub” the sound by freely moving the position of the grains along the waveform.

The main control element of this instrument is a two-dimensional graphic interface, in which the X axis represents the position of the grains and the Y axis represents the dispersion, understood as the distance between grain and grain. This axis also defines the variation in the amplitude of the grains in a random manner. Which means that the greater the value in Y, the greater the range of variation in the amplitude of the grains.

Additionally, the user has control over the following parameters:

grain rate: Interval at which the grains are generated (measured in milliseconds), this value is in turn equal to the duration of each grain when the space parameter is equal to 0%. Additionally, the smooth button can be used to smooth out the noise produced by small intervals (around or less than 30 milliseconds).

space: Allows grains to last less than the interval set by grain rate. Space sets a percentage of the total duration of the interval that represents the empty space in each grain.

density: Determines the probability that a grain will occur.

transpose: Transposes all grains together in semitones.

dispFreq: Controls the frequency with which the grains are dispersed when the value of the Y axis in the two-dimensional graphical interface is greater than 0.

modFreq: When the mod button is activated the grains are dispersed and return to their position periodically at a frequency determined by modFreq. The maximum distance of this scattering continues depending on the value of the Y axis in the two-dimensional graphical interface.

Pitch modes

In terms of pitch, the grains can be arranged in up to 8 pairs with different pitches. Here we can distinguish 2 modes.

rand: In this mode, the Y-axis in the graphical interface also controls the random deviation of the pitches of the grains from the original pitch of the sample.

harmo: In this mode it is possible to adjust in semitones and independently the pitch of up to 8 pairs of grains with respect to the original pitch of the sample. This is done using the transpose controls located at the bottom of the patch.

Grainflow is essential for this patch to work and can be freely downloaded from the Package Manager or from the following link https://github.com/composingcap/grainflow

If you have any questions, comments, bug-reports or suggestions. Please feel free to contact me via [email protected] or on instagram @oscar.recarte