Being quite unlike regular synthesis, granular techniques can be just the thing when you need to reboot your tired old synth with some welcome weirdness. We show you how.
In the last few years there has been a wider use of ambient, experimental, and drone based music in much film and TV content, especially in genres that demand atmospheres evoking mystery or fear such as in the ever-popular noir genres. While a new raft of tools has grown up around shaping and honing designed soundscapes, many of the instruments used can themselves be fairly conventional, even where synthesis is involved. Certainly instruments considered to have ‘classical’ synth architecture such as those with subtractive or wavetable based technology are behind most of the most recognisable sounds of the last few decades, but others exist.
Why Granular?
Granular synthesis is the technique that does away with the whole concept of generating waveforms from scratch, and instead does its thing with existing ones. The technique essentially slices up existing sounds’ waveforms into very short sections called ‘grains’ and allows them to be manipulated temporally by looping, changing grain order, or otherwise subverting the way in which they are played back. This opens up many possibilities for sound design where unusual soundscapes such as ever-changing drones are required. Most of the record-buying public will already know the sound of early granular techniques as heard out the back of many hardware samplers powering the dance music revolution of the 80s and 90s.
Arturia Efx FRAGMENTS
The French developer Arturia have their own take on granular goodness in their recently released Efx FRAGMENTS. They cite it as being able to “Breathe life, musicality, and character into any sound, and discover inspiring & intricate new textures”. Other features of the tool include:
Dramatic rhythmic stutter effects to cloudy reverb shimmers, and everything in between. Efx FRAGMENTS takes the complex concept of granular synthesis and makes it more flexible, more accessible, and more musical than ever.
Glitch & stutter Build tension and sprinkle variety into your beats, compositions, and soundscapes with dramatic stop-start stutters, pitch-shifted fluctuations, and reality-shattering glitches. Slice sounds rhythmically or go totally off-grid for true sonic chaos.
Rhythmic variations Efx FRAGMENTS listens to the rhythm of your track and can respond in a number of creative ways. Make every grain of sound respond to your tempo for glitchy beats, fractured rhythmic textures, flowing percussive sequences, and more.
Textural enhancement Whether you want to add sparkling character, or just make something ‘feel’ better in a mix, immediately excite and accentuate any instrument stem, loop, or vocal part with the ethereal sound of granular processing, complete with built-in mix-ready FX.
Beauty or chaos Whether you want musical or experimental, beautiful or chaotic, Efx FRAGMENTS can make any sound exciting, evocative, and entirely yours. Effortlessly explore and manipulate granular processing with amazing sonic results guaranteed.
Redefining ambient Go beyond conventional reverb and delay and immerse your mixes in material ambience. Create vast shimmering clouds of sound particles, delicate cave-echo trickles, or fast-flowing spatial movement with any sound source.
Forge new timbres Turn the smallest transient, the crunchiest sample, or the most unassuming stem into a bowed string, a grainy drum hit, or a mix-enveloping pad. By tightly weaving grains together, Efx FRAGMENTS creates texture and density in the most unexpected ways.
Watch in the video how we elevate a static string machine into an engaging ethereal soundscape using nothing more than an instance of Efx FRAGMENTS.
What Granular Can Do
If you’ve hit a creative wall, or have failed trying to strap effects plugins across static sounds in the hope of resurrecting them, granular will undoubtedly inject a new take on your creations using sounds that would otherwise have ended up in the bin. With an almost infinite number of permutations available using tools such as Efx FRAGMENTS, when it comes to sound design using existing instruments the only remaining question is what granular cannot do for your arrangement.
To celebrate the launch, Arturia are offering Efx FRAGMENTS at a one-off introductory price for registered users until March 17th. Save by purchasing Efx FRAGMENTS as a standalone effect OR bundled with FX Collection 2. Login at arturia.com to unlock your exclusive price now.