[sdiy] What's Granular Synthesis?

[Dave Krooshof]

>I know.. again a little bit off-topic, but someone posted a "list" of
>several synthesis technics last week. What the f**k is granular synthesis?
>Never heared that before.. How does it work?
>
Not OT, AFAIC, as it is a way of synthesizing, though it lives in the
digital domain.
The main trick is to splice up time in grains (each grain is a certain
amount of samples long).

A grain itself has an envelope (volume curve) over it.
It fades in and out so to say. The grains overlap.
The shape of these envelopes is chosen so that the overlapping grains
have the original volume when added up together.

The fun starts when the grains are displaced:
Moving them closer together or futher apart can give tempo changes while
the pitch is still what it was.
Likewise, pitching the grains individually can make a pitchshifter without
altering the tempo.

Real fun starts when other thinkable treatments are done to the grains.
>From that point on, it's more about idea's then about limits.
The nice thing with grins is that you'll not generate the clicks and pops
that occur in the typical digital synths.

The downsides of granular are:
- fast transients often are faded in
- individual grains might become audible as a low pitch AM modulation.

On the MacIntosh, Super Collider is THE programming language for GS.
It's written by a genius, and huge patches only use some 12% of my CPU time.
(G3/266)
Super Collider is used by people like Joel Ryan (frankfurter ballet etc...)
and -I heard- by Aphex Twin (Richard D. James)


Dave

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Dave Krooshof http://www.xs4all.nl/~krooshof
geluidstechnicus @ http://www.ahk.nl/the/theatertechniek_ov.html
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