#8

fwiw getting artifact-free buffer stuff out of max is just super hard - best to roll with a well-made external (which you could use a multiple of in a specific way) or just keep it edgy. (possibly already the conclusion of this topic hehe)

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#9

What are the good externals out there these days?

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#10

kinda feel like karma~(s) could do most granular stuff you would need ? and it’s pretty reliable ?

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#11

You’d tink it would be easier to do with gen~ these days… not that I really understand what I’m doing

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#12

Hmmm, yeah I guess I could toss karma~ in a poly~

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#13

I think it’s more that there’s like a lot of scenarios that need a crossfade at the right time, and neither max or gen really have any tools to help with that. which is crazy cuz I have to imagine that’s a super common use case. but yea that’s exactly why karma~ was made, but it’s high level. I definitely wish for something like an interpolated peek~ and poke~. I may try making that, actually.

and yea also softcut is great & yea I literally can’t stop brining it up.

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#14

The Petra library (http://circuitmusiclabs.com/projects/petra-for-max/) is in the Max Package Manager. It’s excellent. You can do quite a bit just using the demo patches as jumping-off points.

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#15

Just used your softcut max patches everywhere on a track by the way and it was great. Is softcut suitable for granular synthesis? I seem to remember the granular norns script wasn’t made with softcut but maybe that changed since?

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#16

I mean, if you set the loop start and end points short and move them around a longer buffer, mess with the fades, then that’s granular, yea ? if there’s live input maybe you’d want to dedicate a separate recording voice. I guess most proper granular relies on having a lot of playback voices, in norns yr limited to four, but in max you can place as many instances as u want. It’s kinda CPU intensive though when you start adding more voices, I seem to remember karma~ being better there. the petra library above looks like it has more options for the windowing/crossfades/envelope which I assume is useful. it’s fixed in softcut~ right now but I think there are some more curves under the hood. and petra is probably much more CPU friendly with hella polyphony.

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#17

No, and neither is karma which has similar goals

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#18

ya I think I’m mainly speaking for like one-voice chunky kind of granular (which I enjoy !) for the polyphonic/very small grains stuff petra library is probably gonna serve ya better

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#19

yeah, i’m more interested in figuring out the particle/cloud stuff

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#20

To be clear, softcut loops can be arbitrarily short with subsample accuracy. But they lack many typical parameters for granular synthesis and have orher core features that are expensive and irrelevant

You could put softcut in a poly, disable recording, handle all timing and rate changes in max. But timing would be loose (message queue) and you can do that with other stuff anyway

Weird that max doesn’t have something built in like supercollider BufGrain. Granular engine external seems straightforward

4 Likes
#21

Petra package looks cool. But, already I wish some of the params (pitch) could be more extreme.

Yes. This. I was thinking this early, pondering if I shoudl learn some supercollider just for BufGrain and TGrains. But there’s only so much time in the day…

I’m actually surprised they didn’t make munger~ a standard object one or two versions ago.

#22

I think the petra package is going to do it for me :+1::+1::+1:

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#23

Thanks so much for this !!
It’s so straightforward, and seems CPU friendly as well.

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#24

Glad I could share it! I’ve been surprised to see that it’s not frequently mentioned, as I think that it’s a spectacular toolset. There are a lot of really great finds in the Max Package Manager. Others to check out:

-MC Movement Studies. This is an inspiring collection of sequencing techniques and more. Dillon Bastan really has my attention lately between this and iota. There’s a really solid Cellular Automata sequencer in here that is fun to pair with microsound stuff.

-karma (by @rodrigo). Most of you know this one already, but it’s nice having it in the Package Manager. Not granular, but covers my sampling needs that petra doesn’t.

-ml.star. Machine Learning objects. There’s a very nice self-organizing map widget. If you build a granular tool, try training this with parameter sets for preset morphs.

-sensel. I’ve been preaching wherever I can about the Sensel Morph. It’s my favorite compact controller as I can carry a small pouch when I travel and have MPE, drum pads, etc. This allows you to tap directly into the sensor data, making it a great choice when building granular tools.

-smFilterPack. Really good sounding filters to add to your microsound explorations.

-ACToolkit. If you need a good granular noise source, the jeynoise~ object is very flexible. The built-in examples include a really unusual random VOSIM patch.

11 Likes
#25

For some reason, when I search the package manager for “granular” only the LowKeyNW and MuBu packages show up. :thinking:

I also really like the easing package.

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#26

Finally got round to looking at Petra on the back of this - really nice!

A nice easy addition for variable density clouds at signal rate (what I currently need):

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This is interesting:

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: )

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#27

Has anyone spotted any real-time granular effects (ie like MI Clouds) made completely in Max, no externals?

Just trying to work out how to do that. Currently a poly~ based record then playback thing, where latency is record time. It at least works in my head…