Mutable Instruments’ Émilie Gillet today that they are retiring Clouds – the company’s popular granular texture synthesizer module.
Clouds joins the recently-retired Braids macro oscillator as an incredibly popular design that Gillet, nevertheless, is axing as part of his ‘year with a negative number of module releases.’
Gillet is retiring Clouds and Braids because they are complex, menu-heavy designs, with many hidden functions. He wants his designs to be leaner, more sophisticated, better sounding and more fun to play with.
“Clouds has shown that live granular transformation is an important sound design tool in a modular system,” notes Gillet. “There ought to be a distraction-free device to perform it. I’m currently building it.”
While Clouds is being retired by Mutable, it’s an open design that is already available in variants, including other hardware and software formats.
Here’s the text of Gillet’s announcement:
The last Clouds are being sent to dealers. The module is no longer in production.
To me, Clouds has always been a struggle, the ugly outcome of an entire year of inner battles during which nothing turned the way I expected.
Dyes started in January 2014 as a kind of phase vocoder/spectral freeze effect. Something really fun to play with in Pure Data, but which proved to be disastrous when put into a Eurorack case, because of latency and slow CV sampling rate issues. Throughout the year, my investigations followed two paths: How can we make things sound smudgy, frozen and weird without resorting to FFTs? And what on earth could we run on this bit of hardware with 7 knobs, stereo I/O, 6 CVs and 2 gate/triggers? These two tasks converged towards what is Clouds’ default granular processing mode. The enthusiasm of the beta testers confirmed that I was onto something and that I should absolutely release the module, but I was already getting way too conscious of its shortcomings to believe in its success.
One example: Originally the BLEND button controlled dry/wet balance and that was it. Feedback, pan randomization, reverb… had to be obtained through external modules. Then I tried adding those settings, and there was actually a point when these four parameters were still exclusive: if you wanted to use the reverb, then the output of the module was 100% wet and you had to use a mixer to do your dry/wet balance. But almost everybody requested independent, simultaneous control on all these parameters without resorting to external modules, and not in 24-HP please, so I compromised and we ended up with the current implementation of the BLEND knob, which I am not very proud of.
The testers got served a bunch of half-baked treats during the beta testing: delay and looper like functionality, a kind of SST-282 emulation, a reverb-based freeze effect, the original spectral freeze. And no matter how wonky this stuff was, no matter how arbitrary the chosen parameters were (after all everything had to fit in this 7-knob interface)… it still had a sentimental value to me and I could not totally let go of it. It ended up as hidden modes, the ultimate sin!
By the end of 2014 I was tired of the project, wanted to be over with it, so I decided to have 250 Clouds manufactured, which I hoped would simultaneously be the first and last batch. I predicted it would have the same destiny as Edges – something that a few people would totally get and love… and that would go unnoticed by the rest.
And then, in what could be seen as a very meta plot twist, the deity decided to use Clouds to process all the beliefs and perceptions surrounding the module, got confused with this damned BLEND knob, feedback and reverb got stuck to the maximum setting, resulting in a never-decaying smudgy howl of hype. And I felt awful about it.
Omens:
– Explaining at least once a day that Clouds won’t make clouds unless you patch attenuated random sources to its CV inputs (corollary: your Doepfer mini-case with Clouds and an Intellijel audio interface is not what I would call a good starter system).
– Clouds as a simple “end of chain effect” (one jack in, two jacks out), with the heavy lifting often done by the internal reverb and not much else.
– Richard Devine still running the December 2014 firmware.
– That the jokes were always about “Rings into Clouds”, but never “Clouds into Rings”.
Let’s take a break.
Clouds has shown that live granular transformation is an important sound design tool in a modular system. There ought to be a distraction-free device to perform it. I’m currently building it.
i think this is cool and more euro creators should do this from time to time.
it makes them more valuable and makes room for new modules that will help make new and different sounds creating new sounding music. its an important part for the musicians as well as the creators of the devices. well done.
lol what a baby
How is running his business following your heart and vision, instead of his wallet, making him a baby? I admire that there are companies out there, for who cash grabbing is not the only metric valued.
I don’t own any eurorack so I couldn’t care either way but it’s amusing to me that someone can be so annoyed that people aren’t using his product in the way he wants them to that they not only have massive rants about it online but then go on to actually halt production.
Clouds was what got me into eurorack. And it’s still my favorite module.
maybe VCV Rack having it means there is no reason to have it selling still?
Have you gotten it to work in VCV Rack?
I couldn’t figure out how to access any of the settings – like changing the modes. I couldn’t tell if the interface was messed up, or if it just needs a manual.
And this is coming from someone who’s got this in hardware.
Yeah it doesn’t look like they added the settings and Freeze button to the VCV Texture Synth yet. https://github.com/VCVRack/AudibleInstruments
Nothing to do with it, it’s like saying soccer balls (or golf clubs) don’t sell no more, because you can play FIFA or Tiger Woods PGA Tour on your smartphone.
Some people are just not too keen on using computers, them being the majority of eurorack users. Myself as an example: I have an Ableton Live 9 license — one of the most expensive softwares out there — but even that is not enough to make me return to making music on a computer: the same device I sit in front of at work for days, or turn on when I’m home to play a duel in Quake.
VCV, on the other hand, is very interesting — one day I might overcome my reluctance to fiddle with plugins on laptop, if only to explore some of the Clouds’ modes. But still, the day I bought Zoom R8 and discovered I can record music to SD card straight without fighting drivers and waiting for the OS to load (or inspiration to run low in the process) has changed my life forever.
PS: Gotta admit I recommend VCV to people as a gateway time to time, though. Think it’s pretty much the best way to learn Eurorack without buying modules, and one of the best modular softwares with singular sound, joining the company of Aalto.
Grab the legend as long it is possible. Even though some “abused” it as a reverb machine, it is one with strong charakter. I always waited with Clouds, but now my order is on the way.
Much cheaper than Ableton and Max4Live and way better sounding than this feature missing VCV.
My current selection: Braids, Warps, Peaks and soon Clouds.
He could have packed these into one synth with no need of any filter. Really!
Keep up the good work!
Make sure to add some attenuation to Clouds CV inputs, Shades is a great choice, to help dial it in.
This is sad new with a side of good news. I love granular synthesis, and use clouds almost in every patch. So its sad to see it discontinued. But then again, I am exited to see the replacement. Coulds doesnt hav the worst hidden menu. Its no prob using that menu live allthough it would of course be cool to have all parameters in front at all times. But seeing as granular synthesis is quite an advanced form of synthesis, I find Clouds to be quite ingenious. Despite its rather simple form of granulating. You can producepure grain clouds, textures or new additional instruments to the piece. Put Elements trough it, and a fairly simple patch can sound like a small orchestra.
huh, i was gonna buy both of those at some point. nevermind that
clouds will never die. it is open source and various clones and software implementations are available at this point.
Well I think the only mutable gear I own that noones pissed on yet this month is ears and yarns… I’m expecting him to retract rings next as his biggest regret ever.
I thought I saw a quote on a forum (MW maybe?) that his two favorite modules as far as design and immediate access to all features are Tides and Rings, so my hunch is Rings is safe.
I still have the original firmware – never updated. I use it exactly like it should be used and it sounds good. It gives a great mechanical sounding granular effect – very useful for background, weirdo sci-fi tones, horror type sounds. It’s great for what it is and you have to respect a developer that loves a product so much he grows to hate it 🙂