In this video, Dr Simon Hutchinson shares his take on understanding granular synthesis.

Hutchinson uses Kyma for his demonstration, but the real focus of the video is understanding the underlying concepts of granular synthesis.

Video Summary:

“Granular synthesis is a synthesis technique where we can assemble new sounds from very short “grains” of sound. We can do this with wavetables or longer samples, breaking them down into these short grains before reconstituting them back together in unique ways.

Because we can change all of these tiny parts that make up our new sounds, there are exciting opportunities for real time control and performance.”

Topics Covered:

0:00 Intro, Defining Granular Synthesis
0:30 Surf’s Up
0:52 Example: Driving Game Tire Screech
1:25 Software & Hardware Choices
2:40 Kyma GrainCloud and SampleCloud
3:10 Talking through GrainCloud Parameters
4:07 Listening to the GrainCloud
5:22 Jitter
7:49 Changing the Waveform
9:25 SampleCloud
10:03 TimeIndex (Where Are You Getting Your Grains)
11:41 PanJitter with SampleCloud
12:22 Changing the Sample (Furby)
12:49 Change TimeIndex Algorithmically
14:33 Frequency Jittter in SampleCloud
15:52 Adding Reverb
16:35 Back to Maunal TimeIndex
16:56 Multiple Parameters and Interactivity
18:53 Closing Thoughts, So What?