While you’re waiting for all the hundreds of hardware synths that have been introduced over the last couple of years to actually ship, it’s worth remembering that your iOS device can be an innovative platform for synthesis.
Developer Bram Bos and Berlin-based musician Hainbach have introduced Fluss, an iOS app that lets you explore granular synthesis in a tactile way. And they say that “There was never a better reason for using a touchscreen for music.”
Fluss features a three-voice grain engine, a filter inspired by the Oberheim Xpander, tactile physics control, microtonal support and more.
Fluss lets you import your own WAVs (standalone & AUv3 Instrument plugin), Record audio (Record effect plugin) or live-process sound (Process effect plugin) to create anything from drones and granular echoes to microtonal audio textures.
All sliders and XY pads are linked to a physics model which lets you flick and throw them around. Minimize the friction for endless bouncing motion, as an innovative substitute for traditional LFOs and modulation.
Features:
- 3 Voice grain engine, each with an independent playhead
- Filter inspired by the Oberheim Xpander, including its resonant Phase filter
- Kinetic sliders and pads for playful interaction with the sound
- Universal design (iPhone and iPad; iPad Air 2 or higher recommended)
- Custom scales, unquantised mode and even Scala-import for microtonal experiments
- Use WAVs, record audio or load the app as a live-processing audio effect
- Real world tested in live performances by Hainbach
Pricing and Availability
Fluss is available now for $13.99 USD.
I guess I’m a sucker for granular synths, and for $14 I’m sure to pick this one up. I love the look of the UI, and the minimalist grain control is intriguing. On top of all of that, the thing operates as a granular effects processor, as well. One thing that’s for sure is that this Hainbach demo video sounds a lot more convincing than the 1010 Music Lemondrop demos (and I bought one of those as soon as I saw it advertised). I can’t see this not rapidly ascending to near top of iOS synth music apps.
some people are easily impressed, i guess.
This is the most expensive Bram Bos app so far. I guess it is still worth it, because of the presets.
except that in Euro the price is now 16.99, which is about twice as expensive as any of the other Bram Bos products before the great Apple price hike. Gonna wait for a discount, as there appears to be no introductionary discount.
Yes, it is.
Love Bram’s apps and admire Hainbach, but when they join forces the result is pure genius
Hainbach had me at “you can shake it” and it does something.
Granular synth sonic fun audio mangler experiments…instant buy. Happy happy.
Is this a GR-1 killer?
Couldn’t tell. My iPad Pro display went black just days after the warranty ended, and Apple refuses to repair it (aka connect the lose cable inside the sealed box). Instead, they offer to swap it against a refurbished unit for 500 Euros. Meanwhile, my GR-1 is running strong, and if the screen ever fails, I can repair it myself. So no more apps for me.
Even my ipad 1 which is now over 10 years old are still working fine including around 4 hours battery life. And even all the old apps are still working great I remember the good old days when a app (animoog for example) cost 0.79€ :P.
But this app is gorgeous and the price is well deserved i would have bought it for 39€
Still running cool music apps you can no longer get anymore on 2 first gen iPads. My wife got them for us for Xmas almost 10-12 years ago now? They both still run perfectly. Just running Sunrizer alone makes them both awesome sound modules, as well running Funkbox and older unique music apps that have been discontinued.
That’s good to hear! My first iPad had a dead battery (could not hold power for more than 20 minutes), the second one fell down and broke into pieces, the third one turned black a few days after the warranty ended. Apple did not attempt to repair any of them, but exchanged them in one case because it still had Apple Care. For a company that claims to be eco-friendly and sustainable, that’s pretty disappointing. Meanwhile, I have 40 year old hardware synths that still run without issues, and if they break I can have them repaired for a reasonable price. Not hating on Apple, but the iPad never felt like an instrument to me.
Sorry to read that, no fun to deal with that. My only hardware failures over many years was my beloved Triton Studio died awhile back, no one local wants to work on it. It was $3299 when I bought it long ago. My TD-10 and TD-20 are slowly succumbing to LCD fade. My WavestationSR screen is pretty much faded. But all my other modules and keys are doing ok. Love hardware but ergonomically my horseshoe setups in my studios have evolved to large monitors, laptops and iOS junk. Still love my Kronos 88X, Triton Pro and Karma, but small screens are just to hard to see and no fun to deep dive for me anymore. My Jupiter 80 sits in the corner unloved lol. Whatever we we use to make music is whatever works best for each of us I guess. Still have all my beatboxes and still love tweaking them. 🙂
Oh sure, totally different story with digital synths. I have multiple experts for analogue gear in my area, but I don’t know anyone who would fix a workstation either.
Nice.
Nice app, a little tricky to import your own samples as it doesn’t read the .m4a files that are native to iOS – hopefully the developer will address that – so you have to convert to WAV first.
But the UI is very well designed and looks good too.
The sound generation is really interesting. Ideal for ambient and background noise generation.
I imported a sample from my piano, playing mainly Cs at various octaves with the odd G (fifth) thrown in. Instant gratification! ?
I’d really like them to add MIDI support though, so notes would be quantised to the chord you play. That would be extremely useful.
I had two Korg Tritons that ended up croaking. I can’t really blame a technician for passing on a hassle-filled money pit type of repair. There’s often a bitter end to electronics, no matter how you baby them. I got plenty of mileage from both, so no complaint.
Korg offers the Triton Pro and Extreme as a plug-in. As with Roland, some of the sounds are too tied up in their own era, but most are very usable. Good drums or strings tend to age pretty well. Its one decent option.
not my cup of tea
this is to much “lets toy around with some audio and see what we find on the way” for my taste
Happy accidents can sometimes produce unexpectedly exceptional results -;)
+1
(and the main reason I love granular).
I agree. All too random.
I prefer stuff with more voices that I can play on a keyboard and more synthesis options, instead of gimmicky toying around with fader friction physic engine 😉
“toying around with fader friction physic engine”
toying around with knob twiddling
toying around with ivory tickling
toying around with skin bashing
toying around with string strumming
I find myself toying around everyday
I bought lemur for the fader friction/kick the ball physic simulation at its time.
I used it 3 times and never opened it again.
ymmv
I got this and was able to load in some guitar samples from a session on Dropbox. I look forward to using this and sampling the results into my MPC for some granular slice and dice manipulation. Seems pretty easy to do. I think it’ll be fun and it’s not expensive at all for what it does.
I admit that midi control would be cool. Being able to play the three colours from a midi controller would be great. They would be incredible textures to add to a three note paraphonic instrument like the MatrixBrute. Even running its output into the MB’s audio in and then layering them over the built in oscillators… I think it’d be a lot of fun!
All the AU parameters are exposed, so if you load the plugin into a host (such as AUM) you can MIDI map all the faders/sliders/pads/balls/etc to any MIDI CC you like.