Chris Carlson has released version 2.0 of Borderlands, a granular musical instrument for the iPad.

borderlands granular scene manager

Explore, touch, and transform sound with this new interface for granular synthesis, a technique that involves the superposition of small fragments of sound, or grains, to create complex, evolving timbres and textures.

Borderlands emphasizes gestural interaction over knobs and sliders. Create, drag, and throw pulsing collections of grains over a landscape of audio files, or use the built-in accelerometer to sculpt sound with gravity.

Borderlands comes ready to play with default sample content included, but you can load your own sounds too.

Changes in Bordelands v2.0

  • New:
    • Audiobus Sender, Filter, and Receiver support.
    • AudioShare import and export.
    • Real time audio input recording and granulation.
    • Gesture recording and looping for cloud parameters and positions.
    • Save and load “scenes” – presets of clouds, sounds, and automation.
    • Resonant filters for each grain cloud with per grain randomization.
    • …and much more.
  • Fixes:
    • Fixed common sources of crashes on launch.
    • Better sample import options.
    • Better performance, hardware accelerated audio.
    • Support for external audio interfaces.
    • Improved memory handling.
    • Multiple sample rates and buffer sizes supported.
    • Interface rotation supported.
    • File sharing enabled.

The Borderlands Granular app is available for purchase for $9.99 USD.

More information: Borderlands