Chris Carlson has announced an update to the Borderlands granular synthesizer instrument for iOS.

Borderlands 2.1

The app allows you to create, drag, and throw pulsing clouds of grains over a landscape of audio files, or use the built-in accelerometer to sculpt sound with gravity.

Version 2.1 comes with a myriad of new features, improvements, and bug fixes, including tempo synced grains via Ableton Link, waterfall-style input and sound on sound recording with an overdub control, semitone pitch tuning, a new ADSR option, proper scaling at all iPad resolutions, and new artist presets.

Explore, touch, and transform sound with this unique 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.

Changes in Borderlands v2.1

  • Tempo synced grains with Ableton Link.
  • Semitone pitch tuning option per cloud.
  • New waterfall-style streaming input mode.
  • Overdub level control for real time inputs.
  • ADSR mode with automatable trigger pad for each grain cloud.
  • Automate sound position, size, and rotation.
  • New ring modulation, vibrato amount, and probability controls per grain cloud.
  • Proper scaling on new, larger iPads and iPads with different aspect ratios.
  • Scene contributions from Cristian Vogel, Electric Indigo, King Britt, Mikronesia, and Tom Hall. Presets from Arovane coming soon.

Borderlands costs $17.99 USD. Version 2.1 is compatible with all iPads and is a free update for all existing users. Plans for future updates include AUv3 support, MIDI/OSC I/O, and iPhone/Universal compatibility.

More information: Borderlands