Gersic has released the Atomic Cloud v1.0, a standalone application which takes an audio file as input, and generates a granular synthesis grain cloud in real time.
Atomic Cloud v1.0 – Grain Cloud Generator
Grain clouds are played back through your speakers, and can also be rendered direct to disk, while you listen, for further processing.
Features
- Start and End Location: Load a file in, and choose the start and end points for the grain cloud to be generated from
- Grain Rate: How quickly grains are generated
- Grain Size: How long each grain is. High grain rates and long grain sizes are capable of generating remarkably smooth textures, but also tend to take quite a bit of CPU power
- Buffer Rate: The rate at which each grain is played back. This essentially has the effect of altering the pitch of each grain
- Scan Rate: How quickly the playback head moves through the audio file. With low levels of Jitter, grains are generated near the playback head
- Jitter: How closely the generated grains are constrained to the playback head. A very low jitter setting, with a very high grain rate has the effect of playing the file back pretty much as it would sound regularly. High jitter settings randomize the sound greatly
- Amp Level: Since any number of grains can be generated at a time–depending mostly on your grain rate and grain size choices–it’s quite easy to get digital clipping. Higher grain rates and grain sizes should often be accompanied by lower amp levels, so as to avoid clipping
- 16/24 bit Playback/Recording: Playback and recording can occur at either 16 or 24 bit, regardless of the bit rate of the source file
- Automatic Sample Rate Sensing: The output sample rate is set to whatever the source file’s sample rate is
- Reads a wide variety of audio formats: Atomic Cloud will read most uncompressed audio file formats
More detailed information about granular synthesis and grain clouds can be found on the FAQ page. There are also a bunch of audio demos available so you can check what Atomic Cloud Grain Cloud Generator does exactly.
Atomic Cloud is currently available for $9.99 (limited time offer, normal price $19.99) and a demo version can be downloaded.
