5 April 2011

Granulator for Max, free download

Robert Henke, the tech / music / sound-art genius responisible for the Monolake project, partial-development of Ableton Live, and any number of weird instillations such as Atom, Atlantic Waves and more is giving away a new Ableton module called Granular via his blog, which, as the name suggests, is a granular synthesis program. This perhaps wouldn't be such big news (ableton patches and VSTs are ten a penny) but for the fact that a) this is an open-source piece of kit that Henke actively encourages users to take apart and reconfigure as they see fit, b) Henke is Reed Richards level of tech development and c) it sounds ridiculously lush. see below.

There's been something of a backlash against computer-based production of late, with tech-heads (myself included) moving away from laptops and back towards gear-based set-ups. In part, this is the percieved lack of "art" in digital production, the ubiquity of laptops and the generally lower sound quality of sample-based technology in comparison to analogue circuitry. Admittedly this is mostly tech-snobbery, and it's nice to be reminded that computer production isn't inherently weak, but can be as powerful as any 303, xoxbox, Juno 6 or Station X, given the right amount of effort.



NB: if you do successfully crack and rewire the program, or make anything interesting with it, Henke invites you to send him a copy - his postal address is included in the software code. How cool is that?

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