Of course, I already knew about granulation as either a sound generation method or as an effect to be applied to a sound, but Ambient Grains had something different to offer. I soon discovered the versatility of the software; the user is not tied to just one method of achieving a usable sound. For instance, I sometimes make quite short loops which I then incorporate in a track I'm making via an external mixer. There is a special loop setting which does a very good job of seamlessly looping the processed sound. My piece, 'A Higher Strength', is an example of this approach.

Ambient Grains has helped me look at sound production in a new way. The team behind the software is very responsive to suggestions and appeals for help.

David Pletts
208 and a half

According to John-Mark, "Anodyne (a musical excerpt) initially started off as a way to check out some of the basic presets in Korg's Legacy Collection of vintage synthesizers. I was just getting familiar with the capabilities of the synths, but when I started processing the results with Ambient Grains, the track started to take on an ethereal quality of its own."

"While Ambient Grains can produce some amazing sounds given proper input, my favorite approach is to incorporate Ambient Grains early on in the process and then add new melodies on top. I'll write a basic theme, feed it through Ambient Grains and produce an element that's somewhere around fifteen minutes long. Then I'll bring that element back into Sonar, extract the best bits from it, blend the extracted pieces together and start to layer in some of the original thematic elements on top of the Ambient Grains processed material."

"The beauty of Ambient Grains is that it causes you to approach your own music from a completely different vector. It's kind of like having a writing partner that riffs off of your own ideas."

John-Mark Austin
Immersion Theory

When musicians need environmental sound segments for a film, or for certain parts of a song, the common method is to select sound clips from a sample library, or to program pads and textures.

Ambient Grains uses the method of granular synthesis. This type of synthesis divides any audio file into small segments, or grains. The user selects a source file, sets the name of the output file, and sets a few more parameters. Within seconds, Ambient Grains creates a new sound file that has some similarities to the original sound file with new elements.

Any file is a good starting point. I’ve checked the program with vocals, low rambling noises, fragments from recorded songs, and many more sound types. The software always achieved interesting results.

Obviously, the context where the output file is to be used, will determine the most appropriate input sound. Nevertheless, by playing with the different controls, any file is transformed into a new sound image.

In addition to the new features of the software, the designers of Ambient Grains succeeded in keeping the program easy to operate.

Ambient Grains is a true sound generation and processing machine, that takes sounds and transforms them into true psychedelic sound landscapes. To obtain similar results using traditional synthesis, would be considerably time consuming and would require a great amount of synthesis expertise.

With Ambient Grains, everything is simple and fun

Fabio D. Garcia
About

Its true strength lies in the variety of possible uses you can put Ambient Grains to. Whether You need to create huge evolving soundscapes for film or TV work, create a virtual instrument and map sounds over a sampler for use in commercial D.A.W's, have a scratch pad for mixes or new ideas, or, even a need for a simple background music generator for your hypnosis sessions!, Ambient Grains can deliver and all without a steep learning curve (or a degree in physics). Not bad eh?

Barry Young
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