Hello everyone!
My name is Silvio Alvarez, but you can call me Zylvio. I’m an artist and music producer and i’ve been collaborating with zynthian developers (@jofemodo) to organize the engine library and improve the user interface, among others.
Starting now, I’ll be writing blog posts for your enjoyment, covering everything from effects and synths to samplers and more.
For my first post, I want to talk about one of my all-time favorite effects: the granular delay.
So… what is a granular delay?
A granular delay is a type of digital audio processing that breaks a sound down into a massive number of tiny fragments. You can think of these fragments as little samples—but in this case, we call them grains. Once broken down, these grains can be manipulated and rearranged to create entirely new and interesting sounds.
For example, you can turn a short pluck into an ambient pad, or give an instrument a beautifully irregular delay effect.
At the moment, we have three granular delays working on Zynthian:
- Granulator: simple and user-friendly
- Argot Lunar: powerful and deep
- Granular Freezer: a new effect/instrument from the Organelle patch port
Since the Granular Freezer runs in a special Pure Data chain and works quite differently, I’ll save that one for a future post about my favourite PD patches.
Today, let’s focus on the two granular delays found under the Effect/Delay category: Granulator and Argot Lunar.
Granulator: Simple and Fun
Let’s start with the Granulator. The best part about this effect is its simplicity (it’s extremely easy and fun to use)
Granulator gives you just three main parameters:
Delay Length: Controls how long the delay repeats
Grain Density: Controls how many grains play
Grain Length: Controls the size (duration) of each grain
In my opinion, the best way to understand what’s happening is to use a plucked synth with it. This makes it really easy to understand how is the granular delay processing your sound.
Here’s a quick example of how I use Granulator in my own ambient sound design.
Argot Lunar: Deep and Powerful
So what sets Argot Lunar apart from Granulator?
The big difference is modulation and lots of it. Each grain can have randomized settings for:
Amplitude: Controls the volume of each grain
Panning: Controls the left-right stereo position of each grain
Duration: The temporal size of the grains
Delay: controls the time between the original input signal and when each grain is played.
IOT: Inter-Onset Time refers to the time interval between the start (onset) of one grain and the next. In simpler terms, it controls how frequently grains are triggered.
Pitch: You can change the pitch of your grains!
Glissando: Controls the time of each grain to reach its pitch
All grains are mixed and sent to the main output, and you can even feed the output back into the input. You can pitch-correct your grains, or do more creative things like have short grains stay in the center while longer grains are panned wide in the stereo field.
It’s a more complex and demanding tool than Granulator, but the creative possibilities are incredible.
Here’s a quick example of how I use Argot Lunar.
What about you?
I’d love to hear how you use granular delays!
Do you prefer simple and quick, or deep and experimental? Share your patches, ideas, or recordings I’m always excited to hear new explorations.
Also, I’m very open to feedback on how to improve these posts. I’m new to writing like this, but I’m super excited to keep learning and growing.
What would you like to see next? Are there any effects, synths, or samplers you’d like me to review or explore? Drop me a comment and let me know!
Thanks for reading and happy patching!
Zylvio