Shared System Tutorials | Part 22 – Granular Synthesis

Shared System Tutorials – Granular Synthesis

In this tutorial, we’re going to build a granular synth with the Morphagene. What? Isn’t Morphagene already a granulator? Not really, it’s a digital tape reel recorder with splicing tools. If we want it to granulate, we’ll need to patch it up for picking, shaping, panning and pitching grains! And we’ll be needing Maths, Wogglebug and Optomix to do that. Have fun!

Patch notes:
Morphagene L/R go to Optomix Channel 1 & 2
Optomix Channel 1 & 2 output go to your mixer or end of chain FX.
I used the sum output from Optomix to create a ‘send/return’ to Echophon and Erbe-Verb. The FX come back into the X-PAN, but you can also abuse the CV bus to create a stereo mix. So you’ll be hearing the L/R channels from optomix, and the FX from the sum output.

You can also patch opto’s outputs to the ModDemix, so you can add CV to pan the sound and go to the mixer or FX from there. You can use WoggleBug to create panning CV. I used it on X-PAN.

Maths shapes the grains, so Channel 1 & 4 (the outter channels) go to Optomix Channel 1 & 2’s control inputs. This will open and close the amplifier and change the volume/timbre depending on the Rise/Fall settings. You can trigger both channels (mult or stackable) with either the Burst gate output from Wogglebug, of the EOSG trigger from Morphagene. EOSG fires at the end of a splice or a gene (sound fragment).

Set Rene to a simple scale or single note and try to tune Morphagene’s varispeed output so it tracks pitch. You’ll need to set VSOP in options.txt (on the SD card) to 1 or 2 so it tracks 1V/Oct.