Grain Science is a beautiful synthesiser for iOS. Designed for musicians, soundscape artists and SFX engineers who want to go beyond our Sylo Synthesiser, Grain Science is built on similar principles of granular synthesis, but is vastly more powerful. Unlike many “experimental” granular apps, Grain Science mixes it up with traditional synthesis techniques to bring you an exciting hybrid synthesiser.
What’s New in Version 1.4
NEW: Introducing Audiobus support — now you can stream live audio directly from Grain Science to other Audiobus-compatible apps! See http://audiob.us for more information
Use the built-in waveforms, or record or import your own — then use the sophisticated grain engine to create something completely new from them! Grain Science is easy to get to grips with, but offers lots of depth to explore: instead of offering one or two LFOs, almost any parameter in the system can be programmed to vary over time in complex ways.
Using careful optimisation techniques we provide two grain units per voice, which you can combine for morphing or complex modulated sounds, then send through a configurable FX chain. Pick any 4 from the collection of FX units (including various types of distortion, high- and low-pass filters, phaser, flanger, chorus, resonance and echo), and connect them up in any order. Other audio tweaks include soft loop, reverb, glide and supercharger controls, and the ability to affect granular synthesis in realtime (live grainbending).
Also featured are an arpeggiator with both chord and step-sequence modes; Core MIDI support, including Virtual MIDI, background audio, and “tap & twist” learning for setting up controls; and a customisable performance screen with a collection of XY Pads and wheels.
Rounding it off, Grain Science plays nicely with others: Dropbox, Twitter and email integration are all included, for sharing or exporting your waveforms, recordings of your performances, and instrument (patch) designs. And now featuring Audiobus support to stream your performance live to other compatible apps!
Hear Grain Science in action at http://soundcloud.com/wooji-juice
Grain Science is a beautiful new iPad Synthesiser. Designed for musicians, soundscape artists and SFX engineers who want to go beyond our Sylo Synthesiser, Grain Science is built on similar principles of granular synthesis, but is vastly more powerful.
What’s New in Version 1.3.5
• Updated for iOS 6
• Updated to take advantage of larger iPhone 5/iPod touch (5th generation) screen
• New: Custom reverb mode: direct control over reverb unit parameters
• New: Custom piano key sizes
• New: MIDI damper pedal (sustain) support
• Fix: Crash that could occur when using the Performance Panel to reselect the current instrument
• Fix: Minor graphical & UI issues
• iPhone and iPod touch support: Grain Science is now a Universal app, one purchase works on all your iOS devices. With Retina graphics for 4/4S and the new iPad!
• Arpeggiator 2.0: The arpeggiator has been rewritten to offer tonnes of new power and flexibility
• Ribbon Controller & Velocity: You can now use MIDI velocity to control synth parameters — even without a MIDI device, using the new on-screen Ribbon Controller
• G-1000 Shapeinator: A new fully customisable wave-shaping FX unit.
Arpeggiator 2.0
• New: Chorus FX unit
• New: Pulse Width Modulation blend mode
• New: Wave list shows a count of how many instruments use each wave
• New: More musician-friendly BPM system, goes up to 180bpm with 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 and 1/32 options (old system can still be selected)
• New: Multiple-octave chord arpeggiation
• New: Swipe to delete unwanted audio from wave & audio import lists
• New: “Reed” built-in wave
• New: 6 additional built-in instruments
• New: Tube Resonance Bass can be programmed. Note: It can bite! Slow, gentle programs are recommended, unless you want artefacts!
• New: UI improvement — swap FX units by dragging them around by their names
• New: Setting to choose whether recording is hold-to-record or tap-to-start/tap-to-stop
• New: Mini VU meter on recording button during recording (or, in hold-to-record mode, tap to toggle on/off)
• New: Cropping selections now snap to zero-crossings for smoother results
• Improved: Easier to see when a cropping selection is about to begin
• Improved: Avoids “popping” while installing/uninstalling FX units
• Improved: Slightly more useful naming for newly-created instruments
• Fix: Crash bug when mapping certain kinds of parameter in otherwise-unmodified instruments
• Fix: Issue with reverb resetting itself after re-opening Grain Science
• Fix: Control Mapper shows the same names for Tube Resonance parameters as on their FX dials
• Fix: Issue with Control Mapper Auto-Reset not always auto-resetting to the correct value
• Fix: Issue with Single-Shot grain mode
Previously, in version 1.1:
• New: Background audio support (enable in settings)
• New: Virtual MIDI — control Grain Science from other apps on your device
• New: Flanger FX unit
• New: Pulse Width FX unit
• New: Single Shot grain mode — like Linear, but halts at the end of the sample instead of looping
• New: UI improvement — Jump quickly to any panel without having to scroll one-by-one
• New: UI improvement — Grain Mode, Blend Mode, Reverb Mode and AGC buttons can now be dragged up/down to quickly change modes without popping open a separate panel.
• New: 5 additional built-in instruments
• Improved: Faster switching between instruments
• Improved: Cleaner transitions when switching instruments
• Improved: Reduced memory usage
• Fix: Parameters in the control mapping panel now show “FX switched off” when the FX Unit they apply to hasn’t been activated in the FX chain.
• Fix: Issue transferring control map minimum/maximum/auto reset values to new instruments
• Fix: Issue where Bounce grain mode would, in rare circumstances, loop instead
• Fix: Compatibility issue importing certain audio files
• Fix: Various other minor issues
Use the built-in waveforms, or record or import your own — then use the sophisticated grain engine to create something completely new from them! Grain Science is easy to get to grips with, but offers lots of depth to explore: instead of offering one or two LFOs, almost any parameter in the system can be programmed to vary over time in complex ways.
Using new optimisations available in iOS 5, we can provide two grain units per voice, which you can combine for morphing or complex modulated sounds, then send through a configurable FX chain. Pick any 4 from the collection of FX units (including various types of distortion, high- and low-pass filters, phaser, resonance and echo), and connect them up in any order. Other audio tweaks include soft loop, reverb, glide and supercharger controls, and the ability to affect granular synthesis in realtime (live grainbending).
Also featured are an arpeggiator with both chord and step-sequence modes; Core MIDI support, including “tap & twist” learning for setting up controls; and a customisable performance screen with a collection of XY Pads and wheels.
Rounding it off, Grain Science plays nicely with others: Dropbox, Twitter and email integration are all included, for sharing or exporting your waveforms, recordings of your performances, and instrument (patch) designs.
Grain Science is available for $9.99
iPad Loops is an iOS music production blog dedicated to exposing the best iPad apps musicians, producers, and Djs. This is not a database of every app. It is, however, one of useful recommendations from someone with many years in music production. I try to update it on a daily basis (ok sometimes every two days) and I do my best to post useful apps only. My name is Jason Donnelly (Dj Puzzle).
You might know me from my royalty free loop packs and sound design. Some of the apps that contain my sounds are Synth One, EG Segments, Hammerhead, Retronyms AudioCopy, Audio Evolution Mobile, LP-5, iPRO.DJSAMPLER, Looptastic. My work is published by Roland, Antares, Magix, Soundtrack Loops, Sample Logic, Acoustica, Loopmasters and many more. Subscribe to our RSS feed below to get updated when new apps are posted.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
