make a second of sound into a bunch of grains

If you downloaded Max (or the demo), you have the patch. Look for
"granularized.maxpat"
Also, you may make a search in the archives of this forum.
And you could just use Ableton Live or a granulation vst or au plugin.
Jean-Francois.

>
> I have a question.. I have a sound that's a second long. I want to try to
> make it into a bunch of grains like granular synthesis in a way. I want it to
> be very similar to granular synthesis but I want it where the full sound can
> still be heard. I would want the sound to be in the higher ranges too (I
> don't want the sound to be shorter in the higher ranges), but in grains
> similar to what used in granular synthesis. Does anyone know how to achieve
> this? Whether through Max/MSP or another program? If so, can anyone send me
> a patch? I'm still a novice at Max/MSP program. Thank you very much.
>

Thank you for the quick response! What is granulation vst and au plugin exactly? Is it an add on for Max/MSP or is it a different program?

I tried the granular patch that comes with Max/MSP. The problem I have is that the grain duration can only go up to 399 ms while what I really need is 1300 ms grain durations. Do you know how I can do this will long durations?
Best,
John

Hey john,

Congratulations,you have just found the best reason to use MaxMSP-if
you find a patch that does almost what you need, you can get in there
and change it all around until it does exactly what you need.

And there is better way to learn max than that one problem you have
been looking to solve for a while.

Take your time, read the tutorials,the forum, and "how to ask
questions the smart way" and you will be on your way--but be really
patient, max can be a real beast at first...!

-------------
HTTP://kainiggemann.com
T.0251-661833
M.0172-5331572
DE-Germany

On Nov 30, 2008, at 8:56, John write:
> I tried the granular patch that comes with Max/MSP. The problem I
> have is that the grain duration can only go up to 399 ms while what
> I really need is 1300 ms grain durations.

VST and AU are basically plugins you use in DAW's or Max 5.

VST is possibly the most wide known plugin format, because it has been going for years and years, Steinberg invented it i think, then was applied to many different DAW's. AU, which is Audio Unit, is a Mac only style of plugin, much like the VST. Used solely with Logic 8, but can be applied to other DAW's, such as Digital Performer

VST effects and instruments can be plugged into Max 5, with the [vst~] object.
AU can be plugged in some way. there is an [au~] object, but does not work on Max 5. Maybe in later dates, Cycling 74 may add that option on to Max 5, which would be nice. Mainly because some plugins are only AU, or even just VST.

But yes, they can be added on to a Max patch, really simply. Have a look at the help for the [vst~] object and see for yourself, really helpful, plus useful to expand your patch in many ways. I use the [vst~] object quite a bit in my latest huge patch.

Hope this was helpful...

> I tried the granular patch that comes with Max/MSP. The problem I have is
> that the grain duration can only go up to 399 ms while what I really need is
> 1300 ms grain durations.
> Best,
> John

You mention in your original post that your sound is 1 second long. Now, you
want to granulate the sound with a 1.3 second long grain. Actually, you
won't granulate anything like that. If your grain is longer than your sound,
it's just not a grain at all.

And when I mentioned other possibilities, I meant without Max. You could use
the granulator engine within Ableton live, or a vst/au granulation plugin
for any DAW. I'm pretty sure googling " granulation vst plugin" would yield
usable results. But a grain of 1300 ms is pretty wide, most people wouldn't
call that a grain, and it's possible standard closed granulation engines
would not implement such a large size. So, in your case, it might be a good
idea to use Max and modify the patch in order to allow 1300ms grain
duration.

By the way, how do you know that you need a 1300 ms grain duration???

Jean-Francois.

Dear Jean Francois,

Thanks for the reply. The actual sound is 1.3 seconds long. What I have is a sound that has a glissando that goes down and then up. I want to try to have many of those glissando but I want it to be sort of slow granular synthesis. I want the original sound to be preserved, but I also want to hear several transpostions of the sound just like how you would hear in granular synthesis. Would I use granular synthesis in this case? Thanks again!

Best,
John

To make it more specific, this is what I have.. I have a sound that makes a glissando going down and up like a V shape. I want to make a sort of granular synthesis that preserves that V shaped sound. The sound is 1300ms and I want it to all be sort of like grains but I want to hear the complete sound and not parts of it. I also want to have the sound randomly transpose to the higher pitch range too. I don't want the higher pitches to make the sounds shorter but to stay in the original 1300ms duration. Do you know how I can accomplice this with Max/MSP? Thank you very much!

Best,
John

You are looking for a granular pitch shifting technique (as opposed to an FFT phase vocoder approach). You can find one example created by Mattijs on the forum here:

http://tinyurl.com/6r97ca

I highly recommend it, it can do pitch shifting and time stretching of a sound, and can be optimised for beats or tones.

lh