I've noticed that if I crop very thin slices of any WAV and loop them in my DAW timeline I get interesting sounds. The length of the slice affects the EQ of the result, with ultra thin slices repeating more per second and thus resulting in a higher pitched harsh buzz sound, while wider (but still thin) slices result in more bassy sounds. Looping right on the ProTools timeline works pretty well. Despite the very quick time repetition the DAW avoids glitched playback. Looped preview audio in Fabfilter ProQ also works very well for this.
There are 4 interesting aspects to this.
First, some of the character of the original WAV sound is still in there, so you get weird and unexpected combos of tones.
Second, your result will likely be atonal since the period of repetition you've created will likely not be an in-tune note and the timing of your slice repetition and innards of your WAV slice will likely be in conflict. But I sometimes manually adjust the slice length by small amounts until the whole thing feels more "in tune". This is very tedious, but gets interesting results that can then be used in a sampler. Using the fine tuning control on your sampler can help. Or the default harsh atonal results are useful as sound FX and distorted bass/lead.
Third, varying the slice lengths over time makes the pitch rise or fall. Widening slices over time makes the pitch move downward. Shortening slices over time makes the pitch move upward. So you can make interesting dives or risers.
Fourth, if you don't add short crossfades between slices you get very harsh clicky distortion from the hard seams. This is sometimes what you want. Or adding short consistent crossfades gets rid of that clicky distortion and is useful for more "in tune" sounds.
Sometimes I spend a couple hours playing around with this stuff and saving a few dozen results as samples that I can come back to days later for inspiration. It's a crude DIY sound design process that results in unique sounds without need for any plugins.
I put a question mark in the post title because I am pretty ignorant about different types of synthesis. I've never used a "granular synthesizer". I've been assuming my manual process is a crude version of what granular synthesizers do under the hood. Am I wrong?
Either way, this is a fun way to do completely original sound design, especially for quick results with harsh distorted sounds.
Submitted March 10, 2018 at 09:41AM by beaker_andy https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/83exnf/sound_design_tip_manual_granular_synthesis/?utm_source=ifttt