Baby Audio Go Against The Grain With Grainferno, a New Granular Synth
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Baby Audio promises to redefine granular synthesis with Grainferno, a “next-generation instrument for turning samples into playable sound.” BPM syncable grains? Yes, please!
Baby Audio Grainferno
Baby Audio is one of the more interesting plugin companies on the scene. After releasing its Tekno drum synthesizer and still riding high on Transition 2, the company is back with Grainferno, a granular synth with some very welcome features.
Make a Synth From Any Sound
Baby Audio says that you can make a synth from any sound with Grainferno. Load up to two samples into the oscillator (either your own or from the included library) and process them with granular synthesis, a method that turns sample fragments into audio grains that you can then manipulate. It’s less of a sample player than a sample atomizer.
You can also play the grains like tones. “Unlike other granular synths,” says Baby Audio, “Grainferno can generate grains at speeds fast enough to cross into the audio range. At these rates, grains stop behaving like texture and start acting like oscillators, turning any audio file into a playable synth voice with the sonic fingerprint of the original audio.”
Along with audio rate grains, you can also sync to pitch and BPM, which can result in musical and rhythmically useful results when processing beats and percussion.
As well as the typical granular synthesis parameters of grain size and rate, plus scan direction and scatter (or random) amounts, you can also apply effects to the grains themselves, such as filter, compressor and Blur, a feedback circuit.
Against the Grain
Grainferno is a synthesizer as well, with everything that you expect from that definition, including modulation. There are envelopes (including one that can affect grains instead of voice), LFOs, random mod generators, an envelope follower, and performance mod parameters.
There’s also a general effects section, with swappable slots for EQ/filter, compressor, clipper, delay, chorus, and reverb, each with multiple algorithms available.
Finally, you get a Play screen with four macros with drag-and-drop assignment, the same as modulation.
Pricing and Availability
I’ve been playing with Grainferno for a bit now and I have to say, it’s a lot of fun. It’s much less random than most granular instruments or effects, and fairly easy to dial in the kinds of sounds that you’re aiming for. I do think Baby Audio missed an opportunity by not calling it Grainstorm, though. But that’s just me.
Grainferno is available now for Mac and PC at an introductory price of $77 / £69 / €79 at Thomann*.
More Information
- Baby Audio Grainferno product page
- More about Baby Audio
- More about synthesizers
- Buy soft synths at Thomann*
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