Well, I wasn’t trying to be a dick or anything, but it kind of looked like you just dropped by to shit on something, then bounce.
All good. I appreciate the suggestions.
I don’t really care what the inventor thinks now, I would fully expect and 100% support her moving on to invent something better, that’s the creative spirit.
All those other ones you mentioned are the same cost I paid for a couple of foundational studio elements I use everyday. I can’t justify that for a niche effect I’d probably use on less than 50% of my productions.
But, yeah, all cool stuff, you’re right. I probably should have set a price cap up front.
And sure, if your budget is limited, so are your choices, which is fair enough. It may well be Clouds is good for you in which case great. I was just pointing out it has been superseded, and for very specific reasons by its designer. Also giving my opinion on its sound, as someone who has owned one. Saying it sounds like shit was probably not the way to put it. I’ll rephrase: I had one for several years. I am not Richard Devine but I am not a complete amateur and have made some nice sounds on my modular. I always found Clouds turned those sounds into an unsatisfying digital mush when presented with them. Just a viewpoint.
That’s fair enough.
For me, that’s exactly what I’m looking for. Seems like the point of granular, IMO.
As an example, as I’ve written in other threads, I much prefer the sound of MEGAfm to Digitone. I had both, only kept the MEGAfm. This is not saying I don’t think the DN sounds good, I think it sounds great. Great and boring.
When it comes to digital stuff, I like it like I like my women, a little dirty.
I love the contrast. I’ve got enough “clean”, “warm” shit around here, I want some action. This broken digital stuff is a great palette enhancer.
My favorite synth right now that I have is the Quadrantid Swarm. You’d probably hate it, it’s a mess.
I mean, just the definition of the word functionality I guess? The controls and what operations they control, the layout.
As an example, the Microcosm has a lack of controls for operations that I would have preferred to have access to changing manually.
To me, that was an unappealing device functionality.
Ditch the esoteric “activity” knob and the “space” (I’ve got enough reverbs), and give me a “position” and “length” and I would have kept it.
But a lot of people love it, I get it. They’ll probably say it sounds like shit in 5 years though.
I have a Nebulae mk2, and overall the sound quality is way better than clouds (to build on what was said previously). Also, sample memory is a lot more expanded compared to clouds/beads, and allows for up to five minutes recording in 24/48.
A pretty significant difference is that the nebulae has no automatic recording buffer, meaning you need to first record a loop and then run the buffered sample/recording through the granularizing section of the module. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, because it’s nondestructive, but it is a difference worth knowing about.
Also in the granular neighboorhod there’s Qu-bits data bender.
I’ve been watching more videos, I like it. As far as the recording buffer thing goes, it kind of acts more like a “looper” in that sense, yes?
If I understand that correctly, it could kill two birds with one stone.
Exactly, and that’s how I look at it too. You also have the timestretch/pitch shift/speed variation functions along with that. So just like you wrote, it’s a record loop first, manipulate last kind of deal if that makes sense.
I’ve never really understood this thing about clouds. MI stuff is cool but it’s just like the maker created an interesting and popular product but then back-pedalled like “nooooooo you’re not allowed to use it like THAT!” Then because it was popular and modular is supposed to be a kool unique guy hobby everyone in modular declared clouds as cringe. By all means new products should be made and if the creator doesn’t like how a product gets used that should make absolutely no difference to how anyone should use it. When you dump hundreds on something it’s up to you how you use it. If I buy a bike and decide riding it backwards is more fun who gives a fuck. And if everyone decides riding it backwards is more fun then someone else might come along and design a better bike designed to be ridden backwards
@LyingDalai I used borderlands as a live effect first time yesterday. It was pretty cool. It’s got this live waterfall thing going on where you record in constantly like in the video above. It could do with a wet/dry knob though. It’s 100% the output of the grain clouds
If I understand her right, what she tried to convey was that clouds didn’t live up to her vision of what the module should do, as opposed to being unhappy with how people used it. Hence creating beads as a successor. She’s replaced other modules as well for the same reason, but I digress.
Even if it’s not her specifically that’s by far the vast majority of the complaints I see about clouds online. Regardless I definitely saw the creator post about it on their forums a long time ago, specifically about being unhappy with people using the module the wrong way. By all means the creator is within all rights to not like how it ends up being used. I just think anyone can use anything any way they want. That’s the point of modular imo. I’m pretty sure smashmouth don’t enjoy playing all star anymore but nonetheless people still want to hear it
The only granular I’ve been impressed with outside of a few software plugins are the qubit nebulae v2 and the Granchild script for Norns. Actually, there are a few good sounding performance oriented granular sampling scripts for norns and the supercollider grain sampler, whatever it is, sounds very good and musical to my ears. Much more usable than most granular effects. But grandchild can record a live signal and map a bunch of nice parameters to a midi controller for live mangling (density, spread, pitch, speed, buffer playback position scanning, size, subharmonics, overtones, fade, filter cutoff, etc)
Nebulae also has great parameters that are fun and useful for live tweaking as well as blending between the live and phase vocoded signal (blur, window, pitch, time) and it also scatters are rearranges loops similar to how the tensor pedal does, which is very neat for live sound on sound granular looping
Cooperfx Outward v2 was ok for an effect, but not very musically useful
I haven’t seen her comments about Clouds in that regard, but have certainly seen her be quite vocal about people not using the input of Rings, just using the internal noise generator which she evidently felt was such a reductive way of using it. Certainly Rings into Clouds has become a Eurorack meme and I would personally agree I do cringe a bit when I see people post videos of ambient jams with Rings plucking away some generative sequence, so tend to agree with her. But to each their own. I guess the issue for her was that the saturation of people using it in this way, for her, sold her work short, which was frustrating. But it’s not a question of right or wrong really.
I get what you’re saying. How I see it rings into clouds is such a meme that anyone who doesn’t hold that opinion about it must be very new so I can’t fault them for it. Brings more people into the game which is a net positive I say. Where did you disappear to anyway? Used to see you post all the time and you went missing for ages
Yeah, I really don’t understand why I should even have the slightest consideration for what the creator of a product says I should do with something after I buy it.
This is really the first time I’ve ever encountered something like this while looking for gear advice, so I wasn’t sure how to take it. I might not have reacted appropriately, but it just struck me as weird at first.
