Tasty Chips GR-1 : Hardware Poly Granular Synth

craig · August 1, 2020, 8:43pm

Apology accepted It does look amazing. I’ve watched loads of videos on it – Loopop’s is the best one, as usual, even that bit at the start taking a prelude and turning it into chords was a ‘Hello!’ moment for me. I reckon the bad videos are just a case of poor sample choice or uninspired settings – this even happens on the official TC videos.

Tchu · August 1, 2020, 8:51pm

I’ve been eyeing this device for a while now but you can’t buy everything the same year (or can you?). I’ve bought a lot in the last 2 months (Peak, Hydrasynth, NDLR and Midihub), now it’s time to dive deeply and learn them well.

Tchu · August 1, 2020, 8:52pm

Agreed.

craig · August 1, 2020, 8:54pm

Wow, nice collection! You’ll definitely be better off learning those before adding anything else. If I end up getting the GR-1, I’ll come back here to post my thoughts. There’s not so much talk on here compared to other synths, which is odd, because it seems so unique in the hardware/non-modular world

Tchu · August 1, 2020, 8:59pm

Can’t wait.

blipson · January 9, 2021, 11:40am

Has anyone seen this thing demo’ed in MPE mode?

Psyre · February 10, 2021, 9:22pm

Anyone acquire one of these lately and want to share opinions? I’ve been unloading the majority of my synths and drum machines and am thinking I may pick a GR-1 up to pair with OT, DN, and Orville.

TheGhostCat · February 10, 2021, 9:42pm

I had been eyeballing this until I found something interesting in the gr1 manual….

xavierbreaker · February 10, 2021, 9:50pm

This is a dope synth. I’ve been trying to get away from the dependence of software for production and use hardware instruments for a while. I’ve never jelled well with vsts (I’m a drummer) and have always gotten distracted trying to do stuff on the computer.

If I can relegate my laptop to just recording and mixing, I’ll be good. An instrument like this would be cool to have in my arsenal.

kr0n · February 10, 2021, 9:51pm

Yep, the GR-1 is a Raspberry Pi underneath. I remember I read it on their forum talking about the possibility of upgrading the hardware in the future or something like that.

TheGhostCat · February 10, 2021, 10:22pm

Hmm…I have an extra rpi3 just sitting around and a pimoroni box with a few pico’s showed up last night…
This might be the new project.

jason_so_ny · March 28, 2021, 5:48pm

I’ve been aware of this one for the last couple of years. And sort of dismissed it because I’m not into the granualar glitchy sound. But I’ve been wanting a polyphonic sample player with the layout of a synth in hardware for a few years now. And first now I’m realizing that I don’t have to use the granular site of the GR-1

Jcrzzz · March 31, 2021, 3:42am

Jukka · March 31, 2021, 8:33am

Great work ! I love the whole thing Juan, you do a great job blending your playing in with the sounds coming from the GR-1.

I especially love the short section at 7 seconds in where you blend the “kids” voices with the simple bass line.

I don’t own a GR-1 — this video is definitely a GAS generator.

Jcrzzz · March 31, 2021, 1:35pm

Thanks Jukka!
I’m not going to lie, I almost sold it.
Putting on a single sample started to bore me.
But I started testing and putting a lot of samples on a single track and discovered this, this is why I show it.
The improvisation will have lasted an hour, but make the samples much much more.
You have to squeeze the Gr-1.
Greetings!

Jukka · March 31, 2021, 1:50pm

Have you used it with live sampling ? It’s a little weird using a USB input device to do that, but i’m fine with that.

I posted this link before over in the SOMA COSMOS thread.

Jcrzzz · March 31, 2021, 2:00pm

No, I don’t use it like that.
You lose many functions and variations that the gr-1 gives.
And you’re going to have to buy another sound card.
Better to work the samplers on the daw.
Gives better results!

blipson · March 31, 2021, 2:52pm

Mine outputs into a stereo channel, while at the same time receiving stereo input from aux 1 and aux 2 on my mixer. That way, I can easily switch (or mix) between live granular as a stereo effect on any channel and the GR-1 as a standalone box on its own channel. This does require an extra USB soundcard to get the live audio into the GR-1, so I picked up an inexpensive NI Komplete Audio 6 for that, which actually works better for this purpose than my AudioFuse Studio.

Jcrzzz · March 31, 2021, 3:18pm

Do you send and receive the same signal from Gr-1?
Interesting!

blipson · March 31, 2021, 3:54pm

The GR-1 receives whatever is getting sent to aux 1 and aux2. At the same time, it’s ouputting to its own stereo channel. If you mean I can send the GR-1 into itself by also sending it to aux 1 and aux 2, that is interesting, but I’ve never given that a listen because the thing has been dedicated to live granular since I’ve had it. That hasn’t been all that long, and I had like a month of mixer down time followed by a consuming new project, so I’ve underused my GR-1 so far.