Emergence, Daniel Gergeley’s gorgeous granular plug-in, has reached a 1.0 milestone with tons of new features. The additions appear well worth the $20, but the 0.3 release is still available free/pay-what-you-want. Here’s a look at what this does, with demos.
1.0 is a major new release, more stable and with tons of improvements. This was already a feature-laden granular processing, tool, but there are major new options. Most noteworthy, the UI doesn’t have to take up so much space, it’s easier to manage your presets, and – the big one – there’s host sync, so you can process time based on your project’s BPM and beats.
What’s new:
- New modulators: Audio Input/Output
- ADSR controls for shaping grain envelopes
- Synchronize time based parameters to host tempo/beat
- Built-in preset manager (and a couple of factory presets)
- Position knob to control grain start position
- Collapsible UI sections to save screen space
And it all runs on macOS and Windows (VST3 + AU), both in the new version and in the free 0.3.
https://daniel-gergely.itch.io/emergence1
Your $20 purchase gets you the full release for both Mac and Windows, DRM-free; if you want to try before you buy, the 0.3 build is the way to go.
With this new build, there’s also a preset walkthrough – in fact, let me sip my fresh-hot cup of tea here and just watch! (potentially a burn situation if I do that with the software, especially if I screencast myself, so thanks, Daniel)!
Audio sound demos, too:
Hey, itch.io is a really nice marketplace for this – you can just purchase-lock the downloads without necessarily adding DRM (be nice, kids, so we can still have nice things). The UI is dead-simple. And there’s a forum. Curious to hear how the admin side is, but this definitely looks better than Bandcamp for this stuff.
How many granular tools do we need? All of them. As many as possible. All granular all the time. I’m really excited that now we have Emergence and –
and –
and –
Now, in theory, sure, better to use fewer tools, restrictions aid creativity, focus and blah blah … something something …
But honestly, there are too many unique design details to each of these not to really want to use all of them. Sheesh, also you can buy up all of these and be still shy of the price of a boring PCM-based “workstation” keyboard from a few years back. It’s like having a video console with a library of titles. I look forward to long nights getting lost in granular processing. And more tea. Life is short; design lots of sounds. But feel free to weigh in on your favorite tool, of course.
