Granular Synth Debuts On Kickstarter

US Tasty Chips GR-1 can be yours for 849 Euros 13/09/17

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GR-1 Granular Synthesizer

Tasty Chips Electronics is raising funds for GR-1 Granular Synthesizer on Kickstarter! The GR-1 Granular Synthesizer is a hardware musical instrument, offering hands-on controls to create characteristic textures and pads.

We brought you initial news of this last month and now the Kickstarter campaign for the Tasty Chips GR-1 hardware granular synthesizer has started. Here's the details direct from the page...

The GR-1 is a hardware polyphonic granular synthesizer in a class of its own. The GR-1 is capable of creating textures, characteristic sounds, drones, soundscapes, pads etc. with the help of your creativity! A sample and a few knob tweaks is enough to create something beautiful!

The GR-1 is massively polyphonic: 128 grains per voice, times 16 voices = 2048 grains in parallel. It employs 32 bit mixing and a HIFI stereo DAC for rendition. A 7" full colour display that is typically only found in top class synthesizers. It can use (USB or DIN) MIDI keyboards, USB sticks/disks, USB audio interfaces, and even PC keyboards. Yet it also features CV interfaces for integration with Modular (Eurorack) systems.

The on-board controls and MIDI connectivity make it extremely easy to manipulate sound. Directness is nr. 1 in the design: knobs and sliders allow all granular parameters to be changed in seconds. The GR-1 also allows stand-alone operation: No MIDI keyboard required! The GR-1 has buttons and sliders to create 4 note chords or drones. (see video demo, stand-alone "play" mode) Use the built-in headphone amp to create sounds fully standalone. It's modest form factor of 32 x 21 cm and light weight allow it to be taken everywhere in a small backpack.

Specifications

128 grains per voice
16 voice polyphony
Standalone or MIDI controllable
MIDI IN & MIDI THRU connection with DIN and USB MIDI
High quality stereo audio: internally: 32 bit float, DAC: 44.1KHz, 106 dB SNR
High quality headphone amplifier with dedicated volume control
Quad core ARM Cortex-A running optimized Neon SIMD code.
800 x 480 pixel, 7" TFT true color display
Firmware updates via USB
Sample file uploads in multiple formats via USB
The GR-1 can handle 32 sample files of 10 MB (about 2 minutes long)
Presets and performances can be saved to internal flash (4GB) or external (USB) memory
2 control voltage assignable inputs 0-5V with voltage protection
1 gate output
12dB/oct digital lowpass filter with direct and MIDI controls
2 assignable LFO's with waveforms (sine, random, saw, square) and direct controls
4 banks of 8 presets all hands-on accessible and overwritable
ADSR amplitude envelope and Grain window envelope with direct controls
Rotary encoder for configuration, file/sample selection. Config menus provide extended possibilities beyond what the pots and sliders offer.
Access to configuration screen providing many more options
32 x 21 x 7 cm aluminum casing.
Raspberry PI3 inside. Tried, tested, easy to service, or upgrade. And _very_ powerful!
Full MIDI control: All on-board sliders and knobs, and internal controls are represented as MIDI CC. Full support for program change, pitch bend.
Ability to read and write any USB stick or drive: FAT, ExFat, NTFS (Windows), HFS+ (Mac), Ext4 (Linux).
Much more to be added by firmware updates: fully exposed mod matrix, another mode of granular synthesis (very small sample loops), MIDI clock sync, LFO cross mod, and stretchgoals.