Swarm
Particle Diffusion Sampler
Part of Studies
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The original plugin with its own interface, as a one-time purchase.
Description
Swarm is a sound design instrument inspired by “swarm intelligence” and “particle masses” such as those employed by composer Iannis Xenakis. It clones segments of a sample and puts those members into a “flock” that disperses in unified, sometimes stochastic, coordination.
Swarm excels at dense pizzicato clouds and spacey, randomized ambiences. It's a very unconventional instrument with unpredictable and often wondrous results. Experiment with it for a while and you'll get to know its character and where it fits in your productions.
Each note you hold spawns short members from the sample, played at the pitch of the note, and a pitch-shifting echo called SPLATTER trails after them. We included five samples to start from, and you can load your own.
Play it from a MIDI track. While you hold a note, the swarm clock spawns new members, each a short slice of the sample read from a point that SECTION sets and played at the note's pitch. The members go through the pitch delay, and MIX sets how much of it you hear.
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Swarm clock
- SHAPE
- Sets the length of the swarm's cycle, from a tenth of a second up to 20 seconds. Each cycle starts with members spawning at the DENSITY rate, thins out to two a second by its end and starts again. Turning SHAPE up also makes the members' start point wander through the sample faster.
- DENSITY
- Sets how many new members spawn per second at the start of each cycle, from 1 to 30.
-
Sample grains
- SAMPLE
- Picks the sample the swarm is made from: GUITAR, DIST, RHODES, BUCHLA 1, BUCHLA 2, or FILE for your own.
- SECTION
- Sets how far into the sample the members start. Low settings keep them near the beginning, and higher settings let them start further in, up to nearly the end. The start point keeps sliding back toward the beginning and out again at the SHAPE rate. Members that start near the end run out of sample and go quiet early, which leaves gaps in the swarm.
- SIZE
- Sets the length of each member, from 100 to 600 ms. Each one fades in quickly and dies away.
- SOURCE
- Loads your own .wav or .aif sample, and picking a file switches SAMPLE to FILE. The button shows the file's name, or PICK FILE until you choose one. If a saved file can't be found it shows MISSING, and the guitar sample plays instead.
-
Pitch delay
- SPLATTER
- Sets the echo time, the feedback and the pitch of the echoes all at once. Low settings put an octave-down copy right behind the swarm. At noon the echoes come a second apart at the original pitch, and fully up they're two seconds apart and a fifth higher, with the feedback at half. The echo times also drift slightly, a little differently on each side. When you move it, the echoes drop out and fade back in over about seven seconds.
- MIX
- Fades from the plain swarm to the pitch delay's output, which keeps a little of the plain swarm under the echoes.
-
Master
- OUTPUT
- Sets the output level, from silent up to double. Noon is unity.
Try thisHold a low note with DENSITY high and SIZE short for a dense cloud that moves slowly through the sample. For scattered pizzicato, play short high notes with DENSITY low.
In Studies
Swarm is in Studies Instruments, under Granular. Load it on a MIDI track.
Playing it
Middle C plays the sample at its original speed. Swarm plays one pitch at a time: every member follows the most recent note you're holding, so a chord gives you a thicker swarm rather than a chord. Velocity sets the level of the members a note spawns, pitch bend moves the whole swarm, and up to about 30 members sound at once.
Your own samples
A file you load with SOURCE is saved with your host session. Presets remember only which of the five built-in samples they use.
Standalone
The standalone plugin, shown further down the page, loads its sample with a SOURCE file button and has no OUTPUT knob. In Studies you pick a built-in sample from the SAMPLE grid or load your own with SOURCE.
Bundle
The standalone plugin is also part of the Granular Suite.
- Formats
- Studies: Audio Units, VST2 and VST3 on Mac, VST3 on Windows · Apple silicon native
- Systems
- Current macOS and Windows 10/11 x64
Standalone version
The original plugin with its own interface, as a one-time purchase.
AU · VST2 · VST3 · macOS · Windows