DIY Clouds (Black Magpie Panel)

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DIY Clouds (Black Magpie Panel)

Clouds is a granular audio processor – with a couple of twists.

Unlike granular sample players, Clouds is focused on the realtime granularization of incoming audio signals, and the acquisition of textures from them.

Classic controls such as grain position, size, and pitch are provided. Clouds can superimpose many grains simultaneously (at least 40, depending on the CPU used by its other features) and thus create thick textures. Control over texture density, independently of grain size, is thus provided. An external trigger input allows grains to be seeded in sync with LFOs or rhythmic generators.

To provide a richer variety of timbres, Clouds allows the shape of the grain’s envelope to be morphed – from sharp rectangular edges to a smooth bell curve. In addition, a diffusion network can further dissolve the edges of grains into blurry textures.

Finally, to cover various applications of granular synthesis without the need for additional modules, Clouds’ comes with four “blending” settings for mixing and re-routing its output signal: dry/wet balance, random panning amount, feedback amount, and reverberation amount. Voltage control over one of those four parameters is possible.

Clouds’ delay memory ranges from 1s to 8s depending on audio quality settings.

The full kit includes everything you need, and the processor is pre-flashed with the latest firmware at the time of kitting.

PCB + Panel Bundle includes the panel and the synthCube PCB (blue PCB material and immersion gold finish).

Clouds Features

Audio buffer acquisition

Stereo I/O. Even with a mono recording buffer, a wide stereo output can still be simulated by randomly panning grains or through the stereo reverberator.
Stereo pre-amp with a gain range covering modular and line levels.
Recording buffer size: 1s (32kHz, stereo) to 8s (16kHz, µ-law, mono).
The FREEZE button and the corresponding gate input freezes the content of the recording buffer, allowing you to dive into its sonic details.
4 memory slots for storing and recalling buffers.

Granular synthesis

Grain generation time base: periodical, randomized, or externally clocked.
The POSITION knob selects from which part of the recording buffer the grains are extracted.
Grain size from 16ms to 1s.
Up to 40 to 60 concurrent grains (depending on recording buffer resolution).
Transposition from -2 octaves to +2 octaves, with V/O tracking.
Grain envelope continuously variable between boxcar, triangle and Hann functions.
CV inputs for all grain parameters, individually sampled and held by each grain. For stochastic, Xenakis-style explorations, try feeding random voltages to those!
Diffusion network with 4 All-pass filters to post process the granularized signals.

Post-processing ("Blending") Settings

4 post-processing parameters are controlled by the BLEND knob and CV input:

Dry/wet balance.
Random panning amount.
Feedback amount.
Reverb amount.

Clouds Specifications

Input impedances: 100k.
Audio input gain range: line level to modular level.
CV range: +/- 5V. CVs outside of this range are simply clipped.
Internal processing: 32kHz, 32-bit floating point. RAM Recording buffer uses 16-bit (high quality) or 8-bit µ-law (low quality) resolution.

Important: The full kit is offered ‘on-demand.’ When we receive your order for the kit, we will prepare and QC your full kit before shipping. Depending upon demand and availability- the kit could ship as early as a day or two, or in some cases could take up to two weeks to ship.