Clouds

Mutable Instruments
CONTROLS
A. FREEZE button. This latching button stops the recording of incoming audio.
Granularization is now performed on the last few seconds of memory.
B. Blending Parameter / Audio Quality. Selects which blending parameters is
controlled by [BLEND] and [6], or selects one of the four audio quality settings
D. Grain POSITION. Selects from which part of the recording buffer the audio
grains are played.
E. Grain SIZE. At 12:00, buffer is played at its original frequency.
F. Grain PITCH. At 12:00, buffer is played at its original frequency
G. Input GAIN. From -18dB to +6dB.
H. Grain DENSITY. At 12:00, no grains are generated. At CCW, grains played at
constant rate…at CW, grains will be sown randomly.
I. Grain TEXTURE. Morphs through various shapes of grain envelopes: square
(boxcar), triangle, and then Hann window. Past 2:00, activates a diffuser.
J. BLEND. Multi-function knob is described in the Blending Parameters section.
K. LEDs. Input vu-meter, output vu-meter (when FREEZE active), quality setting
(red), function assigned to [BLEND] (green), or blending parameters (multi).

INPUTS & OUTPUTS

1. FREEZE. Stops recording of incoming audio on gate high.
2. TRIGGER. Generates a single grain. By moving [DENSITY] to 12:00 and sending
a trigger, can be controlled like a micro-sample player.
3. Grain POSITION CV.
4. Grain SIZE CV.
5. PITCH (V/OCT) CV. Grain transposition
6. LEND CV. Controls one of the following depending on Blending Parameters: dry/wet balance, grain
stereo spread, feedback amount and reverb amount. J
7. Grain POSITION CV. F
8. Grain SIZE CV.
I
BLEND PARAMETERS E
To select which parameter is controlled, press [B] and the current parameter is temporarily indicated by a H
green LED. When turning [BLEND] the color of the four status LEDS shows the value of the parameter from
black to green to yellow to red.
• Dry/Wet Balance D
G
• Stereo Spread (amount of random panning/balance applied to the grains)
• Feedback Amount
• Reverberation Amount A
B
ADVANCED TOPICS
Hold [B] for one second, then press it repeatedly to choose a recording quality
Rate Resolution Channels Buffer
1 32kHz 16-bit Stereo 1s
2 32kHz 16-bit Mono 2s
3 16kHz 8-bit µ-law Stereo 4s
4 16kHz 8-bit µ-law Mono 8s

TIPS AND TRICKS

• If you need a noise source to randomize grain position or pitch, you could do worse than reusing one of the audio outputs.
• Scratch and caress a sound by using a contact microphone or a touch strip to trigger grains and modify playback POSITION.
• Very dense clouds sound the best when at least one parameter (pitch or position) receives random modulations. Otherwise, the
many identical “echoes” created by the repeating grains will sound like a very resonant feedback comb filter.
• Raw material like sawtooth or sine waves sound very good, especially with heavy random modulation. A fun exercise is to recreate
the classic THX sound with a random source and a VCA.
• Send a very fast sequence of 3 or 4 notes to the V/O input, so that each grain (if sown randomly) randomly picks one of those notes.
The result? A chord!
• Experiment with capturing many small fragments of sound by sending short pulses to FREEZE while a complex patch is being played
through the audio input!