1.5 ©2023 Michael Norris

[mc.spindrift~] is the mother of all granular synthesis externals for Max.

It not only features the standard granular synthesis parameters, including time-stretching, pitch-shifting and granular ‘clouds’, but also boasts a slew of powerful per-grain spatialization parameters, designed for equidistant multichannel loudspeaker arrays. Spatialization can be controlled manually or set to create automatic ‘spinning’, ‘drifting’ or even ‘spiralling’ trajectories.

Demo

All demo sounds below made with the [mc.spindrift~] help file patch

Features

Features include:

• uses Max’s mc (multichannel) framework for flexible multichannel audio
• hardware optimization using Apple’s Accelerate framework means it runs with very low CPU overhead
• both granular ‘clouds’ (asynchronous) and granular time-stretching (synchronous) are available
• standard granulation parameters: pitch-shift, time-stretch, envelope, filtering, variance factors
• each grain can be separately spatialized, with a per-grain wet/dry mix to simulate grain ‘distance’
• automated circular, linear or spiral spatial trajectories
• ‘clumps’ of grains that can have their own durations and envelopes
• automatic switch-off after a set duration
• information for each grain (duration, position, gain, etc) can be sent out an outlet in real time for further processing
• pitch-shifting can be drawn randomly from a scale
• per-grain filtering, including arpeggios and filterbanks
• can be easily embedded in a [poly~] object for polyphonic granular synthesis
• supports different multichannel speaker layouts, such as French & American, clockwise or pairwise

Download

Click here to download new [mc.spindrift~] 1.5

Click here to download the original [spindrift~] 1.1

Version History

1.5: [mc.spindrift~] released; bug-fixes

1.4: Bug-fixes

1.3: Added new clump controls

1.2: Bug-fixes

1.1: Compiled with support for M1 processors

1.0: First release

System Requirements

Mac OS X 10.7 or later

Software Requirements

MaxMSP 7 or greater