Hello,
I am working on a new patch for a piece already made. The composer mentions a GRM plug-in called "Shuffling" for the granulation in Max.

Is there a comparable patch for Pd?

I do not think I have GRM downloaded. Is that only for Max?

@raynovich said:

Hello,
I am working on a new patch for a piece already made. The composer mentions a GRM plug-in called "Shuffling" for the granulation in Max.

I do not think I have GRM downloaded. Is that only for Max?

If I'm not mistaken, GRM Tools is a set of VST FX plugins. As such, they would not be restricted to Max. (In theory, you should be able to run it in Pd using IEM's vstplugin~ external.)

I'm pretty sure they are not free, though.

Unfortunately my Internet access is inconsistent and spotty today, so I'm not able to get any further details about Shuffling... Granular techniques in general are fairly straightforward in Pd, but it's the specifics about this plugin's input and behavior that I can't find at the moment (but someone else probably could). So I'm not sure how to emulate this specific granulator in Pd.

hjh

Ah. So you can buy them.

And yeah, I kind of want to know more how it works. . . perhaps. Then explicitly use it. Or use Pd plugin.

@raynovich said:

And yeah, I kind of want to know more how it works. . .

Hm, well, let me propose an analogy. Analog synthesis is fairly standard: bandlimited waveforms, there are x number of ways to generate those, y number of filter implementations etc. But many of the oscillators and filters in, say, VCV Rack have a distinctive sound, because of the specific analog-emulation techniques and nonlinearities used per module. You can understand analog synthesis but that isn't enough to emulate a specific Rack module in Pd.

Re: Shuffling, I finally found this one sentence description: "Shuffling takes random sample fragments of variable dimensions from the last three seconds of the incoming sound and modulates its playback density and pitch" -- that's a granular delay.

A granular delay is fairly straightforward to implement in Pd: [delwrite~] is the grain source. Each grain is generated from [delread4~] where you can randomly choose the delay time, or sweep the delay time linearly to change the pitch. That will take care of "random sample fragments," "last three seconds," and "modulates... pitch" (you modulates playback density by controlling the rate at which grains are produced vs the duration of each grain -- normally I set an overlap parameter and grains-per-second, so that grain dur = overlap / grain_freq).

"... of variable dimensions" doesn't provide any useful technical detail.

But what isn't covered in the overview description of a granular delay is the precise connection between the Shuffling plug-in parameters and the audio processing. Since GRM Tools are closed-source, you would have to get hold of the plug-in and do a lot of tests (but if you have the plug-in, then just [vstplugin~] and done), or guess and you would end up with an effect that's somewhat like Shuffling, but maybe not exactly what the composer specified.

I'll send a grain-delay template a bit later, hang on.

hjh

This is a basic grain delay -- it is not a drop-in replacement for Shuffling because, as stated, I have no idea of Shuffling's parameters or what they control. But this shows the basic technique. You'd choose grain positions, playback rates etc. according to different rules. Also, here I've used a Hann envelope on the grains for smoother overlap. To shuffle segments, you'd want a trapezoidal envelope that is open at full volume most of its duration.

22-1001-grain-delay.zip

hjh

Shuffling in a plugin from the "Classic GRM Tools Pack".
To hear the sound of this plugin, it is easy to install the "Classic bundle of GRM tools" in demo version (free).
https://inagrm.com/fr/store/product/3/classic
It works well with vstplugin~ external.

Thank you for all of the responses. Now I have to get to work on this.