New Sonic Arts

i've been using nuance since forever. when i moved to logic pro, i missed the sample player in reason; i wanted to be able to flip thru samples, before committing to anything. nuance let me do that.

i live by this thing; i use it all the time. easy to audition samples, try things out. i have several custom drum sets in the plugin, and, worth mentioning, the 2 drum soundsets are pretty amazing; check those out. lots of great kits, sounds.

my usage is pretty basic, but i can do everything i need to do. the GUI is great, simple, logical. and plenty of options (modulation, trimming, looping... etc) and version 2 is filled with new possibilties (i've barely scratched the surface, to be honest).

anyway, a great plugin, and worth checking out.

Works very well as effect and instrument.
I only miss VST3 plugin support, but this will be coming soon.
Also hope, that plugin latency reporting will be added, too. So the DAW can compensate it correctly.

If I should classify and characterize the us, you and me, and all others of the "sonic grains and microsound scene", I would name the following 4 groups of people:

the audiophile sensualist, .

the serious sound designer, .

the composer of contemporary sonic art, .

the sound analyst.

You may well belong to more than one of these groups though.

Granite serves at least the first 3 of these groups. It is a powerful, but easy to use application to granulize either the factory samples of any soundfile of your own. Let me talk about some details now:

Whereas CrusherX offers an enormous amount of tools to reach deep into the details of granular sound processing, Granite is an agent of a different philosophy.

New Sonic Arts have bundled several groups of functions under the hood of Granite, and offer (macro-)knobs to the user. Each these knobs represents a certain one of these bundles of functions. These (macro-)knobs tweak all of the functions in the bundle, which they stand for at the same time. New Sonic Art has coded the underlying algorithms in a way, which allow for maximum musical usefulness, but prevent the user from creating too much of harshness.

Just an example: We cannot directly set the length of the grains, but we can set the DENSITY. Together with another (macro-)parameter, SPACE, we indirectly influence the length of the grains, but what we really adjust is the sonic result (how "dense" the piece of sound reaches out ears), and Granite's algorithms under the hood take care, that all needed details (i.e. grain length) are set to serve our wishes best.

https://youtu.be/2iex9HiCR-U

There are 6 of these (macro-)parameters concerning the grains themselves, amd the process of generating and shaping them.

There are 12 FX parameters, and 3 Master parameters.

Granite cannot work on live sound. You need to load the sound you're going to work on with Granite into its buffer. This buffer is static in the meaning, that sound cannot stream through it.

Both apps, CrusherX as well as Granite, are wonderfully precise in dealing with the samples in their buffers. Scanning through a piece of sound happens at a resolution of a millisecond. Because of the large waveform display and its zoom functionality it is very comfortable to "walk" (scan) through the sound in the buffer with Granite, even if Granite's waveform display doesn't deliver that amount of information, that you get from the Grainview window with CrusherX. Not surprising, because there are not that much detailed parameters to get adjusted by the user with Granite (as I mentioned before). And also in resampling the loaded sound Granite delivers a brilliant performance.

There are not that many different methods of modulating Granite's parameters (all in all only 5), but we can adjust and combine them with the same precision and flexibility as we can with CrusherX.

Granite offers a very comfortable file handling and preset management, as well as a multilayer undo/redo history. The manual is quite meager, but there is a great comprehensive video tutorial on YouTube (by Dan Reynolds). You'll find the link in the Resources chapter. And with that said it's time to look at some functions in detail.

SPACE sets the time between generating consecutive grains. With the knob turned to the left the time between the "birth" of consecutive grains is short (some very few milliseconds), the frequency of generating grains is high. With the knob turned to the right it's opposite: long periods of time between generating of consecutive grains (more than a minute). But the real sonic result is different from the graphic. I'm going to explain this in a second, when I talk about the DENSITY parameter.

In the upper right corner of the GUI we can follow how many grains are generated and how often the generating happens.

SPACE teams up with another parameter, the DENSITY parameter. Both determine in cooperation (together with these "algorithms under the hood") how long the generated grains are. the term density means (in simple words) how many grains are active (heard) at the same time. With Granite the DENSITY knob sets the relation of grain length and the space between consecutive grains. With the knob turned to the left the length of each grain covers exactly the time between generating consecutive grains, which I have set with SPACE.

But turned more and more to the right the length of the grains gets longer and longer, which results in more and more overlapping grains (as long as I don't increase the SPACE parameter). It needs some experiments of your own to take in this concept, and to be able to work with these parameters fast and intuitively.

We cannot have long silent breaks between two consecutive grains, because the lowest possible density is "1", meaning one grain at a time. Only the grain window, the overall volume envelope of a grain lets us recognise the seam between two grains.

The impression of the highest density can be generated by adjusting the shortest grain generating space and the highest density (which means the highest load on CPU as well, because a lot of grains are generated at the same short time, while the playhead is scanning through the sound in the buffer).

https://youtu.be/S4PYBpWWtOw

The SPEED parameter sets the speed of the playhead on its way through the buffer. This parameter is the equivalent to CrusherX's delay modulation, and determines the length of the piece of sound heard without changing the pitch of the sound.

Well, and PITCH is the opposite: it changes the pitch of the sound without changing its length. Granite's PITCH parameter is the equivalent to CrusherX's speed parameter. Take care, when working with both apps at the same time.

The ATTACK parameter determines the shape of the grain window by setting the relation between attack-time and release time of the grain's volume envelope.

https://youtu.be/0bAeqvT-r6U

There is a paramter called SHAPE. It's not one of the grain parameters, but located in the FX1 panel. SHAPE is helpful when working with "critical" sounds, meaning with the huge amplitude differences, which we meet quite often when working with grains containing transitions (see chapter 5). SHAPE raises the volume of quieter parts in the sound.

For details concerning chord playing (WRAP), reverse playback (REVERSE) and panorama (PAN), as well as concerning the MASTER section with overall attack, overall release and velocity please read the manual (link in the Resources chapter), or watch the recommended video by Dan Reynolds.

Let me only mention, that Granite comes with a distortion function, sample rate reduction (kind of low-fi function), and an LP, BP and HP filter, all in the FX1 panel.

The FX2 panel houses the reverb unit (a very nice sounding velvet-like reverb, by the way) with parameters to set the room size, the decay time of the reverb and its low-how balance.

Instead of talking about the details of all of these quite common FX functions, I'll rather talk about modulation and real-time parameters now.

To modulate a parameter we click in the ring, that surrounds every parameter knob and drag the blue modulation pointer to and fro according to our needs. All of these movements are automatically recorded, and as soon as we release the mouse button, the drawn modulation starts repeating. until we draw another one or until we right click in the modulation ring to reset it back to no modulation at all. The direction, the amount and the speed, that we drew in is recorded and repeated. With the parameter knob I set the offset around which the drawn modulation takes place. Just click the link to the video to see what I mean.

https://youtu.be/n3tv-NOWY8U

Another way to – or an additional one – to modulate a parameter is to use the LFO panel below the parameter's knob. The upper of the three little LFO sliders determine the waveform of the LFO (i.e. sine), the slider in the middle determines the amount and the direction of the modulation, and the slider at the bottom sets the speed of the modulation (the rate of the LFO), with high LFO speeds if set to values on the left, and slow ones with the blue slider drawn to the right.

And again: the modulation offset is determined by the parameter's knob.

Both kinds of modulation and the parameter's offset add to each other, which allows for quite complex modulation structures.

https://youtu.be/Ah6CQA9mG04

I can set the part of the sample to be played back with the two blue bars in the sample display. The position of these borders can be modulated too. The system is the same as with the modulation ring:

I click on the little red arrows on top (left and right) of the blue border bars and drag the bars to and fro acros the sample. These movements are recorded and repeat after releasing the mouse button.

Together with the SPEED parameter (the speed of the playhead shown as a yellow bar) there are quite complext walks through the sample possible, same as sudden jumps and other kinds of changing the part of the sample to be played back.

https://youtu.be/M6CVY8iM0Tk

Functional but packed with niggling flaws

This is one of those products that looks good at a superficial level. It tries to make the most of natty GPU techniques like fading boxes. But as a sampling instrument it suffers from a raft of niggly, baffling usability flaws that make it often frustrating to use. Samplers are often inscrutable lumps of software because they have to deal with complex combinations of key and velocity mappings. They inevitably lead to a lot of clicky-clicky as you make adjustments. But in a product that is supposedly geared up for fast, creative sampling, Nuance can sometimes makes things harder than they are in one of the supposedly more "bloated" products like NI's Kontakt or Battery.

You will welcome the fact that it at least has a decent undo feature. That comes in handy when a click on the "Pad Root" setting – which you would assume simply sets the base note of something like an MPD – sends every single sample in a group that you've painstakingly keymapped to a single random key for reasons that I still haven't figured out.

It's at times like these ("why did it do that?") you work out that the manual is pretty terrible. There are two reasons.

Reason 1: It's perfunctory. It's really just a list of subwindows and commands. As a result, it gives very little help on how to get started with Nuance. If you've never tried to build instruments in a software sampler before, unless you're just going to drag in a single sample, have mapped it across a large chunk of the keyboard and leave it at that, it's going to be a bumpy ride. There are entire things that are simply missing, like the zoom function lurking above the keyboard in the mapping editor. Eventually, you'll find it. Things like the "Reset Root Key" context-menu command you have to work out for yourself. Maybe it's in all the manual somewhere but good luck finding it because...

Reason 2: It's presented as a set of web pages that aren't searchable and despite being presented as web pages there are very few hyperlinks that take you to where you can get more detail. For example, the UI introduction mentions the drum-pad display and how it's meant to support layered drums but doesn't link to any longer explanation of how you actually go about achieving that.

The result: trying to work out how to apply things like the pad mode are pretty much just trial and error. There are groups (which you can't rename to anything useful) and pads (which you can't...you get it) but working out how they are meant to relate to each other? You're on your own. In fact, quite a lot you wind up finding through trial and error.

Instrument building

There's not much of a factory library to speak of, so you will realistically spend a fair amount of time creating your own instruments. That's where the fun, er, stops. Keymapping samples is surprisingly tedious unless you are lucky enough get it right first time when you drag a group of samples in from the browser. Like Kontakt, it uses the position in the window to determine how many MIDI notes each sample will take up. Drag a group to the bottom and you get single-key samples. Problem 1: At the default display setting you have no way of working out which sample is which without moving the mouse to the top subwindow where its name will flash up momentarily before fading away (using one of those nice but not all that useful GPU effects). Then you realise some are not really where you want them. I know, let's drag each one to a different position. Oh wait, nothing happens if I drag to the left and it simply stretches out the sample across multiple keys to the right.

Unlike Kontakt, you can't simply place the cursor in the middle and drag. Nothing happens. Well, that's not entirely true. There's a zoom function that's not mentioned in the manual (well I couldn't find it). If you zoom in part of the name shows up and eventually you'll to the point where the software will notice you're clicking in the middle and will let you drag it somewhere else. Not too far, mind. Because by this point, you've got a grand total of two octaves on the screen and you need to drop the sample and readjust the zoom position in the lower bar to get it to where you want it. Yes, it won't scroll the window if you drag the sample to the edge. If you've got a moderately large drum kit and you need to shuffle things around, this is not good news. Pinch and zoom with a touchpad kinda works, expect it will only scroll while you're zooming. A regular two-fingered scrolling gestures does nothing.

MIDI control? Not so fast

Another requirement for a lightweight sampler intended for creative sampling is that you might want to map some things to MIDI controllers. Unfortunately, the MIDI setup is built almost entirely around MIDI Learn. The only MIDI CC you can select as a modulation source in its own right in the modulation editor is the modwheel. Any other CC has to be mapped to a control on the Nuance UI using MIDI Learn. This gives you a choice of three controls – X, Y and Z – that aren't tied to a specific function that can then be deployed in the modulation editor. Want more than that? Unlucky. You can MIDI-learn a bunch of other targets but then you are stuck with full-range movements, so be careful with those controllers when you move them. Now, four probably sounds like enough but it's pretty easy to max out with something like a TECcontrol breath sensor and a Linnstrument or a ROLI before you even get started on foot pedals.

The second problem is that MIDI learn is only convenient if you have a control surface that is all discrete knobs. If you have something like a Linnstrument, something with motion sensors in it, like one of TEControl's breath units, or even the X-Y pad on an SL, MIDI Learn is a royal PITA. In Nuance, you have no way of editing the CC it learns if it picks up the one you didn't want. If you're not feeling lucky, the only reliable workaround for this is to have a bunch of knobs set up for things like breath on, say, an SL so you don't have to futz about hoping it will latch onto the CC you want rather than the others coming through the MIDI stream.

And if you map something like a Novation SL's XY pad you'll notice that the Y direction reversed. It's not a major deal from a performance perspective but there's no way to set the 0,0 origin in preferences that would make it slightly less confusing when you're programming the modulation. On the plus side, the X, Y and Z settings are also reflected in the knobs under the pad itself.

It's at this point you start to think: "Why didn't I try to build this simple instrument in Kontakt? Maybe that NI thing isn't so bloated after all."

Drums and layering

One of the claims NSA makes for Nuance is that it's good for drum layering. That's partially true. It has some built-in features that lend itself to that and perhaps more so than creating pitched instruments but it's another good-news/bad-news situation here. For those with a Machine- or MPD-style 16-pad controller, it's got a lot going for it. You can set up a 4x4 grid of pads reasonably easily and add a bunch of samples, each with its own set of envelope controls and effects, to the same pad. Be careful with the drag-and-drop though as it's easy to accidentally replace a sample when what you really wanted to do was add a pad layer. Undo, comes to the rescue once again.

At first glance, the pad-layer editing seems to go further than, say, NI's Battery. However, I find layering easier in Battery because that provides easier access to the samples and velocity switches and crossfades. The thing about Battery is that you can't add non-destructive envelopes to layers within a cell. But in Battery there's nothing stopping you from mapping the same MIDI notes to more than one cell to achieve the same thing.

If you want to combine samples into one edit group with a common envelope, you need to get out of pad mode (though you are free to map samples to the keys underneath the pads - though you might need to be careful when transposing the pad-root key, as mentioned above). Layering can get tricky here. The problem with Nuance's approach is that it can sometimes get really hard to pick the sample you need to edit because there's no way to click on it without activating another sample that overlaps it. Battery, in contrast, lets you switch between samples in a layer easily with a drop-down menu on the sample's name. There's clearly space to have this in Nuance, but Nuance doesn't do it.

What looks like a missed opportunity when it comes to layering is that Nuance doesn't have the features of something like the defunct Stacker that sets it apart. There's no sample offset to let you create layer flams and big clap sounds unless you add silence to all your samples and rely on the start/loop controls. You're also on your own if you're trying to work out how not to get phasing between samples mapped to the same pad. You've got no way to nudge samples or adjust relative phase short of opening up the sample in an external editor and messing with it there. Battery doesn't do sample offset either, but if you're trying to get a sample player into a niche, you probably want additional features that will attract those users.

There's a bit more in the discussion down below as this review exceeded the KVR maximum character count.

Disclaimer: I wanted to give this software a 4.5 rating. I do believe future revisions will push it up to 5.0. However, 4.5 is not an option. I had to choose between 4 and 5, so I went with 5.

INTRO
Nuance v2 by New Sonic Arts is an inspiring compact creative sampler with a fast, intuitive workflow. There's no bloat. It's light on CPU and heavy on performance. It more than lives up to its joyous promise of being quick, capable and fun.

INTIAL IMPRESSION
Upon the first launch, seasoned sampler users might find themselves a little unsure about how to navigate around the interface. Luckily, there are helpful hints that pop up and the GUI soon after becomes intuitive and extremely inviting. It's minimalist, but it does all the right things and does them well. It can also consolidate, simplify and streamline a user's setup by assuming virtual drum machine duties. It's got the pads and kit features, including multiple layers per pad, round robins, choke, etc. The Pad View enables users to load and/or construct kits. The Piano mode returns the user back to a standard sampler with standard keyboard assignment and mapping.

IN ACTION
If it's what's inside that counts, Nuance definitely has a lot going on under the hood as evidenced by its performance. If looks do matter, well. .. this is a fine looking piece of software. Check out the website. It's elegant and ultra-modern, just like their software's GUI. Side note of little importance. .. I like their logo. The tilted N encapsulated in a ring is cool and catchy. .. easy to see in the dock.

WORKFLOW
I've come to realize that there is no one way to flow that work. Users can keep it simple by dragging in single samples (simple instruments) or drums into the padview. In this way, the file browser and My Samples database becomes workflow central. Or, more advanced users can get a bit more complex by building their own multi-instruments and relying more on the map editor and detailed editing functions. That flow might look more like this:

1. Drag sample(s) onto the interface
2. Loop and key assign/map zones via pulling edges around
3. Switch to the Mapping View to set key, velocity range layering, multi-sampling, adjust start/end points, fades and looping in the wave editor.
4. Layer as/if desired
5. Globally edit Pitch, Pan, Volume, FX and modulation in groups or layers. Note: Modulation can be manipulated and then dropped in.
6. Assign to Cycle Groups for sequential round robin triggering.
7. Save.

Nuance fosters a super fast basic workflow; yet, the advanced features and power is as needed.

FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT IT
• Neat (compact), user-friendly interface with a truly "effortless workflow"
• Small footprint and CPU friendly
• Loads all the common audio files, and saves patches in its own format with an option to embed referenced samples
• Drag-n-drop in and out
• Inspiring and Musical
• Sounds great
• Simple, yet powerful layering, Amp Env, Pitch, Modulation, and FX
• Modulation is flexible and assignable via a drag-n-drop features into the Modulation Matrix or onto target parameters. For many, this might be a game changer.
• Step/Table Sequencer provides rhythmic, tempo-synced modulation and the XY Pad connects between the Assignment Manager and the Modulation Matrix.
• Round robins for more realism
• Built-in Choke feature for hats and other choke-able instruments.
• Batch edit
• Batch tag samples and filter for lightning browse/selection. The database neatly organizes a sample library within Nuance, which speeds up usage.
• Quick loading of sampler patches
• Helpful speech bubble hints = shallow learning curve
• Stand-alone and plugin versions
• Responsive developer
• Priced right.

REQUESTS*
• Pitch detection
• Advanced time compression/expansion
• Crossfading between Zones
• Key-Mapping by filename
• Random round-robin
• Transport and/or audition button for stand-alone version
• Name or color option for pads
• Detailed video tutorials.

HEARTFELT THOUGHTS
If you love the feeling of falling in love as much as I do, you'll dig Nuance. It's like the best chocolate imaginable. .. a few simple ingredients. .. smooth, tasty, and not too sweet. So far, I see many positives and endless potential. Hopefully, this honeymoon stage is everlasting.;-) Nuance is a piece of software that I've been searching for. .. inspiring, fun to use, and not an overly complex mess. I don't foresee myself outgrowing this fine software. Like any good relationship, I hope we grow together. Nice job, New Sonic Arts. You won my heart; hopefully, that leads to some beats.;-).

SUMMARY
Will it do everything the mega samplers like Kontakt, HALion, and MachFive does? NO! Will it do a better, faster job at the most important thing. .. help users make music? YES, I believe so! The full feature set of Nuance will not be as deep as the mega samplers, but it will blow away standard samplers. Nuance combines simplicity to enable users to work fast, but does not have the limitations of some simple samplers. The power is there if/when needed. This baby is streamlined and will sample circles around the big bloated beasts!! Nuance is cleaner, less confusing, and enables musicians, producers, DJs, etc. to focus on what matters instead of wasting time being frustrated. Without hesitation, I give Nuance two pulsating thumbs up. Check out the free demo.

Note #1: I'd also like to check out their other offerings, i.e. Granite (granular texture generator), Vice (loop slicer), and Freestyle (stage and studio).

Note #2: If you cannot live without pitch detection and advanced time compression/expansion, I suggest complimenting Nuance with Serato Sample. They make a great team.

PROS:

Fast, fast, fast. Low CPU, EXCELLENT visuals and with stout plugin scanner providing thumbnails; gorgeous GUI. Stable. Highly intuitive macro control implementation. You CANNOT do better for a simple modular environment with basic functionality.

CONS:

Just one definitive one for me - inability to split l/r audio. This is one of the reasons to want such a thing. Used this in someone else's setup, and when they implement this, I will buy it immediately.

Simple but powerful loop slicer. Especially great for users of Logic which doesn't have an elegant graphical slicer built in. This is fast and easy to use with very sexy interface. I love it!.

It will be short. A time ago I was inspired by some people's enthusiasm relating to granular synthesis. So I decided to dive in that area and Ive found out that theres almost no "Grand"-products on the market. When you're looking for some information on the most popular products, you are usually addressed to very experimental projects like CDP (composers desktop project), which is actually a very complex product, so IMO definitely not the first one to learn get used to the granular synthesis mechanism. On occasion Ive found Granite, diving deeper in demo version left me no doubt, it is a thing to have. A swiss-army-knife of granular in a very simple form. Its a pleasure to use it. The developer deserves support, everything is beautiful and effective. Nothing to say more, you better go check it.