Granular Parameters

The granular engine turns any pad’s sample into a cloud of overlapping grains you can stretch, freeze, and re-pitch in real time. These parameters live on the GRAN tab of a pad’s properties.

Turning granular on

Open a pad’s properties and select the GRAN tab. If granular is off, the panel shows “Granular is OFF for this pad” with a button to enable it; the tab shows an ON badge once active. New to the idea? See What is granular synthesis?.

The core knobs

Position is a drag strip across the sample at the top of the tab; everything below it is a row of knobs.

Control	What it does	Range / default
Position	Point in the sample the grain window reads from	0–100% of the sample / start (0%)
Size	Length of each grain	10–1000 ms / 50 ms
Density	How many grains fire per second	0.5–100 /s / 20 /s
Pitch	Transposition applied to every grain	−24 to +24 st / 0
Spray	Random scatter added to each grain’s read position	0–2000 ms / 0
Pch Jit (Pitch Jitter)	Random per-grain detune, ± the set amount	0–24 st / 0
Spread (Stereo Spread)	Random stereo placement per grain	0–1 / 0

Size and Density together set the overlap. At the defaults (50 ms × 20 /s) grains just touch; raise either for a smooth wash, or lower them for a chopped, gappy texture.

Window shape

The Window picker sets the amplitude envelope applied to each grain. Choices are Hanning (default, smooth), Gaussian (softest edges), Triangle, and Trapezoid (a flat top with short fades). Smoother windows reduce clicks; harder windows keep more transient bite.

Reverse and Freeze

Two toggles sit at the bottom of the tab:

• Reverse plays each grain backwards. The grain stream still advances through the sample normally — only the grain’s internal playback is flipped.
• Freeze locks all grains to a tight window around Position, overriding Spray, so the sound holds on one spot like a sustained pad. Sweep Position while frozen to scrub through the sample.

Musical randomization (Pro)

A second block of controls adds organic, musical variation. These are part of GranSample Pro — free users can still hear presets that use them, but editing is locked.

Control	What it does	Range / default
Pitch scale	Scale lock applied to Pch Jit: snaps each grain’s random detune to a scale degree	OFF, CHR, MAJ, MIN, pMA, pMI / OFF
Size Jit (Grain Size Jitter)	Per-grain ± variation on Size	0–100% / 0%
Rate Jit (Density Jitter)	Per-grain ± variation on the spawn interval	0–100% / 0%
Prob (Trigger Probability)	Chance that each scheduled grain actually fires	0–100% / 100%

With Pitch scale set to anything but OFF, the random detune from Pch Jit is quantized to that scale (Chromatic, Major, Minor, Penta Maj, Penta Min) relative to the pad’s pitch, so jitter stays in key instead of drifting between notes. Prob below 100% drops grains at random for sparser, stuttering textures while keeping the average rate at density × probability.

To shape how the whole grain cloud rises and falls over a note, see The Granular Envelope. To modulate any of these parameters over time, see The LFO and The Modulation Envelope.