Quilcom – Caster

Caster

size 105 MB

Caster is a granular synthesisersynthesiser.

Caster allows an adjustable grain cloud of up to 24 grains per note playing at once. The grain lengths can be adjusted, their start positions set and modulated by a scanner and their pitch offset can be modulated by a dedicated LFO.

The base pitch of the grains can be controlled by a MIDI keyboard so the cloud can be pitched and generated polyphonically. In this way, a four note chord could have up to 96 grains playing at once, for example.

The wav sound files (clips) the synth operates on can be recorded in the synth, loaded into the synth or you can choose from several inbuilt clips. I’ve provided a range of short wav files in the download and these can be used to get started directly.

In addition there is a simple SUB oscillator to pad out the resulting sound, an ADSR envelope generator with adjustable curves and velocity response, and a filter with several response types, key tracking and ADSR modulation.

Since granular synthesis is often used to create soundscapes, washes and ambient effects, a reverb (by Martin Vicanek) is provided to help with sound design and auditioning some of the presets.

A range of presets are provided to demo some typical applications and to act as starting points for experimentation.