Grainsmith Field

A granular instrument for iPad and iPhone. Run up to three playheads on one sample, each with its own pitch and speed. AUv3 for AUM and Logic.

Grainsmith Field is a granular instrument for iPad and iPhone. Load a sound or record one live, then pull it apart into grains. Stretch and scatter it until it stops sounding like the source, or pitch it and play it like an instrument.

It shares its granular engine with our desktop Grainsmith plugin, but the experience is optimized for iPad and iPhone. Field is a single multitouch screen designed to be played: four XY pads control paired parameters (Density and Size, Jitter and Spread, Scan and Reverse, Cutoff and Resonance), and a Morph control sweeps several at once.

THREE PLAYHEADS Run up to three independent grain streams from one sample at the same time. Each head has its own position, speed, pitch offset in semitones, and level. Grab a playhead line on the waveform to move it independently, or move them as a group. Double-tap to gather them. Set a second head a fifth or an octave away and the streams blend into a single granular texture, not a stack.

RECORD AND MANGLE Capture audio from your hardware input and granulate it as it comes in, or loop a phrase and let the engine chew on it. Scrub the waveform directly. Freeze the grain cloud to hold a sound for as long as you want. Export captures as WAV to the Files app.

RECORD YOUR PERFORMANCE Start a recording from the presets menu and everything you play is captured to a WAV file — keep playing through app switches and screen locks, with a Lock Screen Live Activity while recording runs. Recordings save to the Files app and share straight from Field.

PLAY IT AS AN INSTRUMENT Switch to Instrument mode and play the grain engine from a MIDI keyboard: four-voice polyphony, an attack/release envelope, and a root-note control. The pitch ribbon snaps to musical intervals: Free, Chromatic, Scale, Octaves, or Octaves+5ths, with twelve scale options and a probability control. Works with hardware MIDI in the standalone app and with host MIDI in AUv3.

USE IT IN YOUR HOST The AUv3 music effect loads in AUM, Logic for iPad, and other AUv3 hosts. Parameters are exposed for host automation and MIDI learn. Your patch saves and restores with the session, including head count, per-head speed, pitch, and level, and pitch snap mode.

ALSO IN THE BOX

• Ten factory presets grouped by character, with a browser and a Favorites section for your own
• Background audio: the standalone keeps playing when you switch apps
• Reverb, filter, grain-shape windows, pitch randomization
• Runs on iPhone with a compact layout

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