A Path Opens in the Bloom | Tasty Chips GR-1, Oto Bam, Marantz Cassette

Hello and Happy New Year.

Lately I've been getting into using granular sampling/synthesis to re-contextualize various sound sources. The human voice has been my favorite sound source of late. The Tasty Chips GR-1 is perfect for this, not just for its granular capabilities, but also because of its 11-voice polyphony/4-part multi-timbrality. I initially bought it on a whim, just because it was available, but it has become an important part of my studio for this type of stuff.

Here I have a recording of my own voice (trying to hold a C, I cannot sing) loaded into GR-1. I'm playing it back polyphonically via the Keystep through the Squarp Hermod. I use the Hermod essentially as a MIDI looper (you can see the initial loop recording queued up in the beginning of the video). GR-1 is running through a Marantz PMD-221 with the output set to monitor the tape just after it's been recorded to in real-time. I'm using a cassette loop for extra sound degradation. The Marantz is running through the OTO Bam for some extra stereo goodness/light to heavy reverberation.

Just a simple little piece for proof of concept.

As always, thank you for listening.