Tardigrain

What it does

A granular synth that cuts an imported sample into grains and replays them chromatically from the keyboard. A movable window sets which part of the sample is used, and the grain section sets root length, minimum and maximum length multipliers, play direction and how far each new grain sits from the last. Effects cover a resonant filter, reverb, wave shaper, sample crush, pitch and stereo spread, and a hidden page maps finger position, pressure and pitch bend onto any of them. Samples arrive from Files or from the built-in microphone.

In the demo

Jade drags the window across a factory sample, then feeds in finished tracks of her own and a friend’s unaccompanied vocal and plays them back as grains. She uses the help overlay, which explains whichever box you tap, and sets up modulation with absolute and relative finger tracking on the note pads.

Worth knowing

It ships with a small preset set, and what comes out depends almost entirely on the sample going in. Anyone after tuned, playable instrument sounds rather than texture and drone is looking at the wrong app.