Sound Dust has released Grainstrument LITE, a freely downloadable granular sampler patch for Native Instruments Kontakt.
Grainstrument LITE is a perhaps the simplest granular instrument I’ve ever tested, but simplicity is actually one of its biggest advantages. The user interface features only two controls contained within a single XY pad. One control point determines the grain size and speed while the other defines the reverb mix and size. The waveform of the loaded sample is displayed on the right, along with the value readouts for the two control points (speed percentage, grain size in ms, reverb mix in dB, and reverb size in ms).
Unlike the majority of granular instruments and effects on the market, Grainstrument LITE doesn’t overwhelm the user with options and features. Whereas some more complicated freeware granular plugins like PolyGAS and Ribs are certainly more versatile, they lack the user-friendliness and sheer playability of a simple instrument like Sound Dust’s latest freebie. With Grainstrument LITE, you simply choose a sample to work with, play some notes and move the two control points around to create new and interesting sounds. And this method works quite well!
One thing to note is that Grainstrument LITE requires the full version of Native Instruments Kontakt to work without any limitations. You’ll only be able to use it for 15 minutes at a time in the free Kontakt Player. You also won’t be able to save your custom patches with Kontakt Player.
The download contains two different NKI files. One includes a set of audio samples provided by Sound Dust to help you get started with Grainstrument LITE. The other one is completely empty and was designed to allow the user to load their own samples. To do this, click the wrench icon in the upper-left corner and drop the desired audio file onto the mapping panel. Check out the introduction video embedded above for more usage tips.
Grainstrument LITE is available for free download via Sound Dust (19.5 MB download size, ZIP archive, contains 2 instrument patches in NKI format for NI Kontakt).
