What is the difference between a granular effect and a multi-effect?

A granular effect cuts the source into short grains and rearranges them, so the result is made of many tiny pieces of the original. A multi-effect combines conventional processors such as delay, distortion and filter. Granular processing changes the texture; a multi-effect changes the treatment.

Should sound design be printed or left live?

Print when the processing is part of the composition and you want to edit the result. Leave it live when you are still exploring or when the part needs to follow the arrangement. Both are valid; decide before the mix, not during it.

How do I keep a designed sound sitting in the mix?

Decide its role first: foreground, texture or transition. A foreground sound can occupy the centre; a texture should leave room for the vocal; a transition can be wider and louder because it is temporary.

Signal path

A sound-design pass: source, movement, space

Sound design gets easier when you separate the source from the movement and the space. Start with something worth transforming, decide how it should move, then decide where it sits. The tools below are not a preset list; they are different ways of answering those three questions.

Minerals
Wild Thing
Amsterdam
Time Travel
Fandango
Knee Verb
Big Knobs
Space Cake

The order

Step by step

Change the order if the material asks for it. The reasons are in each step.

1. Choose or capture a source
Minerals captures live audio and turns it into grains from 2 to 500 ms, with a resonant Material stage in twelve palettes. Wild Thing covers noise, wobble, distortion, digital degradation, space and magnetic tape. Start with a source that already has character; the effect should reveal it, not invent it.
- Minerals
- Wild Thing
2. Add movement and degradation
Amsterdam is a modular destruction effect with eight crushing algorithms and twenty effects across three split lanes. Time Travel is a three-band multi-effect covering time, pitch, drive, noise, reverb, filter, modulation, crush and volume. Use one lane for the movement and leave the others clean until the idea needs them.
3. Place the result in a space
Knee Verb has Plate, Spring and Church engines; Big Knobs is a single stereo reverb modelled on a classic digital unit. A short plate can make a sound feel close; a long church can make it feel like a place. Choose the space after the movement is decided.

Listening check

Solo the sound and bypass the chain. If the source is unrecognisable and the part no longer communicates, the processing has become the sound. That can be the point, but it should be a decision.

In this guide

The plug-ins named above

Open a product page for the full controls, formats and installers.

Minerals
Price: $39.99$79.99 from 9 Nov
A granular effect that captures live audio and replays it as grains.
Multi-Effect
Windows VST3 · Mac VST3 / AU
Wild Thing
Price: $24.99$49.99 from 9 Nov
Build a lo-fi chain with noise, wobble, distortion and tape.
Multi-Effect
Windows VST3 · Mac VST3 / AU
Amsterdam
Price: $34.99$69.99 from 9 Nov
A crushing multi-effect: twelve slots across three split lanes and a master lane.
Multi-Effect
Windows VST3 · Mac VST3 / AU
Time Travel
Price: $39.99$79.99 from 9 Nov
A multiband effect: low, mid and high bands with twelve modulated effect modules.
Multi-Effect
Windows VST3 · Mac VST3 / AU
Fandango
Price: $39.99$79.99 from 9 Nov
Two pitch shifters, two delays and reverb in one patchable effects graph.
Multi-Effect
Windows VST3 · Mac VST3 / AU
Knee Verb
Price: $19.99$39.99 from 9 Nov
Three reverbs in one: Plate, Spring and Church.
Reverb
Windows VST3 · Mac VST3 / AU
Big Knobs
Price: $19.99$39.99 from 9 Nov
A character reverb with stepped Decay, separate low and high decay, and Predelay.
Reverb
Windows VST3 · Mac VST3 / AU
Space Cake
Price: $24.99$49.99 from 9 Nov
Two delay engines, each Tape, BBD or Digital, for echoes with a groove.
Delay
Windows VST3 · Mac VST3 / AU

FAQ

Questions about this chain

What is the difference between a granular effect and a multi-effect?: A granular effect cuts the source into short grains and rearranges them, so the result is made of many tiny pieces of the original. A multi-effect combines conventional processors such as delay, distortion and filter. Granular processing changes the texture; a multi-effect changes the treatment.
Should sound design be printed or left live?: Print when the processing is part of the composition and you want to edit the result. Leave it live when you are still exploring or when the part needs to follow the arrangement. Both are valid; decide before the mix, not during it.
How do I keep a designed sound sitting in the mix?: Decide its role first: foreground, texture or transition. A foreground sound can occupy the centre; a texture should leave room for the vocal; a transition can be wider and louder because it is temporary.

Keep going

Other signal paths

All guides

A sound-design pass: source, movement, space

1. Choose or capture a source

2. Add movement and degradation

3. Place the result in a space

Listening check