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.

[@TheChannelofaDisappointedMan]

Having watched hundreds of channels with hardware synth jams on YT, there is little doubt in my mind that your work is the strongest. The consistent musical identity you demonstrate across a range of gear points to your sound being first and foremost in your head and not your kit. Best wishes for the future, synth makers should be throwing gear at you.

[@topulyo]

this is a pretty strong case...

[@CaalamusTube]

This is like the gentle, nurturing side of Winter :]

[@chatolars]

Absolutely gorgeous. Being ambient music as undefined/subjective as it is , you managed to have your own sound. I can tell an r beny track inmediately Congratulations

[@DochertyStephen]

This piece of music is what I want to be played at my funeral. Thank you so much. X

[@rickhopkinson]

A very beautiful piece of peaceful and reflective / introspective music… very well done 👏👌

[@InvertedPopesMusic]

Some gear I have not heard of and loving the sounds that they create especially the GR-1 going to seriously have a look at that and add it to the bucket list. Wonderful soundscape.

[@techtalkmike4968]

Just picked up the GR-1 and I'm having a wonderful time learning this amazing instrument. THIS is what I aspire to create! What a wonderful, soothing, and vast soundscape you've created!

[@Dolle_Man]

How you like it so far? years later, really tempted to get one myself

[@Nikos4415]

if memory serves , choral composer Eric Whitacre once said that human voice is the perfect musical instrument ever created. this demo turns his quote kinda proofs this statement in very unusual way, by adding imperfections of granulation and tape effects to this perfect instrument, changing it completly. but it is stil perfect. amazing perfomance, my friend. wish I could listen live perfomance of that!

[@rbeny]

that's really cool, need to check out Eric's work. thank you!

[@jericho2x2]

love the simplicity in this one and how you manage to express emotions though sound.

[@calaveralove711]

I am speechless! Just blew my mind

[@orbitalpatterns]

very dope. breathy textures & low-res atmospheres, love this

[@jaeryan1337]

You truly are a very special talent ❤️ thanks for sharing

[@Sklang32]

The sounds they should have played when discovering Laura Palmers body. Very Beautiful!

[@stebo5562]

Sounds like when you get to a new beautiful area of a video game

[@discophone_6214]

One word: STUNNING!

[@RareBlood-gf3kh]

Very beautiful. I use Granulator in Ableton a lot and was thinking about a GR-1. I appreciate you sharing how you set everything up.

[@subradial]

Beautiful! so far I love everything I've heard created with GR-1, can't wait for mine...

[@Dolle_Man]

This comment made me check out your channel, you have a great channel!!

[@subradial]

@@Dolle_Man cheers, great to hear!

[@Almanacs]

So god damn beautiful.

[@HenritheHorse]

Beautiful and serene after a sleepless night.

[@ahonoe]

This is some wonderful stuff. Literally reduced my heartrate by 10 bpm. Gorgeous.

[@Hausbuch11]

reduced mine to 10 bpm :)

[@benjamins.335]

Pure Beauty 😍 Thx for sharing!

[@XanderEwald]

This video probably doubled the waiting list for the GR-1 :D

[@rbeny]

seems the wait is 2 weeks now, which is not bad compared to months like it used to be!

[@XanderEwald]

r beny That’s good news. It’s a lovely machine :)

[@MAXR_MTB]

Very nice indeed, could listen to this for hours! Just bought a GR 1 myself can’t wait wait to get stuck in to it!

[@listan2804]

Mind blowing as always. I bought the GR-1 when it first came out, due to its tendency to “crash” I almost threw it out. I guess I am gonna get it fixed and start running it, thanks as always

[@lushlow]

Lot of bugs are fixed lately

[@rbeny]

they've released a lot of firmware updates in the last few months. much more stable now.

[@listan2804]

Great thank u ! I will get it updated

[@Bananskuden]

Nice to see some equipment working together perfectly. The OTO Bam is just wonderful.

[@jorglehmann3892]

Outstanding! One of your best yet.

[@DreamwareMusic]

So just so I understand, you're not playing back a pre-recorded tape loop or doing sound-on-sound recording. We're just hearing what got recorded in real time. That's super cool!

[@rbeny]

yeah! the beauty of 3-head cassette machines. essentially turns the cassette into an effect (similar to all those cassette vsts, but in real life)

[@TotallyFictional]

Outstanding. Granular is my fav synthesis method.

[@edvinpedvin]

Great idea, nice creative Setup, sweet piece of music 👍

[@Alesistx2023]

one of coolest demos I've ever heard

[@p-o-c]

Your music is absolutely mesmerizing, following you for a while .. keep them coming!

[@downofhares8888]

What a wonderfully warm, all-encompassing sound :)

[@Americaisplastic36]

This is one of my favorites of yours. Perfect 😍

[@ResAffolterSoundproductions]

Soooooo.... beautiful...... its a Dream and i can listen this masterpiece forever on my balcony when the sun goes down 🙏🏻🌿🕊🌈✨❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Peace!

[@looprovisation1235]

This is just so beautiful, thank you for always being a constant source of inspiration. Can’t wait for your next video. Stay safe.

[@ONOFFON]

Seriously gorgeous sounds. Love this !

[@SyncdAlien]

Beautiful!

[@davidsobel3303]

missing your amazing blissful work. Hope you are well and finding time to create.

[@rbeny]

hopefully my intervals between videos will be less than 5 months going forward. just put a new one up this evening

[@davidrothschild8913]

Outstanding thank you for putting your heart into this.

[@davidreina7997]

Beautiful mate! Good job 👌🏽

[@andyjey3126]

Thanks Man...I ordered one because of you :-) and take care...

[@sp3ct3rsd3mos]

simply wonderful

[@expensivenotes]

Beautiful sounds. Well done! Blissful...

[@Nemorosus]

Bliss! Absolutely beautiful..

[@RonCavagnaro]

Real great rbeny as usual always inspiring

[@amuletsmusic]

R BENY DONE DID IT AGAIN! 🖤

[@tybowesformerlygoat-x7760]

Beautiful, man. Thank you.

[@MrLanka-ud8wl]

this is beautiful

[@FoundationStepper]

Crazy gear. The marantz loop is nice 👍

[@alexmusic2024]

Just fantastic! A „how to“ video would be great ;)

[@SycamoreWillow]

Hi r beny. I wish there was a way to say "let's be friends" without sounding creepy on the internet. It would be so cool to hang out

[@partirparlesarmoires]

Beautiful piece of music ! Somewhere between William Basinski and Brian Eno...

[@levibillyattley9906]

Lovely sounds

[@electrogarden4426]

Fantastic sound👍👍

[@Makebelieve123]

absolutely beautiful !

[@PeteJohnson1471]

You never let us down . Cheers that was nice :-)

[@tomas_horn]

Incredible stuff.

[@emptyvesselnz]

beautiful as always

[@Digiphex]

Do you still use the BAM or have you found better reverbs? Love your content. Nothing lately?

[@rbeny]

I still use and love the BAM and would consider it my favorite "traditional" reverb. I'm currently also using the Tasty Chips Integral convolution reverb and the two make a lovely pair. I know I haven't been active lately. Life twists and turns in ways you don't expect and it's been difficult to find time, energy, and motivation at various points. All said, I have a new album coming out in October. I can't say for certain I'll ever get back to doing video stuff though.

[@Digiphex]

@@rbeny Will it be on vinyl?

[@secondlife5704]

Lovely, thanks!

[@christdolphin69]

dream setup

[@danielstartek1497]

Bennie you rockin baby! Can I call you baby?

[@andrewbird8624]

Thanks so much for this. :)

[@stefanschlemmer8067]

really nice work..

[@DigitalAnalogNoise]

Lovely

[@georgenada6413]

So beautiful. Do you still use the GR-1?

[@rbeny]

yep! a great instrument

[@TerekkiTerekki]

Very nice Austin

[@asmr6773]

wOw aMaZiNg !!! I am like: i want to make sound like that.

[@hexial]

Beautiful

[@sinemountain]

Wonderful!!

[@noslowerdna]

very nice

[@AlphaStrainOfficial]

Sounds great! Just curious, what drew you to the Marantz? I've seen other artists like Radio Dept. use a similar Marantz and was wondering if you have any thoughts on it.

[@rbeny]

in a way, the marantz was drawn to me! my grandparents had one in their garage and were just going to throw it away, so I salvaged it. I actually didn't use it or know that much about it for a quite a bit of time. my buddy Nathan Moody had one as well, and hearing him use it inspired me to learn how to use it. Nathan actually gifted me his marantz when he upgraded to a different model, that's the one in this video (the one my grandparents gave no longer works). I quite like it, mainly for the feature of being a 3-head cassette recorder (aka you can monitor the tape just as it's been recorded to. love that it's portable, battery powered, and has some speed controls. if anything, I wish I had one of the stereo models. the prices are now insane on those, but I've been trying to convince another buddy of mine to sell it to me haha.

[@maksqwe1]

Marantz was always known for high quality tape decks and hifi separates in general, and now that this equipment is no longer sought after, you can get it ridiculously cheap and it’s really solid quality. Tape came and went very quickly, so a lot of reporters and audio professionals old gear can be bought for pennies and many have things like pitch control,many connectivity options for inputs and outputs, level control and can be used off batteries and those functions on top of their robustness make them ideal for lo-fi and live performance. Many people see tape as an inferior format, unlike vinyl, but there’s definitely a certain vibe and that’s why I personally enjoy working with tape.

[@ubiquitter3981]

@@rbeny Hi r beny, this is lovely work. Thank you for sharing it. How are you connecting the gr-1 to the marantz? 1/4" ts to rca? What type of cable does the marantz require for line-in/out?

[@lunargarden]

Great concept, sounds lovely. It's a pity that 10 people forgot to turn on the sound.

[@rbeny]

the joke is on them, downvotes count as interaction with my video, which apparently youtube deems positive.

[@immersiveworlds]

Great!

[@SoundMediaVibes]

Great sounds! Subbed! :)

[@gordonwithers]

was pleasantly surprised to just have an R Beny track show up on Apple Music's Ambient Essentials list.

[@rbeny]

oh right on! thank you apple!

[@pixelflow]

Really soothing! btw, where did you get that cute lil case for the hermod?

[@rbeny]

it's a 4ms pod. they make lots of different sizes of these small little cases. thinking about picking another up for some of my fx modules

[@pixelflow]

@@rbeny Those are nice. Thanks, keep rocking the casbah!

[@Alpostol]

I love this track. Been listening to it over and over again. I'd love to hear some more ambient stuff like this. Can I download the track from somewere?

[@rbeny]

I have a release or 2 coming later this year that features this type of sound, more in depth. more details soon!

[@thenarproject7186]

Just Discovered you WOW!

[@khole4598]

little portals in time

[@josephwright5921]

Smoooooooth . . .

[@rbeny]

"Carlos santana smooth starts playing*

[@drouk22]

je vous voie au centre entre Jean Michel Jarre et Klaus Schulze.... votre musique c est une caresse pour l âme.

[@leejmalcolm1]

Awesome. As usual. Why was the Hermod involved?

[@benbowland]

According to the description, midi thru and looping duties

[@rbeny]

ben had it correct. I was using it to make a midi loop what I played on the keystep.

[@leejmalcolm1]

@@rbeny sexy...very sexy...

[@minksteekelenburg9314]

So beautiful!

[@rbeny]

I love the Bam. It can do very transparent reverb (so light you don't even know it's there until you turn it off), just as well as deep cavernous reverb. If anything, I wish the filters were smooth instead of having to just select between a few frequencies, but that's not a deal breaker. It's my favorite reverb I've ever used, and this is coming from someone who does not like hyperbole.

[@minksteekelenburg9314]

@@rbeny Thanks! I've been eyeballing it for a while now, I think it's time to pull the trigger :)

[@jiaquinnzenxin9900]

Hey Beny, big granular fan here too. As I've read in the GR-1 manual, it's possible to granulize a realtime input right? (I think you just need to hook up an audio interface to the host port). Anyway, I've got a patch idea for you. Record your voice sustaining C onto that tape loop. Run the tape loop into the live input buffer on the Gr-1 and then play from there. The interesting thing about this method is the processing you can do to the tape loop BEFORE it hits the GR-1. Chorus, phasing, and reverb are good choices. I often run this same patch from my Tascam 424 into iPulsaret (realtime buffer granular synth for max/ipad). Personally, I record 4 drones from 4 separate oscillators or samples onto the tape (like 10 minutes worth). This gives me 4 organic sound sources to mix and match as I please. Great fun to transpose the source by adjusting the tape speed too. You could just as easily do the same patch with a single synth voice though, just latch the gate open and sustain a single pitch on your VCO. Anyway, I'm stuck granularizing from my computer and ipad at the moment, but I really want the GR-1, if this concept actually works on it. The Waldorf Quantum also has a realtime granular buffer (with external input), but there is only a single demo online of this specific patch. Cheers mate, sorry for the wall of text! By the way, loved your performance.

[@rbeny]

yup, it's possible for realtime granular with a usb audio interface. I will say, that is not the strong suit of the gr-1. the interfaces I have at my disposal have worked just okay, and you will get clicks and pops if the recording head overlaps the playback head of the buffer. but I will say that would be an interesting patch to try out! I have loaded recordings from my cassettes before, but have not processed in realtime. and it just dawned on me that polyphonic playback should still be possible while processing in realtime. interestingly enough, the synthstrom deluge can do that with incoming audio, though it doesn't have the granular tools that gr-1 has. i'll try this out as soon as I can and likely post on my instagram if it works.

[@kenkaniff_]

Nice. Ps5 intro? Lol

[@AndyPawlakOfficial]

Quality.

[@waatchyourhead]

Great stuff! I noticed you said recorded your voice holding a C. Do you try and sample everything using C b/c you can accurately re-tune the sample on the GR-1 that way?

[@rbeny]

that is pretty much correct. gr-1's internal tuner is by default set to C. it can be changed, but it's much easier to just load in samples tuned to C

[@faruambient]

great sound! could you explain how you use the tape loop there? does all of the sound run through it and its constantly recording?

[@rbeny]

exactly. essentially what you are hearing is the playback head of the tape machine, as you would any other cassette player. except with machines like these, they allow you to record as you listen back to the tape. essentially you are listening to the tape as it's being recorded to in real time, with latency from the time it takes the tape to go from the record head to the playback head.

[@asmr6773]

👍👍🏻👍🏼👍🏽👍🏾👍🏿

[@pascallengagne966]

Really good. So everything is mono except Oto Bam ?

[@rbeny]

correct

[@unter3490]

nice👍

[@OnToffee]

Im trying to wrap my head around the signal flow, when the GR1 is running through the marantz, is the output of the marantz then running to the mixer?

[@rbeny]

iirc, the signal flow was GR-1 > Marantz > Oto Bam > audio interface (I think I was using a UA Arrow at the time)

[@danbanfield]

What power housing are you using for the Hermod? I was tempted to get one but I don't have a eurorack unit (just have a few desktop units). Seems what you have there is ideal just for the Hermod.

[@rbeny]

it's a 4ms pod they make a couple different sizes. really nice to have hermod standalone, pyramid would be cool too, but hermod has all those cv outputs and inputs.

[@danbanfield]

@@rbeny thanks for the info. what a cool product! Not bad price as well considering they include power. I was kind of put off by pyramid only having a couple of cvs.

[@r.e.d.62]

This is gorgeous... Can I ask why you're selling the gr-1 now given how well it's served you here?

[@rbeny]

I'm actually not selling it, perhaps that's someone else?? it's definitely crucial to a lot of what I'm working on at the moment, I imagine the gr-1 will be a part of my setup for a long time.

[@r.e.d.62]

r beny. Thanks for the reply... Just saw one for sale from an r beny... Assumed it was you.

[@rbeny]

@@r.e.d.62 ah, thanks for the heads-up. could you let me know where? I hope no one is impersonating me

[@r.e.d.62]

r beny tricky as I have my eye on the sale...msg me on Facebook under romanes eunt domus

[@drouk22]

il faut faire quoi pour te faire réagir ?

[@iljagaev762]

Красавчик

[@dreamwebspace]

Can I use any cassette recorder this way or it has to be Marantz PMD?

[@rbeny]

it has to be a 3-head tape recorder. the marantz pmd is the most common, but there are a lot of similar brands and typical larger cassette decks (for playing audio at home) will be 3-head. most multi-track cassette recorders like tascams are not 3-head

[@dreamwebspace]

​@@rbeny OK I got it. It has to be 3-head recorder WITH monitoring feature.

[@rbeny]

correct!

[@isaac.anthony]

How long does that tape "work" before you have to use a new cassette?

[@rbeny]

some have lasted for a few years, still working after hours and hours of constant use. some only lasted a few weeks. thankfully they aren't too difficult to put together or even fix. when they break, they seem to mostly break at where the loop was taped together.

[@isaac.anthony]

@@rbeny been thinking about finding a 3-head cassette deck. between this and using it as a faux tape-delay send...

[@lomond2246]

Could you technically achieve what the GR-1 does with a Digitakt?

[@rbeny]

not truly, in the sense of making dense grain clouds. with certain midi tools, you'd be able to make use of digitakt's 8 tracks to fake polyphonic playback and you could scrub it's buffers, but it wouldn't work quite the same.