Great Granular Gear Gadgets - Waldorf Iridium vs Tasty Chips GR-1

[@tjontheroad]

Correction: Don’t know why I said 5 LFOs on Iridium instead of 6 and didn’t even notice it later when editing the video. Thanks for the correction @Ted Stahl

[@Banquet...]

What makes the Iridium a clear winner for me is that, unlike the GR1, it can actually sample…. So I can play anything into it from my rig and get straight into messing with the sound. The lack of audio in on GR1 is a real oversight imo.

[@tjontheroad]

GR-1 does have the ability to sample input via any inexpensive class compliant audio interface. Although, it is mono only. Iridium does have stereo sampling. Thanks for watching, TJ

[@aeon136]

The GR-Mega Granular Workstation ELIMINATES THAT PROBLEM w/ (2) 1/4" Balanced audio quality inputs!😈... And, considering The GR-MEGA is capable of 128-Grain Sampling compared 2 The IRIDIUM's 8-Grains, & 4 around the same price -The GR-MEGA is the CLEAR WINNER 4 Sampling -IMHO!🦋✨👽

[@patrikkonat3085]

TJ I like your videos as I just recently got the Iridium and your videos make me feel like I am no longer an entire newbie. You are very pedagogical in your process.

[@tjontheroad]

Thanks for watching. I had to look up the word "pedagogical". In teaching, I'm just sharing the love of the music. Cheers, TJ

[@NicleT]

Very cool demo of both of those great instruments. Even if the Iridium can do more things and is a real powerhouse, I feel more the GR1 on a way that it is focus on one thing and just one: granular synthesis.

[@tjontheroad]

Thanks for watching. TJ

[@a-nus]

Dude, you HAVE to give us a walk through of your studio Even if it ended up being hours long I just love your presentation

[@tjontheroad]

Thanks for watching and your comments. This has been suggested to me before. I'm a bit reluctant to do so because my studio is always changing. I look at videos I did last year and I'm sort of shocked at the gear I see that is no longer here. At least once a year, I do a complete rewiring and rearranging to better optimize the current gear setup. Next time I do that maybe a good opportunity to show how it is done. That'll likely happen in the coming summer or fall. The studio rewiring usually takes a 1-2 days. But, I'm sure a video of it would cut down to much less than an hour. Cheers, TJ

[@HJPhilippi]

Thanks for the video. In terms of its exciting granular possibilities, GR-1 is the clear winner for me. However, Iridium has loads of other capabilities and is a beast of its own. If money wouldn't matter, I'd get them both immediately. Lucky you, owning them already!

[@tjontheroad]

Thanks for watching. They both have their respective strengths. I could easily get along with one or the other. Having both is a nice luxury. Cheers, TJ

[@theuntouchables808]

thank you sooo much for doing this on drums/ percussion sample ...

[@tjontheroad]

Granular on percussion samples is wicked fun. Lots of wonderful weirdness happens. Thanks for watch. Please share and subscribe. TJ

[@oiartsun]

Thank you for the shootout between these two. I learned that between them, for granular I personally would prefer a GR-1, but it also makes me consider that the Gotharman Little DeFormer mkII might supersede both.

[@tjontheroad]

Gotharman's Little deFormer 3 has some impressive specs. I might need to order one. Thanks for watching. TJ

[@anthonybryan9620]

Go for the Gotharman u won't regret it Although the gr1 is still vert desirable

[@chriscopeman8820]

I have to stop watching this video because it's making me want a Tasty Chips. I have to play with the toys I already have. But thanks anyway for another excellent video.

[@tjontheroad]

Yes, I can sympathize with getting the most of what you have. The GR-1 hadn't much use over the last couple months. At the prompting of another subscriber, I pulled it out and rediscovered how cool it is. Thanks for watching and the sub. Cheers, TJ

[@Michael_Jeromy_Kaiser]

GR 1 SOUNDS OTHER WORLDLY ON ITS OWN IT SEEMS IF YOUR LOOKING FOR GRANULAR SOUND GR 1 IS THE CLEAR CHOICE THEN HOOK IT UP TO SOMETHING ELSE FOR MORE EFFECTS AND MODULATIONS SINCE ITS ALSO HALF THE PRICE

[@tjontheroad]

GR-1 is indeed the best granular hardware synth. At least until the soon to be released GR-Mega comes out. Thanks for watching. TJ

[@therealk-tone214]

Great video, very informative. I just wish you used an example that was more musical.

[@tjontheroad]

Thanks for watching. There are several more musically oriented videos on my channel using both the GR-1 and/or Iridium. Check them out :) Cheers, TJ

[@aeon136]

I wonder how the IRIDIUM would compare 2 The: GR-Mega Granular Workstation 🤔... As far as I'm concerned -The GR-1 BLEW The IRIDIUM AWAY (4 MY Uses anyway)!🦋✨👽

[@tjontheroad]

GR-Mega is totally different animal. Not really fair to compare with Iridium. I have a GR-Mega on preorder. Look for it on my channel early next year. Thanks for watching. TJ

[@sednerpjonathan2989]

Felicitaciones por esa máquina maravillosa de waldorf

[@tjontheroad]

Gracias por ver. TJ

[@ZaaZoJo]

interesting info thank you

[@tjontheroad]

Thanks for watching. Cheers TJ.

[@gwsound]

Time for a comperison with the new one called Lemon?

[@tjontheroad]

The 1010 Lemondrop is a neat little box at a great price. It's probably not very comparable to the GR-1 or Iridium as its only has a four voice maximum polyphonic limit. I'd still like to try one out though. Thanks for watching. TJ

[@gwsound]

@@tjontheroad got the lemondrop. Really nice. It can generate 16 grains per oscillator.

[@tjontheroad]

That's great. I was trying to find out the grain count. 16 isn't bad at all.

[@daneguitarist1]

oh fuck yes! Granular synths are the best for sure, I have the eurorack load runner, and its certainly not as big as those two sick beasts, but because I have this I cant rationalize getting the tasty chips... but when GR-2 comes out, I am grabbing one no matter what! wanna do a collab? and we both have to use granular in our part of the track? (my channel is Gerbil Hamster Records) i mostly work in film but also producer for a lot of artists and make lots of little things that nobody watches hahaha I am an award winning composer that nobody knows tho hahah

[@tjontheroad]

Hi, Thanks for watching. If a GR-2 ever comes out, I too will be right there waiting. Cheers, TJ

[@tedstahl3794]

@TJontheRoad - Wonderful subject and interesting comparison! Thank you! I really enjoy your content. I've been subbed for a while thanks to the other Iridium videos you've produced. You've done a real service to the Iridium community. Having said that, I have a couple of things I wanted to bring up... 1) Minor point, but the Iridium has SIX LFOs and SIX Envelopes, not five as you mention in the video. 2) I mean no offense here, but I feel that your demo of the Iridium's sonic capability in capturing the Granular sound really fell short. I'm not saying this to be harsh - I'm saying this because after watching this video, I felt that the Iridium didn't hold a candle to the Tasty Chips GR-1 for what makes Granular synthesis so inspiring. Please hear me out on this second point: For me, what makes Granular synthesis such a fascinating sonic texture is the "swarm" of individual micro samples being played almost randomly and how you can constrain or let loose that grouping. The knobs and sliders on the GR-1 are there to specifically give you control over that capability and you demonstrated that very well in this video. However, in spite of spending much more time on the Iridium, I never felt like we were moving that sample very much into that Granular domain. In my experience, the way to get that Granular sound on the Iridium involves going to the Mod Matrix and assigning a single LFO to the Oscilator's Position control. If you're only using the first OSC in Granular mode, that destination will be PT1 Pos. I then go to the LFO itself and choose the last waveshape, S&H ("Sample and Hold"). That gives us the random jumpiness and depending on the amount you assign the LFO to the Position, it makes the swarm wider or more constrained. In addition to that, you can mess with the Travel as well to get another layer of random if needed. However, for me, I like to keep the travel pretty consistent and use the amount on the S&H LFO to focus or open the swarm for as little or as much randomness as desired. It's also really cool to got into the Mod Matrix and assign the Mod Wheel to the LFO amount for that S&H LFO so you can modify the size of the swarm in realtime. The Tasty Chips GR-1 was a dream when I first saw it because I've wanted a Granular synth in hardware form for years and the realtime controls seemed spot on. However, because of the vast capabilities of the Iridium (a much more affordable Quantum for me) I felt that it was a better choice. Initially I was really disappointed that my granular experience sounded much like your demonstration. I felt as though I had made a horrible mistake for a Granular synthesis engine. But once I began looking at the architecture of the instrument and the modulation capabilities, I realized that just using one of the LFOs as a S&H to modulate the position was the breakthrough I needed to get that "Swarm" sound. Furthermore, as you noted, the Iridium gives us three different Oscillators - each of which can be used in Particle mode. That means you can load the same sample in each and use three LFOs (still leaving three more for other things), put each of these LFOs in S&H mode and assign each the position of their respective Granular Oscillator. Have each oscillator at a slightly different rate and amount, but close so you have the same focus of the swarm. Then, once again, you can assign the Mod wheel to the amount of all three of these LFOs so you can vary the swarm size in realtime. I know that you tried not to confuse things by adding effects, but putting a little ping-pong digital delay on that patch, while kicking each oscillator up to 8 grains, comes pretty close to a swarm that sounds comparable to the GR-1's 128 grains. Again - I'm not trying to criticize this video. I really appreciate what you were trying to do here. I just wanted to offer some suggestions that put the Iridium in a better light. It really can capture that Granular "Swarm." You just need to take advantage of the modulation options. Thanks for the great content and I look forward to chatting with you about our marvelous instruments more in the future! Peace.

[@tjontheroad]

First, thanks for watching and your detailed comments. I agree with you. Don’t know why I said 5 LFOs on Iridium instead of 6 and didn’t even notice it later when editing the video. Thanks for the correction. I think I can put my reply to what you’ve said in different prospective for clarity sake. This comparison video is actually one I’ve resisted to make even after being requested to do so several times. The reason being, these two synths are so drastically different that they compare less so than they are same. The strengths and weaknesses of the granular engines within Iridium and GR-1, along with the rest of the synth features, are very much at opposites. So making a more/less fair review of them was done a bit simplified and focused. Otherwise the video would be far too long for anyone but the most crazy synth geeks (like me) to watch. In this case, I focused on the granular engines. Regarding the section where Iridium vs GR-1 are using the same percussion sample. I was possibly considering redoing the Iridium part. But, I didn’t have time to complete it. This because I did feel I could get a bit more out of Iridium. As it is, Iridium video section is longer than the GR-1 section because I was able to get more immediate interesting results from GR-1. So that is possibly telling the story right there. Part of the reason I finally decided to do this video is because I was considering selling the GR-1 if only to make room for something new. I’m now more confident than ever that I should keep the GR-1. I’ll keep Iridium as well. Only because they compliment each other very well. Good/bad/indifferent, you comments are always welcome. Cheers, TJ

[@Dangerousdaze]

Another neat trick (at the expense of polyphony) is to switch on Unisono (Unison) mode to give the oscillator between 2 and 8 *times* 8 grains. Still not up to GR-1 numbers I know, but these are stereo vs. mono samples and you have the massive power of the mod matrix. For example, you can modulate the Particle parameters with a combination of modulator (e.g. LFO) and the "Unisono Idx" mod source which provides the Unison voice number. This means you can modulate each unison voice (and hence group of up to 8 grains) separately - and not just the Particle parameters but everything else as well. E.g. you could have different filter modulations for each group of 8 grains, different effect mods, different envelope params etc. A nice thing is that you can see these in the visualisations as well. E.g. if you modulate the Particle position separately you see multiple play positions moving around. You can get lost for days! :)

[@tedstahl3794]

@@Dangerousdaze Outstanding observations and recommendations, good sir! I really love the immense potential of the Iridium. It is a self-contained modular rabbit hole all to itself! Thanks for sharing some further modulation options and, of course, the sonic power unleashed via unison through granular!

[@jonnyhead]

GR1 for me

[@tjontheroad]

Thanks for watching, TJ