Mutable Instruments Beads: First Look

In this video resident expert Nick Bigelow takes us on a first look at the highly anticipated Clouds successor: Beads.
REINVENTING A CLASSIC
Beads is a reinvention of Mutable Instruments’ Clouds.
The concept is the same, live granular processing of an incoming audio signal, and the labels on the panel remain familiar.
The similarities stop here. The hardware and software have been redesigned from the ground up, with several goals in mind: a crisper and broader sound palette, more control, better playability, and direct access to exciting new features.
DOTTING THE I’S AND CROSSING THE T’S
Beads’ vastly improved specifications allow a higher audio quality, a longer buffer, the use of better interpolation and anti-aliasing algorithms, and key DSP blocks to run at a faster rate. Granular processing can now go to new territories, such as formants, wavetables, hard-sync-like sounds, or crispy noise.
The range of parameters, their response to the turn of a knob or a CV modulation have all been refined, for new possibilities such as reverse playback or percussive envelopes.
CONTROL, CHAOS AND CHARACTER
Control. To trigger or schedule grains, Beads provides new features to divide or randomize an external clock or trigger stream, spray bursts of grains in response to a gate, or get the grain rate to track a V/O CV or the frequency of an external oscillator.
Chaos. Each key parameter of a grain comes with its own attenurandomizer, which allows direct CV control, CV control of the randomization (spread) of this parameter, or internal randomization using some of Marbles’ algorithms.
Character. Beads provides four audio quality settings, which go well beyond buffer sample rate and bit-depth: they affect the clock of the converters, the amplitude limiting and saturation of the signal path, the tone of the reverb, and additional media-emulation effects. From a pristine digital device to a dirty cassette, through a mode reproducing some of Clouds’ characteristics.
MODES?
Beads can operate as a delay without the need to switch to a different mode: just ask it to play a never-ending grain. Its DENSITY, TIME and SEED controls are repurposed to allow various features such as tap-tempo, beat slicing, time-stretching, or comb-filtering at rates tracking V/O.
Without any audio input, Beads will granularize 8 internal banks of wavetables.
All parameters have a dedicated knob.
Learn more about Mutable Instruments Beads here: bit.ly/mi_beads
patchwerks.com/
Demo by: Nick Bigelow
Video by: Matthew Piecora (aka EZBOT)
www.ezbot.live

[@RedMeansRecording]

Finally a good Beads demo

[@enigmeta]

Where can I find the samples on Freesound? I searched around but could not find you.

[@wonkyrobot]

@@enigmeta Yeah, I Also would like to know 😊

[@alexwalli]

@@wonkyrobot i think it's this one: freesound.org/people/jjbbllkk/sounds/530722/

[@wonkyrobot]

@@alexwalli cool thanks! 😊

[@mousymagazine]

well of course you'd think so :P

[@roryofarrell1488]

There are some great videos out there telling what can be done with this fabulous module. However, yours is the first I have seen to describe the initial seeding process in words of one syllable, and demonstrate how the wet/dry thing enables one to hear what is actually going on. It is not patronising to treat your viewers as novices. It is immensely useful and helpful. You are a natural teacher. Thanks very much.

[@thunderkitty6935]

Great video, would love to see more of these short but very informative and fun module walkthroughs. Around 10 minutes is perfect for my attention span :)

[@ritec]

Great walkthrough, your enthusiasm is contagious. I also get giggly when I hear beautiful never heard before sounds, especially when I am the one making them.

[@brianreilly6545]

Freezing and exploring the buffer A++. Nice vid👍🏻

[@Lightbath]

Great demo! I love how you explain things. So clear and concise.

[@literallyme3845]

Kind of

[@kristopps3]

Best video I've seen of it so far! Good job!

[@alfredgkj2495]

i watched many demo video of Beads, but only this one make me want to get one.

[@androidlust]

Great demo.

[@jazzmusic2499]

finally a decent beads demo oh my lord

[@swampflux]

Thanks for speaking a lot on how this is different than the original, especially the feedback which drove me nuts on clouds.

[@jean-philippedetinguy1988]

why ?

[@mrcwalker33]

This is such a good overview of the module, thank you for it! You really explained it well

[@mr.apartment]

just ordered the beads and then found this video, i noticed a lot of popping in the sound, is that common on this module? does just changing the envelope shape keep it from happening it has there been a firmware update yet? thanks for the demo, it’s very helpful

[@PercivalThe23]

i think it's just bad recording...

[@Jimantronic]

Brilliant overview, thanks 🙂

[@wonkyrobot]

The crackle is that coming from the module?

[@TheIllestMD]

I think it is. I don't think it's ADC clipping on the recorder; it would sound differently. It looks to be related to the density setting when turned CCW. CCW settings replay grains at a constant rate. At higher constant rates it can almost become an oscillator and drone out whatever content is in the buffer. The buffer probably caught a zero crossing in the audio and is repeating it very quickly which causes high frequency content to emerge in the sound. Might be able to get rid of it by turning of feedback and/or reverb as that has the effect of smoothing grain playback often. Also don't believe any thing I say because this is pure conjecture and could very well be incorrect assumption based on the little amount of clues from the video. I preordered one so will play around with it and report back if I remember!

[@wonkyrobot]

@@TheIllestMD Thanks, yeah I wondered it might be zero crossing related, and Patchweks seems to agree with you :)

[@ritec]

I also noticed the crackle, thought it was odd.

[@benamad]

I have the crackles in my Beads also. I first thought that it was a problem of mine but it seems to be normal, like a the sound of a delay when we move the time.

[@andrewtomasello1177]

@@TheIllestMD its only in the left speaker while listening with headphones. FYI

[@justinjbenjamin]

Preordered!

[@parhamattarpour9616]

Can I ask, where you got those hand screw (screwdriver less) rack screws? Very informative video, thank you.

[@mikebrodhead]

They look like Knurlies from Befaco. Patchwerks sells them in both 3mm and 2.5mm sizes. (Most racks take 3mm AFAIK.)

[@parhamattarpour9616]

@@mikebrodhead incredible thank you🙏🏼

[@PatchMonger]

Excellent demo, I’m getting mine today and this will really help me thank you

[@pedropedropedro795]

Best beads walkthrough so far. Great, thanks a lot.

[@ringandtones]

Excellent demo, can't wait for it to arrive.

[@PihkaIsMyName]

I just ordered Beads today... can't wait! Thank you for this video, makes me really excited

[@BobCharlotte]

Really nice and beautiful demo of Beads. Great job with the sounds used.

[@isweartofuckinggod]

Wow! Finally here! And it sounds great!

[@WJL91]

This video gave me a flash back to how music sounded like on acid to me many years ago, never been able to compare it to anything until hearing this wonderful Beads demo, thank you, I'm going to buy it.

[@robsinHL]

Mimeophon's Hold and Rate controls will create the same guitar / scream noise you got when you first hit freeze. Can morph it from there.

[@LarsBjerregaard]

Very nice demo of the core functionality of Clouds... excuse me, Beads. Seems to be a wonderful upgrade.

[@moreausylvain]

thanks for the good demo. Please just to mention one thing if you don't mind. When you apply changes give us 5sec with no talk to hear the sound ;)

[@HumanMotives]

great video demonstration and format. Love it and subscribed

[@marksteiner3493]

You are an incredible demo-er. I'm finally understanding this one! Thank you! I'll be checking out your other stuff. Talented!

[@aeropilot4419]

Very nice … I’m getting lost in space when I use mine 🙂👍🏼

[@tobiasneumann1456]

Just got mine and never had the Clouds. Thank you for explaining some basics!

[@TravisFodor]

awesome stuff Nick. You rock!

[@Charlemagne139]

Awesome demo! Instant sub.

[@Dogboy73]

Great video. This really helped me with Beads. I had trouble getting a sound out of it for a while when I started! 🤪

[@flightofsound2497]

Where are the inputs for playing with a key board (1V/OCT), and syncing the grains to external clock? Both these features are mentioned on the Beads page at Mutable, but haven't seen a demo of this yet..

[@mousymagazine]

yay! finally a good video demo of beads 👏

[@GuitarsAndSynths]

Yay! As a fan of Mutable Instruments products, I look forward to getting Beads and Blades to pair with Rings and Marbles! Such a perfect ambient modular rig.

[@milztempelrowski9281]

the automatic input gain function is so awesome

[@synaptyx]

Thanks for this :D

[@robertvangameren9735]

Sounds amazing, New to modular but is there a way to assign the knobs to controllers, midi, footswitches? so when live you could play synth, acou guitar through it and control it otherwise.

[@TheIllestMD]

You can absolutely do that. There are Midi-CV converters you can get for modular which allow you to plug in midi and convert it to modular control voltages that can control the various parameters on Beads or other modules.

[@bjornlakenstrazen2186]

i love playing synths, but I don't quite understand the whole "cable patch" rack mount things. Are you just running your left and right outputs from a synth into these rack units? Thanks if anyone can tell me a good starting point or a cool video that explains it. Thanks

[@TheIllestMD]

You can think of the patch cables the same way as plugging a guitar into a series of pedals and then into the guitar amp. Guitar is a "sound source" and pedals are "sound modifiers." Modular is similar in that it has sound sources and sound modifiers. The comparison stops there though because in modular many of the modules can be sound sources and sound modifiers depending on how they're used. And there is the additional element of voltage control. Beads has a left/right input so you could technically run your synth left/right output into Beads' left/right input.

[@ktreier]

Best explanation of Beads I have seen.

[@NutritionalZero]

Quality demo.

[@richarquis]

Am I right in thinking that this seems functionally very similar to the Make Noise Morphagene?

[@MrMarcLaflamme]

Clouds always looked too intimidating and I never really looked too much into it. This redesign is fantastic because it looks very approachable for both novices and experts.

[@analog_]

Where did you get the branded blanking page made? Very cool!

[@analog_]

@Walter B Your Patchwork branded blanking plate beside your TANGLE QUARTET mate..

[@analog_]

Is it just a sticker or a custom blanking plate? Thanks..

[@christianlaurent5807]

Being a newbie, congratulations, nice performance...I'm thinking to buy some Eurorack modules...May I ask you from where the music comes from..an external recorded violin, ...this would help me a lot to understand better...Chris

[@faultymechanism]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/l32YnaWinsRprNk

[@els1f]

Ffs! Needd!😩 (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

[@ojwatts2647]

Sorry for being thick, but what does it mean when you say it's a 'granular' module?

[@PatchwerksSeattle]

Its primary feature is creating grains of incoming audio. Grains are tiny samples that can be moved around and repitched

[@ojwatts2647]

@@PatchwerksSeattle thank you for that. I've heard the term many times and never asked what it means so yeah, that helps. Thank you.

[@jthek2000]

I guess keeping an old clouds is kind of useless if we get the beads.

[@aeropilot4419]

I’m still keeping mine ... the lo-fi is interesting and not entirely useless, to me anyway 🙂

[@thaneco]

Can you connect a drum machine, a synth or an iPad directly to Beads?

[@alexambient7491]

sure you can

[@thaneco]

@@alexambient7491 So I don’t need a preamp to reach modular levels?

[@alexambient7491]

@@thaneco no you don't need a preamp, beads adjusts the input level automatically

[@xTheOxx]

I would love a good side-by-side comparison of Beads and Clouds.

[@internetnoisesignal6251]

Did homeboy say mutiful instruments 😂🤣😂🤣😂🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠

[@sumocloud]

Hearing a lot of clicks.. Wish it had cv over mix. Hard to argue with the value though with the synced delay mode and attenurandomizers

[@agnarssondemise]

"If you do sampled instrument stuff, you kinda really like these sorts of things..." Yes, this is it exactly. Thanks a lot. Now, I don't know whether to go with this, or the Make Noise Morphagene.

[@Syncopator]

The first module I bought in Eurorack was the original Clouds. Later I got a Morphagene but ultimately I didn't really like the workflow-- it wasn't as "real-time" as Clouds IMHO, as having it continuously record was clumsy to say the least, you'd have to drive it with some clocking signals to kick it in and out of record. Or at least, that was the case a few years ago when I tried it. Clouds, and the new Beads here didn't have that problem. Now, I have a lot of rack space but I sold the Morphagene and bought two additional Clouds (not all for the same rack, mind you), and an Arbhar. The Arbhar is a stellar module, but I've the space for all that and a Beads, which is a no brainer as far as I'm concerned, will be getting one for sure. I also have a Nebulae V2 which has a feature none of the others have, and that's the ability to time stretch, but while it's better than the Morphagene for real-time, it's not as clean and immediate as Clouds and Beads. What the Arbhar's got going for it that I had hoped the new Clouds might have as well, is the ability to save the buffer to a memory stick (though in the Arbhar's case, it's a bit of a pain because it's a USB stick behind the panel, so you have to take it out of the case). The Arbhar's real-time recording is a bit different than Clouds and Beads, triggered by volume levels generally, but that 's better than Morphagene as far as I'm concerned. One thing that Arbhar, Morphagene and Nebulae can also do is you can construct samples on the computer and store them on the stick to read them into the modules, with Clouds and Beads you'll have to play back samples elsewhere and feed them to the audio-in on Clouds to get them into the module to operate on, but for the most part I'm passing live signals in and mangling them realtime, which is endless fun. And I've got the Arbhar and Nebulae when I want to construct samples instead of record them in... Many people think of Clouds as more of an "effect" module, but while I don't dispute that, I think it's a bit more than just an effect module-- as shown in this video, you can use it to capture and loop "grains" and then play them back with v/oct CV and treat it as an instrument as well...

[@agnarssondemise]

@@Syncopator I really appreciate your detailed explanation of your Eurorack, and the differences between the modules. I think this has saved me from some disappointment due to limitations. I've been looking for an easy way to not only manipulate and process samples in real-time, but also a way to time stretch. I'm new to the world of Eurorack and modular synthesizers, so thanks so much for the help!!

[@Syncopator]

@@agnarssondemise Nebulae V2 does time stretch right out of the box. But keep in mind, time stretch can't be done in "real time" because that would require samples from the future... :-) Time stretch is really something for captured or pre-recorded samples. It may be possible to do a sort-of time stretch by retriggering grains as you move the start time through the sample, which any of the modules can do but I'm not sure how well that technique actually works for a decent time stretch. Also note that while the Nebulae V2 can execute both CSound, SuperCollider and Pure Data scripts, switching from the default script to another script (stored on the memory stick), is finicky to say the least-- I got it to work but not before quite a bit of struggle. It doesn't have a screen so stuff like that requires some arcane button operations. Also, IIRC, if you switch to another script, a power cycle will return you to the original so it wouldn't persist and part of the pain was selecting the alternate script and getting it to take. They may have improved on that though, last time I tried to run something other than the stock script was like, 2 years ago. One reason it can run all this stuff is that it actually has a full Raspberry Pi stuck to the back of it-- so if you're into it, you could customize it to run alternate code by default I would think. But as I've had quite a bit of experience with Raspberry Pi's independently of eurorack, I didn't really want to mess with the Nebulae too much because the basic functionality is pretty useful as it is. I think the Nebulae's power requirements are pretty stiff and stringent so I wouldn't recommend using it in a rack that's marginal in that regard...

[@Syncopator]

​ @Hannibal Bateman Oh, and I should also point you at this-- if this doesn't give you reason to pause in favor of Beads, nothing will-- so sorry if it just adds to the difficulty of making a decision: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nqPOn6Cdi5yGqpI If it were me, I'd get the Nebulae V2 for time stretch and initial granular experiments, with the plans of saving up some coins for a Beads as well-- which you've got time to do since they're sold out until at least May right now...

[@agnarssondemise]

@@Syncopator oh, I’m definitely getting the Nebulae V2! Don’t know of any other synth that can not only time stretch samples, but also lets you change the pitch independently. That is almost unprecedented technology. I also need to save up for a Eurorack case. Beads is relatively inexpensive, so looking forward to experimenting with that, as well. Thanks for the helpful tips!!

[@james_44]

What will happen to Mutable Instruments if all the hipsters die?

[@wombra8314]

omg i love u bwahahahahahahahahahaha

[@wombra8314]

thank u lmfao

[@wombra8314]

plus shills gonna shill lmao

[@12ian34]

I really like the content and format of this video - but IMO your voice is far too loud for a musical demo. The volume at which I can hear the music to the right level of detail makes your voice quite piercing.

[@oldnikix]

This dude is tweaking on Adderal. Or he's over-caffeinated? Cool take on the Beads, at any rate!

[@literallyme3845]

Kinda kind of

[@nextg.5899]

It would be interesting to hear the sound, but that's impossible with your constant babbling without pausing and breathing

[@literallyme3845]

Kinda, kind of