Fluss - Granular Playground

One use for this app is to take original compositions and put a unique twist on them. Another is to use your voice (or someone else’s) and warp it into who-knows-what? It is possible to record sounds directly into the app, although I tend to prefer using existing sound files. This thing is a bloomin’ playground! Great for soundscapes, which I’m only now later in life starting to experiment with. I am nowhere near fluent with granular synths, so reading others’ comments regarding improvements and alterations is interesting to me — stuff I never thought of. But I’m going with a win-win on this one — and you can’t go wrong with the price point, either!

Initially I was not impressed by this. Usually I am underwhelmed, as an iphone developer, by gimmicky new ways to slide your fingers across the “no-so-precise” touchscreen of apples generalized 40pxl radius to work with. This usually makes it so apps like this are good in theory or on paper but not so great in experience. No so with Fluss. I was going about my initial use of this all wrong, trying to maintain consistent control instead of letting go. This tool will help you let the process just flow or .. fluss. Good Job from Bram and bach with this one.

Overall, this is an amazing implementation of granular synthesis. Fluss is very fun to use and the integration with the touch interface toward modulation is particularly innovative. That said, the more I like it, the more I want Fluss2! Specifically, I would love more clock and tempo syncing options, particularly around when grains are triggered (like on Beads). But also, when using Fluss as a processor, some more visualization of the buffer, playback head speed, and modulation, in terms of tempo rather than time. The quantizer also begs for more visualization. I’d love to see the boundaries shown in the XY control for notes! And if that gets too keyboard-y and not Buchla enough, you could make the boundaries into shapes, or even allow the user to change the layout to keep it super creative. Basically keeping the fun randomness, but allowing for a biiiiiit more control, when desired. Further, while the touch interface is very innovative, I found it a bit sensitive. Very easy to cause the controls to move too fast. You can use the friction control to slow things down, but that seems to slow everything down. Would be nice to have a global friction and a separate sensitivity option so flicking a slider could only apply a maximum amount of force. Lastly, being able to apply modulation to a specific play head would be huge. So one head could be making bigger grains and another smaller, for example. Well done!