Oddment Audio Groc is a new desktop hardware granular Synthesizer with a hands-on user interface and CV connectivity.
The development of the upcoming Groc is still in full swing. Here are new demos that show the stereo granular sampler in action
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Article From February 15, 2024
Update: I added some extra info to the features.
2023 was the year of the new hardware or software granular synthesizers. As many as last year have never been presented or released: Tempera, Sonicware Texture Lab, Qu-Bit Mojave, or the GR-Mega. I’m sure in 2024, we will see many other granular synths.
It starts with Groc from the new company Oddment Audio. This is still in development and will come onto the market soon.
Oddment Audio Groc
Groc is a new compact, desktop granular Synthesizer that focuses on hands-on operation. The hardware has 16 encoders that each control a primary engine function but also a secondary one. This is probably archived with a shift button. There is also a touch screen for real-time feedback on your sounds.
The core (quad-core ARM Cortex A-72… 1GB RAM + 4GB of user storage) uses a custom, newly developed granular sampler engine. The maximum number of grains is unknown at this point, but they have created custom grain-level filtering that sounds beautiful. It’s not all about the grain number, says the dev in a inquiry
It is fully controllable from the hardware, including grain position, size, overlap, and shape. Part of the granular engine is also a sampler with customizable playback speed, audio editing function like croping and loop points settings, and more.
Then, you get a hands-on filter with cutoff and resonance and additional drive and linearity as secondary controls on the hardware.
All this is supported by a solid modulation engine with various modulation sources: four multi-wave LFOs, four envelopes, MIDI velocity, key tracking, polyphonic AT, custom modulation curves, and more. According to the developer, you can modulate every parameter of the Groc synth.
Additionally, you get three macro controls and a morphing function to morph between patches with just eight more encoders. It will also include effects: a harmonizer, tape echo, shimmer reverb, and more. Plus, you get a multi-track looper, arpeggiator, sequencer, and more.
Connectivity
On the back, it includes a phone socket, a line in/out, a USB-C port with audio over USB (confirmed), a power on/off button, MIDI in/out on minjacks, and two CV control sockets. The latter are very interesting.
You can set these ports up as CV outputs powered by the internal modulation engine, or you can route in CV and modulate Groc’s parameter with sources from other synths like Eurorack synths.
First Impression
A nice granular Synthesizer awaits us there. I’m curious how deep it goes and whether the operation is really so hands-on. I like the compact design and what I have heard so far. I am looking forward for more details.
Oddment Audio Groce is in development. Availability is estimated for the end of 2024, and the price is TBA. The developers estimated a first price point around Superbooth 24.
More information here: Oddment Audio
one for me, please
Looks cool, but it’s going to need some nice features (or a nice price) to distinguish it from the other granular options we seem to be swimming in these days like the Torso S-4, Tempera, GR-MEGA, Lemon Drop, and a whole whack of Eurorack modules I refuse to look at because there’s no way I’m going down that particular rabbit hole. Maybe since it’s running on a Pi, we’ll see some open source or custom firmware.
I LOVE that we’re seeing a granular renaissance. It’s always been underutilized. (Probably because it’s hard to wrap your head around and/or get useful, tonal sounds out of it. Easy to get crazy soundscapes, though!)
Yo, could you dial down the intrusiveness of the ads you host? All this garbage blocking me from reading your words is frustrating to deal with.
Yo, if you pay me for my words via a future subscription, I will give ad-free reading.
NOPE! You are dead wrong on this! Your ads routinely block content, pop ups on every page, and generally speaking your lack of awareness and rude replies to this issue make your site unusable!
Get a grip and actually care what your readers are saying.
well I’m open i have a base of 150k+ returning (not one-time) vistors, 5 including you (I made a list), constantly wrote me about this topic. As I said, there will an ad-free option via a subscription like on Patreon or so for this group.
Sorry I can’t turn them off otherwise I will close all this at some point! It’s not an excuse, it’s serious. If you say: yeah other didn’t use them. well I don’t belong to one of the biggest music stores in the world or other large investment fund.
I’m a one-man company that need to pay bills, pay taxes on everything etc. And we are not in the world Samsung, Sony, etc. where selling ads is a big deal for a website. Music tech especially synths is a super niche where budgets are limited. Using simple paid ad banners from music tech companies are not sufficient to pay all the bills.
If I turn the website in a classic, copy paste press release website without extra infos, etc, maybe I can change something. But the content quality would suffer a lot. You would only read the lovely words from the developers. Maybe I would also offer tons of paid article slots to compensate the missing income. Well than, it’s another copy paste media as many others…
The community decides and as long as there are only 5 people who write to me personally, it stays that way. If at some point they want the change, the site will no longer be what it was. Then you and all the others have to live with the consequences. I only say: “why this MPC is the best thing on the market, why Behringer is the best company, check these 5 Korg synths, you are groundbreaking synths…
Thanks for your feedback.And welcome back, I thought you didn’t want to come back and you want to read the news from other sites.
We gave an office of 6 people genius, so I can’t say whom comes back to your site and I have NEVER personally written you! I rarely come on here but to your credit, you generally have the latest news and you are better at covering small developers….like us! And if you have a 150K regulars, sounds like you’re just being greedy and again RUDE! And closing the site down? Go ahead, the void will be filled. Gearnews, Synthtopia, SonicState, and many others manage to have ads on their sites and not make it the sh*t show you have!
Like I said, get a grip.
Really Sarah again? I try to be objective and open in my explication, but you drift back into the personal level: Greedy and rude? You exactly know what means running a company. A lot of what you earn from ads eats up the running costs, the taxes, etc. Basically you loose 50% of the income.
Good examples of media: You count exactly the media that are either driven by either big players, offer copy paste news or make their revenue through videos and presentations. Sonicstate makes their revenue, for example, with video production (unsponsored reviews, trade show coverage and presentations supported by developers). They only copy paste the news and the leave it with this. Interaction on the platform is very low and that why they can put less power on the ads on the website. Two different focuses.
Gearnews: “but they do cover a lot ground with new items.” It’s easy to cover a lot, they have multiple people making articles, etc.
I said it also: get a grip… with your comments.
I get it, I do, we were a one band show, until I joined and we were a duo for a very long time until we grew! I get the struggle, the need to generate revenue, and the stress of all of it. But there is a way to interact with people and then there is your way. And by the way, I do appreciate that you have the balls at least to engage and not hide. I really do respect that.
And I should point out the gearnews is a shill game, I don’t respect the written ads or what they call articles, but they do cover a lot ground with new items.
Best of luck to you until I return again some time next year.
I was worried you might miss me a bit so I came back just to keep you in check. Keep up the work, it is good, the ads such arse. If you miss me too much, hang on to this until next year.
The ads don’t bother me, and I’m on my phone. I have no idea what they are complaining about honestly.
I am on this site not too often anymore, but to be honest, you are one of the people whose behaviour is noticably – how should I say – a little off. It seems to me you are mostly claiming the moral high ground, especially when it comes to other companies, esp. a certain one.But since you seem to work for a small manufacturer, it is quite obvious that you are motivated by personal interests. Moreover, I dont think that it is in any way appropiate to tell someone how to behave. We are all adults and no children.
Nice ! We are lucky enough to see new synths. It’s was not the same in the eighties.
Yo, why don’t you use another browser yo?
Yo, I use Edge and have no, absolutely zero, problems with ads, yo!
I like the form factor, but by god get this lad a GUI designer as that is one fugly GUI.
I’m reading all this like “what ads” then realized you guys may be talking about those nicely organized ads on the side of the page. Maybe its my adblocker and with it off, this site is like a new site with ads between the text as you scroll down chugging the pages load times. But I dont see any of that so if someone is complaining, remember, this is the internet. When you put enough people together in one place, there will always be the 1% who just suck. Clearly we’ve identified this person today.
I appreciate your work, Tom. Running a site like this takes a lot of effort and doing so in a second language is admirable. Thanks for what you do.
I need to correct you my english is just my fourth language 😉
I’ll bite…Luxembourgish, Deutsch, French, and Anglais?? After I was thinking you were Austrian all these years, lol!
And I have NO effin clue what Sarah is complaining about. Likely to the frustration of the people who pay you to advertise, I hardly ever notice ANY ads on this site.
exactly