What's New¶

A summary of user-visible changes per Grainulator release. For commit-level history, see the GitHub commit log.

v2.1.0 — April 2026¶

Cross-voice interaction gets a proper panel, compressor clipping gets fixed, and the MOD + TEXTURE tabs get label polish.

Voice Interaction panel (SYNTH tab) — replaces the previous MASTER · XMOD slot between the two Spectral columns. Three categorically different cross-layer effects — Follow (the follower's grain engine reads the driver's live audio), Vocode (spectral envelope transfer), and Duck (amplitude sidechain, bipolar) — driven by a shared 3-state direction switch (V1→V2 / ↔ / V2→V1) and a power toggle that hard-bypasses the whole section. Presets saved with a non-zero X-Mod value are auto-upgraded on load: Vocode is seeded from the previous X-Mod amount and direction defaults to Both. See SYNTH tab → Voice Interaction panel.
Voice FX mod destinations — Follow, Vocode, and Duck are each routable from any MOD lane under a new Voice FX category.

Compressor limiter no longer distorts when overdriven. The "brickwall limiter" option used to be a literal hard clip at ±1.0, which folded the waveform into a near-square and produced harsh aliased harmonics when the pre-limiter signal was well above 0 dBFS. It is now a soft-knee limiter — transparent below ±0.9, with a smooth tanh-shaped rolloff asymptotic at ±1.0. No breakup on heavily compressed or overdriven material.

TEXTURE tab — the DYN / REV group labels are spelled out in full as DYNAMICS and REVERSE. The knob labels in each of those groups now read Probability (previously Prob and Reverse) to match the value they actually control.
GRAIN tab — Morph strip — the Morph LFO rate slider sits directly beneath the shape-wave controls (sin / tri / saw / sqr / s&h) and the visualisation bars moved below. Easier to see cause and effect at a glance.
MOD tab — Spectral destination labels now match the on-screen Spectral panel knob text: Transpose, Clarity, Frz Blend, Formant Mix, Peak Lock. The former per-voice X-Mod destination is renamed (legacy) and has no DSP effect in v20+; old mod-lane routings pointing at it still load cleanly.

Format version bumped to v20. v19 presets load cleanly — the legacy per-voice X-Mod parameters are retained in the param enum as no-ops, and a one-time migration maps their value onto the new Vocode knob so cross-voice coupling you had saved still sounds roughly equivalent on first load.

A major layout and effects update plus the first public release of the new documentation system.

Compressor on the FX tab — a feed-forward compressor with parallel mix and limiter, sitting between the master filter and the delay in the post-mix chain.
Multi-mode reverb — the reverb now has three selectable algorithms (Misty, Cloudy, Stormy) sharing one unified control surface. Pick the mode that fits the material; common controls behave as expected.
Rhythmic mod sources — clock-divided modulation patterns, including a Euclidean LFO generator and an 8-step bipolar sequencer, each optionally synced to host tempo.
Dual waveform display on the GRAIN tab — see both layers' audio at a glance in the full layout.
MIDI root-note glide — independent root notes for Layer 1 and Layer 2 with a shared glide knob for smooth voice tracking.
Layer Link — Layer 2 can share Layer 1's audio buffer, making it easier to build dense textures from a single source sample.

Master panel moved — the master faders (Layer 1/2 level, pan, wet/dry) relocated from the FX tab to the GRAIN tab's new MASTER column. The FX tab is now dedicated to the post-mix effects chain.
Window shape visualization — a live preview above the TEXTURE tab's shape controls updates as you change tilt, curve, and sides.

Grainulator — the project formerly known as GrainulatorV2 is now shipped simply as Grainulator. Internal parameter IDs still begin with V1/V2 and some code comments reference the old name, but all user-facing copy has been updated.
Layer 1 / Layer 2 — what used to be called "Voice 1" and "Voice 2" in the UI is now "Layer 1" and "Layer 2". The terminology change clarifies that a layer is a granular engine instance, not a polyphonic voice in the classical sense.

First release of the new docs site — a single source of prose produces the website you are reading, plus two edition PDFs (Desktop and iPad). The old docs/manual/mac.html and docs/manual/ipad.html files are deprecated; anything they said and the current code disagreed on has been reconciled in favor of the code.

Earlier releases are summarised in the project's GitHub Releases page.