Pitch¶
Field has two pitch controls that do different jobs. The Pitch ribbon transposes every grain together. Pitch probability transposes grains at random, one by one, for a shimmering or chordal texture. Both share one scale setting.
The Pitch ribbon¶
The Pitch ribbon runs down the right edge of the waveform. Drag it up or down to transpose the grains. The center is unison (no transposition), and the ends reach two octaves up and two octaves down.
While you drag, the ribbon shows a continuous value. When you let go, it snaps to the nearest pitch the current ribbon mode allows, and it jumps to exactly the pitch the engine plays. In Free mode there is no snap.
Set the ribbon mode in Settings, under Pitch. The modes:
| Mode | On release the ribbon snaps to |
|---|---|
| Octaves | Whole octaves only. |
| Oct+5ths | Octaves and fifths. |
| Scale | Notes of the chosen scale. |
| Free | Nothing. The pitch stays exactly where you left it. |
| Chromatic | The nearest semitone. |
The ribbon mode defaults to Chromatic.
When the app is in Instrument play mode, the ribbon is labeled TRANSPOSE and offsets the notes you play in. See MIDI and controllers.
Pitch probability¶
Pitch probability gives each grain its own chance of being transposed away from the ribbon pitch. Set the chance with the X axis of the Texture pad (see The XY pads). At the far left every grain plays at the ribbon pitch; move right and more grains get transposed. This is a per-grain random process, so a cloud of grains spreads into an interval or a chord instead of moving as one.
How far a transposed grain can move, and to what notes, is set in Settings under Pitch:
| Control | What it sets | Options | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| Probability | The intervals a transposed grain can jump to. | Octaves, Oct+5ths, Scale, Free, Chromatic | Octaves |
| Probability Range | How many octaves the jump can span. | 1, 2, or 3 octaves | 1 octave |
| Probability Direction | Which way grains transpose. | Both, Up, Down | Both |
With the defaults, a transposed grain moves up or down by a whole octave.
The scale¶
Scale on its own only keeps you in key if the sample already sits at the root, because it snaps the transposition offset rather than the pitch itself. That is what KEY is for. Set KEY, in Settings under Pitch, to one of the twelve roots or to Auto, and Grainsmith analyzes the recording's pitch when the file loads or a take stops, then lands every grain on a note of that key and scale, whatever pitch the sample is at and wherever in the buffer the grain came from. With the Pitch knob at zero that is TUNE: each grain corrected to the nearest note of the key, the sample's character intact, since this is varispeed and not formant correction. Auto reads the key off the sample instead of you choosing one, and grains with no clear pitch, like noise or hits, fall back to the plain Scale behavior. A chord collapses to whichever pitch is loudest. A grain long enough to run past the note it started in keeps sounding that note: Hold, in the same panel, re-tunes the grain as the recording moves underneath it. Switch Hold off to let the grain follow the recording instead, which drifts out of key on a moving melody. KEY is experimental, and it is at its best on single-line material with a clear pitch. It defaults to Off. The scales:
Major, Minor, Pent Maj, Pent Min, Dorian, Mixolydian, Harm Minor, Phrygian, Lydian, Locrian, Whole Tone, Chromatic.
Scale defaults to Major.
The pitch modes, scales, and the snapping math are the same code the desktop Grainsmith uses, so a patch pitches the same way on both.