Clouds (Parasites)

General
Info
Modes
Granular Processor
Pitch Shifter / Time Stretch
Looping Delay
Spectral Processor
Miverb
Resonester

General

Info

Clouds Parasites

Clouds is a multi-function granular audio processor by Mutable Instruments.

Clouds Parasites is a free alternate firmware for Clouds by Matthias Puech that adds functionality to existing modes, as well as adding dedicated reverb and resonator modes.

The layout of these cheat sheets are inspired by the original cheat sheet by Erstlaub.

To change modes, press both buttons simultaneously, then press the buttons to move forward/back. Or hold the "blend parameter" button for 5 seconds until the LEDs turn orange, then tap the blend button again to change modes.

Links

Clouds Home
Clouds Parasites Home
Clouds Manual
Erstlaub home

Modes

Granular Processor

Mode

Controls

Press to freeze buffer / hold to reverse

position

size

pitch

density

texture

blend

Position	grain starting position
Size	grain size
Pitch	grain pitch shift
Density	rate of grain generation.
Texture	amp envelope for grains.

Blend Parameters

	Dry/Wet
	Stereo Spread
	Feedback
	Reverb

Pitch Shifter / Time Stretch

Mode

Controls

loop

position

size

pitch

granular difffusion

LP <filter> BP

blend

Position	position
Size	size
Pitch	pitch
Density	granular diffusion
Texture	LP <filter> BP

Blend Parameters

	Dry/Wet
	Stereo Spread
	Feedback
	Reverb

Looping Delay

Mode

Controls

loop / hold to reverse loop

time / loop start

loop length

pitch

diffusion

LP <filter> BP

blend

Position	time / loop start
Size	loop length
Pitch	pitch
Density	diffusion
Texture	LP <filter> BP

Blend Parameters

	Dry/Wet
	Stereo Spread
	Feedback
	Reverb

Spectral Processor

Mode

Controls

POSITION = selects in which buffer the audio is poured (when FREEZE is not active), or from which buffer the audio is synthesised (when FREEZE is active).

Example:
Set POSITION to minimum value. FREEZE. You get a first texture. Set POSITION to maximum value. UNFREEZE. Wait for something else to happen in the incoming audio. FREEZE again. By moving POSITION you interpolate between the two textures which had been captured at the press of FREEZE. Depending on the quality settings there are 2 to 7 buffers laid out on the course of the POSITION knob. So it's a bit like morphing between FFT slices.

SIZE = change the coefficients of a polynomial that determines how frequencies are mapped between the analysis and synthesis buffers. It's like a 1-knob GRM Warp. Over the course of the knob it'll do spectral shifting, but also spectral reversal.

PITCH = pitch-shifting.

DENSITY determines how results from the analyzer are passed to the resynthesizer. Below 12 o'clock, there's some increasing probability that a given FFT bin won't get updated, causing a kind of partial freeze. After 12 o'clock, adjacent analysis frames are increasingly merged together (like a low-pass filter in the amplitude each frequency bin). At extreme settings, random phase modulation is applied to smooth things - giving you different flavours of spectral muddling/reverb.

TEXTURE does two things: below 12 o'clock, it increasingly quantize the amplitudes of the spectral components, like a very low-bitrate audio file (a long time ago I loved making super harsh noise textures by loading text files as raw audio files in an audio editor... then encoding as mp3 or real audio with super low bitrate to make it sound like some underwater brian eno). After 12 o'clock, it increasingly weakens the strongest partials and amplifies the weakest ones. This has the effect of making the spectrum more noise-like.

- Émilie Gillet, via Muffwiggler

Miverb

Mode

Controls

infinite decay

pre-delay

reverb size

pitch

decay

LP <damp> BP

blend

Position	pre-delay
Size	reverb size
Pitch	reverb pitch
Density	reverb decay
Texture	Filter LP <damp> BP

Blend Parameters

	Dry/Wet
	Diffusion
	Modulation Speed
	Modulation Amount

Resonester

Mode

Controls

switch voices

timbre/duration of noise

chord

pitch

decay

LP <filter> BP

blend

Position	timbre/duration of noise
Size	chord
Pitch	pitch
Density	decay
Texture	LP <filter> BP

Blend Parameters

	Random Modulation Of Comb Delay Time
	Stereo Output
	Harmonics
	Scatter