GRM Tools was one of the first plug-in suites available, the product of Paris’ GRM research center. It’s always been a unique, composition-focused toolset. But I’ve seen its future, and it’s on a whole new level, allowing open-ended modulation and multichannel signal processing that’s unlike anything else.
I just stood mouth agape and didn’t shoot video but this French-language demo captures it best. (Anyway, GRM software really sounds better in French than English. This video even shows some things I didn’t catch.)
On its surface, Atelier seems an expensive way to get tools like a comb filter. But the precision and quality of GRM’s work has always been exceptional. The reimagining of both engine and architecture finally makes the 2020s version of the software feel as radical as those first 1990s versions did – for a new generation.
Apart from being visually appealing, this user interface allows you to sculpt sound directly. And it’s not designed to work like hardware or conventional production gear; it’s thought out from scratch as a sound composition tool. If that part hasn’t sold you, the modulation is extraordinary and allows the various GRM tools to finally function as a real ensemble. You can patch arbitrarily between any modules and even spawn multiple modulation sources. So, for instance, a single random LFO can become n-number of LFOs with unique seeds, running independently. All of this is done by a similarly clever node interface, but that allows you to connect the different modules that previously had been only independent plug-ins.
And from there, the whole suite is agnostic about the number of channels you’re using. Want to scale up for a multichannel diffusion? Done – with all the modulation intact.
I’m not lying when I say of everything I saw at Superbooth, this was the one I was most keen to get home and try in music making. Yes, yes, yes that’s completely blasphemous at a show that’s all about hardware and modular patching. Tell you what: I’ll use some elaborate Eurorack hardware as control inputs, okay?