Beads

Available as a fully built module or a “finish-it-yourself” (with the surface mount parts pre-soldered). Both options come with the firmware pre-installed. You can swap our panel for another manufacturer’s panel!

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View the assembly instructions and bill of materials here.

Beads is a granular texture synthesizer that transforms incoming audio into shimmering atmospheres, fractured rhythms, pitch-shifted echoes, and evolving soundscapes. It captures sound in a recording buffer, then plays overlapping fragments called grains, with control over their timing, duration, pitch, playback direction, and envelope.

Reimagining the ideas behind Clouds, Beads combines improved audio quality and a longer recording buffer with flexible grain triggering and built-in randomization. From delicate variations to dense sonic transformations, its hands-on controls make it easy to explore the details hidden inside your sounds.

Each of the four main grain parameters has its own attenurandomizer. Use external CV to modulate a parameter or control its random variation, or leave the input unpatched to introduce internal randomness. Small adjustments add subtle movement; larger settings scatter grains across different positions, pitches, lengths, and shapes.

Four audio quality settings offer distinct characters, from clean digital processing to Clouds-inspired coloration and worn cassette textures. These settings shape more than resolution: they also influence saturation, limiting, reverb tone, and media-emulation effects.

Turn SIZE fully clockwise to explore delay and beat-slicing functions, including tap tempo, external clock synchronization, and pitch-shifted repeats. Leave both audio inputs unpatched and Beads becomes a granular wavetable synthesizer, using eight internal waveform banks. Separate feedback, dry/wet, and reverb controls put the final sound within easy reach.

Features

  • Real-time granular processing with stereo input and output.
  • Automatic input gain adjustment with manual override.
  • Continuous, gated, and externally clocked grain generation.
  • Forward and reverse grains with variable envelope shapes.
  • Four attenurandomizers for grain modulation and randomization.
  • FREEZE stops buffer recording; leaving it engaged for more than 10 seconds automatically saves the buffer contents for the next power-up.
  • Delay, beat slicing, pitch shifting, and built-in reverb.
  • Internal wavetable sound generation when both audio inputs are unpatched.

Controls

  • TIME knob for position within the recording buffer.
  • SIZE knob for grain duration and playback direction.
  • PITCH knob for transposition, from -24 to +24 semitones.
  • SHAPE knob for the grain envelope.
  • DENSITY knob for grain rate or clock-related behavior.
  • Four attenurandomizer knobs.
  • Separate feedback, dry/wet, and reverb knobs.
  • FREEZE and SEED buttons.
  • Audio quality selector and CV assignment buttons.

Inputs and outputs

  • Two audio inputs with automatic mono/stereo detection.
  • FREEZE gate input.
  • SEED trigger, gate, or clock input.
  • DENSITY CV input, with 1V/octave grain-rate tracking.
  • TIME, SIZE, SHAPE, and PITCH CV inputs.
  • PITCH CV supports 1V/octave tracking with its attenurandomizer fully clockwise during external-audio processing.
  • Assignable CV input for feedback, dry/wet, reverb, or combinations of these parameters.
  • Stereo audio outputs; the left output sums both channels when the right is unpatched.
  • Optional grain-trigger output using the right output jack.

Technical characteristics

  • Recording buffer: 4 seconds at 48kHz/16-bit stereo to 32 seconds at 24kHz/µ-law mono, depending on quality and input configuration.
  • Four recording quality settings: 48kHz/16-bit, 32kHz/12-bit, 24kHz/12-bit, and 24kHz/µ-law.
  • Grain duration: 30ms to 4 seconds, plus an infinite setting for delay operation.
  • Input impedances: 100kO.
  • Grain-parameter CV range: ±8V.
  • DENSITY and assignable CV ranges: ±5V.
  • Internal processing: 32-bit floating point.
  • Width: 14HP.
  • Depth: 25mm.
  • Power connection: 10-pin Eurorack connector, ±12V supply.
  • Current draw:
    • +12V: 100mA.
    • -12V: 10mA.