Granular Synth Alternative: The Mangle

[madmacman]

KV331's new Synthmaster One is an arguably more popular product appealing to a broader audience, yet the dev himself just admitted publicly over at KVR that he's only sold 500 new licenses since it was released . Taking into consideration it's been on sale on and off for much of that time, I doubt he's made enough to even cover the development cost of that thing! I wonder how devs actually make a living doing what they do sometimes.

OT, but: besides the quality - the market is simply too flooded with options. Of course there are more styles and genres of music than EDM, but if you currently watch YT demos/tutorials/whatnot, you always see Serum, Spire, Sylenth1, then the rest of it. Even with low prices it seems quite difficult these days to attract attention.

[EnochLight]

KV331's new Synthmaster One is an arguably more popular product appealing to a broader audience, yet the dev himself just admitted publicly over at KVR that he's only sold 500 new licenses since it was released . Taking into consideration it's been on sale on and off for much of that time, I doubt he's made enough to even cover the development cost of that thing! I wonder how devs actually make a living doing what they do sometimes.

OT, but: besides the quality - the market is simply too flooded with options. Of course there are more styles and genres of music than EDM, but if you currently watch YT demos/tutorials/whatnot, you always see Serum, Spire, Sylenth1, then the rest of it. Even with low prices it seems quite difficult these days to attract attention.

Agree 100%. The Mangle certainly could do with some more marketing and fizzbang videos, but I'm pretty sure after being out for so many years, it's missed that boat.

Question for those who own The Mangle: does it come with more presets? The demo I'm using has like... 8.. and they're not that impressive at all.

[Psuper]

There's no additional presets, however I never even loaded one up until I saw you asking.

I never mess with presets, loops, stock sounds, etc, so rarely look past the first few if at all.

Edit: You can have 8 individual samples per instance of Mangle, all with the modulators, matrix, keymaps, position etc which is extreme beef. The sounds you can make with this is simply insane, I just wish it wasn't on/off buggy.

[XysteR]

I've had Mangle a wee while. To me Grain is generally way better

[Psuper]

I've had Mangle a wee while. To me Grain is generally way better

In what way?

The honeymoon period (by 'honeymoon period' I mean the first hour or so of exposure) Grain was instantly fun, Mangle made you work. In that way, I'd agree.

However...

Once you start dabbling and dragging those mods to the knobs and digging into the matrix, Mangle is nakedly far more loaded with advanced options thats quite easy to come to grips with. Then you can do the same 8 times in one instance all with their own or shared controls, mapping "markers' to spots within the sample so you can essentially "play" the position you want via keymaps (a request of mine during Beta, and I didn't even know Mangle existed). Topped with crazy good on the cpu. Boggling really, but not immediately obvious or intuitive.

[XysteR]

I've had Mangle a wee while. To me Grain is generally way better

In what way?

The honeymoon period (by 'honeymoon period' I mean the first hour or so of exposure) Grain was instantly fun, Mangle made you work. In that way, I'd agree.

However...

Once you start dabbling and dragging those mods to the knobs and digging into the matrix, Mangle is nakedly far more loaded with advanced options thats quite easy to come to grips with. Then you can do the same 8 times in one instance all with their own or shared controls, mapping "markers' to spots within the sample so you can essentially "play" the position you want via keymaps (a request of mine during Beta, and I didn't even know Mangle existed). Topped with crazy good on the cpu. Boggling really, but not immediately obvious or intuitive.

Grain is just really fun and deep at the same time. Mangle has been a bit troublesome for me in the past - It's still great though and definitely worth the money.

The answer to your 4k issue: 40" 4k monitor. Perfect! I used to use a 28" Samsung 4k monitor which was way too small. 40" is the sweet spot imho

[EnochLight]

I've had Mangle a wee while. To me Grain is generally way better

In what way?

The honeymoon period (by 'honeymoon period' I mean the first hour or so of exposure) Grain was instantly fun, Mangle made you work. In that way, I'd agree.

I find Grain infinitely easier to work with, and get results quick. I find Grain's built-in FX to be far more satisfying. I find Grain's envelopes (like Europa's) to be incredibly powerful. And seeing as how I'm a preset-and-tweak guy, Grain has a massive stock preset library that really make it usable.

However...

Once you start dabbling and dragging those mods to the knobs and digging into the matrix, Mangle is nakedly far more loaded with advanced options thats quite easy to come to grips with. Then you can do the same 8 times in one instance all with their own or shared controls, mapping "markers' to spots within the sample so you can essentially "play" the position you want via keymaps (a request of mine during Beta, and I didn't even know Mangle existed). Topped with crazy good on the cpu. Boggling really, but not immediately obvious or intuitive.

Not really, though. The only thing I enjoy about Mangle is that its waveform display animation, while playing the grains, looks pretty sweet (well, that and the vectorized GUI/UX that can be resized easily). But while you can load 8 sample banks into Mangle, in the context of Reason - that's meaningless. I can load as many Grains into a Combinator as I want, and have infinitely more control - mod matrix notwithstanding.

I'm trying not to bash the Mangle - for roughly twenty bucks, one could do far worse. But since I already own Reason 10 and have Grain, and really feel Grain is a far more useful granular sampler/synth, I just can't bring myself to part with my twenty bucks. If you had told me that Mangle came with a powerful library of presets that show it off, I might have considered it, though.

[Psuper]

In what way?

The honeymoon period (by 'honeymoon period' I mean the first hour or so of exposure) Grain was instantly fun, Mangle made you work. In that way, I'd agree.

However...

Once you start dabbling and dragging those mods to the knobs and digging into the matrix, Mangle is nakedly far more loaded with advanced options thats quite easy to come to grips with. Then you can do the same 8 times in one instance all with their own or shared controls, mapping "markers' to spots within the sample so you can essentially "play" the position you want via keymaps (a request of mine during Beta, and I didn't even know Mangle existed). Topped with crazy good on the cpu. Boggling really, but not immediately obvious or intuitive.

Grain is just really fun and deep at the same time. Mangle has been a bit troublesome for me in the past - It's still great though and definitely worth the money.

The answer to your 4k issue: 40" 4k monitor. Perfect! I used to use a 28" Samsung 4k monitor which was way too small. 40" is the sweet spot imho

Yes I'm torn between a large 4k monitor or 2 1440 monitors. I really don't want 2 monitors, but Reasons Rack or Mixer screen in 1440p orientated portrait is as good as it gets until they get some resizing going on with the GUI, plus I'm a stickler for 'comfy eyes' 120+hz.

However...

Once you start dabbling and dragging those mods to the knobs and digging into the matrix, Mangle is nakedly far more loaded with advanced options thats quite easy to come to grips with. Then you can do the same 8 times in one instance all with their own or shared controls, mapping "markers' to spots within the sample so you can essentially "play" the position you want via keymaps (a request of mine during Beta, and I didn't even know Mangle existed). Topped with crazy good on the cpu. Boggling really, but not immediately obvious or intuitive.

Not really, though. The only thing I enjoy about Mangle is that its waveform display animation, while playing the grains, looks pretty sweet (well, that and the vectorized GUI/UX that can be resized easily). But while you can load 8 sample banks into Mangle, in the context of Reason - that's meaningless. I can load as many Grains into a Combinator as I want, and have infinitely more control - mod matrix notwithstanding.

I'm trying not to bash the Mangle - for roughly twenty bucks, one could do far worse. But since I already own Reason 10 and have Grain, and really feel Grain is a far more useful granular sampler/synth, I just can't bring myself to part with my twenty bucks. If you had told me that Mangle came with a powerful library of presets that show it off, I might have considered it, though.

I know what you mean, and the thread has never been a comparison just an alternative. I always stated I enjoyed Grain very much, it was the only reason I considered upgrading. However having focused almost purely on Granular synths the last few weeks my impressions about Mangle just keep glowing, it really is something special.

The ease of use for those the waveforms is incredible with Mangle once your familiar with it - one simple streamlined interface to manage waveforms, immediately solo/mute samples. Mangles envelope, lfos, random generators, and sequencer modulations rival or exceed anything I've seen out there . Then with the ability to simply drag and drop those modulators onto the main controls it's an absolute breeze doing very complicated but manageable things to get that 'sound' your after in little time.

Now that the honeymoon period is over on Grain and Mangle, both have their place for me eventually - Mangle now, Grain someday.