GRNi Lite is a free granular sampler. Drop a recording on the waveform, set the note it's in, and play it on the keys. Every note you hold grows its own cloud of grains from the recording.

It runs the same grain engine as the paid GRNi, with three controls on the front instead of the full instrument.

Three controls

• ROOT, C to B. The note your sample is in, so the keyboard plays it in tune. Samples are almost never at C, so this is the one to set first.
• SIZE, 10 to 500 ms. How long each grain is. Short grains sound grainy and glitchy, long grains smooth out into pads.
• DENSITY, 0.5 to 200 grains per second per note. From a sparse crackle to a solid cloud.
• All three can be automated in your DAW.

The waveform

• Drop a WAV, AIFF, FLAC, OGG or MP3, or click LOAD.
• Drag the edges of the highlighted selection to choose which part of the sample the grains play from. Zoom in for fine edits.
• A glow shows where each note is reading from as you play.
• Each held note gets its own stream of grains, so chords build up.

Buffer library

Save the sample and its selection under a name and load it back in any project. The library folder is shared with the full GRNi, so everything saved in Lite carries over.

Specs

• Free, permanently. No serial, no account, no trial timer.
• Instrument plugin: VST3 and CLAP on Windows, macOS and Linux, plus AU on macOS. No standalone app.
• Windows 10 or later. macOS 10.13 or later, native on Intel and Apple Silicon, signed and notarized. Linux with ALSA or JACK.
• On-screen keyboard from C2 to C7, plus any MIDI controller.
• Resizable window.
• Commercial use included.

The full GRNi

GRNi adds a second sample layer with BLEND, which decides grain by grain which layer each new grain reads from; SCALE mode with ten scales; mono, legato and poly voicing with portamento; MPE; 3 LFOs, 3 envelopes and 4 macros with an XY pad; a 10-slot FX rack; 52 factory presets that never touch your sample; and a standalone app. $44.99, with a 14-day free trial.

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