Cumulus is a granular-approach, virtual sampler instrument created by Loomer for Computer Music Magazine. Although currently unavailable, it's an unique software synthesizer with some interesting capabilities, and worth mentioning here. (Let's hope Computer Music will decide to re-issue it for linux in the future!)
Cumulus can be used in realtime using a midi keyboard, or as a 32-step sequencer, which can also be synced to a host clock. After loading a sample (in wav and aiff formats only) into the main upper GUI area, Cumulus uses anywhere from one to eight "scenes" to "read" set areas of the sample, either forward, backwards, or randomly. Each of the eight scenes is color-coded; when working with the parameters in a given scene, a respectively-colored marker can be set at any point along the audio sample, as well as the area of the sample that is to be read. A scene can be copied and pasted to any of the other seven scenes, and a "link" button will force any modifications made to the current scene to be applied to all the other scenes as well.
Scene control parameters include: Mode (cloud or sync grain control), Direction and Switch (trigger or gate). Each scene also provides controls for pitch, speed (forward and backward), grain size and panning (with respective jitter controls for each of these), shape (single-grain envelope shape, ranging from rectangular to cosine), volume, grain density and amplitude decay.
Cumulus also provides a section for control of note division, number of steps and tempo, as well as a reverb effect. As with all Loomer products, preset saving, loading and organizing is intuitive and clearly arranged. Most parameters are midi-CC-assignable. The Cumulus package also includes a manual.
As with all samplers, Cumulus relies on samples for synthesis. However, together with standard preset saving, where samples must remain in their original directory, Cumulus also provides a very useful 'Save-Presets-And-Samples' saving option that premits users to share presets by including the sample in the saved file.
