Real session, real audio. This is how textures get made.
Made with Biome
Press play.
Made with
Galaxy · Biome
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What Biome does
You give it a sound. Biome turns that sound into a huge, evolving texture: pads, drones, atmospheres. Any audio works. A vocal, a guitar note, a field recording of birds, a crackly vinyl loop. Biome grows it into an ecosystem.
Get started in 3 steps
1. Put Biome on a MIDI track. Biome is an instrument, so it lives on MIDI tracks, right where your synths go. Your DAW will only let it land in the right place.
2. Drag any sound into Biome. A vocal, a guitar note, a synth. Drop the audio file right onto Biome's window.
3. Play a note. Press a key, or draw a long note like C3 in the piano roll. Sound starts when the note starts and stops when it ends. Longer note, longer sound. Higher note, higher pitch.
Make it yours
Play different keys. Higher notes make your texture higher, lower notes deeper. Draw a chord and you get a pad.
Turn the knobs while it plays. Every knob morphs the texture. There are no wrong settings.
FIT. Makes your texture loop in time with your song (1, 2, 4 or 8 bars). Your sound stays at the same pitch.
FIT+PITCH. Same thing, but the pitch changes with the speed. That classic sampler sound.
Presets. The menu has two sections: FACTORY (our 16 starting points) and YOUR PRESETS (everything you save with SAVE, unlimited). Select one of yours and hit DEL to delete it. Factory presets can never be deleted, so you always have a safe home base.
Init. First in the FACTORY list. Biome exactly as it opens: every knob at its default, the whole sample playing forward. A clean slate whenever you want one.
Milky Way. The sound from the studio video above. Loop region 0.37 to 0.61 with REV on, SPACE all the way up, TONE at 0.35. Load a sustained sample and it just goes.
INIT on any knob. Right-click, two-finger tap or Cmd-click a knob and pick INIT. That one knob snaps back to the value of the preset you are on. Double-click does the same. Explore as far as you like, the way home is always one click.
A/B. Flip between two versions of your settings to hear which one is better. COPY carries your current sound over to the other slot.
Every knob, explained
Twelve knobs, no manual required. But if you want to know exactly what each one grows:
POSITION. Where in your sample the grains get picked from. Slide it to graze different parts of the sound.
SPRAY. How far grains wander from that position. Low = focused, high = the whole sample blurring together.
GRAIN SIZE. How big each little piece of sound is. Small grains sparkle and hiss, big grains stay smooth and recognizable.
PITCH. Transposes the whole texture up or down in semitones. Zero means your sample plays at its true pitch.
SHIMMER. The halo. Some grains randomly jump up a full octave, and the reverb catches them so a glowing choir floats above your sound. The higher the knob, the more grains take the leap. Heads up: this is separate from PITCH. If you hear a beautiful high ghost you can't turn off and PITCH is already at zero, SHIMMER is your knob. At zero the halo is gone completely and only your sample's true register remains.
MOTION. Slow drift of the grain position over time. This is what makes Biome feel alive instead of frozen.
SPEED. How fast the grain cloud travels through your sample. 1x is normal. Turn it down for slow motion, up to 4x for fast-forward, and all the way to zero to FREEZE: time stops and the cloud hovers on a single instant forever. Pair it with FIT for the full time-machine effect, or turn MOTION up to hear it without FIT. Fully automatable: ride it from 1x to 0 into a drop and the sample freezes mid-air.
TEXTURE. The volume of the granular cloud itself. Your fader for the ecosystem.
DUCK. The texture politely gets out of the way when your dry sound plays, up to about 30 dB. Turn it up and the cloud swells back in the gaps. Great for keeping vocals readable inside their own atmosphere.
TONE. Dark to bright, one knob. Left mellows the cloud, right lets the air through.
SPACE. The reverb the ecosystem lives in. This is what stretches shimmer grains into long glowing tails.
MIX. Dry sample vs Biome's texture. Full right is texture only.
OUTPUT. Final level, after everything. SPACE at full adds real energy, so trim this a few dB for a clean tail. Or leave it and let Biome bite. Both are on purpose.
Pro mode
Switch PLAY to DRONE and Biome plays forever, no notes needed. Old-school style. Record it to a new track while you ride the knobs, then chop the best parts.
Common questions
What is a granular synthesizer? A granular synth chops audio into tiny pieces called grains, then layers and stretches those grains into brand new sounds. Biome uses this to turn any sample, a vocal, a guitar note, a field recording, into evolving pads, drones and atmospheres.
How much is Biome? $39, one-time. Instant download after checkout. Full version, no locked knobs, no subscription.
What DAWs does Biome work in? Any macOS DAW that loads VST3 or AU plugins: Ableton Live, Logic Pro, FL Studio, GarageBand, Reaper, Studio One and more. Logic and GarageBand pick up the AU version automatically.
Is there a Windows version of Biome? Yes. Biome ships for macOS (VST3 + AU) and Windows (VST3), code-signed on both. One purchase covers both platforms.
How do I install Biome? Run the installer and it puts the VST3 and AU files in the right folders for you. Restart your DAW, rescan plugins if needed, and it shows up like any other plugin.