The sound is split into small chunks called granules. These may then be processed in various ways to acheive various effects - for example, to stretch a sound (timestreching) the granules will be played back so as to overlap each other. An interesting effect can also be obtained by playing the granules backwards....
Electrocomp 500
The Electrocomp 500 is a 2-VCO, monophonic, analog synthesizer with a 3 1/2-octave,
44-note (F-C) keyboard. It was designed to compete with the Minimoog and the ARP
Odyssey. The 500 is more of a keyboard instrument, as opposed to its predesessor, the
semi-modular 101, using switches and sliders as opposed to knobs and patch cords. Its
voice structure is basically a simplified 101 design, with VCO1 outputting only a
sawtooth or square wave. The 500 features a resonant multimode VCF (switchable
between low-pass, band-pass, and high-pass) a single ADS envelope generator,
sample-and-hold, ring modulation, a mic preamp, noise, and an LFO (with six available
waveforms). The back panel featured both hi and low outputs, as well as a headphone
jack, a pitch selector (switching between one octave above or one octave below
normal), sustain pedal input, and interface connections (S1 and S2 sockets).