kyma•tweaky: Learn QuickTips

The students at CCMIX came up with this one:

When using the Sound editor, always start with an Annotation as the right most Sound. Not only does this encourage the habit of leaving notes and explanations for yourself, but when you make changes to the signal flow, it won't change the icon or name of the entire Sound.

-- CarlaScaletti - 19 Nov 2003

If you drag a Sound into a parameter field of a second sound, it will copy the value from the matching field from the first sound.

-- BenPhenix - 21 Nov 2003

You can "calibrate" the value of an external controller inside Kyma using an into: table. For example, say you had a wand-style controller that was sending Kyma MIDI continuous controller number 2 but the values from the wand never got all the way down to 0 or all the way up to 1 (say its range was 0.1 to 0.9 instead). In the parameter field where you are using the controller, you could type:

!cc02 into: #({0.1@0} {0.5@0.5} {0.9@1.0})

This would map an input controller value of 0.1 down to a true value of 0. And it would map an input controller value of 0.9 up to 1.0. Input value inbetween will be linearly interpolated.

-- CarlaScaletti - 25 Nov 2003

Perhaps a Radio Baton? =) This calibration feature is gold! I use it in all my Baton sounds! Thanks!

TobiasEnhus - 08 Dec 2003

Not really a Kyma tip, but useful though.

On Mac OS X, when you read the PDF version of the Kyma Revealed book in the Preview application (for example), many examples can be copied and pasted into Kyma, but many columns are selected at the same time. If you want to select only the portion of code that you need, hold the Option key (aka Alt key) and drag a selection around the text. You can now copy the relevant text with the Copy command. This tip also applies for other Mac OS X 10.4 (and higher) applications.

-- CamilleTroillard - 20 Jan 2007

Any parameter that is recorded in the timeline can be extracted for use as an controller in another sound. Save the timeline into a sound file by opening a new sound file and pasting the timeline there (after playing a timeline, Kyma creates a paste-able version of it in the clipboard). Now open up the pasted sound in the sound editor, and find a parameter that uses a hot variable that is automated in the timeline. Kyma has created a time-dependent function (using an into: expression with an array) for the automated variable's value. You can cut and paste this function into other sounds. The advantage of this is that whereas the timeline automation can control a single instance of this controller (one instance for the entire sound and all of its MIDI voices), the capytalk expression can be used anywhere, for example, as an amplitude envelope on a single oscillator.

-- LuddyHarrison - 11 Oct 2007

A trick related to the one above: InterpolatePresets? is great for modulating an entire sound, but it cannot be used to modulate the individual voices of a polyphonic sound; the hot values that it controls are global to the sound. However, if you expand an InterpolatePreset? sound (using CMD+E), and examine the parameter fields, you will find that each hot variable has been replaced by an into: expression; Kyma creates an array of the values that the hot variable has in each of the presets. You can cut and paste this expression to create preset interpolation within an individual voice, e.g., !KeyVelocity into: #(... values taken from presets ...).

-- LuddyHarrison - 22 Dec 2007

[deleted my last tip as it was already done in a prototype!]

Cache files are a handy way to bounce down sounds in Kyma for subsequent mixing in a DAW. In Logic for example, simple add the cache files to the project via the Audio Bin window, drag them to an audio track at the same time position that they had in the Kyma timeline, and mix away.

-- LuddyHarrison - 03 Feb 2008

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