How can you control Kyma sounds?
Every Sound with adjustable parameters automatically generates its own Virtual Control Surface on the screen, so you can tweak parameters inside Kyma without the need for an external controller. However, an external controller with physical knobs and faders provides a finer degree of control and the option of changing more than one control at a time.
Can you save the settings on the Virtual Control Surface, so you can call them up again when you reload it?
You can save an unlimited number of named presets for each Virtual Control Surface. Once you've found a setting you like, click the Snapshot button, enter a name for the new preset, and it will be saved in the list. To recall it, simply select it from the presets list, use the Arrow keys to page through the presets, send the corresponding MIDI program change, or dial it in using the Motor Mix Rotary knob.
Can you gradually transition from one preset to another?
Yes, using Kyma's InterpolatePresets Sound, you can smoothly change any number of parameters from one preset to another over any interval of time.
Can you use external MIDI controllers or MIDI keyboards with Kyma?
Yes, anything that produces MIDI output can control Kyma Sound parameters: MIDI keyboards, MIDI fader boxes, MIDI sequencers, and other software that can produce MIDI output. A USB MIDI device can be plugged directly into the back of the Paca(rana). A device with a 5-pin MIDI output can be connected via an audio/MIDI converter.
Can I control Kyma from my sequencer?
Once you have loaded a "patch" into the Paca(rana), you can treat it just like any other MIDI device. In other words, you can control it with any MIDI source, whether a MIDI keyboard, a MIDI fader box, a sequencer, an alternative controller or some other MIDI-generating software.
Are there other kinds of controllers that work with Kyma?
There's a long list of alternative controllers that work with Kyma. With a Wacom Tablet, for example, you can use a pen as a sound controller.
The
Continuum Fingerboard is something like a cross between a keyboard and a fretless fingerboard. It generates standard key events like Key Down, Key Velocity and Key Pitch, but each value is continuously variable. What's more, it adds a third parameter to the key event: Key Timbre. These values can be mapped to control any parameter in a Kyma Sound.
Camille Troillard's
OSCulator translates the output of several control devices including the Nintendo Wiimote, the Jazz Mutant Lemur, the Space Navigator, and others into Kyma controls.
Is there a way to assign different Kyma Sounds to different MIDI channels?
The easiest way is to drop each Sound into its own track in a timeline. Each track has a MIDI input channel. Use the default assignments, or press the track's MIDI icon, and select the channel you want from a list. To make each Sound last "forever" schedule a WaitUntil module in another track at the same time.
There is also a MIDIVoice module for assigning Sounds to different MIDI channels, creating keyboard splits, specifying polyphony, or generating algorithmic streams of MIDI events.
Is Kyma multi-timbral?
Yes, you can have different "patches" running at the same time by routing them through a mixer module or placing them into different tracks in a timeline. There are 16 live MIDI input channels, and you can augment that with an unlimited number of MIDI channels read from MIDI files.
What's the polyphony?
Since the synthesis/processing architecture is variable, the number of voices is also variable. The polyphony depends upon the number of modules in your signal flow diagram and the complexity of each individual module. Some modules (like an unprocessed sample) are very simple to compute, so they take up very little processing power. Other modules (like the real-time spectral analysis/resynthesis) are more complex and require more processing power.
