First Kyma Guitar Patch

BobTheDog · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 2:10 pm Post subject: First Kyma Guitar Patch

Well I have modified one of the samples slightly and come up with this.

Currently just working from a normal guitar 6 channel one from RMC to follow sometime.

Pitch and amplitude controlling saw osc wave and then vocoded with original guitar audio.

Sounds quite weird.

I think this Kyma malarky is going to be fun.

Cheers

Andy

FirstKymaGtrSynth.mp3

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Bit rough but its a start!

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jksuperstar · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 5:38 pm Post subject:

Got a screen capture of the patch? Interested in where the pitch and amplitude come from...

BobTheDog · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 9:13 pm Post subject:

Pitch and amplitude are coming from the guitar via an Amplitude Follower and a Frequency Tracker. So the sound is being played by the guitar.

A Saw Oscillator is then mixed with some white noise and this is the input to a Vocoder which is then modulated by the original audio from the guitar.

Final stage is another compressor in the images this is called GtrVocoderSynth due to my misunderstanding of how to name Kyma patches.

Cheers

Andy

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jksuperstar · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 9:43 pm Post subject:

Cool, thanks! Looks a lot like modules found in the Nord. I'd move the input to the amplitude envelope to the initial input, as some of those dynamics are probably lost in the compressor (I have that problem with my bass using env. filters).

BobTheDog · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 10:09 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the tip, I will give it a go.

Going through the manual now, seems like quite a bit to learn!

jksuperstar · Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 5:31 pm Post subject:

Bob, please keep me posted on your progress & thoughts of the Kyma to this application. I'm in the midst of consolidating a bunch of gear, and the Kyma is a top candidate to replace most of it. And what I'd like to do I think is similar to what your doing at the moment with the guitar.

BobTheDog · Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 10:39 pm Post subject:

No Problem.

Still working my way through the manual which is quite large.

So Far I am very impressed.

What sort of area would you like to know about?

jksuperstar · Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 11:13 pm Post subject:

I guess your impression of learning curve, and idea -> patch time. Over all,I'm looking for a tool that allows me to grow from the Nord into something that can support the modular mentality, flexibility, but allow for even more power & possibilities than the Nord G2 provided, be real-time, and be more stable than the million VST effects out there.

BobTheDog · Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 3:13 am Post subject:

Well there is a lot to learn but I am not finding it hard going.

It makes more sense to me than the G2 does, much more than Reaktor and a huge amount more than MAX/MSP!

I think this is probably because it is more algorithmic in the way it works.

You can use SmallTalk scripts to set up sounds and parameters and even to create sounds, SmallTalk cannot run on the Pacarana.

CapyTalk is a way of having complex expressions that run on the Pacarana. This is used with "Hot" params that you can change via a gui or with midi. Hot params start with a !

SmallTalk and CapyTalk can be combined.

For instance the following could be used for an amplitudes parameter which expects an array, for example a 16 band EQ:

{(1 to: 16) collect: [:i | !Band suffix2: i]}

What this does in create 16 hot parameters, !Band01, !Band02, !Band03 .. !Band16 and place them in an array.

So the gui would have 16 controls (faders by default) which we can change via the mouse or midi to affect the values in the array on the Pacarana.

Staying with the 16 band EQ example we could set the frequency of each band as follows:

{(1 to: 16) collect: [:i | !FreqLow hz nn + (i * 4 nn)]}

!FreqLow is the start frequency and is a hot parameter that can be controlled via midi or a gui.

16 pitch values are generated from this, each one 4 half steps higher than the previous.

Or if we wanted to have each band of the eq seperated by a user defined interval with the base freq being defined via a midi keyboard note we could do this:

{(1 to: 16) collect: [:i | !KeyPitch + (i - 1 * !Interval)]}

!KeyPitch is set from midi and is a combination of the last note played and pitchbend.

!Interval is a hot param that can be set via a midi message or using a gui.

Now this sort of thing makes sense to me, but I come from a Software background, others may find it confusing.

So this 16 band Eq, with user defined intervals which can be "played" from a keyboard took a couple of minutes to knock together, image included.

Andy

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BobTheDog · Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 3:23 am Post subject:

Also something worth noting is that Pacarana will not work unless a computer is attached running Kyma, so it cannot be used as a standalone box like the G2 can.

Also you can purchase the manual/book "Kyma X Revealed!" from SymbolicSound for $35, probably worth you doing this.

jksuperstar · Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 12:37 pm Post subject:

wow, this is some heavy duty stuff! The gui almost seems like a guide, rather than where the action really takes place. It seems like more is happening below the surface than just the gui. This seems like it'd be a bit slower than other tools, but I can understand the relation of this to DSP code (I think similarly having been designing embedded systems for too long.)

Hmmmm, lots to think about. But I guess your right, the book is the next step.

bphenix · Joined: Apr 20, 2009 Posts: 17 Location: austin, tx

BobTheDog · Posted: Thu May 07, 2009 6:28 am Post subject:

Progress eh!

buzzr · Posted: Thu May 07, 2009 6:41 am Post subject:

Total customization is what Kyma is about. Buy the book first, well worth it in more ways then one. Wink

buzzr · Posted: Thu May 07, 2009 7:51 am Post subject:

Also buy "The computer music tutorial" by Curtis Roads for more explanation of the kinds of synthesis that you can do in Kyma.

jksuperstar · Posted: Thu May 07, 2009 2:13 pm Post subject:

Ok, then it IS a lot closer to coding than I had first thought. This is almost exactly what I'm after. I don't want to spend so much time on coding that I might as well just develop on my Analog Devices Blackfin board! I want that power, but time is money, and with this I can spend a lot less time in development.

I am a bit nervous about the fans & heatsinks & noise. Heat is the death of silicon over time. How much time, I can't say. But I'd like to get at least 5 years, if not 10 out of a box like this.

BobTheDog · Posted: Thu May 07, 2009 10:22 pm Post subject:

One thing to realise at the moment is that you can not write DSP code for the Pacarana.

The coding is limited to setting up and affecting parameters in existing DSP code.

SymbolicSound are working on an SDK to enable C to be used to write DSP code (micro sounds which run on the Pacarana) and also Kyma Sounds (which run on the host). They have a lot of work to do before this is made available.

The old Capy SDK doesn't work for the Pacarana or Paca.

jksuperstar · Posted: Thu May 07, 2009 10:32 pm Post subject:

That understandable, and actually a good thing. There seems to be plenty of power with what exists already, and the fact that there are large plans for the future, well, it's always nice to have an instrument that grows with you.

For me, this would be one hell of a paradigm shift. So, I'm carefully considering what exactly it is I want to do, and just as importantly, how to do it. Building & prototyping new instruments has always been a fascination, and I don't think I could do any better than a Kyma system. Given the time I actually have.

Acoustic Interloper · Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 6:49 pm Post subject:

BobTheDog · Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 2:01 am Post subject:

GovernorSilver · Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 8:43 am Post subject:

How difficult would it be to create a Kyma patch that acts like an Electro-Harmonix HOG pedal?

One of the amazing achievements of the HOG design was usable pitch shifting based on polyphonic input. In other words, it's a pitch shifter that works with chords!

jksuperstar · Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 9:01 am Post subject:

I think this is available in the G2 as the pitch shifter module? (or is the POG more like the Freq shifter module?)

BobTheDog · Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 9:57 am Post subject:

robsol · Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 10:19 am Post subject:

Do the pub first, otherwise you'll never get it done. Wink