The Kyma Language for Sound Design, Version 4.5

down. At all other times, the amplitude of the unprocessed original is set to zero, so it won’t contribute to
the result at all.
Double-click on mid, and look at its Scale parameter:
!Mid * (1 - !Bypass)
This is what allows you to control the contribution of the midrange to the overall mix using the !Mid
fader. Whenever the !Bypass button is held down, its value is 1; otherwise it is 0. So when !Bypass is
held down, the amplitude of mid is zero, so it contributes nothing to the final result. This is a little trick
that you can probably find other uses for in other circumstances. If you want an either-or condition, scale
one Sound’s amplitude by !aGate and scale the other one’s amplitude by (1 - !aGate).
create bypass button is a MIDIMapper used, in this case, to make !Bypass show up as a momentary
button on the virtual control surface (rather than as the default fader controller). The syntax is:
!Bypass is: (`Bypass type: #gate)
It’s called a gate, because it stays at a value of 1 for as long as you hold it open; it doesn’t just send out a
single 1 as a trigger and then return immediately to 0.
Double-click the module called hi to see its parameters. This is a DynamicRangeController set up to act as
a compressor. The idea is to compress the dynamic range of the signal so that there is less of a difference
between the smallest and the largest parts of the amplitude envelope. It does this by tracking the amplitude
envelope of the SideChain, and attenuating the Input whenever the amplitude envelope exceeds
the Threshold. It is not a uniform attenuation, however. It uses the Ratio to determine how much it
should attenuate the Input.
This particular Ratio value of 4/1, means that for every 4 dB increase in the amplitude envelope, attenuate
the Input so that it will only increase by 1 dB. AttackTime and ReleaseTime control the
responsiveness of the envelope follower on the SideChain: AttackTime the responsiveness to increases
in the amplitude of the SideChain, and ReleaseTime, the speed with which the envelope
follower reacts to decreases in the amplitude of the Input. The envelope follower introduces a small delay
in the SideChain relative to the Input. You compensate for this by delaying the Input by the time
specified in the Delay field; that way the attenuation will kick in at the right time, and not just after a
change in the Input amplitude.
Although it may seem counterintuitive that attenuating the strongest parts of the signal can make the signal
sound louder, that is just because we haven’t gotten to the last parameter yet: Gain. Once you have
compressed the range of the amplitudes, you can then apply a gain to all of the amplitudes. You can put a
lot more gain on the signal without having to worry about clipping, because the largest amplitudes have
been attenuated. The quieter parts of the signal are now louder relative to what they could have been before,
which explains why the compressor emphasizes background noise, breathing, mouth clicks, etc. For
percussive sounds, a compressor can effectively lengthen the amount of time that the sound is at a high
amplitude before it decays into the background, giving the ear and the auditory system more time to
register it as being loud, hence the “punchier” sound of drums or plucked strings when you put them
through a compressor.
Experiment with different settings on the DynamicRangeController by setting the following parameters
to the following values:
Parameter Value
Threshold !Thresh * 0.1
AttackTime !Attack * 0.1 s
ReleaseTime !Rel * 0.1 s
Delay !Del * 0.1 s
Play the DynamicRangeController, and experiment by adjusting the faders on the virtual control surface.
If you find a setting that you like, double-click on Brittle2 (the Preset module), and click on the button
labeled Set to current event values. This will recall the current settings each time you play Brittle2.
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