The Kyma Language for Sound Design, Version 4.5

Single Musical Tones
You can also morph between analyses of single tones from musical instruments. For example, harp to ah
(kbd) uses the function
1 - (!KeyDown ramp: 1.5 s)
to morph from an analysis of a harp tone to an analysis of someone singing “ah” each time a MIDI key
goes down.
You can also create more subtle morphs between different tones played on the same instrument but in
different frequency ranges. As an example, take a look at KBD morph TRB GA. This examples uses GA
synthesis to morph between three spectra; the morph is controlled by the MIDI key being played. For example,
the morph between 3 c sharp and 4 d sharp is:
(!KeyNumber - 3 c sharp removeUnits) / (4 d sharp - 3 c sharp) removeUnits
or, to describe it another way,
/
or the ratio of where the current key number is relative to the low end of the pitch range to the full pitch
range.
How to do your own Morphs
But enough of these examples; what you really want is to try morphing your own samples, so here is a
step-by-step example. ‡
I. Selecting and Preparing the Samples
The more characteristics the samples share, the smoother (although less dramatic) the morph will be.
Generally speaking, it is best to choose samples that are about the same length, that are normalized and
compressed to remove extreme amplitude changes, and, particularly if you are trying to morph speech,
that are extremely well synchronized with each other in time. In fact, if you have the option, you should
record one performer first and have the second performer listen to that track while recording the second
track, trying to “lip synch” (ear synch?) as closely as they can to the first performer.
In the current version of Kyma, you will be much happier if you limit your samples to about six seconds
or less in duration. If you intend to morph a long stretch of speech or music, it is best to look for the natural
breaks in the speaking or singing (where the performer took a breath or paused, or the silence just
before a consonant or new attack) and to split the sample up into sections bounded by these natural
breaks. Then you can either do a string of partial morphs or morph during one of the sections in the middle.
While you would be well-advised to follow these guidelines for your first few morphs, once you have
gotten a feel for how it works, you can break with some of the guidelines and start experimenting and
discovering your own morphing techniques (the concept of morphing is still new and there is room for
innovation and invention!)
II. Analyzing the Samples
For this example, let’s use the recordings of Kurt and Carla speaking the word “morphing”. To analyze,
you can use the spectral analysis from Kyma’s Tool menu, or, if you are on the Macintosh, you can use a
third party shareware program called Lemur § which is capable of exporting analysis files for Kyma.
1. Open the spectral analysis tool by choosing Spectral Analysis from the Tools menu.
‡ While the Spectral Analysis tool works on two-card systems, only a few sine wave oscillators can be used to audition
the real-time analysis-resynthesis to test the parameters. You can still do the analysis and listen to the full
resynthesis after producing the spectrum file, or you can use Lemur to do the analyses in non-real-time. If you plan
to do a lot of analysis/resynthesis, we recommend that you use a 3-card system as the minimum configuration.
§ Lemur was written by Kelly Fitz, Bryan Holloway, Bill Walker, and Lippold Haken and is available for downloading
from their web site at http://datura.cerl.uiuc.edu. At this web site, you can also find Lime, a music
notation program for both Macintosh and Windows written by Lippold Haken and Dorothea Blostein.
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