The Kyma Language for Sound Design, Version 4.5

Sample Editor
Getting Information on the File
To display the information stored in the header of the file, click on the file name in the organizer (or use
the up/down arrow keys to select the name of the file). This will display information specific to the file
type in the bottom portion of the organizer, including the time and date of last modification and the full
path name for the file.
Editing the Files
To edit the selected file, press Enter or double-click on the file name. This will open the appropriate
Kyma editor or, if you have specified an external editor for this file type, § it will open your preferred program
for editing files of this type.
Hearing the Files
To hear the selected file, use Ctrl+Space Bar. Kyma plays sample files directly. For analysis files
(spectrum, GA, or RE), Kyma uses the analysis to synthesize the sound. For MIDI files, Kyma constructs a
minimal “orchestra” and plays the notes of the MIDI file on those simple “instruments”.
Using the Files in Sounds
To create a Sound based on a file, drag the file name from the file organizer into a Sound file window. For
example, if you drag a samples file from the file organizer into a Sound file, it will turn into a DiskPlayer
whose file name is set to that file. If you drag a spectrum, it will turn into a SumOfSines whose Analysis0
field is set to that file and whose Duration and OnDuration fields are set to the duration of the
spectrum file. Similarly for an RE file, Kyma creates an RE resonators Sound. For a MIDI file, Kyma will
create a Mixer of several MIDIVoices, one for each channel of the MIDI file. Each of these voices has a
minimal “instrument” in it, so you can modify it to “orchestrate” the MIDI file score.
To set the value of any parameter field in the Sound editor, you can drag a file name from the file organizer
into the parameter field. If it is a parameter that makes sense for the file, the file will paste its value
for that parameter into the field. For example, if you drag a spectrum file into a Duration field, it will set
the duration of the edited Sound to be the same as the original duration of that spectrum file.
Kyma has a basic sample and waveform editor that you can access from the File menu using either
New… or Open… (and setting the file type to Sample file). In addition to the usual cut, copy, and paste
operations on samples, you can use this editor to generate single cycles of periodic waveforms (for use in
oscillators), envelope functions (which can be accessed via the FunctionGenerator module), and arbitrary
tables of numbers (which you can index into via the Waveshaper module).
§ See File Editors on page 68 for more information.
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