The Kyma Language for Sound Design, Version 4.5

trum editor. The analysis can be done in Kyma’s Spectral Analysis tool (invoked from the Tools menu,
see Tools menu: Spectral Analysis on page 443), or using the CERL Sound Group’s Lemur program. ‡
Open the spectrum editor on a file from the File menu or by double-clicking a spectrum file in the file organizer.
(This display looks a lot better in color on the computer screen than it does on the page here.)
The band across the top is reserved for showing marker positions and track information. The large color
center area is for displaying the spectrum. The row of buttons across the bottom are for editing and display
operations. They are grouped to correspond with the F-keys on your computer keyboard.
This section is intended to be an overview of the spectrum editor. See Spectrum Editor on page 487 for a
detailed description of all of the features of the spectrum editor.
Spectrum Information
Time is shown from left to right, frequency from bottom to top, and amplitude is mapped to color (the
bright colors like yellow and green are the largest amplitude, then the blues and purples, with red (and
black) showing the smallest amplitudes. § The horizontal lines are referred to as “tracks”. Each track corresponds
to the output of a narrow bandpass filter, and you can think of a track as a measure of the amount
of energy present in the signal in that one band of frequency over time.
In order to understand how this representation of the spectrum can be used to resynthesize the original
sound, think of each of the horizontal lines as representing a “frequency envelope” for a single sine wave
oscillator. The change in the color of a track as you trace it from left-to-right corresponds to an amplitude
envelope on that oscillator. When you apply each of these frequency and amplitude envelopes to a different
oscillator and then put all of these oscillators into a mixer in order to add their results, you will hear
something very close to the original signal.
Using the Editor
To display information on a particular track, place the mouse over that track (without clicking down).
You will see the track number and the time in seconds corresponding to the mouse location, the amplitude
in dB (where 0 dB is the maximum), and the frequency in hertz.
Selecting
To select a single track, click on it. You will hear that track and its color will become brighter to indicate
that it is selected. To extend the selection, hold the Shift key down while making another selection. To
‡ Lemur was written by Kelly Fitz, Bryan Holloway, Bill Walker and Lippold Haken, and is available from
http://datura.cerl.uiuc.edu.
§ There is a button that lets you switch to showing amplitudes on the vertical axis rather than the frequency envelopes,
primarily for editing the amplitude envelopes.
65