Re:Kyma

["Dennis W. Leas" <dennis@mdbs.com>]

Congratulations Gareth!

Yes!  Kyma is the deepest I've seen.  I'd live/eat/sleep with that manual 
for a
good long while!

I have some Sounds I've written for Kyma that I'd be pleased to send you.  
I
want to polish them up a little first.  Do you plan on using your system 
live or
in-studio (or both)?

Do you have an EDP?  Several of my Sounds communicate between the Kyma and 
EDPs.
I am hugely biased toward both EDPs and Kyma.  IMHO, the EDP is first-rate
regarding the user interface.  I never realized how good it is until I 
tried
looping purely on the Kyma.  I found that I depended a lot on the EDP 
display to
tell me what is happening. E.g., I press RECORD, then look at the EDP to 
confirm
I'm really recording; likewise, with OVERDUB, MULTIPLY, etc.  Also, I use 
the
EDP time/sync display tell me where I am.  On the other hand, the EDP is a
closed system.  It does what it does and ONLY what it does.

So the EDP is great for building up loops, not so good for 
post-construction
mangling.  The Kyma is not so good for loop-construction, but fabulous for
mangling.  Even a basic Kyma system supports four channels.

My solution is to view the EDPs as input devices to the Kyma system.  I 
can use
the EDP normally, building up a loop through whatever complexity I want.  
Then I
can tap a switch and capture that loop into the Kyma.  Optionally, after 
loop
capture I can specify that the EDP should be muted, the current loop 
cleared, or
all loops cleared.  I intend to have a Kyma Sound to move a loop from Kyma 
into
the EDP but I haven't written it yet.

Not to say you can't loop purely in Kyma-land.  It's just that I miss the 
nifty
EDP interface/display.  The combination works great!  For example, I have 
Sounds
that let me slave Kyma loops to the EDP.  So the EDP acts as the master 
sync
source with the Kyma loops synchronized to the EDP.  I do this by using 
one EDP
to build up my sync track, then I use the footswitch of my second EDP 
purely to
control the Kyma (I'm shopping for a MIDI footswitch), creating the slave 
loops
directly on the Kyma system.  So I have four loops, the master from the 
EDP, and
three slave loops.  I have four speakers in a quad set-up with each loop 
in a
different speaker.  Then I have a "ClapDetector" (no, it's not a medical 
thing!
it's a Kyma Sound of mine) control the quad panning.  Each time I clap my 
hands
(or hit my claves, etc), the sounds rotate.  The faster I clap, the faster 
they
rotate.  Big time fun!

Dennis Leas
-----------------------------
dennis@mdbs.com