Kyra Sound Programming
103
Waldorf Kyra
of the modulation creates additional harmonics (usually
quite a lot of them!). Those harmonics will be pleasing at
certain ratios or highly dissonant otherwise. Depending on
the sound you're looking to achieve you may want to turn
off all the sound sources in Oscillator Group 2 if you are
using a swept frequency ratio or dissonant ratio as that
will likely be a distraction. Note that the tap for the Oscilla-
tor Group 2 wavetable for FM is before the level control for
that sound source so you can mute it (set its level to zero)
along with any and all of the other sources in Oscillator
Group 2 and still achieve the FM effect from Oscillator
Group 1 sources. This may be useful if the frequency of
Oscillator Group 2 is set to be a varying inharmonic to
Oscillator Group 1. If the ratio is harmonic, you may wish
to leave some of Oscillator Group 2's sources present in the
mix.
g
You can mix the two sources (carrier and modula-
tor) and the FM amount as you wish using modula-
tors. It’s very flexible.
As mentioned, you'll need to experiment far more to get
useful sounds from FM and just like classic FM synthesi-
zers. In mentioning classic FM keyboards, they had multip-
le (typically 4 or 6) FM components (often called 'opera-
tors') but they typically only generated very simple wave-
forms such as sine waves. On Kyra, even though there are
only two components participating in FM (the two Oscilla-
tor Groups), recall that the carrier can be any of the VA
waves or any wavetable and the modulator can be any
wavetable. FM on these complex waveforms can result in
some very interesting tones but as mentioned, you'll need
to experiment extensively to get great sounds. Some wave-
table groups are more useful than others for FM purposes -
tonally simple waveforms such as those in the FM and
Overtone groups are most useful. A modulating waveform
that has a non-zero bias (i.e. is positive more than it is
negative or vice versa) will cause a pitch shift of the note
so it's best to use symmetric waves for the FM modulator.
Many (but not all) waves in the FM group are symmetric.
The carrier wave does not need to be symmetric.
g
Kyra uses FM rather than phase modulation. That’s
why the modulator needs to have zero bias to avoid
a pitch shift.
As FM and Hard Sync are contradictory processes, it does
not make sense to use FM when Hard Sync is enabled. It
won't be useful and, in most cases, will force the oscillators
out of tune. On the other hand, FM works very well with
the Ring Modulator.
In summary, FM needs a lot of experimentation to yield
good results but when it does, the sound can be very dis-
tinctive and hard to achieve without FM. It's good for
Summary of Contents for KYRA
Page 1: ...USER MANUAL ...
