Symbolic Sound has announced that Kyma 7.1 is now available as a free update.

In Kyma 7.1, you can automatically generate an extensive gallery of sound design ideas, based on your own signal-flow patches, samples, or analysis files.

From there, it’s easy to map any parameter to an external physical controller so you can perform live sound-to-picture and design new musical instruments.

Kyma 7.1 also provides Galleries everywhere.  Select any Sound (signal-flow patch) and then click Gallery to automatically generate an extensive library of examples, all based on your initial idea. Or start with a sample file, spectral analysis, PSI analysis or Sound in your library, and click the Grid button to create a live matrix of sound sources and processing that you can rapidly explore and tweak.

Responsive Control — Last year, Symbolic Sound introduced support for Multidimensional Polyphonic Expression (MPE) MIDI, which they demonstrated with Roger Linn Designs’ LinnStrument. Now, Kyma 7.1 extends that support to the ROLI Seaboard RISE; just plug the RISE into the USB port on the back of the Paca(rana) and play.

Kyma 7.1 also maintains Kyma’s longstanding support for the original multidimensional polyphonic controller: the Haken Audio Continuum fingerboard. Also new with Kyma 7.1 is plug-and-play support for the Wacom Intuos Pro tablet, combining a three dimensional multitouch surface with the precision and refined motor-control afforded by the Wacom pen.

Recombinant Sound — Now you can gain entrée into the world of nonlinear acoustics, biological oscillators, chaos and more with the new, audio-rate Dynamical Systems modules introduced in Kyma 7.1. New modules include a van der Pol oscillator, Lorenz system, and Double-well potential, each of which can generate audio signals or control signals as well as being driven by other audio inputs to create delightfully unpredictable chaotic behavior.

Here’s a video highlighting some of the new features in Kyma 7.1:

Other new features in Kyma 7.1 include:

• The new Spherical Panner uses perceptual cues to give you 3d positioning and panning (elevation and azimuth) for motion-tracking VR or mixed reality applications and enhanced binaural mixes.
• A new 3d controller in the Virtual Control Surface provides three dimensions of mappable controls in a single aggregate fader. Also new in Kyma 7.1: three-dimensional and 2-dimensional faders can optionally leave a trace or a history so you can visualize the trajectory of algorithmically generated controls.
• Enhanced spectral analysis tools in Kyma 7.1 provide narrower analysis bands, additional resynthesis partials, and more accurate time-stretching.
• The new, batch spectral analysis tool for non-harmonic source material is perfect for creating vast quantities of audio assets from non-harmonic samples like textures, backgrounds, and ambiences. Once you have those analysis files, you can instantly generate a library of highly malleable additive and aggregate resynthesis examples by simply clicking the Gallery button.
• Nudging the dice — Once you have an interesting preset, nudging the dice can be a highly effective way to discover previously unimagined sounds by taking a random walk in the general vicinity of the parameter space. Shift-click on the dice icon or Shift+R to nudge the controller values by randomly generating values within 10% of the current settings.
• Generate dynamic, evolving timbres by smoothly morphing from one waveshape to another in oscillators, wave shapers, and grain clouds using new sound synthesis and processing modules: MultiOscillator, Morph3dOscillator, Interpolate3D, MultiGrainCloud, Morph3dGrainCloud, MultiWaveshaper, Morph3dWaveshaper and others.
• An optional second Virtual Control Surface (VCS) can display one set of images and controls for the audience or performers while you control another set of sound parameters using the primary Virtual Control Surface on your laptop or iPad.
• A new version of Symbolic Sound’s Kyma Control app for the Apple iPad includes a tab for activating Sounds in the Multigrid using multi-touch plus support for 128-bit IPv6 addressing (giving you approximately as many IP addresses as there are atoms in the Earth).
• Kyma 7.1 provides enhanced support for physical and external software control sources in the form of incoming message logs for MIDI and OSC as well as an OSC Tool for communicating with devices that have not yet implemented Kyma’s open protocol for bi-directional OSC communication.
• New functionality in Kyma’s real-time parameter control language, Capytalk, includes messages for auto-tuned voicing and harmonizing within live-selectable musical scales along with numerous other new messages. (For full details open the Capytalk Reference from the Kyma Help menu).

Kyma 7.1 is available as a free update starting today and can be downloaded from the Help menu in Kyma 7. See the Symbolic Sound site for more info.