2CAudio Kaleidoscope | It's A Trip | Latest Update 1.1

[Andrew Souter]

Does the Architecture Vol. 1 KS version have presets for KS? besides the images, waves, and scales?

Very cool demo so far. I have a bad feeling that the money in my pocket will eventually end up in your pocket.

No presets in AV1.

The Kaleidoscope Demo contains: • 747 Total Files • 250 Presets • 347 Images • 115 Scales • 35 Waveforms

Kaleidoscope Retail contains: • 2,477 Total Files • 1,166 Presets • 945 Images • 254 Scales • 92 Waveforms

Architecture Volume 01 KS contains: • 14,059 Total Files • 7,696 Images • 4,545 Scales • 1,818 Waveforms

Architecture Waveforms 2010 contains: • 25,724 Waveforms

[Andrew Souter]

Yes, this is a favourite topic for me too. The acid test is whether the space you've laid out is a useful one. Certainly it works for ambient/soundscape material. I'm guessing there are plenty of other areas it could be useful too - the challenge is whether it's possible to get there using the interface. Certainly Simon's jams suggest some interesting uses as a tailor-made effect for specific pieces of music.

With its approach of using visuals to represent (and modulate) multi-dimensional control over a model, it seems to me that it has a lot more in common with Cycle than anything else. I love resonators - there aren't enough available yet - Tassman was a handy effect for this sort of stuff, but this takes it to the next level. Really look forward to demoing it - if my poor computer can take the strain.

And don't be put off from writing about it as lyrically as you can - after all, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." And the whole purpose of this is to create something that humans can relate to (music), so your passion for what you're doing can be a part of it too - it certainly make a refreshing change from a bullet point list of fabby features.

Thanks man. Deeply appreciated. Your site looks cool!

[Andrew Souter]

This is quite nice when used in a more subtle fashion for textures, treatments and atmospherics. Too much of that shrill additive vibe doesn't do a lot for me, but there's plenty to work with here. I'm hoping to get more interactive with the settings... tried a few things so far with mixed results... haven't looked at the manual yet.

I'm not sure yet if this is a tool I'll invest in, but the first outing was promising.

Congrats to Andrew and Denis!

Thanks man. Re "shrill additive vibe" and "EQ'ing resonances" as mentioned earlier:

The Soft control is your friend. If you are using KS purely for generative things (i.e. White is set to max) the resonators are receiving white noise.

Soft
By default each resonator in Kaleidoscope has equal gain before the effects of the Image Map. In many natural systems however, high frequencies have less energy than low frequencies. In fact much of the natural world follows something close to a “1/F rule”: gain is scaled by the reciprocal of frequency. This is effectively a pink-noise spectrum and is very common in the natural world. Indeed the human auditory system perceives pink spectrums as being roughly flat perceptually. Therefore in Kaleidoscope, it can be highly beneficial to have an easy way to scale the gain of resonators based on their respective frequency. This is exactly what the Soft controls do: Soft scales the gain of each resonator line based on its relative Tuning Ratio, and thus its frequency.

• Low Values: approach equal gain for all resonators, retaining equal energy at all resonator frequencies
• High Values: reduce the gain of high frequencies to give a less bright result

Note: the best position of the Soft control is highly dependent upon the input signal. Kaleidoscope is like a selective mirror or prism as previously explained. If it is fed white noise from the internal generator, and a wide range of resonator frequencies are used, the resulting overall frequency contour of the output will tend towards white and in such cases judicious use of the Soft control may be helpful to achieve a less bright result. If however the input signal is already deficient in high frequency content, it may be completely unnecessary to lower it even further via the Soft control. Soft is similar to an EQ; your ears are your best guide.

Soft Function
The Soft Function multi-state button offers several options to choose from that affect exactly how resonator frequency is translated into a respective line gain.

• Harmonic: an inverse harmonic power series. o At Soft = 100%, this mode produces exactly a 1/F frequency weighting.

• Exponential: an exponential curve which tends to be less severe at low frequencies and much more severe at high frequencies compared to Harmonic mode.

• Linear: a linear curve which tends to be less severe at low frequencies and much more severe at high frequencies, potentially muting some frequencies completely, compared to Exponential mode.

• Butterworth: a curve emulating the frequency response of a classic maximally flat, Butterworth low pass filter: approximately flat up to the cutoff point, and then sharply falling

• Asym Bell: an asymmetrical bell curve that actually decreases gain at very low frequencies around the fundamental, smoothly rises to a peak, and then smoothly falls back down as frequency gets significantly higher.

The value Soft knob affects the strength of these various functions. The resulting Soft transfer function is shown in the Soft Display.

Soft Power

The Soft Power multi-state button offers two additional refinements to the behavior of the Soft controls. Each state offers a variation of the current Soft Function.

• I: variation one is generally less severe
• II: variation two is generally more severe

Generally speaking large values of Soft should usually be used if you are using the white generator...

If you are processing normal audio signals, it depends completely on the incoming signal.

On normal signals, if you apply high resonance to tonal material that has lots of frequency overlap, you can get large gains at these frequencies. The way to control that is to:

0) Lower Feedback
1) Mix in some "White".
2) Try different and more extreme values of Random

[aMUSEd]

Ironically performance is terrible for me in Reaper even set to 2048, whereas so far it's working best in Studio One which normally is the worst performer (and Reaper the best). I'm wondering if there is a clash between Reaper's threading approach (which normally accounts for its brilliant performance) and Kaleidoscopes? Studio One normally being rubbish at load balancing is leaving it all to the plugin, which in this case is paying off.

[Andrew Souter]

Ironically performance is terrible for me in Reaper even set to 2048, whereas so far it's working best in Studio One which normally is the worst performer (and Reaper the best). I'm wondering if there is a clash between Reaper's threading approach (which normally accounts for its brilliant performance) and Kaleidoscopes? Studio One normally being rubbish at load balancing is leaving it all to the plugin, which in this case is paying off.

Three things:

First:
Changing buffer setting in KS does NOT happen instantly. You need to reload. Maybe even quit/close/reopen the host just to be 100% sure. (not needed really, but who knows..)

Two:
try setting your hardware/host buffer to the same value as KS.

Three:
Threading settings can be checked easily. This setting DOES change instantly and so you can try all the various threading options and see what your host/os/hardware/project nature likes best. 300% gave the best results for me, but this is largely in artificial tests where KS is the only thing in the host project.

The best threading option for all possible scenarios is unknown. So you can try the various options and see if something works best for you.

[aMUSEd]

I didn't get the 2-400% thing, does that mean 100% uses 1 core, 400 uses 4?

I made an nice meditative omm sound (from a piano played live) - is there anyway to make it more vocal sounding? - could do with a format filter

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/564 ... io/Omm.mp3

[Sampleconstruct]

Here is something more rhythmical, using a KS setting programmed from scratch on a harp sequencer (MachFive 3), as usual tweaking things on the fly, some interesting patterns emerged from that jam.

[Andrew Souter]

I didn't get the 2-400% thing, does that mean 100% uses 1 core, 400 uses 4?

from the manual:

Multi-Threading

The Multi-Threading setting will determine how many threads Kaleidoscope uses to accomplish its processing workload. Each thread should in theory be assigned to a separate CPU core, but host applications and the operating system have influence on exactly how this is handled. The Multi-Threading value is a percentage of the number of logical cores that your computer has. Due to Hyper-Threading in modern CPUs, the number of logical cores is twice the number of physical cores in the system. A current, top-of-the-line 2014 Mac Pro has 12 physical cores, and 24 Logical cores for example. Using the 100% setting in Kaleidoscope would result in it using 24 processing threads in this case. 25% would result in 6 processing threads; 400% would result in 96 processing threads.

Using values greater than 100% can result in slightly greater efficiency in some cases according to our internal testing. Values less than 100% could be useful when using Kaleidoscope live in multi-track DAWs where another 3rd-party plug-in may be monopolizing all the CPU resources of a single core. In such cases it could be helpful to use fewer threads for Kaleidoscope.

The exact optimal setting of the Multi-Threading choice varies a lot based on the host, OS, and nature of the host project including what other plug-ins are being used simultaneously. The guidelines given below are just that, and we encourage you to try different settings to see what works best with your particular circumstances. Changes to this setting are effective immediately and do not require reloading the plug-in.

100% should be the default choice if you are unclear what to choose.

[dayjob]

anyone had trouble importing the expansion?

i get this when trying to import

[Greg Houston]

Here is something more rhythmical, using a KS setting programmed from scratch on a harp sequencer (MachFive 3), as usual tweaking things on the fly, some interesting patterns emerged from that jam.

Nice tones, though it's a good example of the wonky dynamics KS so easily generates.

[Sampleconstruct]

anyone had trouble importing the expansion?

i get this when trying to import

You have to first setup a path for the resource library within the KS prefs, then you can import the expansion.

[dayjob]

anyone had trouble importing the expansion?

i get this when trying to import

You have to first setup a path for the resource library within the KS prefs, then you can import the expansion.

oh duh. had that done in the demo version. assumed it "remembered" when installing the full version over it. that's what i get for assumptions!

thanks for that

[Andrew Souter]

Here is something more rhythmical, using a KS setting programmed from scratch on a harp sequencer (MachFive 3), as usual tweaking things on the fly, some interesting patterns emerged from that jam.

Nice tones, though it's a good example of the wonky dynamics KS so easily generates.

Ya, very cool example Simon. (damn it, I am hanging out here again all day instead of writing the stuff I am supposed to be doing... I think I am a KVR addict... )

So, regarding dynamics: this is the nature of extreme resonance. If you tune resonators with extreme feedback to the exact same frequencies found in tonal inputs, these frequencies will be increased drastically. This is physics, not KS.

As mentioned a few posts back, if this is objectionable, decrease feedback, increase WHITE, and try different random settings.

White is a very neat feature. It is very important to understand:

White
Kaleidoscope‘s White control is a very important and useful special feature. It effectively mixes white noise into the input of the resonators in a specialized manner. The utility of this feature is twofold:

• White can be used to subdue extreme changes in gain in resonator output in cases when resonator tuning aligns with highly tonal input signals with narrow spectral peaks.

• White can be used at its maximum setting to transform Kaleidoscope into a pure synthesis device or instrument!

The White control works in the following manner:

• 0%: resonator input is the incoming Dry signal as expected.

• 0 < White <= 100%: the dry signal is amplitude modulated by white noise.

o At less than 100% this has the effect of significantly broadening the spectrum of the input signal, and
guaranteeing all of Kaleidoscope’s active resonators will be excited significantly.

o At exactly 100% the spectrum of the input to the resonators is exactly flat. This has the effect of producing
enveloped white noise.

o At 100% all pitch information in the input signal is “erased”, but all rhythmic information in the input is perfectly retained. Kaleidoscope’s resonators will supply a new tonality based on current Tuning settings, but rhythmic information will be an interaction between the input and Kaleidoscope’s Image Maps


• 100 < White <= 200%: pure white noise is mixed with the amplitude-modulated signal.

o At less than 200% this begins to weaken the influence of the rhythmic pulse from the input signal

o At 200% the input signal is completely gone, and only the internal white noise generator remains

o At 200% Kaleidoscope is effectively transformed into a self-contained synthesizer and sound
generator and no longer requires any input signal! This can be a very powerful way to work with Kaleidoscope.

So at 100% white rhythmic signals like this harp example become enveloped white noise that is feed into the resonators. Pitch info is erased completely and replaced by KS, but rhythmic info is retained...

no more strongly overlapping resonances.

Then use more Soft to turn turn the HFs, and if more HF loss is desired, use the normal High EQ filter.

And as I already agreed, yes, it's a great idea to put a compressor and/or limiter after KS. Maybe we will put one in there eventually... but not until I know it would be as good sonically as the great ones I already mentioned, oh, and let's add FF to that list. Also a great choice.

But anyway, I think this example sounds quite cool already without needing this. But in effort to explain more there is the info...

[Sampleconstruct]

Here is something more rhythmical, using a KS setting programmed from scratch on a harp sequencer (MachFive 3), as usual tweaking things on the fly, some interesting patterns emerged from that jam.

Nice tones, though it's a good example of the wonky dynamics KS so easily generates.

I like dynamics and have about 25 compressors here of all kinds which could and would be applied if that texture made it into a full track.

[deastman]

This looks like an amazing effect! I do love resonators and physical modeling in general. I can't wait to demo this as soon as possible... if only I weren't working all night and day at the moment with looming deadlines...

Soon, my precious... Soon...