How To: Use the Waldorf Kyra - A Basic Workflow Overview

[@BillyMcBride]

Hi, Marshall. I'm the guy with the Angel videos, who got the Kyra thanks to videos like yours. I for one have had much fun recording it for longer pieces which are improvised instrumental tracks. Once I got mine, I set all my multis up, and combined two channels in one to create layers. I love the sounds, which is why I purchased it.

[@downpatmusic]

Those 5 effects knobs (lower right corner of the Kyra) that control the main parameters of the effects are really handy. It makes programming your effects very fast and intuitive.

[@andreaustin3263]

Thank you for this....Great visuals for helping me program my Kyra.

[@lifelies]

Thx a lot, just got it Today and already sold to the power and flexibility. Love the build as the samo for all my Waldorfs at the studio

[@duel5071]

should i get it? on the fence

[@tobyb8511]

Hi Marshal. Good stuff. What next? Layers. LAYERS. More Layers! That's my main impression of this beast. It's a full factory race bike, hugely more tuneable than any stock road machine. On my first oscillator ... I have all the usual suspects in standard wave forms, I have sawtooth, I have wavetables, and I have hypersaw ... oh, yes, and a sub. There's noise, ring, pulse, FM in there. That's what a lot of synths I have offer me in total, and often only one or some of those options at once. Here I can have just one, some or all of them in a whole range of mixes ... And then ... I have another oscillator ... with all the same options, and de-tune compared to the first ... this is beginning to feel like poly-chaining a couple of already quite potent synths ... Now ... I have multiple filters, envelopes and LFO's to modulate that ... to make my patch. Route that with a whole rack of Fx to follow ... And that's just one Part. Seven more to follow ... WOW! Your experience and ideas in building all of these layers would be really interesting for a further video ... or perhaps videos!

[@impurfekt]

Great demo Marshal! That's one hell of a synth.

[@MarshalArnold]

Thanks Impurfekt! Am loving it!

[@LocaliLLocano]

Dude. I love your vids. I just got my Kyra yesterday. Your vids showed me its potential

[@MarshalArnold]

Congrats! Kyra is super awesome, glad the vids helped you decide to pull the trigger. It's one of my fav synths 😃

[@sonicneutronic]

very nice, 15:45 + onward sounds rich and thick....could play that all afternoon :)

[@jimijones1383]

Hello Marshal, my name is Jimi Jones, I own a KYRA since 11-19-2019, anyway if you didn't know this the new KYRA update will let you name your multi's, which can be a nice convenience if you're in to that like I am, just food for thought.

[@MarshalArnold]

Hey Jimi! Excellent, I did not know that. I did update the firmware the other day but was not sure what has been changed. That's great news though, thanks for the info!

[@jimijones1383]

@@MarshalArnold No problem.

[@truthseeker3907]

Thumbs up! :) Indiana USA.

[@MarshalArnold]

Thanks Truth Seeker, much appreciated!

[@jimijones1383]

Hello again Marshal, Jimi Jones here, I wanted to give you some more info on KYRA, if you go to the digital delay FX, and check out the "Delay Time", you can't set it in single step increments, it jumps in big chunks, i.e if you set the delay time to 357 mS and then hit the Plus key once it goes to 378 mS, and try it with some other Delay time values such as set it to 483 mS, hit the plus key once and you'll see it change to 504 mS, what I would like to see them do is update KYRA so that the Delay Time can change by single digit increments, this way a user can discreetly set the delay time for specific values relating to musical values, now the MIDI clock works great, but sometimes I like to throw off the timing a little.

[@steveh9799]

Hi Marshall, got my Kyra over the weekend and had multiple issues with unfortunately, LED’s not working, screws threaded and worse of all LFO’s not syncing correctly when set to midi. Have you tried set any LFO’s to midi rather than internal and played a sequence in your daw? Would be interested to know if this is a widespread issue that is firmware related. I did a simple cutoff to LFO and set midi to 1/16 but when I played the sequence it takes from 2-8 bars for the Kyra to register the daw clock and then speeds up or slows down to the clock. Disappointed would be an understatement. Even the box looked like it was second hand, protectors not in place so it was rattling around the box when delivered and no screen protector on the screen.

[@MarshalArnold]

Hi Steve, that's unfortunate. Have you reached out to the dealer where you bought it from? Based on your comments it sounds like they sent you a used unit. Hopfully if that's the case they didn't charge full MSRP. As for the LFOs synced to external MIDI clock, I have not yet tried that, but I'm happy to test it. I'll do that tomorrow or Tuesday depending on time and will comment back to you. If it's a bug we'll want to report it to Waldorf to make sure they are aware and can patch it for is if that's the case. Many thanks!

[@steveh9799]

Thanks Marshall, yes I have reached out to the dealer. They are reputable so it should all be fine. Let us know your findings when you get time. Interested to know if it’s a bug.

[@bilonggrisimmeri]

@@steveh9799 Thanks for alerting me that this synth may have issues, at least for early buyers. It's not one on my May Buy list t.b.h., because to me it seems to not offer anything more than more polyphony than I would ever use. The now uncool 16 part rompler synths of 20+ years ago could do that. Am I loosing belief in synthland? Yes, probably.

[@johnhorrobin8560]

Sounds like it is ex trade show in other words secondhand or ex-demo desadvantage of being one of the first in the queue. J Horrobin

[@georgegeorgio1751]

@@bilonggrisimmeri 16 part Romplers I have one ,a Juno Stage and some of the huge layered sounds are fantastic(I spent hours and came up with 256 int & 64 Performance Sounds) I also have a Prophet 08 and on some sounds the Juno Stage is sounds very similar so I don't agree with you on Romplers they have their uses so do Analog and Virtual Analogs like the Kyra , it all depends on who programs the sounds there are some amazing people out there who spend the time getting to know their synths.

[@Fallingoverbackwards]

Follow up question what do you think of the Roland XM or Jupiter X when it comes out versus the Kyra ? All of them have multi timbral XM is 4 plus drum track And likely the Jupiter X will have more like the Roland phantom.

[@MarshalArnold]

I love Roland! The new Jupiter Xm and soon to be Jupiter X are Roland juggernauts. That said the Xm if it was more a desktop/rackmount form factor I'd like it more. Am tired of mini keys, but that said that little guy will be great for a nice Roland classics in a box. Is hard to compare with have only limited time with the Xm when I was at Knobcon this year. The X would appeal to me more personally, full size keys and more hands on controls. I love roland sounds, but have them in spades, all the boutiques, JP8000, 2 V-Synths, JD800, JD990, XV-5080, Integra 7, and the Roland Cloud all are in my setup..so yeah I'm good with classic Roland sounds. Kyra is a good fit for me because I seem to get it, and think the high end fidelity is astonishing. The Xm did not wow me in that way. I would like to see something truly new from them vs constantly recycling.

[@Fallingoverbackwards]

Marshal Arnold thank you for this detailed response !! Love your videos

[@Fallingoverbackwards]

Hi Marshal, it seems like kyra and hydra all have a lack of warmth to them but like the argon8 sounds much warmer. What are your thoughts? It reminds me of guitar amps, modeler vs tube amps :)

[@MarshalArnold]

I think having digital coldness may be part of the charm with Hydrasynth and other modern digital synths. The idea may be to differentiate sound wise from the boat load of analog synths out now days. The new digital resurgence taking place just expands available possibilities! But with Kyra is sounds so incredibly clean with zero aliasing so the high end fidelity is like nothing I've heard, soo good, but yeah not as warm as my analog monsters, just different.

[@Fallingoverbackwards]

Marshal Arnold that makes a lot of sense, if you get a chance can you play with analog to hear it in a mix ?

[@emotionblur7214]

Subjective... I'm not as impressed by what I heard here as I've been with the Hydrasynth (I can get the same or even more warmth from my Virus TI2); I was into Peak's analog filter, but once I heard the Hydra digital emulations, they sound very warm to me and I might as well go full digital with it to get lots of warmth, and more types of filters.

[@jazzjeffjazzjeff]

@@emotionblur7214 hmmm, it's always subjective, words like warm. Personally, I've never heard anything I would consider warm from a Hydrasynth. That doesn't make it bad, it's just not warm.

[@aiken000]

Any chance you could do a overview of the modulation matrix of the Kyra? Are FX modulatable?

[@MarshalArnold]

Hey Ben, absolutely! I'll see if I can get that out shortly. I do know that at least some FX are able to be modulated. I created a patch using aftertouch to modulate delay time..it sounds awesome.. I'd don't recall off hand which ones are modulateable, but I'll plan to get a video on the mod matrix and cover all of that info.

[@aiken000]

@@MarshalArnold awesome thanks man! I'm digging into the manual as well :) Love the reviews so far.

[@MarshalArnold]

Excellent, yeah the manual is super helpful and getting around the Kyra isn't too bad once you understand the work flow. Glad you're enjoying the vids, more to come!

[@James-ip1tc]

I am still deciding between Quantum and the Kyra

[@MarshalArnold]

Both are great really either one is a win IMO, but may come down to what you'd prefer more. Quantum has multiple deep synth engines and 2 analog filters, but limited to only 8 voices. Kyra is a very nice sounding VA, but not as deep synthesis wise as Quantum, but excellent high end fidelity, 128 voices 8 part multi timbral. Let me know what you end up going with!

[@mit136speichenumdiewelt]

Thank you for that. I'm looking for a companion for my Toraiz SP-16. Main problem a lot of synth's now a days have sync problems like the Waldorf Blofeld, Toraiz AS-1 etc. Now i look for other solution but first the sync have to work as slave to my Toraiz SP-16. My Genre is techno. maybe this is the right baby for me ;-)

[@TheNimasan]

i dont think so, but try it.... this is exactly the right baby for film scoring ,ambient etc

[@rdsamsterdam6430]

SP16 is a great piece of hardware sampler. I am thinking to score the Kyra aswell 👏

[@synthplayer1563]

Thanks. Very good presentation. It's surely a beast.

[@PureAmbientDrone]

Do you still have your Kyra? Just wondering.

[@MarshalArnold]

What up PAD! I do indeed still have the Kyra, am using it in just about everything. Most recent was the bass in this vid kzbin.info/www/bejne/Zoeoc5l5rLmtesk more to come soon 🤘

[@quantika72]

You can never go wrong with a Waldorf...

[@TheNimasan]

words!

[@DanielFlanigan]

Any chance you can cover the hypersaw?

[@MarshalArnold]

Hi Daniel, absolutely! I plan to cover the Hypersaw in a future video. In the meantime if you haven't already check out this vid, used 2 Kyra Hypersaws for some Epic style Trance. kzbin.info/www/bejne/poWlpZmPepassKc

[@DanielFlanigan]

@@MarshalArnold Nice, I'm planning on a Kyra for Prog. House www.bandlab.com/djflan/makena-bd883d28?revId=95203dc7-20c9-e911-bcd0-2818789a0161 If you need me to do any Virus comparisons, i'm your guy. Also a member of the FB group.

[@FransvandenBergeMuziekschuur]

The Kyra has 8 stereo outputs. So that would mean 2 surround sound soundscapes. Why is this not explored?

[@tristanmichael2051]

Hi there, you said its 'pretty freaking incredible' that the Kyra has 8 part multi timbral and 128 multi storage presets... However even going back to 1990, I had sound modules with 16 part multi timbral and 500 storage slots I could store! I do believe we have gone back in functionality since then, playing the marketing game that its all analogue and cool etc, or euro rack amazing stuff. However all this 16 part/1000+ storage slots were there many many year sago, as of course were CV gates and modular. Really what can you do with a modular synth except use it to make blips and farts? I don't seee many pro composers using them for anything more to tweak and play with in their breaks... and to look pretty with LED's

[@tristanmichael2051]

But I do like the Kyra and your presentation is professional

[@MarshalArnold]

Ah I may have misspoke, Kyra has thousands of presets.. It's 128 voice though. Also, 8 part multitimbral with high quality DACs or streaming in pure digital glory over a single USB cable. The only synth that compares to it is the Virus TI 2, and while I love the virus Kyra with its full FPGA setup sounds better in many instances, absolutely zero aliasing.. Again, only other FPGA synths can compare, Summit comes to mind, but that synth is only 8 voices. I hear ya, there have been many awesome multitimbral synths, but Kyra combines that with hi quality DACs/streaming over USB and built like a tank. As for modular, to me while has inivative and new modules that hit the market are in many ways to me really going backwards in terms of manually patching. The absence of total recall on patch creation is an issue for me personally, but many who I know that are I to modular really aren't into it for that so is good there's something for everyone out there!

[@emotionblur7214]

Unlike the Hydrasynth, this machine needs an editor so badly.

[@offtheheezie]

There is already one being developed and the lite version is going to be released very soon apparently.

[@MarshalArnold]

Agreed!

[@CharlesFerraro]

Daniel Linnstaedt who’s making the synth editor? I heard waldorf was going third party which I wouldn’t be that into.

[@offtheheezie]

@@CharlesFerraro Yeah its third party. From a thread on Gearslutz: "Mystery Island Music has an editor coming out this month for the Kyra. I got a newsletter from the a few weeks ago about it. They got a new office so it was put on hold. This was in the newsletter. First of all, we are going to finish off Waldorf Kyra editor, which is late due to our ever lasting move. You can expect the Editor to make the touchdown in December 2019!"

[@CharlesFerraro]

@@offtheheezie Thanks for the reply. Hopefully it's a full SysEx editor / patch librarian and not something that can't access some parameters. Bonus points if it can be used in a plug-in format.