Built for the stage. Change sounds mid-chord without a gap, with two patches, 64 Set pads and nanoKONTROL2 at hand.
In KiMiA, the next sound loads while the last one plays on. Notes you are holding finish in their own sound, with their own effects and tails; the next notes play the new one. Try it: hold keys, switch pads, watch the line.
Largest step in the output after the last switch: —
Load a set, press a pad, play. Everything you need on a gig is one press away.
Two full sounds of four layers each, every one with its own insert effects, Delay, Reverb, Shimmer and stored level.
Sixteen pads on each of four pages. A pad is a snapshot of what plays: Patch 1, Patch 2, the mix and the tempo. The number keys 1 to 0 recall the first ten.
With Seamless switch on, held and pedalled notes and their delay and reverb tails ring on with their old sounds while new notes play the pad’s. Off, a patch whose sound changes fades out in 30 ms.
Set pads on the Korg nanoKONTROL2’s S, M and R buttons, and its knobs and sliders taught to the patch in focus. Any MIDI button or footswitch can step pages or recall a pad.
A look-ahead limiter at −0.1 dBFS sits at the end of the output.
Choose 64, 128, 256 or 512 frames. 64 frames at 44.1 kHz is a 1.5 ms buffer.
Free for the first months on macOS. Also an Audio Unit for Logic Pro and MainStage, and a VST3 for Ableton Live and Cubase.
Setup in Live and Logic: section 09 →KiMiA played live on Opac's songs, starting with “Sabotor”.
“That synth sounds just like the missing piece I never thought about even having until I heard it.”
“You understood how the song slowly builds up, and then you kept it there… I felt the air moving.”
“It gave me a lot of power.”
“The level of energy that synthesizer gave me, it was insane.”
“I want that sound in my music, 100%.”
Five engines, four layers per patch, two patches at once. More than enough for making music.
Two oscillators: Sine, Triangle, Saw, Pulse, Harmonic or Supersaw, plus a sub and noise. Then seven filters: Low-pass, High-pass, Band-pass, Notch, Ladder, Comb and Vowel.
Six families: Warm, Vocal, Metallic, Aggressive, Atmospheric and Pure. Sweep Position through the frames and warp them with Bend, Sync, Fold, Mirror or Quant. Two per layer.
Set each operator by ratio or by fixed frequency, give each its own envelope, and pick one of sixteen algorithms, from Pure Additive to Deep Feedback.
A hammer or a mallet strikes a model: tine electric piano, reed electric piano, marimba, vibraphone, xylophone, glockenspiel, bell or kalimba. Or a string is plucked or struck: harp, guitar, clavi. Hardness, Tone, Bark and Voicing do the rest.
Tap a bar to strike it.
Twelve Analog instruments on their General MIDI keys, each with Tune, Decay, Tone and Level, and Snappy on the snare. Or the recorded Acoustic kit: fifteen pieces and a Room mic.
Two screenshots from the Mac app.
KiMiA was designed by a professional keyboardist and pianist who plays live. It is built for the moment a song turns and the sound has to change without the music stopping: the held chord rings on, the next note is already the new sound.
Underneath sits deep sound design, more than enough for making music: five engines, two patches at once and a full set of effects. On stage, it stays out of the way.
A browser voice with KiMiA's own controls. Play keys A to ; on your keyboard, or tap.
26 banks, 729 sounds, all made in KiMiA.
Twenty sounds that move on their own: whale song, warp drives, clockwork and a black hole.
Modelled electric pianos, tine and reed, in every mood, with vibes, marimba, celesta and kalimba.
A gig in one bank: grands, clavs, drawbars, guitars, basses and a small orchestra.
Leads, pads, comps and eight arpeggios, built to sit beside a second patch.
Hyper saws, drill 808s, log drums, garage bass and plucks from four continents.
Late-session keys, a small score desk and a few toys for the quiet end of the night.
Fifty band-ready sounds: pianos, tines, organs, guitars, basses, comps, brass and winds.
Fifty beds that move on their own: choirs, clouds, string sections and quiet rooms.
Mono leads, brass, winds, arpeggios and FM tines to ride through a solo.
Plucks, mallets, koto, sitar and santur, plus log drums and modern hooks.
Five entrance rises that swell, hold and resolve as the lights come up.
A tuned comb pluck, a metallic pad, an open-vowel choir and a talking lead.
Five classic FM electric pianos and five new takes, from roadhouse bark to felt.
Ten FM pianos with a two-stage decay, from warm canvas to bright porcelain.
Thirty playable effects: sirens, cathedral glitches, cricket choirs and glass rain.
Thirty more: modem ghosts, rubber acid, underwater bells and a velvet black hole.
Eight section hits and twelve sustained ensembles, chamber to fortissimo.
Stage tines and wide stereo tines, rosewood marimba, bronze bells and a kalimba ensemble, all modelled.
Fifteen club-weight stacks and five cutting mono leads.
Five thick techno bodies, each under a slow flanger that evolves over 8 to 33 seconds.
Ten cinematic pads with soft keys, strings, bells and a warm bass bed.
Ten FM pianos where the bright partial dies and a different tone rings on.
Ten FM tines: the attack is the tine, and a held note dies away in about ten seconds.
Forty noises, no melodies: forest, rain, thunder, a jammed radio and an outer planet.
Twenty sounds for a Sunday set: ballad piano, verse tines, hymn strings and chapel organ.
Fourteen drum kit sounds built on KiMiA's analog drum engine.
Rendered straight from the KiMiA engine and level-matched, so you compare sounds, not volume.
Four-operator FM tines from Tine Studies III, played as a progression.
Walnut Grand and Silk Veil as one Dual Patch: two full sounds played together.
VST3 and AU. Load it like any other instrument; the whole sound saves with your project.
KiMiA runs standalone on your Mac and as VST3 and AU instruments in your DAW.
macOS 14 or later, Apple Silicon. The download is not open yet.
Play Squelch and drag the curve: left and right for cutoff, up and down for resonance. The course goes deeper, with two modules on cutoff and resonance.
Modules 3 and 4 cover cutoff and resonance, the two moves you just made.
Course site · Coming soonNew banks, the course and release news. Not often.
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