Presets
A preset is a complete saved sound. Loading a preset sets every control in Kiwisynth at once. The factory presets are a library of ready-made sounds, and a good way to learn the instrument is to load one and look at how it is built. To build a sound from scratch instead, see the Authoring instruments pages, which walk through making a bass, lead, pad, pluck or set of keys step by step.
Loading presets
The bar along the bottom of the window shows the current preset name. The arrows beside it step to the previous or next preset.
Starting from a blank slate
The New button on the bottom bar clears everything back to a plain starting point. Every control returns to its default, and all modulation, macros and scripting are removed, so you begin from a single unshaped oscillator. This is the patch to reach for when you want to build a sound from nothing rather than adjust an existing one. It replaces whatever you had loaded, so save your current sound first if you want to keep it.
The same blank slate is also the first entry, named Init, in the preset selector at the top of the window. Pick it like any other preset when you would rather start clean. The previous and next arrows step through the actual presets and skip past Init.
The browser
The browser is a fuller way to find a sound. It can filter the library so you see only what you want.
- By category: bass, keys, lead, pad, percussion, pluck or texture.
- By how involved the patch is, from simple to advanced.
- By character words such as warm, bright, dark or evolving.
Narrowed this way, you audition a few fitting sounds instead of scrolling past all of them.
Saving your own
The save button on the bottom bar stores the current sound as a preset, with a name and a category you choose. Your saved presets sit alongside the factory ones. There is also an export option for sharing a preset as a file.
A preset that uses an imported wavetable (see Importing your own wavetables on
the Oscillators page) is saved as a .kwsz file, which carries the audio data
inside it so the sound travels with the preset. Everything else saves as the
usual .kwpreset. Both load and share the same way.
Morphing between two presets
Morph lets you travel between two sounds. Save one sound to slot A and another to slot B, then move the slider between them. Kiwisynth blends the two, including their movement, so the in-between positions are real sounds in their own right. It is a fast way to find something you would not have built by hand.
Section presets
A preset does not have to be the whole sound. Several sections, such as the oscillators, the filter and the effects, have their own small preset menu. You can borrow just the filter from one sound, or just the modulation, and keep the rest of your patch.
Reshaping a patch
Two tools change a patch for you.
The randomiser changes only the movement of a patch, the modulation, and leaves the base sound alone. You choose how far it goes, from a gentle nudge to a complete rewire.
Animate This adds a fitting movement to a single control with one click. Find it by right-clicking a control. It looks at what you clicked and chooses a sensible movement for it.