Miya is a distortion plug-in with graphical and detailed information provided about the exact processing taking place as you adjust any of the parameters. In addition to the control panel, there Is a large, resizable Visualizer window, an oscilloscope to show the shape of the audio's distorted waveforms, the constituents of the wave's harmonic content and the moment of the wave's zero-axis crossing where the signal momentarily has no output at every half cycle.
The Duty Cycle control sets the ratio between the time a wave is on compared to when it is off—expressed as a percentage. I found understanding Miya much easier when I ran a low frequency sine wave through it. However, it does NOT self-sync to the frequency of incoming signals freezing its constant horizontal motion.
You can see the incoming signal's shape in real-time and for percussive sounds, there are controls to adjust the waves' transient shape and character with familiar Threshold and Gate controls.
You may "remix" the individual harmonic blend of any complex stereo audio with Miya. Starting with the dominant fundamental frequency the 1st, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th harmonics each have individual mixer faders. There are controls for Miya's generated output, a level meter, a Wet/Dry mixer, plus Hi/Lo analog style filters are provided.
Understanding Miya's parameters is key to getting the most out of this wavelet processor; and the included presets are a good way to see how each of these parameters work and affect the sound.
Since Miya is not yet available as an AAX-DSP version, its processing delay is unavoidable and not compensated for—too bad because it would preclude its use for mixing its output along with drums or percussion instruments to avoid polarity and phasing problems.
I did find great uses for sound designs where exact timing was not crucial. I liked it on a stereo Hammond organ pad that was just too clean and hi-fi sounding. You can do some amazingly responsive computer voice or vocoder sounds since the Synthesizer and Filter sections offer a lot of interesting possibilities. A new and completely different plug-in, it sells for $49 MSRP.
dear-reality.com/products/miya
