Considering Kyma

[deastman]

Good grief... I find myself right now seriously considering a Kyma system? What in the world is wrong with me?!?

I’ve looked at these sooo many times over the years. My conclusion was always that I didn’t have enough time to invest into mastering such a complex system to justify the expense. But I’ve been looking at all the updates to Kyma7, and I really like what they’ve done. There are so many ways now of randomly/algorithmically generating entire new patches (“sounds” in their lingo) that it’s possible to produce a lifetime of new material without ever editing a patch. Of course, that’s also a great learning tool for modifying existing patches. I love that you can drop a sample into it and instantly have a whole gallery of patches generated which use and process and mangle your sample in interesting ways, with a custom UI generated to control the parameters of each patch. Also a new set of randomly generated sounds is presented to you each day as a source of inspiration.

It’s a ridiculous amount of money, which I can’t really justify as a hobby musician. On the other hand, I’m not getting any younger, and if I ever intend to get into Kyma, I can’t imagine there will be a better time to do it later on. Maybe this is what all those grey haired guys with huge Buchla systems say to themselves before taking the plunge.

[Michael L]

Good grief... I find myself right now seriously considering a Kyma system? What in the world is wrong with me?!? It’s a ridiculous amount of money. On the other hand, I can’t imagine there will be a better time to do it later on.

Hmmm, a classic case of FOMO I'm afraid. I agree its not the money, its the time. Perhaps ask if you can sit in on a couple of Kyma Kata sessions each week to see if programming appeals to you:
https://news.symbolicsound.com/2020/05/ ... -learning/

[deastman]

I don’t think it’s FOMO. I’ve spent years with MaxMSP, Reaktor, and textual programming languages, as well as Eurorack modular, Continuum, and others. Kyma definitely appeals to my penchant for complexity. But I’ve also known I didn’t have the time to invest in Capytalk and truly mastering the tool. However, with the galleries, the multigrid, etc., I feel like I could get a lot more mileage out of it even without diving deep. And call it a midlife crisis, but I’ll be 51 this year, and I always thought that I’d get into Kyma “someday”. If not now, then when?

A bigger question for me is how much processing power I would really need. Would a 1gb Paca be good enough, or would my tendency to push things to extreme leave me feeling disappointed without an 8Gb Pacarana?

[anomandaris1]

It looks like almost dead and outdated platform.
Reaktor and Max already have too many "patches" in the user libraries to explore without any coding required, while being way cheaper.
And time investment... it will take years just with practical end result = learning how to make slightly more original sound effects for your songs, I guess.

[deastman]

Yeah I’ve used these same arguments for ages. I wouldn’t call it a dead or outdated platform by any stretch, because it’s still more powerful as whole than any other given tool on the market. But it has definitely developed in parallel to and in isolation from the rest of the market. It doesn’t conform to UI standards that we’ve all grown accustomed to, and I can see that becoming a potential source of irritation.

What appeals to me is primarily the extremely malleable way of manipulating and morphing samples audio. I find myself thinking “Well, if I processed my audio through Melodyne and Paulstretch and a granular system and Zynaptiq Morph and some other effects and a bunch of parameter automation, I could get something similar to what I could do with a single sound block in Kyma.”

Either way, it’s a big decision and not one I’m going to rush into.

[Michael L]

I didn’t have the time to invest in Capytalk and truly mastering the tool.

If Kyma supports your core reason for being (as it seems to do for the Kyma Kata) then make time for it.

[deastman]

I didn’t have the time to invest in Capytalk and truly mastering the tool.

If Kyma supports your core reason for being (as it seems to do for the Kyma Kata) then make time for it.

If only it were that simple! My day job is in 3D animation, and I’m trying to get up to speed on Houdini at the same time, among many other distractions. So yeah, I’ll probably never have a huge amount of time to devote to Kyma.

[zakbelica]

Yep, have a Capybara system. For the unique things Kyma can do (Tau morphing/pitching, unique granulators, scripting), there is no other that sounds like it. But the learning curve, obsolete workflow (it's like a bad offshoot of Turbosynth back from the System 6 days on mac) and general pain of use (Kyma requires an additional interface to function, -in addition- to any audio interface you're using for your system. So 2 interfaces needed to even say hello). Overall... I'd say VST and FFT apps will do 90% of what Kyma can do.

You mentioned you're getting into FX with Houdini... I would dive into the Sound Particles world if I were you. I've been 1000x more prolific with Sound Particles than I ever was with Kyma.

[deastman]

Yep, have a Capybara system. For the unique things Kyma can do (Tau morphing/pitching, unique granulators, scripting), there is no other that sounds like it. But the learning curve, obsolete workflow (it's like a bad offshoot of Turbosynth back from the System 6 days on mac) and general pain of use (Kyma requires an additional interface to function, -in addition- to any audio interface you're using for your system. So 2 interfaces needed to even say hello). Overall... I'd say VST and FFT apps will do 90% of what Kyma can do.

You mentioned you're getting into FX with Houdini... I would dive into the Sound Particles world if I were you. I've been 1000x more prolific with Sound Particles than I ever was with Kyma.

Thanks, I’ll check out Sound Particles.

I was also a big user of Turbosynth back in the day. I loved it at the time, especially the wave sequencing timeline, but I doubt it would hold up to modern standards now.

It sounds like I should continue to explore other alternatives before committing to an expensive platform like Kyma. Part of my concern is that while it seems very popular in film sound design, it doesn’t get a lot of mention in the music production world, which is where I would want to use it. For example, looking at the timeline, I’m not really sure how much would use that in a musical context with sounds in the timeline coming in and out and being in layer by prerecorded MIDI data in sync with other tracks. I suppose individual sounds could have their own MIDI sequencers, but that doesn’t seem like a good workflow when looking at the composition as a whole. It seems more like sounds come in and out in the timeline and do their own thing in a freeform way which is more oriented to sound design than to beat-synchronized tempo. I know there are ways of dealing with that, but maybe it isn’t the best fit?

Anyway, thanks for your input!

[deastman]

it will take years just with practical end result = learning how to make slightly more original sound effects for your songs, I guess.

I think this is the most interesting point, actually. There are two sides to this: process and result. Is the creative process of using Kyma better/more fun/more creative than others? Maybe yes, maybe no, in some ways and not in others. And as for the end result, will my songs and sounds be better or more original? Probably not, quite honestly. Different, maybe, but not inherently “better”.

Food for thought.

[experimental.crow]

this thread has me wondering about Scot Solida ...

[deastman]

this thread has me wondering about Scot Solida ...

Don’t mention Scot... I still have the Paia Fatman kit I bought from him years ago sitting unbuilt in a box in my garage. Talk about a lack of free time!

[Michael L]

Scot wrote a 2012 CM article about cutting waves out of samples, finding the fundamental and then drawing in extra harmonics up to 32, like Kyma but with scissors, paste and crayons.

[deastman]

Scot wrote a 2012 CM article about cutting waves out of samples, finding the fundamental and then drawing in extra harmonics up to 32, like Kyma but with scissors, paste and crayons.

That sounds... painful.

[zakbelica]

Yes, it's rarer in mainstream music production... I think Amon Tobin and Richard Devine use it every once in a while. Here's a resource that may help, the Kyma newsletter:
https://news.symbolicsound.com/