Kyma / Capybara320

[haesslich]

I know that there's at least one Kyma user around here, so I dare to ask a few questions...

I tried out a reasonable priced used paca for a few hours last year but was shocked about the usage of the Kyma X software and the quality of presets (some were astonishing, some were disillusioning. Considering the amount of money I skipped that.

Now I've the possibility to get hands on a reasonable priced Capybara 320 (basic configuration). While I still remember that I disliked Kyma X, I think i could cope with it. But now I have the fear that a basic Capybara 320 might have not enough CPU power to be happy on longer term. And maybe the Capy is no good when a next generation Kyma software is out?
So again I'm hesitant... even for this older machine it's still much money.

I remember the paca to have quite dense and good reverbs (which I'm lacking actually), and the Tau editor looks promising. I recently started to learn supercollider, which is based on the smalltalk language (the Kyma scripting is based on smalltalk). I'd have to stop with supercollider - spare time is rare, we all know that...

Would be great if (former?) Kyma users here could give me an opinion on the Capybara 320.

[taylordeupree]

i may be that Kyma user you're talking about.... when the new hardware came out SSC gave me a really good deal on pricing, so i sold my Capybara (which i had 2 additional processing cards in) and bought a Paca.

i felt my Capy with 2 cards was sufficiently powerful enough for me. while a base system is good to start with, you may feel like you need a card or two before two long, to give yourself a bit more power.

one thing the Capy has over the new hardware is the built in audio and MIDI. the DA and AD convertors on the Capy are phenomenally good... but with the Paca you have to buy an external interface just to dedicate to it. i wouldn't recommend anything less than an Apogee Duet, quality-wise.

whether or not your system will become obsolete? that's hard to say. SSC is typically pretty regular with small udpates to kyma... adding functionality and new algorithms throughout the year, but they don't often make MASSIVE updates... that's not to say it won't happen in the future... an update that wouldn't work on the Capybara... but on the other hand, there's a lifetime of exploration in the system that's already here, so if you really got into it it's likely you wouldn't run out of inspiration...

as far as Kyma itself goes... i'll admit i haven't used my system in a while... not for any fault of the system, but i've really been getting away from software as much as i can. however, lately i've been craving it a little, so i think i'll fire it up again soon.

like most synthesizers, many of the presets sound bad.. but the nice thing about kyma is you can simply replace some default audio file that they're using with your own and all the sudden the preset sounds really great.

because a large percent of kyma is processing audio i've found that it really depends what sound your'e feeding it in order to get the best out of a patch... i've created patches that are so amazing with one sound and dont' work at all with another.

the thing i've found with kyma is that it's really easy to do quite a bit at first, which is nice... but takes a long time do master.. after many years i've hardly felt like a master at it... but i've also got inspiring sounds and processes out of it that have been huge important parts of my music.

kyma desperately needs a GUI facelift. the Tekton font and graphics they use on the slider/button interface looks horribly outdated... and probably the only area max/msp blows kyma out of the water.

kyma is a heavy system.. and it's good that you've tried it already...

i'm curious what you didn't like about it?

in terms of kyma having good reverbs.. it's true.. but you can buy some pretty killer AU/vst reverbs out there for a lot less money.... but, if you consider the fact that kyma can trivially take a reverb, split the reverb tail into 3 frequency bands, send the high frequencies of the tail through a grain stream, the mid frequencies through a delay and the low frequencies pitch shifted 4 octaves up and then reversed through another reverb..... well, you get the idea..... 

(ooh, now i want to go program this...)

feel free to ask any questions you may have..

[haesslich]

yeah, at least i knew for sure that you are one kyma user.

the system in question is only basic. i fear that single cards could become rare in the next years, so i might be stuck with that. but there's no hurry; if i like kyma i can watch out for more cards. or safe money for paca. the question is rather whether a basic system is fun to play with itself, or if i always feel the limitations.

ssc write on their website, that kyma x will still support the capybara, but new algorithms will only run on the newer hardware. i think i can live with that, as long as they don't dump the kyma x / capybara compatibility completely.
also they write that there won't be update discounts for capybara users who bought their capy 2nd hand. but that's not a big deal for me: if i wanted a paca(rana) now, i'd have to pay the full price anyway.

so what i didn't like with the kyma system:
first the gui. we don't have to talk about this, right? ;-)
but then there were some little annoying facts about this thing: for example that the graphical patch must be "ready to compile" at any time, which means that you cannot drag and drop a module anywhere. it must be connected at any time. (at least that's what i experienced, and the owner of the system could not tell if there's another way).

in general i think i'm not a very graphical guy, i'd rather write text than drag lines, so this might be more a problem with me than with kyma.

i've still some specific questions:
the tau editor works with capybara too, right? can i do e.g. pitch correction with it?
can it stream soundfiles from harddisk or do all samples have to reside in RAM? (with 96mb ram this might feel kind of old-fashioned ) and if it can stream from harddisk, where's the difference between streaming and samples in ram for the system?

[taylordeupree]

but then there were some little annoying facts about this thing: for example that the graphical patch must be "ready to compile" at any time, which means that you cannot drag and drop a module anywhere. it must be connected at any time. (at least that's what i experienced, and the owner of the system could not tell if there's another way).

what do you mean by dragging and dropping a module anywhere? you mean, to leave one unconnected somewhere in the field for, perhaps, use later? if so, then yes, you are correct.. i've never thought about that before, and, for me it never occurred to me to be an issue, but you are correct in assuming you can't do that.

i've still some specific questions:
the tau editor works with capybara too, right? can i do e.g. pitch correction with it?
can it stream soundfiles from harddisk or do all samples have to reside in RAM? (with 96mb ram this might feel kind of old-fashioned ) and if it can stream from harddisk, where's the difference between streaming and samples in ram for the system?

the Tau editor does work with the Capy. there's some interesting stuff in there, really powerful. i attended a kyma workshop where carla was demonstrating the Tau and doing amazing stuff. that being said, i've never actually used anything i've created with the Tau.

also, yes, any sound source can come from live input, RAM, or hard disk. i dont know the exact real-world differences between streaming from disk or using RAM, however, there are some functionality differences for sure. for example, if you want to assign a slider to change pitch of a sample, i believe if it's from disk you can only change pitch every time the sound cycles.. where if it's in RAM you can continually change pitch. there's some other real-time quirks like that where RAM is beneficial over disk streaming. i tend to go RAM for everything unless i need to load in a massive file.


t

[haesslich]

Thanks for all the information, Taylor.

I'll give the thing a try. All I have to do is sell some modular stuff. 
If I stick to Kyma, and if I kick the Capybara320 to it's limitations, I'll at least have some goal to safe money for.

[taylordeupree]

if you really get into it and feel like you're running out of processing power you can always compile part of your sound down into a single (then, non-editable) module and keep going.. that will free up that processing power and allow you to keep going.

i highly suggest the Kyma X Revealed book. dont' get Kyma without that book.

and, Kurt and Carla are hands-down the best customer support people i've ever dealt with in my entire 25 years of buying gear. if you have a question, just ask the, they're there to help. they live and breathe kyma.

[haesslich]

if you really get into it and feel like you're running out of processing power you can always compile part of your sound down into a single (then, non-editable) module and keep going.. that will free up that processing power and allow you to keep going.

Didn't even know that this is possible. Now I'm curious what else the software is capable of!

i highly suggest the Kyma X Revealed book. dont' get Kyma without that book.

Unfortunately it comes without the book, but I'll order it from SSC. 35$ is definitely not too much. I red some pages when I played around with the Pacarana last year. 

and, Kurt and Carla are hands-down the best customer support people i've ever dealt with in my entire 25 years of buying gear. if you have a question, just ask the, they're there to help. they live and breathe kyma.

I heard this in several forums now. Good to see that there are still small tech-companies with good support AND passion!

My money is on the way, so it's (hopefully) just a matter of time now. 

[haesslich]

it's here, but i'm still at work... i'm awaiting the license transfer from SSC.
i'll report how i progress with kyma!

[cebec]

it's here, but i'm still at work... i'm awaiting the license transfer from SSC.
i'll report how i progress with kyma!

Exciting! Do let us know.

Take it slow -- it's easy to get overwhelmed by the depth and breadth. Kyma is a long-term 'project', I've found. 

[haesslich]

Kyma is a long-term 'project', I've found. 

Learning Kyma or finding additional DSP cards for the Capy? ;-)
I saw a post on electro-music that you're looking for cards since four years now.

I think I'll start with some algorithms from Curtis Roads' Computer Music Tutorial. I implemented some in C, with lots of aliasing, and I bet Kyma can do better with less pain ;-)

[cebec]

Kyma is a long-term 'project', I've found. 

Learning Kyma or finding additional DSP cards for the Capy? ;-)
I saw a post on electro-music that you're looking for cards since four years now.

Haha, yes -- both!  I did find some cards after the initial post and since my update. They are out there but they come few and far between. I just picked up a couple more last week from a guy who didn't realize he had two cards in the system he was selling. I think I'm done for awhile, though. So, I leave it to you. I think Symbolic Sound might actually have some in stock but they go for a little more than what I've found them for, secondhand.

[haesslich]

update: my first week with kyma is over! i got a little tax refund, which i spent to order two dsp cards from ssc. the dollar's exchange rate is quite okay at the moment.

i started building first patches, nothing too fancy yet, but still more than my nord modular is capable of. i like the possibility to write scripts into the parameter value fields, that's pretty neat!

[cebec]

update: my first week with kyma is over! i got a little tax refund, which i spent to order two dsp cards from ssc. the dollar's exchange rate is quite okay at the moment.

i started building first patches, nothing too fancy yet, but still more than my nord modular is capable of. i like the possibility to write scripts into the parameter value fields, that's pretty neat!

Yes, that is definitely one of the cooler features that I have personally underutilized.

[taylordeupree]

this is probably one of the most powerful aspects of kyma... as it seems like nearly anything is possible in terms of modulation...

unfortunately i'm terribly bad at this part because it involves quite a bit of algebra...

but SSC is really helpful...

but in some ways it can be so easy... like.. need a random number generated every second you type like

next random 1s

or something such


or, easy to change it so

next random 1day

and you'll have a new random number every 24 hours 

congrats on the purchase.. keep us posted! and maybe we can make a kyma patch exchange area...

Yes, that is definitely one of the cooler features that I have personally underutilized.