i don’t understand why anyone would buy an SP404 mk2 when they can make a beat with a couple of spoons and a kazoo instead! What am I missing? 
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As someone who thoroughly adores MAX, but isnt feeling like they’re hitting limitations with it, is this worth looking into? Like, is it a better designed MAX or a more capable MAX? Or is that not the right way to be looking at it?
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The MKII is mostly out of stock. There for, the obvious route is a Kyma.
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great news !
its good to see SS keeping kyma up to date, and so relevant…
usb3/wifi/smaller/more powerful… whats not to like 
I don’t really understand the $500 pro/nonpro side… whilst I can see it from SS view point (I doubt the is non-pro much cheaper to produce), who is going to go for half power/ram for $500, at a $3.3k price tag?
would really only make any (little) sense IF, the non-pro was upgradable to pro (via plugin board)… then I guess, kind of … but I cannot see that mentioned.
anyway, I guess, choice is never bad?
Pacarana? this is what Im hoping for 
(though in the EU )
as a hobbyist, $3k is too rich for me… but if a Pacarana comes up at a good price that’d be tempting… esp. as SS, have been really good with supporting ‘legacy’ hardware.
anyway great news for Kyma community!
Q for @Scot_Solida (or anyone else in the know) …
can you write your own modules for Kyma? or are you ‘limited’ to using modules that SS provide?
one of the things I like about Pure Data and Max, is you can write your own modules…
that said, I recognise, Kyma is aimed squarely at pro musicians, so I could see if they want to kind of have a walled garden to ‘maintain quality’, and also not introduce potential compatibility issues etc.
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Heeey! 
How can someone use my sarcasm for their own purposes?! What am I missing here?!
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Maybe. However, I still have my old Capybara 320 system, too. I am obviously loathe to let go of my old Kyma hardware. Maybe I am sentimental. Or maybe I need to add my name to the “gear hoarding” thread.
You can. I am not sure I have done it (primarily because Kyma offers ways to keep things tidy) but it is clearly possible and there are (fantastic) third-party modules (called “Sounds” in Kyma) available from sellers such as NeverEngine Labs. In Kyma, you have the ability to make an Encapsulation, which is analogous to an Abstraction in Max. That’s just one similarity. If you’re up to speed with Pure Data or Max, you’ll find Kyma easy. Maybe easier. You’ll already be accustomed to using expressions and the sort of math/formulae that can be used in Kyma.
Given your experience, I reckon you could accomplish more in days than I have in years. 
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Tough questions. It’s a bit more difficult to “look into” than something like Max, since you can’t demo Kyma (due to the hardware). Also, the hardware plays a big role in how it works.
Is it better designed? Well, like Max, it has a very long history. And like Max’s sibling, Pure Data, it is definitely aimed at functionality rather than flashy aesthetics. I find some functions easier in Kyma, and some functions easier in Max, but they both can get me there. For example, Kyma’s “VCS”, or Virtual Control Surface is where you’ll arrange and use widgets like sliders and knobs. This is separate from the window in which your Sound is created and edited. Max and PD allow you to put a slider, switch, etc right into the signal path on the same window. I like that. On the other hand, in Kyma, adding a slider or knob is as easy as putting an exclamation point before its name in a modulation field, thereby creating a “hot value”. That will automatically assign a control to that parameter in the VCS. Pretty danged easy.
Still, it’s all down to a matter of taste. As I say, I am familiar with Kyma, so for me it’s the easiest of the bunch, but that familiarity has made it easier for me to learn Max and Pure Data.
Is it more capable than Max? Again, it’s going to be depend on what you want to do and how you want to do it. Kyma is tethered to the hardware. That means that all the processing is done on that hardware, while the interface appears on your computer. It uses very little of your computer’s CPU. It will always use less computer CPU than Max, since Max will always be entirely tethered to your computer’s available processing power.
That probably mattered more in the past than it does today. Modern CPUs are crazy powerful, so a hardware box is not strictly necessary, but it is very nice to have, much in the same way it’s nice to have dedicated GPUs for doing video or graphic stuff.
Obviously price is a big consideration. You can buy a license for Max and pay for the occasional upgrade for the next ten years and not come close to what a Kyma system will cost you. Kyma’s price is not insignificant. It requires a lot of thought and research to make that kind of commitment. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of resources out there. There are some videos on Youtube and you can find some links on the SSC site.
For my part, I obviously find Kyma worth the cost, as I’ve been buying each new hardware iteration for twenty years. When fancy new digital synths, samplers, effects are introduced, I always consider whether I could make such a thing with Kyma (I probably could), and how long would it take me to do so. This has (believe it or not) reduced the amount of money I spend on my studio.
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This worked on me for a few years:
- CSOUND
- PureData
- SuperCollider
- Sudden realization that I’m a far better back end software developer than DSP engineer
- Also, I’m absolutely terrible at UI/UX
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Fun (or not so fun) fact. Amon Tobin ISAM was made with Kyma.
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Thanks for excellent comments!
Yes, I hope I understand what it is and what it is not. I was looking for years for some powerful box fully dedicated to a sound design, with medium level of abstraction (not so low level like Pd/Max/SCollider, but also not on level of “subtractive synth” blocks, I don’t need another one) and which is not abandoned like Nord Modular. Looking at the prices of remains of NMs on the market, the price of Kyma is not that high…
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Another basic question: how does it process the wave files? Can I upload some sample data to it and manipulate within platform? Is there any persistent storage?
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I think Kyma fits your description very well. Its ‘Prototypes’ (i.e. modules) are more low-level (for the most part) than those found on the Nord, and they are more varied and numerous (in other words, you’d have to patch them together to make a Nord-like oscillator, and you could make many things not available in the Nord system). And while you can definitely go as low-level as you like, you don’t need to if you don’t want to. You can string together available modules without ever writing an expression. If you want to use an expression without writing one, you can probably find it in Kyma’s library of pre-fab expressions.
I use it for sample manipulation more than for anything else. No, you can’t store samples permanently on the hardware, but it will find them anywhere you put them on, say, a hard drive, and stream or load them as needed. It will remember where you put them.
Kyma is my favorite sample playground. It has a built-in sample editor, and it can analyze a sample and break it down into a user-defined number of partials for additive synthesis. It can morph between them. You can chop, granulate and twist them in all manner of ways, some unique to Kyma. You can sample a vocal, strip it of pitch and then re-pitch it via MIDI. Really, you can do anything you can imagine with them.
One of the coolest functions is the Gallery. Here, you can load or record a sample, and tell Kyma what sort of patches you’d like it to make and it will automatically generate scads of patches using that sample.
Some of this stuff is described here:
https://kyma.symbolicsound.com/powered-by-kyma/
And I recommend taking a look at Spectral Evolver’s video playlist for an idea. Some of it is a bit esoteric, but he knows his stuff:
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I’ve always had an odd passing interest in Kyma without really knowing exactly how it works, so this thread is really tickling that curiosity. Thanks!
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My apologies to your bank manager… 
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Haha! Don’t think I’m going to be investing any time soon - think it’d be wasted on me, but I love knowing more about it 
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At the end of the 1990s, I read a quote about Kyma that piqued my interest (something about Turbosynth being injected with alien DNA), and ordered their demo CD (yeah, it was that long ago). I was poor. I had a young child. I knew I could never afford one (they were a lot more expensive back then). I used to lie on the floor in my living room and listen to that demo CD over and over again. It was my favorite “album”. I didn’t dare dream of owning one. But dang that CD had some really cool sounds on it!
Eventually my circumstances changed. I was able to make a living off of my knowledge of electronic music and sound design. Kyma was the very first ‘big purchase’ I made as a result, and I’ve been using it since. It was (and is) so much more than I ever imagined it would be. It has been refined and expanded over the years, always offering so much more than I will ever have time (or brains) to explore.
I still dream of things I can do with Kyma, and Kyma still outpaces my dreams.
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…once, there was. a time…where kyma was the god of all imaginable and unimaginable sonic miracles…beyond all code that whispers…
but then, average processor power learned walking on it’s own and cycling 74 gave birth to max…
had no idea, kyma still existed, ever since…
there’s a niche for everything, i guess…
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It is certainly a ‘niche’ product. One that I’ve always been glad to be stuck in.
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