Kyma is a visual programming language for sound design used by musicians, researchers, and sound designers. In Kyma, a user programs a multiprocessor DSP by graphically connecting modules on the screen of a

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

computer.

Background

Kyma has characteristics of both object-oriented and functional programming languages. The basic unit in Kyma is the "Sound" object, not the "note" of traditional music notation. A Sound is defined as: i) a Sound atom
ii) a unary transform T(s) where s is a Sound
iii) an n-ary transform T(s₁, s₂,.., s_n), where s₁,s₂,..s_n are Sounds A Sound atom is a source of audio (like a microphone input or a noise generator), a unary transform modifies its argument (for example, a LowpassFilter might take a running average of its input), and an n-ary transform combines two or more Sounds (a Mixer, for example, is defined as the sum of its inputs).

History

The first version of Kyma, which computed digital audio samples on a

Macintosh 512K The Macintosh 512K is a personal computer that was designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from September 1984 to April 1986. It is the first update to the original Macintosh 128K. It was virtually identical to the previous Macint ...

was written in the

Smalltalk Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed reflective programming language. It was designed and created in part for educational use, specifically for constructionist learning, at the Learning Research Group (LRG) of Xerox PARC by Alan Ka ...

programming language in 1986 by

Carla Scaletti Carla Scaletti (born April 28, 1956) is an American harpist, composer, music technologist and the inventor of the Kyma Sound Design Environment as well as president of Symbolic Sound. Biography Carla Scaletti was born in Ithaca, New York. She g ...

Champaign, Illinois Champaign ( ) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. The population was 88,302 at the 2020 census. It is the tenth-most populous municipality in Illinois and the fourth most populous city in Illinois outside the Chicago metropo ...

. In May 1987, Scaletti had partitioned Kyma into graphics and sound generation engines and ported the sound generation code to a digital signal processor called the Platypus designed by

Lippold Haken Lippold is a surname. Notable people with the name include: * Georg Lippold (1885–1954), German archaeologist *Kirk Lippold (born 1959), United States Navy officers *Richard Lippold Richard Lippold (May 3, 1915 – August 22, 2002) was an Amer ...

and Kurt J. Hebel of the CERL Sound Group. In 1987, Scaletti presented a paper on Kyma and demonstrated live digital sound generation on the Platypus at the

International Computer Music Conference The International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) is a yearly international conference for computer music researchers and composers. It is the annual conference of the International Computer Music Association (ICMA). History In 1986, the Inst ...

where it was identified by electronic synthesis pioneer

Bob Moog Robert Arthur Moog ( ; May 23, 1934 – August 21, 2005) was an American engineer and electronic music pioneer. He was the founder of the synthesizer manufacturer Moog Music and the inventor of the first commercial synthesizer, the Moog synthesi ...

as a technology to watch in his conference report for

Keyboard Magazine ''Keyboard'' is a magazine that originally covered electronic keyboard instruments and keyboardists, though with the advent of computer-based recording and audio technology, they have added digital music technology to their regular coverage, inc ...

''One new language that acknowledges no distinction between sound synthesis and composition is Kyma, a music composition language for the Macintosh that views all elements in a piece of music, from the structure of a single sound to the structure of the entire composition, as objects to be composed.''

When the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

eliminated the funding for the

PLATO Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

laboratory in 1989, Scaletti and Hebel formed Symbolic Sound Corporation in order to continue developing Kyma and digital audio signal processing hardware.

Selected filmography

* ''

Wall-E ''WALL-E'' (stylized with an interpunct as ''WALL·E'') is a 2008 American computer-animated science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It was directed and co-written by Andrew Stanton, pro ...

'' * ''War of the Worlds'' (2005) * ''

Finding Nemo ''Finding Nemo'' is a 2003 American computer-animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Andrew Stanton with co-direction by Lee Unkrich, the screenplay was writ ...

'' * '' Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones'' * '' Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith'' * '' Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World''

Selected discography

* ''

Zooma ''Zooma'' is the 1999 debut solo album by English musician John Paul Jones, best known as the bassist and keyboardist of Led Zeppelin. The album is primarily composed of instrumental rock. Track listing All tracks written, composed, and a ...

'' (1999) by

John Paul Jones John Paul Jones (born John Paul; July 6, 1747 July 18, 1792) was a Scottish-American naval captain who was the United States' first well-known naval commander in the American Revolutionary War. He made many friends among U.S political elites ( ...

* ''

Movement in Still Life ''Movement in Still Life'' is the third studio album by American electronica artist BT. It was released in the United Kingdom on October 8, 1999, and a different version released in the United States in 2000. A transition towards hip hop, it ...

'' (1999) by BT * ''

The Thunderthief ''The Thunderthief'' is John Paul Jones (musician), John Paul Jones's second solo studio album. Track listing All music and lyrics composed and written by John Paul Jones, except where otherwise noted. # "Leafy Meadows" – 5:10 # "T ...

'' (2001) by John Paul Jones * ''

Emotional Technology ''Emotional Technology'' is the fourth studio album by electronica artist BT. Transitioning towards a more pop music oriented sound, the album features some of BT's more commercially successful releases, including "Somnambulist (Simply Being L ...

'' (2003) by BT * ''

On An Island ''On an Island'' is the third solo studio album by Pink Floyd member David Gilmour. It was released in the UK on 6 March 2006, Gilmour's 60th birthday, and in the US the following day. It was his first solo album in 22 years since '' Abou ...

'' (2006) by

David Gilmour David Jon Gilmour ( ; born 6 March 1946) is an English guitarist, singer, songwriter, and member of the rock band Pink Floyd. He joined as guitarist and co-lead vocalist in 1967, shortly before the departure of founding member Syd Barrett. P ...

* ''

Today Today (archaically to-day) may refer to: * Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now'' * Current era, present * The current calendar date Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 A ...

'' (2006) by

Junkie XL Tom Holkenborg (born 8 December 1967), also known by his stage name Junkie XL or occasionally JXL, is a Dutch composer, multi-instrumentalist, DJ, producer, and engineer. Originally known for his trance productions, he has moved to producing e ...

* ''Unidentified Sound Object'' (2006) by U.S.O. Project * ''Recombinant Art 01'' * ''Black Swan'' (2009) by ''

Cristian Vogel Cristian Vogel (born 1972) is an Chilean experimental electronic musician. Biography Vogel was born in Chile and moved to England in the early 1980s with his family, fleeing from the government of Augusto Pinochet. Vogel first began working with ...

'' * ''

ISAM ISAM (an acronym for indexed sequential access method) is a method for creating, maintaining, and manipulating computer files of data so that records can be retrieved sequentially or randomly by one or more keys. Indexes of key fields are mainta ...

'' (2011) by Amon Tobin *''

The Creation of the Universe ''The Creation of the Universe'' is an album by Lou Reed's Metal Machine Trio. The trio was formed in 2008 with Ulrich Krieger and Sarth Calhoun to play music inspired by Reed's 1975 album ''Metal Machine Music''. The first concerts of the group ...

'' by

Metal Machine Trio Metal Machine Trio was a group founded in 2008 by Lou Reed, Ulrich Krieger and Sarth Calhoun. The group played free improvised music, touching on various genres from free rock, free jazz, minimal music, noise music, electronica, to ambient mu ...

(played by

Sarth Calhoun Sarth Calhoun is an American musician from Brooklyn, New York. Biography Sarth Calhoun grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He began playing music and writing lyrics at age six. In his teens, he stopped buying comic books to save up for his first bass ...

) *''GRUIS'' (2016) by '' Roland Emile Kuit''
at PROSTUDIOMASTERS *Bella's Lullaby Critical Mass Remix (2008) composed by Carter Burwell, prod. by Jason Bentley & Tobias Enhus

References

External links

Symbolic Sound Corporation
{{Computer music Audio programming languages Acoustics software Software synthesizers Visual programming languages