Kyma (sound design language)

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:

1. A Sound atom
2. A unary transform T(s) where s is a Sound
3. An n-ary transform T(s₁, s₂,.., s_n), where s₁,s₂,..s_n are Sounds{{cite conference |last1=Scaletti |first1=C. A. |last2=Johnson |first2=Ralph |author2-link=Ralph Johnson (computer scientist) |date=September 25–30, 1988 |title=An Interactive Environment for Object-oriented Music Composition and Sound Synthesis |book-title=OOPSLA '88 Proceedings |pages=222–233 |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery |location=San Diego |id=ACM 0-89791-284-5/88/0009/0222}}

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 low-pass filter 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).

The first version of Kyma, which computed digital audio samples on a Macintosh 512K was written in the Smalltalk programming language in 1986 by Carla Scaletti in Champaign, Illinois. 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 and Kurt J. Hebel of the CERL Sound Group.{{cite book |last=Chadabe |first=Joel |author-link=Joel Chadabe |title=Electric Sound: The Past and Promise of Electronic Music |publisher=Prentice Hall |year=1997 |pages=265–267 |isbn=0-13-303231-0}}

In 1987, Scaletti presented a paper on Kyma and demonstrated live digital sound generation on the Platypus at the International Computer Music Conference where it was identified by electronic synthesis pioneer Bob Moog as a technology to watch in his conference report for Keyboard Magazine:

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.{{cite news |last=Moog |first=Robert |title=International Computer Music Conference: Platypus, Granules, Kyma, Daton, & the DSP56001 in Your Future |publisher=Keyboard Magazine |year=1987}}

When the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign eliminated the funding for the PLATO laboratory in 1989, Scaletti and Hebel formed Symbolic Sound Corporation to continue developing Kyma and digital audio signal processing hardware.

• Wall-E
• War of the Worlds (2005)
• Finding Nemo
• 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

• Zooma (1999) by John Paul Jones
• Movement in Still Life (1999) by BT
• The Thunderthief (2001) by John Paul Jones
• Emotional Technology (2003) by BT
• On An Island (2006) by David Gilmour
• Today (2006) by Junkie XL
• Unidentified Sound Object (2006) by U.S.O. Project[http://synesthesiarecordings.bandcamp.com/album/unidentified-sound-object Unidentified Sound Object] at synesthesiarecordings.bandcamp.com
• Recombinant Art 01[http://www.cdemusic.org/store/cde_search.cfm?keywords=tw20 Recombinant Art 01] at cdemusic.org {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071225161820/http://www.cdemusic.org/store/cde_search.cfm?keywords=tw20 |date=December 25, 2007}}
• Black Swan (2009) by Cristian Vogel[http://subrosa.itcmedia.net/en/catalogue/new-series-framework/cristian-vogel-black-swan.htmlBlack Swan] at Subrosa
• ISAM (2011) by Amon Tobin
• The Creation of the Universe by Metal Machine Trio (played by Sarth Calhoun)
• GRUIS (2016) by Roland Emile Kuit[http://www.prostudiomasters.com/album/page/8961 GRUIS] at PROSTUDIOMASTERS
• Bella's Lullaby Critical Mass Remix (2008) composed by Carter Burwell, prod. by Jason Bentley & Tobias Enhus

{{Reflist}}

• {{Official website|www.symbolicsound.com}}, Symbolic Sound Corporation

{{Computer music}}

Category:Audio programming languages

Category:Acoustics software

Category:Software synthesizers

Category:Visual programming languages