- Heualia
- Medlem ●
- Linköping
- 2008-12-23 02:52
I've spent a lot of time in front of Max, Kyma & the NM over the last 8 years. The results: (400 patches for the Nord Modular), (30 structures for Kyma), (More time in Max than should be allowed, no end in site). I've written the following review assuming you want to be productive making music and not simply spend time inside a tool "tooling new music tools".
1) learning curve?
Kyma is qualitatively in the middle. There are three time metrics I would use to support this view: (getting started, proficiency & mastery).
Given 40 horus with each and a general previous understanding of music software:
- The Nord user will have started making synthesizers and sound effects with a general grasp of the system early on.
- The Kyma user will be combining sounds from the library to get really wicked results, but have no idea what they're doing for another few weeks/months. Confusion is common during the adjustment period.
- The Max user will be on tutorial 4 or 5 (of ~50) and won't be able to approach making (by their own hand) anything that sounds as polished as the Kyma or as smooth as the Nord Mod for a year or more. Dipping into the community for *good sounding* patches will be time consuming as Max/MSP is a general media programming environment & most of the patches *ney, nearly all* of the patches on the forums are not professionally implemented DSP algorithms, (they commonly have aliasing, glitches and slop). I love Max, but it is not a fast road to making music, it is a programming environment for DIY heads and a swiss army knife in the studio (after a year or more time with it).
Given 1 month of focus on each (a few hours per day patching):
- The Nord will be well understood, the user is probably now proficient at creating their ideas with an understanding of the synths sonic limitations and strengths. A workflow is starting to appear in context of the larger picture (making music).
- The Kyma is producing great sounding material but the workflow isn't sorted. Do you use the timeline or the sound gird, when is the Tau appropriate and what analysis files work with which sounds. How can you get that cool convoluted reverb sound you made the other day but didn't save, hmm... no idea. Sound <-> DSP allocation remains a black art. Should you make your own library or just overwrite & add to the Kyma one. Bollocks, this is deep and you haven't touched CapyTalk yet.
- Max/MSP
You've only been at it a month. You want to have the flexibility of Max but the immediacy of Nord with the stellar sound of Kyma, ha.hA.HA! You'll be a star, keep at it, 3.4 billion years isn't that long on the galactic calendar. You're inundated with patches coming off the Max forums, the last one you downloaded was for interfacing a dancers body to an AI weighted score follower written at some research facility you had never heard of. You've located thousands of "externals" (plugins) and can't decide which of 5 pitch tracking objects you should use for that crazy patcher you're building that implements a kazoo detector to trigger actuators releasing a piece of burning toast while playing a sample of the I love Lucy theme backwards. Yes it's art. Max/MSP opens *that* door and it's truly Pandora's tool. I love it, but getting it to sound *good* (e.g., non glitchy, non digital, smooth, tight response, etc...), that's a tall order. Consider you only have 20,000 days on earth.
Given 1 year:
- The Nord user is approaching master or already transcended the interface and is in patching bliss. Self control is the only path to enlightenment and/or music. Good luck, using the Nord is addictive and fun. Who needs music when you've got self running patches.
- The Kyma user is half way to enlightenment and isn't singing Marvin Gaye's "What's going on" anymore. Probably chanting at some Buddhist center daily.
- The Max user has finally created their masterpiece (Burnt Toast /or how I loved Lucy), I downloaded it, wasn't impressed (sounded glitchy like everything else coming out of the Max militia), so I got back to work (using Max, whaaat?).
2) programming interface?
- Nord rules for ease of use and "speed of thought" patching.
- Kyma's canvas is strange, but you're dealing with LOGOS here. Have a sugar cube. Again it's the middle ground.
- Max is a visual programming language, no joke. You don't have to do clever hacks to process logic in this environment *it is logic*. More flexibility at a higher hourly cost.
3) sound quality
Kyma wins. Very little can touch it as it covers the whole range of DSP including new techniques invented by Symbolic Sound. Besides the Nord/Kyma/Max environments I've used Synthkit, done hundreds of hours work on the VL1 expert editor and toyed with Csound (since '96). In my experience RTCMIX and Csound *can* compete, but those are straight programming languages.
Max isn't 64bit yet and passes samples around in blocks which makes non-linear signal processes dependent on the time grain of the dsp-chain. This is bad if you like to use feedback to warm things up or do physical modeling. (You can use a vector size of one [Poly vs 1="1"], but the CPU usage is extreme, leaving little space for further experimentation and polyphony - 2008/2009).
The Nord G1 sounds like a distorted lego (I miss this). The Nord G2 is pretty characterless, leaving the sound up to you, but doesn't have spectral or sampling tools like Kyma & Max.
4) versatility
For me, Max wins hands down. I've written my own music software in Max, a database, a network penetration testing tool, a wave librarian/editor, a Kyma Knock-off, A networked standalone VJ application for a fashion show, etc.
Ohh, you want to make music? Hmm. Kyma or the Nord.
5) company updates and progress (seems kyma website hasn't been updated since 2006?)
- They're probably not going away. Kurt and Carla are great. They've got a very nice system that should be tried by anyone serious about sound design. Most people I know haven't stuck with learning it because it has a very distinct paradigm and most programmers are either *more DIY or less DIY* than Symbolics' approach. For those who know how to balance, the Kyma really is the third path.
6) why is kyma so expensive and what do you get for that
- It's the best?
- Reference level converters
- Surround Mixing Controls Built in
- Performance oriented Timeline / Sound Scheduler
- Nearly every form of experimental DSP implemented in simple prototypes
- Massive realtime re-sythensis without slogging through CCRMA or IRCAM packages
- The option of using the Harm Visser Physical Modeling Toolkit on real DSP
- An interface that imposes limits that help you get work done; Kyma has a role
- The Kyma is unconventional. You can't easily worship this system like other hardware because it's too strange. You can only use it or move on. Many move on, some stick with it and gain the force.
My overarching recommendation; get some analog modular gear to relax after working in Kyma or Max or the Nord... It's really unbalanced to just have digital stuff around, better yet, play a real instrument.
Work to rid yourself of the marketeers poisonous lie about needing the latest technology to make music. Haven't you heard, without DSPaudio's nortron you'll never have any fun in the studio.
If you're in it for life, get all 3 (stagger the purchases, don't blow your mind and wallet simultaneously, always do these two actions at different times).
Anthony Bisset / DSPaudio
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"The name of the game is "Find Your Adversary". Your adversary's game plan is to convince you that he does not exist." -William S. Burroughs
