posted 16 June 2005 06:31            

After carefully reading the paper of the above link I see comments about
software like Csound, Sound Magic, AudioSculpt, GRM Tools... and nothing
about Kyma...
This is strange because I consider Kyma it's the most powerful and "democratic"
REALTIME workstation. Like composer, I can't imagine a offline instrument,
playing a chord and waiting one minute to listen... to me the concept of REALTIME it's
basic in music (sound design is different)
When seeing to go to Kyma I apply this "democratic" equation

NC = GSHC + K

NC = New Car
GSHC = Good Second Hand Car
K = Kyma

posted 16 June 2005 10:06            

Also, the GRM Tools do work in real time.

I do not understand your use of the term "democratic". I am second to none in my admiration for Kyma and its developers, but it is difficult to call a system whose base price exceeds $3,500 "democratic", especially when compared to the CDP system, which was developed precisely to democratize electroacoustic music composition, and which costs only few hundred dollars, at most, depending upon the options one selects. As the article makes plain, at the time that CDP began to take shape, non-academically affiliated electroacoustic music composers in the UK had very few options or access to resources. Therefore, there was a need to develop a low-cost home-based system. CDP fulfills that criterion admirably, and, as I can attest, is a system of extraordinary power. Although it is non-real time, with a few exceptions ("Brassage" comes notably to mind), the CDP processes compile very quickly on a reasonably powerful computer. I would also remind you that, for those who can afford only a basic Kyma system, their real-time options are somewhat limited, as well.

posted 17 June 2005 10:42            

quote:

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People should also note that CDP is *finally* available for OS X

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posted 17 June 2005 20:54            

The adjective REALTIME it's very important to me.
Before Kyma I worked with WaveWarp software ($99, special price for xmas and no longer maintained...), that have spectral tools, additive synthesis and many other modules
with a GUI à la Kyma, all in REALTIME. But I need a "muscled" PC computer...
about $1300 (all software need a computer). After many crashes of this software I decided
to change... and frankly, searching around the world Kyma it's the only answer to my
need of a serious REALTIME workstation.
1st. problem: money.
The only solution that I know for this problem it's to work. If I need extra money, extra work.
(... well they are other solutions but I'm good people )
Many people save for Holidays or a new car, and this is why I say "democratic", because all the people can save and can have an extra work if they have one important reason to do it, I have saved to Kyma because my work and my music it's the most important in my life and Kyma it's exactly that I need to go to my dreams.
I dont complain the price of Kyma because I'm sure SSC dont think about me and my personal idiosyncrasy when making Kyma, they think in their work and how to pay bills, like all of us. The reality it's like this.
If you search for a "serious REALTIME worksation" with spectral processing and many other
things then you find that Kyma it's the best solution.
If you dont need REALTIME, ok, but you say "the CDP processes compile very quickly on a reasonably powerful computer".
What it's the mean of "very quickly", maybe the unconscious desire of "realtime"?
If CDP go to realtime you go to purchase a new more powerful computer?
Yes? If realtime it's not important why not to continue with a Pentium II?
You know the PresetSpace module in Kyma, you can make a great Sound that fit your
Kyma with many many parameters that you can interpolate realtime, and discover entities
that you cant imagine before... this is possible off-line?
And controlling all this from a wacom tablet with more than 8 dimensions to evolve at your hand?
What about inmediate expression? ...à la Jerry Lee Lewis, for example...
What about extra cards in Kyma?

Regards,
Jesus

posted 17 June 2005 23:16            

Jesus:

I preface what follows by stating that the aim of my original post was not to argue, but to present and explain an alternative perspective. Please read what follows in that light.

quote:

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Many people save for Holidays or a new car, and this is why I say "democratic", because all the people can save and can have an extra work if they have one important reason to do it

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That would apply to any commodity that is for sale in a market economy, though, would it not? At any rate, I do understand your perspective, and I agree with it, so far as it goes, but, I can only repeat my point that low-cost music-making tools are inherently more democratic than higher-cost tools, and that not-for-profit organizations that produce tools specifically to make them available to a wider group of users are inherently more democratic than commercial organizations, whatever their size. This does not, of course, mean that one is "better" than another.

If, however, your point is that tools designed for the home studio-based composer, whether they be Kyma, CDP, Wave Warp, etc., encourage a more democratic framework for music-making than that which existed during the bad old days, when such institutions as universities and government-funded radio stations acted as gatekeepers to all the important equipment needed to produce electroacoustic music*, then I completely agree with you.

*(Think of the shameful instance of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center's turning the brilliant but "unlettered" composer Tod Dockstader from its doors during the 1960's)

quote:

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I dont complain the price of Kyma because I'm sure SSC dont think about me and my personal idiosyncrasy when making Kyma, they think in their work and how to pay bills, like all of us. The reality it's like this.

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I'm not complaining about the price, either, but, again, see my previous point regarding not-for-profit groups that produce musical tools.

quote:

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If you search for a "serious REALTIME worksation" with spectral processing and many other things then you find that Kyma it's the best solution.

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I agree completely.

quote:

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If you dont need REALTIME, ok, but you say "the CDP processes compile very quickly on a reasonably powerful computer".

What it's the mean of "very quickly", maybe the unconscious desire of "realtime"?

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"Very quickly" is subjective, I suppose, but my point is simply that I, myself, do not suffer from the lack of real-time capability in the CDP system. I can see, however, that real-time capability is very important to you, and, of course, that is fine.

I suppose that my true objection is to a point in your original post, where you suggest that real-time is necessary for musical composition, although it is not necessarily a requirement for sound design (To me, the lines between sound design and musical composition are so blurry that they do not exist, really). Now, of course, I am not certain how you define the word music, or whether you would consider what I do to be music ;-), but I can state that lack of real-time feedback has never hindered my compositional activities, and it obviously hasn't hampered Trevor Wishart's!

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If CDP go to realtime you go to purchase a new more powerful computer?

Yes? If realtime it's not important why not to continue with a Pentium II?

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Real time is not so important to me (although of course I enjoy it, or I would not own Kyma!), but compilation speed of non-real time processes is important, too.

quote:

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You know the PresetSpace module in Kyma, you can make a great Sound that fit your
Kyma with many many parameters that you can interpolate realtime, and discover entities
that you cant imagine before... this is possible off-line?

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I have not explored this feature, so I cannot say, but I want to be clear that I have never suggested that Kyma does not have unique capabilities. I stated that, if one has only a basic system, then not all of these real-time capabilities are available to the user.

quote:

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What about inmediate expression? ...à la Jerry Lee Lewis, for example...

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Of course, that aspect of music-making does not exist in a non-real time system. There are, however, things that one can do in CDP with breakpoint files, for instance, that equate to this, as well as provide unique effects in their own right.

quote:

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What about extra cards in Kyma?

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Of course, this is a possibility, but it involves considerable additional expense, and, again, my point is that such expansion cards are necessary in order fully to exploit Kyma's real-time potential.

posted 18 June 2005 19:29            

"...when such institutions as universities and government-funded radio stations acted as gatekeepers to all the important equipment needed to produce electroacoustic music*, then I completely agree with you."

Yes that's the point.
I remember the days of 4X at IRCAM and I remember that it's impossible to go to this world. In 90's I have one of the best electroacoustic studios in Spain at 3 minutes of my home, with Fairlight, EMS Synthetizers, Studer and many other instruments... and nothing, you need to go friend of the king of this school... democracy it's freedom, and now I'm free.

"...I suppose that my true objection is to a point in your original post, where you suggest that real-time is necessary for musical composition, although it is not necessarily a requirement for sound design (To me, the lines between sound design and musical composition are so blurry that they do not exist, really)"

Music, to me, it's a language. When I speak I can't imagine to wait to understand what I finish to say. When we speak our language are in interaction with our thinking, we dont need time to understand. This is why we express our emotions very well speaking.
Realtime pocessing it's like this, you dont need time to understand the meaning of your action, it's inmediate, saved in your brain in the same time-space. This generates inmediate reaction, changes, emotions, doubts... it's like improvising with a real instrument.
If you play a real instrument you know this.

Can you imagine Van Gogh waiting to render a brushstroke?
Oh my God! This is impossible!
Realtime is basic for the fluency of interpretation that have the consequence of fluency in composition. I need this for my music, for my expression.
To me this is the real difference:
Kyma is a musical instrumet and CDP is a musical tool.
Not bad, not good only different, very different (with the advantage that Kyma it's a musical tool too )

If you think Kyma like a tool you have only a little part of this great workstation.
Think about Capytalk.
The parameters of a module represent the function that you can perform on audio or control streams. It's possible to perform processes without anything on the VCS. And sometimes, maybe we think why not to have all the parameters of all the modules directly accesible without typing hots...
Well if we think like this we are thinking Kyma like musical tool.

Capytalk implies realtime, not only that you have access to the parameters in the VCS, this is the consequence but not the cause, and this is very important to understand.
If Kyma have only interest that you control the parameters a general window with all the parameters of modules would be OK.
But Kyma, with the Capytalk language, say you that you can create any interaction between all this parameters and control this like you want, with internal rhythms or manually.
If you think this is like our Nervous system.
The idea behind Capytalk it's the "neural" web that you can create with parameters and how the changes affect the ensemble. You are creating an "entity" and the only practical method to explore the dimensions of this "creature" is realtime.
The real power of Kyma it's Capytalk.
With the basic system you can create practically the same complex structures in Capytalk than with a full loaded system. The difference is the modules that you can use.
Exploring the realtime capabilities of Kyma it's not a question of DSP power, it's a question of Capytalk programming.
This is Kyma like musical instrument.
And it's wonderful.

Regards
Jesus

posted 18 June 2005 21:26            

quote:

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Music, to me, it's a language. When I speak I can't imagine to wait to understand what I finish to say. When we speak our language are in interaction with our thinking, we dont need time to understand. Realtime pocessing it's like this, you dont need time to understand the meaning of your action, it's inmediate [...]

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I think of the poems I have written, of the endless revisions, of final wording and structures that bear almost no resemblance to the one with which I began.... There is something very "non-real time" about serious literary creation, to me. I see no reason why music should be different.

quote:

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Realtime is basic for the fluency of interpretation that have the consequence of fluency in composition.

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For some, and quite clearly for you, it is, but that is not necessarily the case for everyone.

quote:

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Think about Capytalk.

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I will confess that I cannot follow your points here, because I have not yet reached that part of the manual! Lol. I shall have to take your word for the real-time power that CapyTalk introduces, because I really know little about it yet. Unless I have missed something very obvious, however, I do know that expansion cards have everything to do with exploiting fully the real-time capabilities of the TimeLine.

For the rest, we shall simply have to agree to disagree regarding the unquestionable superiority of real time, as opposed to non-real time, music creation. I repeat: If real time is what you need, then Kyma is your instrument, no question about it. I love it, myself. I still contend, however, than not everyone needs it quite to that degree, and that, from my perspective, such tools (or musical instruments, if you prefer) are not necessarily superior in every respect to a powerful non-real time system such as CDP.

I will also never agree that real time is necessary to compositional fluency. It is fortunate that I do not have to argue the point, as there are any number of compositions in Csound or CDP that prove it for me.

In sum, with regard to real-time and non-real time systems, for me, as I mentioned, it is not a question of "either-or", but one of "both-and". To each his own, though. I wish you the best in your work, and thank you for the interesting discussion.

[This message has been edited by RXB (edited 18 June 2005).]

posted 20 June 2005 10:20            

One final word for thinking, maybe I'm wrong...
When you write your poems you are writing real-time, your thinking, your emotions go from your brain to your hand and you write, you dont need time to see your words in the paper or the characters in the computer screen.
Imagine now that your computer need one minute from you type the characters to see them in the computer screen... this is my idea of the concept off-line.
When you compose, music or poems, it's normal that you revise your actions, all the creations have drafts, because you need to question yourself about the message that you create and comunicate, improvisation it's the only composition realtime.

Good conversation, thank you

Jesus

posted 12 July 2005 10:30            

quote:

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Originally posted by RXB:
Yes, I ought to have mentioned that, as well. My copy is scheduled to ship on the 21st, and I eagerly antcipate it, as well. I simply hope that the Sound Loom GUI behaves better on OS X than it has on Windows. My understanding is that the Sound Shaper GUI will likely never be ported to OS X, or, if it is, then it shall be a very cut-down version.

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For those who read the original post: Turns out a major mistake had been made to the initial configuration of Sound Loom for OS X, but a simple solution made it work like it should - at least graphics-wise.

Now to the actual sound mangling beta testing... ;O