Hardware environment for the Symbolic Sound Corporations KYMA X software.

Extended information

Imagine the sound designer's dream machine:
* a machine that would let you graphically string together unlimited-length chains of processing and synthesis modules and run them with zero latency on a dedicated multiprocessor computer with little or no impact on your main computer's memory or processing capabilities
* where you could expand the processing capabilities of your hardware transparently, simply by plugging in more processing cards, because the machine was designed from the outset with scalability and multiple processors in mind...
* where you'd never have to sacrifice sound quality just because you're trying to squeeze more real time processing out of your desktop or laptop computer...
* with FireWire, timecode, MIDI, and 8 channels of 24-bit 100 kHz audio...
* controlled by the award-winning Kyma software with cutting-edge algorithms like granular processing, real-time analysis/resynthesis, aggregate synthesis, and spectral morphing...
* an online community of colleagues at the leading edge of film, music, advertising, and game development...
* a tech support staff that is some of the most dedicated and educated in the business,
* and a symbolic, blue LED on the front panel.

Benchmarks - To give some idea of the Capybara·320's capabilities:
You can create a real-time 66-band vocoder on a basic system. On a fully loaded system, you can create a 600-band real time vocoder.

On a basic system, you can perform additive synthesis with 192 sine wave partials, each sine having its own independent frequency and amplitude envelope with any number of breakpoints in it. On a fully loaded system, you can perform real-time additive synthesis with 1743 partials.

You can generate a granular synthesis cloud with 93 simultaneous grains on a basic system. A fully loaded system can generate clouds of 837 simultaneous grains.

You can use 60 voices of samples on a basic system, and a fully loaded system gives you 545 voices.

Technical specifications

Basic Configuration:
* four processors installed on the motherboard
* 96 MB sample RAM
* 12 expansion slots
* I/O and external sync (see below)
* External desktop or rackmount case (protects the DSPs and converters from the electrically noisy environment inside your personal computer, and leaves valuable slot-space free to use for other cards on your host computer)

Expansion Card:
* two processors installed on the expansion card
* 48 MB sample RAM (per card)
* Up to 12 expansion cards (for a total of 28 processors) can be added

Inputs and Outputs:
* 4-8 channels
* 32-100 kHz sample rate
* 24-bit
* Balanced Analog and Digital (AES/EBU)

External Synchronization:
* Word Clock input
* VITC & LTC Timecode input and output

Interface options:
* FireWire for Macintosh OS X and OS 9, Windows XP, 2000, and ME desktop and laptop machines


A basic Kyma System includes a CD-ROM containing the Kyma X software (for both Windows and Macintosh platforms) with over 1000 presets and 350 prototypes, the Kyma X Revealed! book, a Kyma FireWire interface with 3 meter FireWire cable and 0.5 meter Capybara cable, a Capybara•320 sound computation engine with four processors and 96 megabytes of sample RAM, four channel 24-bit A/D and D/A converters (up to 100 KHz sample rate), dual two channel 24-bit AES/EBU digital audio interface (up to 100 KHz sample rate), word clock input, VITC and LTC time code inputs and outputs, and MIDI In/Out/Thru. Available with desktop or rack-mount side-panels.