CONCERT - Synth-ing Nº25!

At last, a performance featuring the amazing Symbolic Sounds Kyma Capybara 320!

And you can listen / re-listen to the whole performance here!


Since I was (and still am) quite of a newbie with my Symbolic Sounds Kyma Capybara 320, I decided to do use it to do something simple...

So, I ended up deciding to do a simple performance in which I used the Yamaha Reface CS I had on a loan (unfortunately it is gone now...) as the sound source, with the Symbolic Sounds Kyma Capybara 320 being used as an effects processor only.


Since the Yamaha Reface CS has such an easy interface to use and a pretty powerful sound, I felt it would be the perfect sound source for a performance similar to the ones I did before using the Electrix Repeater as a long delay (like for instance, Synth-ing Nº12 & Nº13, and yep, I know I ended up not answering the million dollar question yet...).

And considering the huge amount of RAM my Symbolic Sounds Kyma Capybara 320 has (fortunately it is fully expanded in terms of DSPs / RAM), it shouldn't be a problem to create a nice long delay patch!

In fact, it wasn't a problem at all and I could even add some reverb to it with lots of DSP to spare!


While the Yamaha Reface CS has an amazing interface, the Symbolic Sounds Kyma Capybara 320 doesn't...

If you want to edit your Kyma sounds in real time (a Kyma sound is the equivalent to a Clavia Nord Modular patch), you must do so using the VCS, which stands for Virtual Control Surface.

The good part is that you can easily assign knobs, sliders and buttons from your hardware controller to the different parameters (and it even features MIDI Learn, which would be really useful in the Clavia Nord Modular G1 as well).

The obvious choice for me to control all the parameters available in the sound was my Akai MIDIMix, which wasn't that easy to setup with Kyma...
But for that, you can check this post about a MIDI Patchbay for my MacBook Pro, which sorted out the problem ;)


In the end, the Yamaha Reface CS was used as the only sound source, but I also used the distortion effect it features.

All other effects, were provided by my Symbolic Sounds Kyma Capybara 320, which was controlled in realtime by my Akai MIDIMix.


Listening to this performance again, I think this setup works really well.

It didn't work exactly like my Electrix Repeater does, which I'd guess might have to do with the levels and feedback, but it is a great alternative!

And if you want to, you are definitely able to go much further, using for instance several layers of delays with different delay times.


As I posted earlier today, I'm not sure what to do about patch sharing (or better said, sound sharing...) when here when it comes to Kyma, since I'm not sure how educational will that be...

Still, since these posts were quite delayed, I decided to post this one as it is, and will consider either editing it at a later time to feature more info regarding my Kyma sound, or to create a new thread to give a brief overview on my first Kyma sounds, including the ones I have been using in the Synth-ing NºX performances, like this one.

This means at the moment there won't be any Kyma sound available for download, but if you are really interested, you can always contact me to send it to you ;)


I guess this concludes the review for this performance, at least for now.

I really hope you enjoyed it and that you are looking forward to more posts regarding these old performances I gave at electro-music.com!