Controllers & Instruments – the eighth nerve

Study Kyma in Germany

Franz Danksagmüller is offering a Kyma workshop next semester at the Musikhochschule Lübeck as part of a new Master’s Program in Organ Improvisation: Creativity, Innovation, and Interdisciplinarity – a course of study offering creative, cutting-edge musicians an opportunity to develop their artistic personalities through innovative improvisation, composition, electronic instrument and controller design, creative AI for improvisation and composition, generative video and sound design, and Kyma for live electronic performances.

Recently featured on NDR news, the groundbreaking program brings the art of organ improvisation into the 21st century and introduces the organ to artists from other disciplines. The focus is on current styles and techniques and on combining the organ with contemporary trends and modern media. Students develop individual forms of expression and acquire the skills necessary to realize innovative musical and live digital media projects and collaborations.

Closely aligned with the “Sound Arts and Creative Music Technology” degree program, the new degree includes courses in:

Development and Control of Electronic Instruments and Controllers
Creative Use of AI for Improvisation and Composition
Video software and tools for live multimedia performance
Kyma electronics for live performances

Access to Unique Instruments

Through a collaboration with St. Nikolai church in Hamburg, students gain access to an innovative hyper-organ, where they can learn microphone placement for processing the organ sound, handle MIDI connections and electronic platforms, and use the organ as an interface for interactive and multimedia projects. The program also maintains close partnerships with the Orgelpark in Amsterdam — renowned for its pioneering work in merging tradition and modern technology — and the experimental organ at St. Martin’s Church in Kassel —known for its quarter-tone manual, wind regulation options, and overtone registers, offering additional ways to explore contemporary improvisation techniques and soundscapes.

Collaboration and Networking

Thanks to close collaborations with universities and institutions in Lübeck and Hamburg, as well as partnerships with international festivals, students benefit from extensive practical experience and networking opportunities. Collaboration with students from other disciplines is particularly encouraged at MHL.

Numerous partnerships with various festivals (including the Nordic Film Days Lübeck, the largest film festival in Northern Europe) and major churches in Northern Germany provide students with the opportunity to present their work to a broader audience.

The Master’s Program in Organ Improvisation: Creativity, Innovation, and Interdisciplinarity at Musikhochschule Lübeck combines tradition with innovation and opens doors to a new direction in musical creation, positioning the organ as a central interface for artistic expression.

For more details and to find out how to apply, visit:
https://www.mh-luebeck.de/de/studium/studiengaenge/master-of-music-orgel-improvisation/

Violins abducted by aliens

They come in peace!

Anssi Laiho’s Teknofobia Ensemble is a live-electronics piece that combines installation and concert forms: an installation, because its sound is generated by machines; a concert piece, because it has a time-dependent structure and musical directions for performers. The premiere was 13 November 2024 at Valvesali in Oulu, Finland.

Laiho views technophobia, the fear of new technological advancements, as a subcategory of xenophobia, the fear of the unknown or of outsiders. His goal was to present both of these phobias in an absurd setting.

The composer writes that “the basic concept of technophobia — that ‘machines will replace us and make us irrelevant’— is particularly relevant today, as programs using artificial intelligence are becoming mainstream and are widely used across many industries.”

Teknofobia Ensemble poses the question: What if there were a planet inhabited by a mechanical species, and these machines came to Earth and tried to communicate with us via music? What would the music sound like, and would they first try to learn and imitate our culture in order to communicate with us?

Laiho’s aim was to reproduce the live-electronics environment he would normally work in, but to replace the human musicians with robots — not androids or simulants but “mechanical musicians”.

He asked himself, “What would it mean for my music and creative process if this basic assumption were to become true? As a composer living in the 2020s, do I still need musicians to perform my compositions? Wouldn’t it be easier to work with machines that always fulfill my requests? Can a mechanical musician interpret a musical piece on an emotional level, as a human being does, or does it simply apply virtuosity to the technical execution of the task?”

He then set out to prove himself wrong!

Teknofobia Ensemble consists of five prepared violins, each equipped with a Raspberry Pi that controls various types of electronic motors (solenoids, DC motors, stepper motors, and servos) through a Python program. This program converts OSC commands received from Kyma into PWM signals on the Raspberry Pi pins, which are connected to motor drivers.

In live performances, Kyma acts as the conductor for the ensemble, while Laiho views his role as primarily that of a “mixer for the band”.

The piece is structured as a 26-minute-long Kyma timeline, consisting of OSC instructions (the musical notation of the piece) for the mechanical violins. The live sound produced by the violins is routed back to Kyma via custom-made contact microphones for live electronic processing.

Percussion Robot

Ping Pong Percussion represents a new, hybrid art form created by experimental composer / visual artist, Giuseppe Tamborrino and featuring a robotic instrument that he designed and built.

Part robot, part sound sculpture, part musical composition, part video art — Ping Pong Percussion Experimental Sampling with Wifi Servo Motor & Live Granular Synthesis. Laterza (TA) 2024-10-6 blends robotically-actuated acoustic percussion sounds with live Kyma granular synthesis and leads the viewer on a path from real world to imaginary visuals.

Giuseppe Tamborrino’s Wi-Fi servo motor-controlled sound sculpture

In his compositions, Laterza-based composer Giuseppe Tamborrino combines jazz scales, Greek modes and personalized scales with partially tonal, tonal and non-tonal timbres, blended with instrumental acoustic effects. Each work takes a different form, some are stochastically shaped, others reflect the golden section, others take on algorithmic structures experimentally generated by custom software for computer music and sound.

A Movable Beast

In his role at BEAST (Birmingham Electroacoustic Sound Theatre), Simon Smith works with massive multi-speaker array concert systems on a daily basis. These experiences inspired him to design a system of his own that could generate moving sound sources and immersion without the need to carry around large amps and speakers.

When Smith came across the Minirig loudspeaker — a small Bluetooth speaker typically used for small parties and “annoying people on the beach” — he bought 4 of them and, using standard microphone mounts and gooseneck microphone stands, he started experimenting with various configurations. Initially using tea coasters and cable ties, he eventually found drainpipe mounts that fit the Minirigs perfectly. Now he’s able to flexibly angle the loudspeakers toward nearby reflective surfaces (walls, windows, ceilings, panels), creating an impression of the sound coming from the room and not just the loudspeaker.

The speakers are just loud enough that he can play along with acoustic instruments without overwhelming them. Smith’s initial setup has now grown to 8 speakers with 2 subs, and by design, the entire rig (Pacamara, Laptop, and Minirigs) can be battery powered, opening the possibility for impromptu off-grid performances in interesting acoustic spaces. He christened his modular sound spatialisation system the Portable Immersive Sound System intentionally, because he knew he was destined to take it places.

During a recent performance at PAN-PAN, Simon used his MYO armbands to control a concatenatenative synthesis patch routed through Kyma (running a custom delay line designed by Alan Jackson and workshopped by the Kyma Kata), then through an Eventide H90 which sent quad out to his portable spatializing speakers.

See you in Seoul

Video frame from a performance of *Testimonio Objetivo* by composer Jeffrey Stolet

International Computer Music Conference
“Sound in Motion”
7-13 July 2024
https://www.icmc2024.org/

There will be multiple opportunities to connect with fellow Kyma artists during the ICMC 2024 in Seoul, South Korea, where you’ll hear them performing on several concerts and presenting their ideas on paper sessions. Here are just a few of the composers using Kyma who will be participating in the ICMC during the week of 7-13 July 2024:

Shuyu Lin When Dandelion Whistles
Fang Wan Song Yun
Chi Wang Transparent Affordance
Jeffrey Stolet Testimonio objetivo
Oliver Kwapis Lucky
Jinshuo Feng Listening to the Deep: An Interactive Music Exploration of Oceanic Soundscapes and Climate Change
Tao Li 枯山水 Beyond Landscape
Hector Bravo Benard Nowhere

On the paper sessions:

Jeffrey Stolet Music-Centric Description of Performance with Data-Driven Musical Instruments

White Sands

Is John Mantegna using Kyma Control at White Sands? And what does he mean by this quote?
“I think the VP is awesome!”

Danksagmüller at the Orgelpark

Virtuoso organist / composer / live electronics performer, Franz Danksagmüller is presenting an afternoon workshop followed by an evening concert of new works for “hyper-organ” and Kyma electronics at the Orgelpark in Amsterdam, Friday 7 June 2024, as part of the 2024 International Orgelpark Symposium on the theme of ‘interfaces’ (in the broadest sense of the word).

In his symposium, “New Music, Traditional Rituals“, Danksagmüller wrestles with the question of how new music might play a role in liturgy and religious rituals. While the development of the so-called hyper-organ reveals the strong secular roots of the pipe organ, which, after all, spent the first 15 centuries of its life outside the church, the pipe organ has also been significantly formed by its six centuries within the church, a church which inspired organ builders and organists to create the magnificent instruments that remain an important part of Europe’s patrimony today.

Is there a role for new music in the church? In their pursuit of “truth” do scientists and theologians share any common ground? Danksagmüller does not shy away from the “big questions”!

Bell tones freeze on imaginary ice

On November 28 2022 at the Prater in Vienna, the audience will board a Luftwaggon of the Wiener Riesenrad ferris wheel to experience Bruno Liberda’s new composition still-kreisen-drehen-stehn / frieren die glockentöne am eingebildeten eis (still-circling-turning-standing / bell tones freeze on imaginary ice) for double carillon & Kyma.

Two carillons are played live and fed through Kyma — repeating, turning, or standing still through various granulations, feedbacks, ring modulations, pitch deteriorations, moving reverbs and more — creating a frosty new soundscape, while the public has a moving view over Vienna.

The instruments are artworks in themselves: fully functional carillons created by composer, Bruno Liberda

It’s all part of the AIAIA project Milky Way im Luftwaggon — Wiener Riesenrad

28.11.2022
1. Vorstellung: 18:00 2. Vorstellung: 19:00

Wiener Riesenrad, Riesenradplatz 1, 1020 Wien, Austria
28.11.2022 Wiener Riesenrad, Riesenradplatz 1, 1020 Wien
1. Vorstellung: 18:00
2. Vorstellung: 19:00

Four ferris wheel wagons as floating, circling, stages for works by:
Bruno Liberda, Masao Ono, Anita Steinwidder, Christine Schörkhuber, Verena Dürr, Sophie Eidenberger, Stefanie Prenn.

Und er lässt es gehen
Alles wie es will
Dreht, und seine Leier
steht ihm nimmer still
(Wilhelm Müller, 1824)

I am Violet the Organ Grinder
And I grind all the live long day
I live for the organ, that I am grinding
I´ll die, but I won´t go away
(Prince, 1991)

Kyma 7 support for LinnStrument and MPE

Kyma 7 now offers plug-and-play support for Roger Linn Design’s LinnStrument and other MPE-enabled MIDI instruments. Kyma automatically puts the LinnStrument into MPE mode when you connect it via USB-MIDI or MIDI 5-pin DIN (or via your computer, using Delora Software’s Kyma Connect). Once connected, any keyboard-controlled Sound in Kyma automatically sets the polyphony and responds to the LinnStrument — no extra controllers are needed, and you don’t have to select a special mode on the LinnStrument — so you just plug it in, and play.

What is MPE?

Traditional MIDI note events have two dimensions — pitch and velocity — neither of which can be altered directly with the fingers once the key has gone down. But musicians performing with live electronics are driving the demand for new electronic instruments — instruments whose touch, reliability, sensitivity, and responsiveness can begin to approach those of traditional acoustic instruments.

Over the last 10-15 years, more and more instrument makers have sought to incorporate continuous control over pitch and velocity and to add a third dimension of continuous control: timbre. One of the earliest entries in this new category was the Continuum fingerboard from Haken Audio (which has had plug-and-play support in Kyma since 2001). More recently, Madrona Labs (Soundplane), Eigenlabs (Eigenharp), ROLI (Seaboard), and Roger Linn Design (LinnStrument) have been offering “keyboard-like” instruments that provide three dimensions of expressive, continuous control per finger.

But how is it possible to send these three-dimensional continuous polyphonic MIDI notes to a sound engine? Haken Audio first used a FireWire protocol before switching over to a proprietary, optimized MIDI protocol. Symbolic Sound and Madrona Labs used Open Sound Control (OSC) for Kyma Control and Soundplane, respectively. But the growing proliferation of new instruments and proprietary protocols was threatening to become a nightmare for soft-and-hardware synthesizer makers to support.

Enter software developer Geert Bevin who, in January of this year, started working with key industry professionals on a new, more expressive MIDI specification called MPE: Multidimensional Polyphonic Expression. The new MPE standard has already been implemented on Roger Linn Design’s LinnStrument, the Madrona Labs Soundplane, the ROLI Rise Seaboard, and several other instrument makers are currently in the process of adding an MPE-mode to their instruments.

With MPE, the music industry now has a standard protocol for communicating between expressive controllers and the sound hardware and software capable of sonically expressing the subtlety, responsiveness, and live interaction offered by these controllers.

Kyma — Interactive, responsive, and live

Kyma, with its legendary audio quality, vast synthesis codebase and deep access to detailed parameter control, is the ideal sound engine to pair with these new, more responsive controller interfaces for live expressive performance, and Symbolic Sound has a long history of working with instrument makers to provide tight, seamless integration and bi-directional communication between these new instruments and Kyma.

In addition to its graphical signal flow editor, file editors, and Sound Library, Kyma 7 also provides several environments in which you can create an instrument where the synthesis, processing, parameter-mapping, and even the mode of interaction can evolve over time during a performance:

In the Multigrid (displayed on the iPad during the video), you can switch instantly between sources, effects, and combinations of the two with no interruption in the audio signal. Perform live, inspired in the moment, with infinite combinatorial possibilities.
In the Kyma 7 Timeline you can slow down or stop the progression of time to synchronize your performance with other performers, with key events, or with features extracted from an audio signal during your performance.
Using the Tool you can create a state machine where input conditions trigger the evaluation of blocks of code (for example, the game-of-life displayed on the LinnStrument during the closing credits of the video is being controlled by a Tool).
Kyma also provides a realtime parameter language called Capytalk where you can make parameters depend on one another or control subsets of parameters algorithmically.
It’s easy to add a new parameter control, simply type in the desired controller name preceded by an exclamation point — a control is automatically created for you, and it even generates its own widget in a Virtual Control Surface which can be remapped to external controllers (through MIDI, 14-bit MIDI, or OSC). This makes it easy to augment your live MPE controllers with other MIDI and OSC controllers or with tablet controller apps.

More information

Multidimensional Polyphonic Expression (MPE)
expressiveness.org

LinnStrument
rogerlinndesign.com

Kyma 7
symbolicsound.com

Kyma at ICMC2015

Kyma had a strong presence at the 2015 International Computer Music Conference in Denton Texas, September 25 â€” October 1, including live performances by

Jeffrey Stolet,