What if you could hear your music performed on a 500 year old organ that was once played by J.S. Bach? What if you could invent a new kind of live DJ set with Kyma and live percussion? Or work with an opera singer and a pop singer to develop new ways of transforming the voice in a live performance? What if you could spend several days experimenting with live Kyma-processing of strings, woodwinds, piano, percussion, and other acoustic instruments?
The Collaboratory is a “collaboration laboratory” where you can be part of a team of composers/performers/technologists inventing a new kind of live performance piece, live improvisation, live sound-track-to-picture performance, live DJ set or experimental live interaction involving Kyma and acoustic or electronic performers. The choices are yours, and the possibilities are limitless. Make a proposal and see what happens!
Javier Umpierrez has just finished the sound design and music for a trailer for Ilusión Nacional, Olallo Rubio‘s upcoming documentary on the history of Mexico’s national soccer team, that conveys the passion and the politics behind the world’s most popular sport.
In the trailer, Umpierrez used Kyma to create and control the vast, powerful crowd sounds as well as other sound design elements. Starting with a recording he made of a full-capacity crowd in Aztec Stadium, he’s been utilizing Kyma’s SampleCloud and controlling pitch and amplitude in real time using Kyma Control on the iPad.
Umpierrez is also doing the score and the sound design for the film itself, so we can look forward to even more awesome crowd effects and inspiring music when the film opens in April 2014.
Composer John Balcom recently completed the score for a new documentary utilizing Kyma as his synthesis tool kit.  BIG SHOT, part of ESPN’s award-winning series 30 FOR 30, tells the story of John Spano’s notorious purchase of the New York Islanders hockey team – which, 4 months after it happened, was exposed as one of the biggest scams in sports history. Directed by Kevin Connolly (E from ENTOURAGE), the film offers the first ever interview with Spano. It’s a pretty incredible story — Newsday called it “a must-watch for anyone with an interest in the power of delusion — both of the self and of others.” The film will be premiering Oct 22nd at 8pm EST on ESPN, and will eventually be available on demand as well as Netflix.
Far more than a sports documentary, the film is, at its core, the story of how a con man pulled off an incredible scam, and much of Balcom’s music speaks to this part of the film. The main instruments used were harp, piano, percussion, and synth, with Kyma supplying most of the synth parts.
When asked why he uses Kyma, Balcom responds, “I find the sound quality second to none. It has become an invaluable tool for me and I find myself using it more and more in my projects.”
Tobias Enhus‘ Santa Monica California-based film-scoring studio is featured in the November 2013 issue of STUDIO magazine. You can get a preview of the article through this video in which Enhus gives a demo tour of his unique collection of gear (including a rack with three Pacaranas) presented in Swedish and the universal language of audio gear, all to the soft accompaniment of the glassy, metallic, vocal, analog electronics that have become his signature sound. Near the end of the video, Enhus does an impromptu performance with Max Mathews’ Radio Baton controlling vocal resynthesis in Kyma!
When not composing for film, television, games & advertising, Tobias Enhus enjoys a bit of cave diving & sleep walking.
The article describes how Tobias was born in Sweden and began by following in his father’s footsteps as a construction engineer before changing course to follow his true passion: music and sound design. Now he is a successful film composer and sound designer in Hollywood, and he has what he describes as a real monster in his sound design studio: “This is my audio playground,” Tobias says, referring to his Kyma system, the programming language considered by some to be the most powerful sound design tool available. Enhus’ Kyma system (his 3-Pacarana rack is among the world’s largest sound computing clusters), along with his Synclavier and analog synthesizer modules, have laid the technical foundation for Enhus’ successes in Los Angeles; his composing credits include the films Narc and the soon-to-be-released feature film Sisterhood of Night, the television series Top Gear and video game Spiderman 3, as well as sound design and music composition for numerous ads for companies like Mercedes and Coca Cola.
The article is full of photos, anecdotes, advice, and insights on the life of a professional composer and sound designer in LA. And it’s an inspiring story for anyone who feels they are expected to take one path in life and is seeking the courage to risk it all in order to follow their dreams.
The little village of Petersburgh, NY, nestled in the hills and mountains of eastern Rensselaer County, New York, has long been known for the rugged beauty of its landscape. Â What is less well known is that this setting has, over the years, attracted a unique mix of independent artists and visionaries, individuals who have had a lifelong dream and realized it. Â From disciplines as diverse as music, painting, master masonry, sculpture, jewelry and metal sculpture, ceramic pottery and more, artists are thriving in this small village.
Peter’s People — Creating the Dream by musician/video artists Barton and Priscilla McLean, is the story of eight such artists and musicians living and working in Petersburgh.
Barton McLean’s score for the film, based on musical materials from the artist/musicians featured in the video, was produced entirely in Kyma using the Timeline. McLean pioneered the Synthi 100 and Fairlight CMI in the United States, and has subsequently gone through numerous studio incarnations centered on the Moog, Arp, EU, Serge, and now, Kyma. The husband and wife composing duo have produced CDs on the labels EM-Japan, Folkways, CRI, Centaur, Lousiville Orchestra, Orion, Opus 1, Advance, Parma/Naxos, and Innova.
International touring and media artists in their own right, the McLeans chose in this film to focus not on their own work, but on the many other talented and successful creative dreamers they found, including a world class bagpiper who founded a school in Petersburgh, a master award-winning stone mason whose unique stone work has graced buildings and landscapes from Atlanta to the Adirondacks, a watercolor artist who appeared in “Oprah†magazine and has published a definitive book on watercoloring, and several others.
Hamilton Sterling at Helikon Sound has just completed the sound for David Jacobson’s new film, Tomorrow You’re Gone, a story of psychological vengeance and real-world redemption. The film stars Stephen Dorff, Michelle Monaghan, and Willem Dafoe.
As sound designer, supervising sound editor, and re-recording mixer, Hamilton created a sonic world that functions almost as a musical score. Aside from guitar and drums (used by the composer), almost every scene in the film is inflected by sounds generated in Kyma (appropriately enough, since most of the film may or may not take place from a point of view inside the main character’s head).
The Kyma International Sound Symposium is  four inspiring days and nights filled with sound design, ideas, discussions, and music, and it offers a wide range of opportunities to increase your Kyma mastery: from introductory master classes, to hands-on question-and-answer sessions; from thought-provoking presentations, to inspiring concerts and after-hours discussions with new-found friends and colleagues.
This year’s symposium KISS2012 will be on banks of the mighty Mississippi River, September 13-16, organized by St. Cloud State University School of the Arts and Symbolic Sound. The KISS2012 theme, reel time || real time, puts the spotlight on reel time (sound for picture), real time (live performance), and all timescales between, including sound design for games, live cinema, live improvisation ensembles, live performances from a score, sound design for live theatre, live signal generation for speech and hearing research, interactive data sonification, interactive sound art, and more!
Post-human investigator Steven T. Brown‘s new video, Flowering of Resistance, pays tribute to thinkers throughout history who have had the courage to shake things up.
In it, you can hear how he uses Kyma to generate a slowly ‘flowering’ timbre, beautifully shaken up and interrupted with stutter effects to match the shaken images. Selected for inclusion in the (sub)Urban Projections Festival held in Eugene, Oregon on November 9-23, 2011, Brown dedicates this video to his fellow participants in the Occupy movement all over the world. He concludes with the reminder that:
The power to resist the status quo in a non-violent fashion is as important to the healthy functioning of a democracy as is the ability to forge consensus.
London UK-based Zelig Sound, creators of music composition and sound design for TV, film, advertising and branding, recently created the sound and music for “The 360 Project”, two dramatic short films by Toronto-based director and photographer Ryan Enn Hughes that capture peak dance moves using 48 simultaneously firing cameras surrounding the performer (designed by The Big Freeze).  The result is a cross between photography, video, and ‘digital sculpture’, where time is frozen but is then unrolled in new three-dimensional sequences.
Sound designer Matthew Wilcock and his team used Kyma, performed on a Wacom tablet, for the whooshes, passes and synth sounds in both 360 pieces, BALLET 360 & KRUMP 360. They used Kyma to create a selection of sounds around the timbre they wanted, and later brought them into a DAW to edit them and layer in the music.
The team used the same process on a Zelig Sound branding project for Black Ocean. Wilcock estimates that 70% of the sound for Black Ocean was created by Kyma controlled by movements and gestures on the Wacom tablet.  The team set up the film to run in a loop while recording multiple performances of custom-designed Kyma Sounds on a Wacom tablet.  They then took the results of that session, and edited, selected, and layered them in their DAW.
Internationally acclaimed film composer, AR Rahman used Kyma (Harm Visser’s physical modeling toolkit) controlled by the Haken Audio Continuum Fingerboard to perform the lead on the dignified and ethereal Acid Darbari, as part of Rahman’s sound track for Danny Boyles’ new film, 127 hours. The full soundtrack is available for download from iTunes, Rhapsody and Amazon (http://www.arrahman.com).
Internationally acclaimed film composer, AR Rahman used Kyma (Harm Visser’s physical modeling toolkit) controlled by the Haken Audio Continuum Fingerboard to perform the lead on the dignified and ethereal Acid Darbari.  Rahman’s full soundtrack, composed for Danny Boyles’ film, 127 hours, is available for download from iTunes, Rhapsody and Amazon Direct links available here: http://www.arrahman.com.
