I spoke with Carla last night and we worked through my issue. It was not a Pacarana or TC Electronics issue. It was me. I was having routing issues in my madi rig. Carla worked with me to test the Pacarana and the Konnect 24D via loopback methods and confirmed all was working.

This conversation all took place after 6:00pm when most companies will not answer the phone. The customer support is the best that I have ever encountered. When I realized what time it was, I asked if we should continue the call tomorrow, her answer was no, this is important and her preference was to work through it. She asked if she could call me back in a few minutes because she needed to the same hardware to work through the configuration with me. She also mentioned it was a late night for her and that they are prepping for something, but this was more important.

One fun note, is you can tell their excitement for all things audio. When we started talking about my studio, she was interested, offered comments and was generally excited about my situation.

All in all, they are the best company that I have purchased from, before, during and after the transaction.

Yes - their support is crazy good. They are absolutely 100% dedicated.

Yeah sorry for not replying to that message, glad you've sorted it out though!!

I originally sent them an e-mail regarding the ADAT issue with the Konnekt 48, then followed up with a phone call, and yes the customer support is fantastic! Must've been a hell of a lot of work to re-write that into the next software release...

No worries about the reply. Great company. This thing is deep and fun. I have all ready got lost in the thing many night and am planning on more of the same tonight. It is integrated right in my nuendo rig.

I configured the rig with 8 mono i/o to kyma as well as 4 stereo i/o to kyma.

This thread keeps tempting me to spend money!

My personal opinion is that it is just a ****ing incredible value. Yes - it can be intimidating because of all of the possibilities, but it's more like being presented with an amazingly huge modular system, than having something where you can only really program on a very low level. I used it a lot back several versions ago, and mostly with the capybara 66 (predecessor to the 320) - and I'm still a bit intimidated right now. But it's not because the core concepts are so hard, or that you have to program low level code. Nothing like that. It's that there is just so much here, and if you're into improvising with it like with a modular synth, it's hard to get your head around all of the possibilities. But what you have here is the product of these 2 brilliant people's lives - they've dedicated themselves to this system, and it's not perfect, but it just kind of feels infinite in its possibilities right now.

On the other hand, if you want to do nord modular type stuff, it's probably better to get one of those, or an analog modular. This is deeply modular, but it just brings sample analysis and manipulation, and the notion that sound in the abstract is a traditional sound, a control signal, or an interrelation of both, to such a deep level.

Shit, I'm drunk and playing with my Pacarana right now. And I'm probably just babbling, too.

I keep going back and forth. I have worked as a professional DSP engineer, and have taught signal processing before, so part of me keeps thinking that it's silly for me to pay so much just for a dedicated platform and a nice set of algorithms. On the other hand, I did that thing all the time as a DSP engineer, buy anything that's already out there and working well to make one's own development faster. If someone already has an algorithm developed and working fast, efficient, and stable why duplicate the effort?

It also integrates so well with my Continuum, perfect for sound design with such a flexible controller. If I weren't going to be leaving work, starting a PhD and getting married this year, I would probably go into debt to buy it in a heartbeat. At this point though, I really can't afford to lose savings to gear lust. (I lost enough to the markets already!)

Still so tempting!

-D

wouldnt it make sense for those of us just getting started to get a used capybara instead of the new one? then upgrade to the new one if we find we need more dsp? the software is identical isn't it?

afterall, the capy does have those highly coveted convertors!

There are 2 new ones. The Paca is considerably cheaper, and the equivalent of a pretty powerful Capybara system.

The software is identical, and I imagine that Symbolic Sound will make any new software backwardly compatible, but there hasn't been a major software upgrade in awhile. To what degree future revisions will work 'better' on the new hardware might be an issue...

I'm fine with the convertors on my tc electronic, but if you really wanted the conversion on the Capybara, it might be worthwhile then to get a base model used for cheap, and then combine it with the Paca. The Capybara is no longer sold new, and while Symbolic Sound allows license transfers (you'll get full support), you will not be eligible for their upgrade discounts. So, upgrading would involve selling the old system to buy a new one.

yes, for sure.. the Capybara is still very powerful and can be had for cheap. the Kyma software runs the same on it .. there are really no differences..

as the previous poster stated.. perhaps in the future we'll see things that run only on the Paca(rana)s... or perhaps future hardware modifications or somesuch will give the user more abilities with the Pacarana (it does have an ethernet port)... but, sound and software-wise, right now, the Capybara still represents a very powerful system.

It seems like motormix is the controller of choice here. these can be purchased for quite cheap these days!

Is it still the controller of choice (it's been out for some years) as there are numerous things like the Lemur I can imagine would be more versatile? I noticed that CM Labs has other newer controllers out. Are these supported?

the motormix "automaps" to kyma hot parameters, which is really nice.. and i think it's pretty much why i'ts the controller of choice.

that being said, however, i recently sold my MM, as i just wasn't using it with Kyma.. i tend to do single processing of sounds rather than tweaking or performing them. so the $300+ i got for the motormix helped in getting my new system.

the only drawback with them is they're quite big and heavy.. compared to some of the alternatives. but, with the automapping feature they're really quite handy if you're into the tweaking.

Personally I am new to Kyma and I was considering a 2nd hand Capybara last October/November, but at that time they weren't coming up for sale very often, and were expensive. Then I heard the rumors and decided to wait, and I definitely do not regret the decision! Although the wait was painful at the time, in retrospect it was actually very very quick, only a few months between the concrete rumors and the actual product being released. And they actually stuck to the release date, which is pretty amazing! To put it in perspective, there are people who have been waiting well over a year for the new SonicCore (formerly Creamware) Xite system, which still has not been released. It's not exactly the same kind of system (the functions of the Xite stuff are much more geared towards "traditional" mixing and synths etc.), but still interesting to compare, as they're both high end DSP systems...

Bear in mind the re-sale value of the Capybaras has gone down dramatically since the release of the Paca/Pacarana, so it would be dangerous to assume you'll be able to get your money back when you re-sell a Capy which you buy 2nd hand now (if you're planning to put it back on the market in a few months or a year or whatever). After all people must be selling them in order to fund purchase of a Paca/Pacarana, otherwise why would so many suddenly be appearing on Ebay etc.?? It's not like everyone's decided they don't want to use Kyma any more...

Regarding the converters, I can't find the quote now (it's somewhere on the Symbolic Sound website), but SS have stated that the sound of the system which everyone loves is much more down to the algorithms than the converters of the Capy. I tend to believe them, so buying a used Capy for the converters could be a little misguided in my opinion. I haven't used a Capy, but my subjective opinion is that the converters probably are very good, but it is probably NOT the main factor influencing the quality of what you are hearing when audio goes in and comes back out of the Kyma system. However I may be wrong about this, and have no means of testing it (not having access to a Capybara). Also bear in mind I want to believe that this is the case, because if it really was the converters that are giving you some of that "Kyma sound" then I am missing out on this, so that could be influencing my opinion here!!

Regarding the DSP power, it seems very likely that once all the hardware and compatibility issues have been sorted out by SS (which has obviously been A LOT of work and taken all their time over the last few months), there may well be stuff you can do on the Pacarana which wouldn't be possible on a Capybara system. As mentioned on the SS site, users are reporting sounds which choke up their old Capybara systems but are hardly registering on the Pacarana. And the issue is not JUST the sheer power of the new system, also the architecture is different, from what I understand the Pacarana is powered by 4 "monilthic" processors, rather than a much larger number of chips. This presumably means they run more efficiently, and to me it makes sense it will be able to do things that even a "maxed out" old system can't. Again this is my opinion, and nothing specific has been announced in this regard.

Finally, the Wacom tablets are a very good option as a Kyma controller. They've just supported the new model of the Intuos. The main disadvantage being you can't grab several faders at the same time. However the Wacom's can respond to more than 1 pen controller, so using a Wacom with 2 hands could be an option?! And Wacom is much more portable than Motormix.

I am very similar to Marzipan.

I am new to Kyma as well. I have been watching on the sidelines for about 10 years and have requested literature I believe twice. When the buzz starting happening about new hardware, my brain started twitching again and decided to jump. That was a 10 year impulse buy

I contemplated buying a used system, but my personality took over. I like to buy current, unless a vintage item. I also like to buy to the current technology level and am always looking for headroom in everything I add to the system. In this case DSP headroom.

I have about 20 hours on my new system and about 8 this weekend and things are clicking. I am going through the book and also letting myself get sidetracked and lost when inspiration hits. In a few hours I have a 303 clone that is quite good in its early state. It all began by listening to one of the sequencer sounds and modifying from there. I need to try to map midi tempo to the sequencer in the future, as well as switchable waveforms, distortion, etc... This is a project without an immediate goal other than learning.

In terms of the system that I am building, MacBook Pro, TC Konnect 24D, Pacarana, Wacom Intuos4, Novation Remote 37L and eventually a Continium. I am astounded by this thing. Everytime I open it up, I am greeting by an interesting sound. I think one of its downfalls is its ease to distract from a goal if you have one.

I think justifying the cost is a very personal thing. Are you doing professional work with it or is it one more thing in the hobby basket? Neither are wrong or bad. In reality, could I do without for what I do, yes. Do I regret my decision, not one bit.

I have used reaktor and I did not enjoy it at all, while these are very similar in its approach (Strapping together building blocks), it just feels very different and quite immediate. The sound quality to me, trounces reaktor. That is not saying, that reaktor sounds bad or that there are not good ensembles because that is quite the opposite. For me, I could not necessarily get what I wanted out of it. The user library is fantastic though.

Just some side notes to the discussion.

1) learning curve?

steep to some degree.....i worked for years with most synthesis methods and this tested me .


2) programming interface?

questionable , it becomes novel after first becoming irritating - its ok but needs to be updated from 1984 to 2009 as it feels like its just past dos some days


3) sound quality


the old capabara was stunning due to i would imagine very expensive ad/da's.....the sound on the capybara is very rich - the new pacarana loses this and its now down to the interface you use i think ?mybe not....... kyma does have its own unique flavour and it is lovely and organic at times.


4) versatility

well first - forget doing nord modular style or generic modular synth work , that would be like painting your house with an airbrush , its a weird one - great sfx creator , sample processor , nice novel unique fx - its forte is granulation , spectral work , vocoding and realtime ( its trick ) convolution and cross synthesis......its pretty unbeatable for that stuff on a good day but from personal experience it takes ALOT of hard work to get amazing results and alot if study and its not immediate . . .in fact somedays its like reaktor can blows kyma away and you think why the hell did i pay that much ......kyma remains unique though and magic but you know its a what you give is what you get machine - its a famous system for people buying expecting miracles and stuff over night and that doesnt happen - people often then sell these later due to the learning curve and the reality which is that many cant master it ......

5) company updates and progress (seems kyma website hasn't been updated since 2006?)

good...........you can bet at some point kyma ae going to step fully into 2010 and set a new bench mark , they have been caught up a bit and alot of what kyma does can be done on a pc or mac now for much less to some degree with hard work but it remains unique

6) why is kyma so expensive and what do you get for that $$[/quote]

well personally i do think its a bit of an elite club..years back the stuff it did made it worth that but as people have got smart with native stuff its lost its edge i a little, i actually think its well overpriced right now for many but for pros its not......its a luxury item and the kyma people i feel never wanted the mass market and also their power is in this high end/price system and maintaining that aura which it does due to its feel an work flow - the slight arcane user interface does sometimes make you feel your splitting atoms in a lab as opposed to painting candy bars reaktor style .....my feeling is its worth every penny if your on the right wavelength but if your on budgets it is a questionable buy , from my experince and knowing other users i can say initial feelings a buyer often has are much less than their expectations......there is some hype around kyma but then with time and work it can do stunning stuff and live up to this ......if only kyma used a logical gui and was more accessible..

dont get me wrong i love it but tread carefully if considering one.....it isnt going to blow you away over night but remains unique and magical esoteric and on good day great fun......i just hope theu update the gui and create some easier user building blocks so you can quickly access it .It can be tedious but remains space age .The company and people at ssc are without a doubt some of the best people i dealt with and on the artists wavelength , creative and inventors so immediately its cool.....

best advice is try before you buy ....seriously ....unless your flush and then just go for it.

i meant to ask - does anyone know if the paca can be updated ? to pacarana power via addon ram and processors ?

Great post prism!

well personally i do think its a bit of an elite club..years back the stuff it did made it worth that but as people have got smart with native stuff its lost its edge i a little, i actually think its well overpriced right now for many but for pros its not......its a luxury item and the kyma people i feel never wanted the mass market and also their power is in this high end/price system and maintaining that aura which it does due to its feel an work flow - the slight arcane user interface does sometimes make you feel your splitting atoms in a lab as opposed to painting candy bars reaktor style .....my feeling is its worth every penny if your on the right wavelength but if your on budgets it is a questionable buy , from my experince and knowing other users i can say initial feelings a buyer often has are much less than their expectations......there is some hype around kyma but then with time and work it can do stunning stuff and live up to this ......if only kyma used a logical gui and was more accessible..

dont get me wrong i love it but tread carefully if considering one.....it isnt going to blow you away over night but remains unique and magical esoteric and on good day great fun......i just hope theu update the gui and create some easier user building blocks so you can quickly access it .It can be tedious but remains space age .The company and people at ssc are without a doubt some of the best people i dealt with and on the artists wavelength , creative and inventors so immediately its cool.....

best advice is try before you buy ....seriously ....unless your flush and then just go for it.[/quote]

Admittedly not an expert, but I just can't see saying that the Reaktor interface compares. I just don't see how you can get anywhere near the level of the Kyma presets or prototypes without a lot of work. And then if you're talking about a downloaded ensemble, it's not immediately very easy to edit them drastically, like you can do with the Kyma presets/prototypes pretty easily. I just can't see that comparison.

No - it's not as immediate for modular synthesis connections as a nord modular, but I'm not sure that this is due to the interface as much as the overall complexity. It's not designed to emulate analog modular synthesis primarily, and obviously if you're going in that direction, the nord modular series would be preferable.

Of course, this is a system for someone who wants to put in some serious learning time, but I think that it's brilliant in how it also gives you tons of stuff that you can use to play with when you're just learning. Many, many presets and prototypes.

I don't think that the interface is perfect (far from it) but there is a lot that I really like about it.

In some ways I think that after a point you'll read very opposing opinions about the interface and how easy it is to use. I think that the next step, if you're really interested, is buying the manual, and seeing if you can get more of a sense of how it works from that.

The most difficult thing for me at this stage is trying to figure out with the tremendous number of prototypes available - how to actually and build up something sensibly, and not just flail around. Just so many modules to play around with and learn. Kind of like buying an absolutely HUGE analog modular system and getting it to work as a whole, rather than just piece by piece.

All excellent points droolmaster.

Agree 100%, my two cents on the downloaded ensembles mirror your opinion as well. I do not find the ones that I like easily modifiable. I do think there are a lot of high quality ensembles created by some very talented people.

Being a newcomer to Kyma, It does seem a lot easier to modify existing sounds to get something new. Even though the UI is not pretty, I find working with it, from the sound creation/editing point of view very straight forward. I have a developer background, so I find it very easy to digest.

Agreed, one thing that I am trying to create in Kyma is a simple 2 Osc subtractive synth.

One issue I have and this is not environment specific, is understanding how to decompose a problem to solve, so then it can be implemented. I do understand how this example works, so implementing in Kyma is a good exercise in the kyma environment not necessarily where you would use kyma. I believe I read earlier in this thread, use kyma for what your other tools can not do easily and I agree.

Agreed, one of the primary reason I bought a Pacarana was for the challenge and the depth.

Agreed and really agree. If I could do one thing different, I would of bought Kyma Revealed prior to taking delivery. It would of been a smarter approach for me to see what I was getting myself into

Absolutely agree. I find the library very helpful in this task, but then that also assumes you know the 1000 sounds all ready or the type of approach that would solve the issue.

One thing I have started doing is basically coming up with a clear cut idea of a sound and working towards that task as an exercise. I almost look at it like school work.

An other important idea with kyma is be inquisitive. Hear something you like, open the thing up and explore.

I put up some quick patches of the Nord G2 Engine making simple but happy sounds. The WAVs are downloadable and available to use. Just thought I'd share it.

The just released new version (X6.2) of Kyma supports the Behringer BCF2000 as a Motor Mix like device minus the display.

I picked up a motor mix for cheap (somewhere around $200). Part of the nice integration is the display of the vcs control labels on it. So, depending on the cost of the Behringer, I'd really recommend trying to find a cheap motor mix. But maybe I'm missing something.

Ive ordered my Pacarana which should be arriving mid june! heh

Congrats.

Thanks for the tip. Where did you pick it up?

God - trying to remember - I think it was from here, actually.

Great Thread! Glad I started it!

How much do you think a used KYMA Capybara base system is worth now?

I can't believe it's been a year and I still haven't picked one up. I did buy the book though.

I think that modular enviroments, take too long to master and the result are not always worthwhile.

I have given CSOUND a try, mainly because I am a hobbist programmer, it is surely flexible but It just cant compare with the ease of use and immediacy of hardware synths.

In the CSOUND It was strange cause I did not found a single sound that I liked made from other ultra experienced users.

Also I feel that those environments do not necessarily give anything special, contrary to what people belive, because they same concept can be applied more or less on top of a hardware synth through layering and regular boring effects.

In the end , I just do not see them as time worthy anymore.

The only exception to that is REAKTOR , which I love dearly, especially Spacedrone.... I do love the interface and the simplification of the whole process.

HI just joining in after getting sucked in by this thread.

a few things to add...
The Kyma/Capybara does not natively support Open Sound Control (OSC - a protocol for sending and recieving control messages via network sockets) whereas the Paca and Pacarana will do so very soon, but, from a brief email conversation with Symbolic Sound, there appears to be no plan to extend this to the Capybara. That said, there is a program called Osculator

OSCulator

for the Mac that allows OSC communication with the Kyma but there is (and probably never will be) anything for the windows version of Kyma. I will probably buy an old macbook or mini purely for running Kyma for this purpose - or I'll sell the capybara. I'm at the turning point where the hardware midi interface is too slow for what I want to do.

I agree that the kyma sound is delicious but I also like to use Pure Data a lot and find that the Kyma's need to stop and compile, even though it takes a fleeting moment, subtly breaks my flow of ideas (okay, I'm a bit ADD I guess)

A fully loaded Capybara is, I think, about two thirds the overall power of the new pacarana, so that can serve as a guide in deciding between the two. Also, the pacarana and a decent I/O box is much easier to carry than a capybara. The more you gig and travel, the more that will matter!

cheers,
Rod.