Kyma Software Gains Faster Hardware

(Click for a close-up)

Symbolic Sound Corporation announces the Capybara-320 Sound Computation Engine, a multi-processor hardware accelerator for the award-winning Kyma software sound design environment. Based on the new Motorola DSP-56309 chip running at 80 MHz, the Capybara 320 base unit is now available for US$3300 and provides a minimum of four DSPs (expandable to 28) with multi-channel I/O, synchronization to external clocks, and 96 MB of sample RAM (expandable to 672 Mb) in a low-noise, rack-mountable package connected to a desktop or laptop Macintosh or Windows PC.

This new hardware gives you 5 to 8 times more real time processing power than was previously possible. That translates into more polyphony, higher sampling rates, more I/O channels, denser textures, and more computationally intensive algorithms such as full-blown spectral analysis and additive resynthesis, all performed in real time.

Sound designers for music, games, film, and advertising have been using the Kyma software environment (commercially available since 1991) to design unique sound synthesis and processing algorithms that they can then fine-tune or perform in real time using the Capybara hardware accelerator (without having to rely upon the memory or processing resources of the host computer for sound generation.)

Hardware Specifications

Basic Configuration

• 4 Motorola 56309 DSPs
• 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)

• 2 Motorola 56309 DSPs
• 48 MB sample RAM (per card)
• Up to 12 cards can be added

• 4-8 channels
• 32-96 kHz sample rate
• 24-bit
• Balanced Analog & Digital (AES/EBU)

• Word Clock input
• House Sync input
• VITC & LTC Timecode input and output

• PCI
• PC(MCIA) to laptop machines
• ISA or NuBus for older machines

Benchmarks

To give some idea of the new hardware's capabilities:

You can use a 75-band vocoder in real time on a basic system. On a fully loaded system, you can create a 675-band real time vocoder.

On a basic system, you can perform additive synthesis with 200 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 1856 partials.

You can create a granulated sample cloud with 108 simultaneous grains on a basic system. A fully loaded system can generate samples clouds of 972 simultaneous grains.

You can use 70 voices of samples on a basic system, and a fully loaded system gives you 640 voices.

Upgrade Paths

Current Kyma users can choose to exchange their Capybara-66 expansion cards for a substantial discount on new Capybara-320 expansion cards (each one 5 times more powerful than one of the current Capybara-66 expansion cards) that can be plugged into their existing motherboards. Alternatively, they can opt to trade in the entire system for a discount on a new Capybara-320 motherboad with "four-on-the-floor" (four DSPs right on the motherboard) plus multichannel I/O, external synchronization inputs, and up to 12 expansion cards (with 2 DSPs and 48 MB on each).

Pricing & Availability

The price for a new Capybara-320 base unit is US $3300 (includes a 4-processor unit with 4 channels of analog and digital I/O, and external sync inputs and outputs, the Kyma software environment, and your choice of PCI, PC(MCIA), ISA, or NuBUS interface cards). Up to 12 expansion cards can be added to the base unit, each of which provides two more DSPs and 48 MB of additional sample RAM for $595. A four channel I/O upgrade is available for $995.