The Kyma/Platypus Computer Music Workstation

Abstract

The Kyma/Platypus workstation is a graphic environment integrating sound synthesis, computeraided composition, and digital audio signal processing. All sound generation and processing is done in software, and each copy of the system can be modified and extended by the composer using it. Kyma is a language based on Sound objects; it is written in Smalltalk-80, running on an Apple Macintosh II. Real-time software synthesis is provided by the Platypus, a digital signal processor designed and built at the University of Illinois. The Kyma/Platypus framework is flexible enough to support such application areas as composition, systematic musicology, digital audio post-processing, sound track production, psychoacoustics, digital signal processing, the design of test signals, communications research, the sonic representation of scientific data-in short, any application requiring the interactive design of highquality digital audio signals. Three factors contribute to the flexibility of this system: (1) the choice of Sound objects rather than standard music notation as the representation for musical signals, (2) the choice of Smalltalk-80 rather than a compiled procedural language as the programming environment, and (3) the choice of a programmable digital signal processor (rather than a hardwired synthesizer) for the production of sound.