---
title: Carla Scaletti
description: Carla Scaletti, the composer and inventor of Kyma, co-founder of Symbolic Sound; Sarth Calhoun beta-tested Kyma and is credited on the Kyma X startup screen.
url: https://www.sarth.net/conspirators/carla-scaletti/
credit: Sarth Calhoun beta-tested Kyma, made by Carla Scaletti and Kurt Hebel’s Symbolic Sound Corporation, and is credited on the Kyma X startup screen.
author: Sarth Calhoun
---
[Conspirators](/conspirators/) / Carla Scaletti

Conspirator

# Carla Scaletti

Composer and the inventor of Kyma. I beta-tested it, and my name is on the Kyma X startup screen.

[Carla Scaletti](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carla_Scaletti) (born 1956, Ithaca, New York) is an American composer, harpist and music technologist, the inventor of the [Kyma](https://kyma.symbolicsound.com/) sound design language, first outlined in 1986, and co-founder with [Kurt Hebel](/conspirators/kurt-hebel/) of Symbolic Sound Corporation, spun out of the CERL Sound Group at the University of Illinois in 1989. She holds a DMA in composition from Illinois and received the SEAMUS Award in 2017; her works include *Trinity* (1989), *QUANTUM* (2013) and *misfold* (2023).

![Carla Scaletti, portrait, 2011.](/images/conspirator-carla-scaletti.jpg)

Carla Scaletti, April 2011. Photo: Kurt Hebel, [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), via [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CarlaScaletti.jpg).

> I am glad to get this shout out from SSC because Kyma was so central to the sound and feel of The Book of Sarth, especially Primary Deforestation [vocal processing] and If I Can [pulse code cello played on continuum fingerboard].
> 
> Sarth Calhoun, [sarth.net, November 30, 2012](https://web.archive.org/web/20140906084650/http://www.sarth.net/symbolic-sound-book-of-sarth-review/)

## Kyma

I beta-tested [Kyma](/devices/) and am credited on the Kyma X startup screen. Kyma is under [Lucibel Crater](/conspiracies/lucibel-crater/), [Metal Machine Trio](/conspiracies/metal-machine-trio/), the [2011 Reed tour](/conspiracies/lou-reed-2011-european-tour/), [*Lulu*](/conspiracies/lulu/), [Book of Sarth](/conspiracies/book-of-sarth/) and “[Junior Dad](/conspiracies/junior-dad/),” and Symbolic Sound’s blog wrote about that work five times between April 2011 and November 2012, including a review of the Book. I have used Kyma to develop a kind of synthesis I call SeqOSC, a relative of AM synthesis derived from exploring the analogies between rhythm and timbre.

The credit: Sarth Calhoun beta-tested Kyma, made by Carla Scaletti and Kurt Hebel’s Symbolic Sound Corporation, and is credited on the Kyma X startup screen.

The profile is from public sources, linked where they appear. What we made is the record on this site and the sources cited above.