Symbolic Sound Corporation was founded in 1989 by Carla Scaletti and Kurt J. Hebel as a spinoff of the CERL Sound Group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The company develops Kyma, a visual programming language and sound design environment that runs alongside dedicated multiprocessor DSP hardware. Kyma was one of the earliest commercially available graphical signal flow languages for real-time digital audio, and remains aimed at sound designers, composers, researchers, and live performers who want fine-grained control over synthesis and signal processing.

The Kyma software pairs with a line of hardware accelerators that have included the Capybara, Paca, Pacarana, and the Pacamara Ristretto APU. These units handle synthesis and processing while the Kyma application on a Mac or PC provides the patching and editing interface. The platform is used in music production, film and television sound design, advertising, game audio, and academic research in fields such as speech and hearing.

Symbolic Sound also organizes the Kyma International Sound Symposium (KISS), an annual gathering of Kyma users and sound designers, and maintains community resources including tutorials, a sound library, and the Eighth Nerve newsletter.

Symbolic Sound has 2 products cataloged on Equipboard, including Sound Modules and FX Bundle Plugins. Their gear is featured by 8 artists, with the strongest followings in Electronic, Rock, and Orchestra. Notable users include Amon Tobin, Autechre, and Richard Devine.