Geraint Luff is a seasoned audio DSP developer and the founder of Signalsmith Audio. Geraint’s presentations, such as “Let’s Write a Reverb” and “Four Ways to Write a Pitch Shifter,” are among the most popular talks at the Audio Developer Conference (ADC) thanks to Geraint’s clarity of explanation and easy-to-understand visuals (not to mention the accompanying open-source repos).

In the interview, Geraint shares his insights on his career path, freelancing in the audio industry, and digital signal processing (DSP). He discusses how he gained traction as a freelancer by joining a community, delivering audio-focused technical talks, and sharing open-source repos. We can also learn his approach to learning DSP, problem-solving, and the significance of visualization in explanations.

Theory first of practice first? Listen to the podcast episode to find out! 😉

Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏

Orchisama Das is an outstanding audio researcher known for her work in virtual acoustics, artificial reverberation, and immersive audio. She holds a PhD from Stanford University’s prestigious CCRMA and has contributed to groundbreaking research at leading universities and major tech companies.

During this interview, we talk about her path in academia and industry. Orchisama shares her thoughts about the realities of audio research, offering great insights and a very frank and honest perspective on her journey.

We dive into technical topics such as artificial reverberation, virtual acoustics, immersive audio, and open problems in DSP, as well as topics like the gender imbalance in the audio research industry and how to stay productive and motivated during research.

The episode is scattered with many resources and tips for anyone interested in learning the mentioned topics. It is a very inspiring and informative talk for people who are doing audio research, or curious about getting started.

Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏

From this podcast, you will learn:

• How Orchisama Das started her journey in audio research and her path to earning a PhD at Stanford University’s CCRMA.
• About her internships at Tesla and Meta Reality Labs, as well as tips and advice on how to get internships as a researcher.
• A big picture technical overview of artificial reverberation, virtual room acoustics, and immersive audio.
• Resources for learning about these topics, including books, papers, and tools.
• Tips and advice for a good research carrer.
• Her thoughts on the gender imbalance in audio research and ways to address it.

This episode was recorded on November 21, 2024.

Julian’s career is incredible: from natural sciences through a master’s in physical modeling, a PhD in virtual analog modeling, an almost decade-long position at Native Instruments, all the way to TikTok and Stability AI, where he’s working now on generative music algorithms.

There are few people who have such a rich background in audio research and industry and even fewer who are willing to share the details of it publicly. That makes this episode all the more exciting!

Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏

From this podcast, you will learn:

• how machine learning forever changed audio plugin design and development
• how big audio plugin companies operate internally
• how to learn C++ for audio programming
• whether you need to have a PhD to work in an R&D department of an audio company
• what is the state of the art in generative music
• how to learn generating music with AI
• how to be able to focus on research papers even if you read them after hours
• how to produce quality research
• how to rest & recharge after intense and focused work

Jatin Chowdhury is quite well known in the audio programming community for his numerous contributions:

• various open- and closed-source audio plugins,
• a few published research papers on Virtual Analog modeling,
• a few audio-related talks, especially at the Audio Developer Conference,
• insightful Medium articles on creating audio software in general,
• significant open-source contributions including the CLAP plugin standard and Surge Synthesizer.

The list could go on on and on but you get the point: he’s both incredibly productive and highly successful while being very generous to the community with his knowledge.

That’s why it was amazing to have him on the podcast!

Jatin currently leads his own audio plugin company ChowDSP which provides consulting and contracting as well.

During the podcast we discuss his story (which is a kind of “from hero to superhero” tale, if you ask me…), what he learnt along the way, all his current strategies, and most importantly: how you can become someone like a Jatin, a successful audio plugin developer and freelancer.

I was incredibly inspired during the recording of this episode and revisiting it brought up those feelings again.

⚠️ WARNING ⚠️ Listening to this podcast episode will leave you highly motivated to do more audio programming. Listen at your own risk.

Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏

From this podcast episode, you will learn:

• how Jatin developed his interest in all things music,
• how he got accepted to CCRMA at Stanford and then to Tesla,
• how he started freelancing as an audio programmer,
• how he finds clients,
• what’s his developer setup,
• which tools he’s using,
• resources he recommends for learning audio programming and DSP,
• personal daily routine for optimal productivity.

This episode was recorded on June 14, 2024.

Dave Rowland is the CTO of Audio Squadron: a group of audio-related companies. More specifically, he’s the architect and the lead developer of the Waveform digital audio workstation (DAW) and an Audio Manager of Prism Sound (which focuses on audio hardware manufacturing). He’s also a very successful speaker, having given talks at conferences like Audio Developer Conference or C++ on Sea.

Given the popularity of Dave’s talks and his 11-year long (as of 2024) experience in developing the Waveform DAW and its open source engine, I am incredibly excited to have him on the WolfTalk podcast.

During the interview, we learn not only Dave’s story but we also discuss the challenges of building real-time audio software including DAWs and learning C++, software architecture, and high-performance real-time programming concerning audio. Dave shares a ton of highly useful tips and resources so you don’t want to miss out on this one!

Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏

From this podcast episode, you will learn:

• how Dave organizes his day for maximum productivity,
• which tools he’s leveraging on the day-to-day basis,
• how he went from being a music technology student to a freelance audio developer to the lead developer on the Tracktion DAW (now Waveform),
• how he approaches creating his widely acclaimed conference talks,
• which resources to use to learn high-performance real-time programming.

This podcast was recorded on March 25, 2024.

Gustav Andersson is a Swedish senior C++ audio developer at Elk Audio. He has worked on their Sensus guitar featuring a rich set of controls, Elk Audio OS for embedded platforms, Sushi digital audio workstation, and Elk Live software for live music collaboration over the internet.

Having studied Electrical Engineering and Digital Signal Processing, Gustav had been looking for a very long time to get into the audio industry. As for many developers, getting his first audio-related job was like a dream come true.

In his free time, Gustav plays and composes his own music.

In the interview, we discuss Gustav’s story, his journey to learn audio programming in C++, and his software projects, including his own plugin. We don’t shy away from software engineering details and architectural challenges of complex software like DAWs.

We mention a ton of resources and tips for learning real-time & scalable audio C++, so stay tuned for these!

Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏

From this podcast episode, you will learn:

• How Gustav’s interest in music and electronics led him to study digital signal processing,
• How he landed his first (and last) job in the audio industry,
• What he needed to learn from C++ for audio programming and which resources he used,
• What are the challenges of building digital audio workstations,
• How to approach building audio software in general,
• How to learn C++ optimization (fast!),
• How to relax and disengage from focused work 😎

This podcast was recorded on January 30, 2024.

In this podcast episode, I was delighted to be able one of the most prominent people of the audio developer landscape: Fabian Renn-Giles.

Fabian is a former lead developer of JUCE, currently working as an independent contractor. He has worked with many great companies (e.g., iZotope, Behringer) and has an incredible portfolio. He is regarded as an expert of real-time, low-latency C++ audio programming.

You may know him from his talks at the Audio Developer Conference or at CppCon.

He’s also an incredibly kind and modest person; anyone that I’ve talked to about Fabian only had praise for his skills and his very down-to-earth attitude.

In the light of all the above, this interview is a real treat for everyone who’d like to become a real-time audio C++ expert!

Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏

In this podcast episode, you will learn:

• how Fabian self-taught himself programming at the age of 6 (sic!),
• how he co-founded Fielding DSP, which serves as his professional outlet for programming services,
• how he became the lead developer of the JUCE C++ framework and what he learned from it,
• how to learn real-time audio C++ programming even if you are just starting out,
• how to become a freelance audio developer like Fabian (what you won’t learn at a university),
• how to optimize your audio code for maximum performance,
• the secret story of the “Real-Time 101” talk that Fabian did together with Dave Rowland and which is one of the most widely cited talks in the audio programming space,
• what are the issues in audio software architecture and how to conceptualize them,
• what are Fabian’s day-to-day programming tools for optimal productivity.

This episode was recorded on January 26, 2024.

Eric Tarr is a professor at the Belmont University where he teaches Audio Signal Processing. In the audio programming community, he’s most famous for his book “Hack Audio” on the basics of digital signal processing using Matlab and his point-to-point modeling library for analog audio circuit emulation.

Eric’s work has definitely been an inspiration for starting the WolfSound blog and the YouTube channel so it’s really exciting to have him on the show!

In the podcast, we’ll delve into his story, how he learned audio signal processing, how he managed to work with some amazing audio companies (Sennheiser, Epic Games, Skywalker Sounds), and top tips on how to learn DSP coming from Eric’s teaching experience. We also discuss in detail how to model analog audio circuits for audio plugins (so called virtual analog modeling). Here, Eric describes which state-of-the-art methods are available and how you can learn them. He also shares the details of this point-to-point modeling library which allows you to easily emulate analog audio circuits.

As a special feat, I’d asked my coachees who follow Eric’s work to provide questions to him concerning a variety of different topics, including the impact of AI on the virtual analog modeling space.

All in all, it’s an episode that you don’t want to miss!

Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏

In this podcast episode, you will learn:

• how Eric learned digital audio signal processing based on his passion for music and electronics,
• how he became a professor for Audio Engineering Technology at the Belmont University,
• how he wrote the famous “Hack Audio” book,
• why he uses Matlab instead of Python in his teaching,
• how he was able to deliver numerous audio-related projects to various companies worldwide,
• how he developed his point-to-point audio circuit modeling library,
• how you can learn digital signal processing (even if you’re just starting out),
• what is the go-to language and technology stack for creating commercial audio products,
• what are the state-of-the-art methods to model analog audio circuits,
• is it worth going to the Audio Developer Conference?

This episode was recorded on January 19, 2024.