Innovation is rampant in audio technology. New signal processing and machine learning solutions are emerging on an almost daily basis, and experimenting with audio tools frequently yields new creative approaches. However, bringing such innovation to market poses many challenges. This talk addresses these challenges while drawing on experience with several high-tech audio start-ups. It focuses on questions and dilemmas concerning, for instance, IP protection, investment, market size and potential, and early-stage growth that are specific to the audio industry. Concrete examples are given of successes and failures where audio developers have attempted to bring new technologies to market.
Link to Slides:
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Josh Reiss
Josh Reiss is Professor of Audio Engineering with the Centre for Digital Music at Queen Mary University of London. He has published more than 200 scientific papers (including over 50 in premier journals and 6 best paper awards) and co-authored two books. His research has been featured in dozens of original articles and interviews on TV, radio, and in the press. He is a Fellow and currently President of the Audio Engineering Society (AES), and chair of their Publications Policy Committee. He co-founded the highly successful spin-out company, LandR, and recently co-founded RoEx, Tonz and Nemisindo, also based on his team’s research. He maintains a popular blog, YouTube channel, and Twitter feed for scientific education and dissemination of research activities.
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Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium Ltd: https://online.digital-medium.co.uk
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Organized and produced by JUCE: https://juce.com/
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Special thanks to the ADC23 Team:
Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra
Join Us For ADC24 - Bristol - 11-13 November 2024
More Info: https://audio.dev/
@audiodevcon
Pro Tools Scripting SDK and AI: Driving Workflows and In-App Help - Paul Vercelotti & Sam Butler - ADC 2023
Last year at ADC, Avid announced a new and free Pro Tools scripting SDK which allows third-party developers to create solutions that tightly integrate with Pro Tools in ways that have not been possible before. Continuing the conversation that started last year, Avid will present at ADC '23 a technical preview that shows how the power of large language models can be combined with the Pro Tools scripting SDK to automate workflows and assist users. In addition, Avid will update the development community on the status of the SDK program.
Link to Slides:
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Paul Vercelotti
Paul Vercellotti is a software architect at Avid Audio and the technical / architectural lead for Pro Tools. He focuses on architectural design direction for current and future Avid Audio products and technical leadership for the Avid Audio engineering team. He has been creating audio software for over 25 years and is passionate about solving the fun and challenging problems of audio and music.
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Sam Butler
Sam has worked at Avid for over 20 years, starting off in technical support for Sibelius, running public demos, putting sound libraries together for the Sibelius Sounds libraries, then moving to product management in 2013. In the past decade, Sam has product managed projects to put Avid solutions into the cloud and on mobile, helped spearhead the modernisation of our infrastructure and kept the features rolling. Now Director of Product Management for Sibelius and the Audio SDKs, Sam works with all the departments in Avid to produce the future of the audio products and solutions.
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Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium Ltd: https://online.digital-medium.co.uk
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Organized and produced by JUCE: https://juce.com/
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Special thanks to the ADC23 Team:
Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra
Join Us For ADC24 - Bristol - 11-13 November 2024
More Info: https://audio.dev/
@audiodevcon
Focusrite's Bespoke Hardware Test Platform - Testing Thousands of Little Red Boxes Every Day - Dave Curtis & Adrien Fauconnet - ADC23
Ever wondered how audio tech products are tested on the production line? Come join us to hear about Focusrite's bespoke hardware test platform used to validate thousands of devices are built to spec every day.
Link to Slides:
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Dave Curtis
Hailing from the Focusrite Pro QA team, delivering products featuring complex networked systems, such as X2P and R1, Dave's "how can I break this" approach and excitement for new technologies made a perfect match for building an in-house test platform.
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Adrien Fauconnet
Adrien has been delivering factory test solutions for over 60 products under the Focusrite, Focusrite Pro and Novation brands. He's currently the lead developer on the Factory Test team, and has been instrumental in the development of the test platform that we use to validate our products on the production line.
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Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium Ltd: https://online.digital-medium.co.uk
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Organized and produced by JUCE: https://juce.com/
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Special thanks to the ADC23 Team:
Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra
Join Us For ADC24 - Bristol - 11-13 November 2024
More Info: https://audio.dev/
@audiodevcon
Spectral Audio Modeling: Why Did It Evolve and Do We Need It Now? - Julius Smith - ADC 2023
This talk summarizes historical developments in spectral audio synthesis and processing, touching on origins in evolution, musical practices, innovations at Bell Labs and CCRMA, and AI approaches today. Our ears continue to feed spectral decompositions to the brain, showing no signs of become vestigial in favor of purely neural processing in the brain. In machine learning, on the other hand, spectral representations are often being omitted in favor of time-domain waveform encodings. How do we reconcile this? Looking at continuing uses of spectral audio processing in AI, we find that AI and spectral processing remain partners and are likely to continue symbiotically for the foreseeable future.
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Julius Smith
Julius O. Smith is a research engineer, educator, and musician devoted primarily to developing new technologies for music and audio signal processing. He received the B.S.E.E. degree from Rice University in 1975 (Control, Circuits, and Communication), and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in E.E. from Stanford University, in 1978 and 1983, respectively. For his MS/EE, he focused largely on Stanford's superb curriculum in statistical signal processing. His Ph.D. research was devoted to improved methods for digital filter design and system identification applied to music and audio systems, particularly the violin. From 1975 to 1977 he worked in the Signal Processing Department at ESL, Sunnyvale, CA, on systems for digital communications. From 1982 to 1986 he was with the Adaptive Systems Department at Systems Control Technology, Palo Alto, CA, where he worked in the areas of adaptive filtering and spectral estimation. From 1986 to 1991 he was employed at NeXT Computer, Inc., responsible for sound, music, and signal processing software for the NeXT computer workstation. After NeXT, he became a Professor at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford, with a courtesy appointment in EE, teaching courses and pursuing/supervising research related to signal processing techniques applied to music and audio systems. At varying part-time levels, he was a founding consultant for Staccato Systems, Shazam Inc., and moForte Inc. He is presently a Professor Emeritus of Music and by courtesy Electrical Engineering at Stanford, and a perennial consultant for moForte Inc. For more information, see http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/.
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Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium Ltd: https://online.digital-medium.co.uk
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Organized and produced by JUCE: https://juce.com/
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Special thanks to the ADC23 Team:
Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra
Join Us For ADC24 - Bristol - 11-13 November 2024
More Info: https://audio.dev/
@audiodevcon
A Comparison of Virtual Analog Modelling Techniques (Part 2) - Christopher Johann Clarke & Jatin Chowdhury - ADC23
This talk will explore the spectrum of virtual analog modelling techniques including traditional methods (modified nodal analysis, wave digital filters), single-architecture neural network models, and grey-box methods that incorporate both physical modelling and machine learning techniques. Several models of the gain stage from the Boss DS-1 guitar pedal will be provided as a motivating example. The talk will discuss how these methods can generalize over a wide range of circuits, as well as the specific problems that users of each modelling technique can expect to see for different types of circuits.
Link to Slides:
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Christopher Johann Clarke
Christopher Clarke is a PhD candidate studying at SUTD (Multiphysics, A.I/Machine Learning) with a background in music specialising in generative algorithms (MMus) and psychophysics in music (BA, recipient of Phillip Holt Award).
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Jatin Chowdhury
Jatin is an audio signal processing engineer from Denver, Colorado, USA. For the past several years he has worked as a developer of audio effects and other music technology software. Jatin is a graduate from the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University, where he studied audio signal processing.
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Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium Ltd: https://online.digital-medium.co.uk
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Organized and produced by JUCE: https://juce.com/
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Special thanks to the ADC23 Team:
Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra
Deep Learning for DSP Engineers: Challenges and Tricks for Audio AI - Franco Caspe & Andrea Martelloni - ADC23
This talk aims to tackle and demystify the process of the development of an AI-based musical instrument, audio tool or effect. We want to view this process not from the point of view of technical frameworks and technical challenges, but from that of the design process, the knowledge required and the learning curve needed to be productive with AI tools; particularly if one approaches AI from an audio DSP background, which was our situation when we started out.
We are going to quickly survey the current applications of AI for real-time music making, and reflect on the challenges that we found, especially with current learning resources. We will then walk through the process of developing a real-time audio model based on deep learning, from dataset to deployment, highlighting the relevant aspects for those with a DSP background. Finally, we will describe how we applied that process to our own PhD projects, the HITar and the Bessel’s Trick.
Link to Slides:
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Franco Caspe
I’m an electronic engineer, a maker, hobbyist musician and a PhD Student at the Artificial Intelligence and Music CDT at Queen Mary University of London. I have experience in development of real-time systems for applications such as communication, neural network inference, and DSP. I play guitar and I love sound design, so in my PhD I set out to find ways to bridge the gap that separates acoustic instruments and synthesizers, using AI as an analysis tool for capturing performance features present in the instruments’ audio, and as a generation tool for synthetic sound rendering.
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Andrea Martelloni
Inventor of the HITar. Interested in applications of deep learning for rich real-time musical interaction and expressive digital musical instruments.
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Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium Ltd: https://online.digital-medium.co.uk
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Organized and produced by JUCE: https://juce.com/
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Special thanks to the ADC23 Team:
Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra
Join Us For ADC24 - Bristol - 11-13 November 2024
More Info: https://audio.dev/
@audiodevcon
Exploration of Strongly-Typed Units: A Case-Study From Digital Audio - Roth Michaels - ADC 2023
API or math mistakes with units can cause problems ranging from a digital audio processing outputting silence to crashing your Mars rover—we’ll discuss real-life examples of both! The combination of user-defined types, conversion operators/constructors, and operator overloading in C++ give us the tools to use strong-types and avoid unit mistakes; std::chrono is a great example of this that everyone should be using. Unfortunately, when dealing with units beyond time many developers still use primitive types encoding units in variable names or comments because the standard does not offer any tools for user-defined units.
In this talk, we will look at the mp-units library which has been proposed for standardization in P1935 (A C++ Approach to Physical Units). We will look at the implementation of various units used in digital audio / DSP that go beyond “physical” units and what the experience is like to develop your own units with this library/proposal.
To close, we will look at things missing from P1935 that we as audio developers might need.
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Roth Michaels
Roth Michaels is a Principal Software Engineer at Native Instruments, an industry leader in real-time audio software for music production and broadcast/film post-production. In his current role he is involved with software architecture and bringing together three merged engineering organizations and legacy codebases: Brainworx, iZotope, and Native Instruments. He also supports the Audio Research team to help accelerate moving research to productization and developing fast prototyping tools for product teams. Before merging with Native Instruments, when he joined iZotope, Roth was the lead library designer of a new internal cross-platform "Glass", part of which is now available as open-source. More recently in his former role as Mix/Master Software Architect, Roth helped develop the reference implementation to move iZotope's products to subscription and led the team that launched the company’s first SaaS offering for music producers. Roth studied music composition at Brandeis University and continued his studies in the Dartmouth Digital Musics program. Roth began his career in software development writing software for his own compositions, and the works of other composers and artists, and teaching MaxMSP to composers and musicians; both private instruction and designing university courses. Before joining iZotope, he was working as a consultant for small startups working on mobile applications specializing in location services and Bluetooth.
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Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium Ltd: https://online.digital-medium.co.uk
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Organized and produced by JUCE: https://juce.com/
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Special thanks to the ADC23 Team:
Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra
Implementation of an IIR Antiderivative Anti-Aliasing Wavetable Oscillator - Maxime Coutant - ADC 2023
Anti-aliasing is a crucial consideration for digital audio synthesis. Usually, for an oscillator, techniques like band-limited signals or oversampling are employed to mitigate this problem, but I investigated a method a bit more recent : Antiderivative Anti-Aliasing (ADAA). My search for a practical ADAA application in wavetable synthesis first yielded limited results. However, a paper titled "Antiderivative Antialiasing for Arbitrary Waveform Generation," published in August 2022, caught my attention.
The presentation will focus on three aspects:
• An Introduction to ADAA and the algorithm itself
• Insights into practical implementation and results
• Reflections on engaging with Academic Research
By the end of the talk the listener will know about the pros and cons of this technique and how and when to employ it. Furthermore, we will have illustrated some challenges of working with academic material as a software developer.
Link to Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mx8f7yxXMLxQ-pl3IcoqLkcZtQGd7z6gOidcQMAfxPc/edit
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Maxime Coutant
I'm an audio software engineer in the ADASP group, part of the LTCI public laboratory. Audio enthusiast, hobbyist musician and software addict, I love to share, learn and meet new people! Here at ADC23 I'll present a project I spent many hours on during this last year, hoping to lower the bridge between research and engineering!
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Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium Ltd: https://online.digital-medium.co.uk
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Organized and produced by JUCE: https://juce.com/
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Special thanks to the ADC23 Team:
Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra
Join Us For ADC24 - Bristol - 11-13 November 2024
More Info: https://audio.dev/
@audiodevcon
Three RADical Concepts in the Art of C++ Coding - Chris Nash - ADC 2023
What if MIDI was a programming language?
What if C++ had built-in audio semantics?
What if you could develop C++ plugins, live in the DAW?
This talk explores these ideas and the development of new technologies designed to blur the lines between music and code, for both artists and developers, and challenge traditional ways of thinking and working.
Drawing on concepts of flow, liveness, and rapid prototyping, the talk will present live demos, and discuss the development of:
Manhattan - a digital audio workstation and embeddable API built on a procedural music engine that integrates sequencing and programming. Used by artists, game composers, and in teaching computational thinking, example applications include crowd-driven music using machine vision, a Unity mini-game featuring a live (and somewhat mortal) orchestra, plus a growing library of famous works recomposed as code that shows the power of modelling music as both pattern and process.
Klang - an open C++ dialect (language extension) for audio, using modern language features (C++14/17) to extend the semantics of C++ to encapsulate audio, providing DSP primitives and types, and adapting the STL's concept of stream objects and operators to represent signals. Easier to read, more concise, and easily mapped to visual forms (block diagrams, Max), Klang feels like a new language (in the spirit of SOUL) but, as pure C++, retains the performance, portability, compatibility, and interoperability of the industry standard.
rapIDE - a C++ IDE inside a DAW plugin, designed for rapid audio prototyping and development of synthesisers and effects. Built on a full clang/LLVM-based toolchain, the plugin's source code can be live edited, rebuilt, reloaded and auditioned without restarting the DAW (or stopping playback). Compatible with C++ and Klang, rapIDE is designed to improve the accessibility, liveness, and immersion of audio programming, for applications in rapid prototyping and teaching, featuring realtime debugging, auto-complete, code sandboxing, and built-in audio analysis.
These technologies will support the new Music Systems Engineering (MuSE) degree programme, in development by Point Blank Music School in collaboration with industry, for launch in 2024.
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Chris Nash
Chris Nash is a software developer, composer, educator and researcher in things that go beep in the night. Following a PhD on music software design at Cambridge, he has worked on technology and music projects across academia and industry, including for the BBC, Steinberg/Yamaha, and multiple start-ups, and independently develops and maintains several software projects, specialising in computer music and making music programming more accessible, including Manhattan (a hybrid DAW/programming language), Klang (a C++ dialect for audio), rapIDE (a plug-in based C++ IDE) and reViSiT (an award-winning plug-in based sound tracker). He is currently Senior Lecturer in Software Development for Audio, Sound, and Music at UWE Bristol, and recently founded nash.audio, a non-profit organisation supporting creativity and learning in music technology. Working with London-based Point Blank Music School, Dr Nash is the architect of the forthcoming MuSE (Music Systems Engineering) course, developed in collaboration with industry to be the world's first audio developer degree programme.
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Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium Ltd: https://online.digital-medium.co.uk
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Organized and produced by JUCE: https://juce.com/
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Special thanks to the ADC23 Team:
Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra
How to Make a Successful Audio Plugin From Scratch as a Solo Audio Developer - Marius Metzger - ADC23
After my well-received appearance on last year's panel on starting your first audio business, I'm resubmitting my talk proposal on the success story of the CrispyTuner, explaining to aspiring indie developers how it's possible to make a successful audio plugin from start to finish. The goal is to inspire aspiring developers by showing real challenges I faced and how I overcame them.
Link to Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oIM33u4huTFny9GasHak4yOwFd-gShP2aNkeGExGFMg/edit
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Marius Metzger
My name is Marius, I'm 24 years old and have a passion for product design, leadership, and, of course, software development. After finishing school at 16 years of age, I got right into freelance software development, with Google as one of my first clients. In 2020, I released a pitch correction audio plug-in called CrispyTuner, which I created mostly by myself over the span of 2 years. It found great commercial success, and shortly after release I sold it to Plugin Alliance/brainworx to move on to new projects! At the moment, I live as a digital nomad, travelling the world and working as Development Lead at essential.gg.
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Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium Ltd: https://online.digital-medium.co.uk
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Organized and produced by JUCE: https://juce.com/
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Special thanks to the ADC23 Team:
Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra
