Tag: DAW

PSD to DAW – Building a Pixel-Perfect UI Pipeline – Bence Kovács – ADC 2025

https://audio.dev/ -- @audiodevcon​
ADC Bristol ​- 9th - 11th November​
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PSD to DAW - Building a Pixel-Perfect UI Pipeline - Bence Kovács - ADC 2025
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Designers hand off beautiful mockups—but somewhere between Photoshop and the final build, subtle inconsistencies emerge. Assets shift slightly, edges lose sharpness, and layering doesn’t always behave as intended. Why does translating static visuals into production-ready UIs remain so challenging?

This session outlines a practical approach to building native UIs in audio software, with a focus on automating asset export and layout implementation. We’ll look at techniques for maintaining visual fidelity across a range of display types, including strategies for intelligent image resampling. The session also addresses common challenges in component ordering and layering, offering tips that help ensure interfaces are rendered exactly as intended.
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Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Z91UuA1wCUi3zR9ylCIkjqZXBWPViMn8wDHYC034nqs/view
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Bence Kovács

Bence is a software developer specializing in audio and game development, with a focus on creating efficient, scalable solutions. Over the years, he has contributed to diverse projects, including audio plugins, games, and VR experiences. Bence is particularly interested in optimizing both runtime performance and development workflows. His work often involves designing modular architectures that enhance code reusability and facilitate the rapid development of complex audio software.
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ADC is an annual event celebrating all audio development technologies, from music applications and game audio to audio processing and embedded systems. ADC’s mission is to help attendees acquire and develop new audio development skills, and build a network that will support their audio developer career.
Annual ADC Conference - https://audio.dev/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/audiodevcon

https://facebook.com/audiodevcon
https://instagram.com/audiodevcon
https://www.reddit.com/r/audiodevcon/
https://mastodon.social/@audiodevcon
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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/
---

Special thanks to the ADC25 Team:

Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra

#adc #audiodev #dsp #audio #conferenceaudio #audioprocessing #audioproduction #audioprogramming #sound #music #musictech #soundtech #audiotech #audiotechnology

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Designing a Procedural Sequencer Powered by Music-Theory – Romy Dugue & Cecill Etheredge – ADC 2025

https://audio.dev/ -- @audiodevcon​
ADC Bristol ​- 9th - 11th November
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Beyond the DAW - Designing a Procedural Sequencer Powered by Music-Theory - Romy Dugue & Cecill Etheredge - ADC 2025
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Most music composition tools originate from either traditional sequencing DAWs or purely procedural programming environments. While many have evolved into hybrid DAWs that incorporate elements of both approaches, they remain largely defined by their origins - addressing innovation through UI enhancements rather than rethinking core architecture.

This talk explores a DAW reimagined, merging clip-based sequencing with procedural programming principles and a graph-based framework. Our approach treats music theory not as an absolute truth, but as a set of human-created toolboxes - for jazz harmony, classical composition, microtonal musics, and more - that musicians can apply creatively and procedurally while maintaining full non-destructive control within a linear timeline.

This system lets musicians navigate by ear through theoretical possibilities — trying different tools, keeping what fits, and discarding the rest. Procedural generation becomes an optional co-pilot rather than a gatekeeper, helping musicians leverage complex theoretical concepts without formal training or simply step around them altogether.

The main focus will be on combining the immediacy of traditional sequencing with the flexibility of procedural systems, where theory can shape compositions - rather than merely sketching them out. We'll examine how to architect the sequencer as a directed graph of conventional DAW elements such as tracks and clips, and combine this with composable, non-destructive operations. It will be explained how such graph-based architectures enable complex node interdependencies that formally represent and manipulate various aspects of music theory.
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Slides: https://data.audio.dev/talks/2025/beyond-the-daw.pdf
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Romy Dugue

I'm a JUCE developer who builds audio plugins for clients worldwide—everything from wild effects to expressive synths. When I'm not coding or out at concerts, you'll find me making music, from stoner rock to techno. I believe the best music technology doesn't get in your way or steal the fun parts of making music; instead, it becomes part of your creative flow. That's what drives my work: building tools that understand the joy of creation and amplify it rather than complicate it.

Cecill Etheredge

In daily life, Cecill serves as the Technical Director of KoalaDSP, a European startup focused on whitelabel DSP, middleware and audio plugin development for major industry players. In the remaining hours, Cecill channels his engineering skills and artistic flair into tackling challenging and complex problems, driven by a classic hacker ethos and curiosity. With a lifelong passion for technology and music, and over 20 years of experience in areas involving hardware, games, graphics, audio & algorithms, Cecill is still on a never-ending journey to learn, to create impactful innovations, and to share the lessons learned with others.
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ADC is an annual event celebrating all audio development technologies, from music applications and game audio to audio processing and embedded systems. ADC’s mission is to help attendees acquire and develop new audio development skills, and build a network that will support their audio developer career.
Annual ADC Conference - https://audio.dev/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/audiodevcon

https://facebook.com/audiodevcon
https://instagram.com/audiodevcon
https://www.reddit.com/r/audiodevcon/
https://mastodon.social/@audiodevcon
---

Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium Ltd: https://online.digital-medium.co.uk
---

Organized and produced by JUCE: https://juce.com/
---

Special thanks to the ADC25 Team:

Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra

#adc #audiodev #dsp #audio #conferenceaudio #audioprocessing #audioproduction #audioprogramming #sound #music #musictech #soundtech #audiotech #audiotechnology

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Sneak Peek at ARA Audio Random Access 3.0 – Embracing Audio Synthesis – Stefan Gretscher – ADC 2025

https://audio.dev/ -- @audiodevcon​
ADC Japan - 1st - 3rd June
ADC Bristol ​- 9th - 11th November
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Sneak Peek at ARA Audio Random Access 3.0 - Embracing Audio Synthesis - Stefan Gretscher - ADC 2025
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Since its public release over a decade ago, ARA Audio Random Access has grown into a widely supported industry standard. While originally designed to process audio input provided by the user, a lot of interest has sparked recently to extend ARA to also support audio generators that operate on abstract musical input. Example applications include singing voice synthesizers, or intelligent samplers which provide automatic musical adoption of pre-recorded content to the song context.

ARA 3.0 will strive to cater for the needs of such generators without compromising its core designs, adding new APIs that shall be equally valuable for conventional, sample-input based ARA plug-ins. Assuming a basic understanding of ARA 2.3, the talk will present an overview of the current state of the ARA 3.0 development, inviting review of what has been achieved so far and outlining the development still ahead.
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Slides: https://data.audio.dev/talks/2025/sneak-peek-at-ara-3-0.pdf
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Stefan Gretscher

Stefan's career in audio programming has led him from hand-crafting bare-bones assembler on the DSP-based platforms of the late 90s to working on today's Melodyne with its roughly 250k lines of just the audio model and processing C++ code. Along that path, his focus shifted from signal processing to software architecture, programming languages and framework design.

With this background, Stefan is leading the development of the ARA Audio Random Access API at Celemony. What he maybe likes most about this is working closely with so many other devs in the industry, and he is looking forward to answering your questions about ARA at ADC.
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ADC is an annual event celebrating all audio development technologies, from music applications and game audio to audio processing and embedded systems. ADC’s mission is to help attendees acquire and develop new audio development skills and build a network that will support their audio developer career.
Annual ADC Conference - https://audio.dev/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/audiodevcon

https://facebook.com/audiodevcon
https://instagram.com/audiodevcon
https://www.reddit.com/r/audiodevcon/
https://mastodon.social/@audiodevcon
---

Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium Ltd: https://online.digital-medium.co.uk
---

Organized and produced by JUCE: https://juce.com/
---

Special thanks to the ADC25 Team:

Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra

#adc #audiodev #dsp #audio #conferenceaudio #audioprocessing #audioproduction #audioprogramming #sound #music #musictech #soundtech #audiotech #audiotechnology"

Filed under: UncategorizedTagged with: , , ,

Free-Range Users Make for More Profitable DAWs – Why DAWs Should Prioritise Interchange Formats

https://audio.dev/ -- @audiodevcon​
ADCx Copenhagen - 28th April
ADC Bristol ​- 9th - 11th November

Free-Range Users Make for More Profitable DAWs - Why DAWs Should Prioritise Interchange Formats - Will Anderson - ADCx Gather 2025

Interchange formats for DAWs have a long history but an uneven track record. The CMX EDL format emerged in the early 1970s, AES31 has been around since 2001, and AAF and OMF provide ways to transfer project data between DAWs and NLEs. More recently, Bitwig’s DAWproject format shows that this area is still evolving. Yet despite the available standards, implementing interchange often remains a lower priority for many DAW developers compared to other features.

In this talk, we’ll explore why robust interchange support should be seen as a strategic feature rather than an afterthought. We’ll examine the technical and business benefits of enabling users to move sessions between tools, including increased user retention, enabling niche workflows, and added value even in the early stages of a DAW’s development.

Finally, drawing on real-world examples (including curious bugs encountered while working with AES31 exports) we’ll cover why a poorly implemented interchange format can do more harm than good, and share practical tips for avoiding common pitfalls. Attendees will gain a clearer understanding of both the technical challenges and the potential rewards of opening their DAWs to “free-range” users.
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Will Anderson

Will Anderson is a classical recording engineer, software developer, and video editor. A graduate of the Tonmeister course at the University of Surrey, he has spent the past decade recording classical music and creating a range of tools (both software and hardware) to improve the speed, ease and accuracy of classical music production. His recent projects include systems for aligning multi-camera video recordings to audio edits from classical DAWs and developing tools for 360-degree immersive virtual ensemble performances.

As a freelancer, Will works across audio engineering, video production, and software development, helping people solve unique technical challenges in music, media, and science. He's a big fan of tackling tricky workflow problems and finding elegant technical solutions.

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ADC is an annual event celebrating all audio development technologies, from music applications and game audio to audio processing and embedded systems. ADC’s mission is to help attendees acquire and develop new audio development skills, and build a network that will support their audio developer career.
Annual ADC Conference - https://audio.dev/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/audiodevcon

https://facebook.com/audiodevcon
https://instagram.com/audiodevcon
https://www.reddit.com/r/audiodevcon/
https://mastodon.social/@audiodevcon
---

Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium Ltd: https://online.digital-medium.co.uk
_

Organized and produced by JUCE: https://juce.com/
_

Special thanks to the ADCxGather Team:

Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra

#adc #audiodev #dsp #audio #conferenceaudio #audioprocessing #audioproduction #audioprogramming #sound #music #musictech #soundtech #audiotech #audiotechnology

Filed under: UncategorizedTagged with: , , ,

Making a 3D DAW in Unity: Chaos, Logic, and Physics – Noah Feasey-Kemp – ADC 2025

https://audio.dev/ -- @audiodevcon​
ADC Japan - 1st - 3rd June
ADC Bristol ​- 9th - 11th November
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Making a 3D DAW in Unity: Chaos, Logic, and Physics - Noah Feasey-Kemp - ADC 2025
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Every audio developer faces chaos. For five years, I channeled it - along with logic and physics - to build Audiocube, a fully 3D DAW inside Unity, starting with zero development experience. This talk is a deep dive into that journey.

We'll explore the unique technical challenges of building ""Ableton in a game engine,"" from implementing real-time acoustic simulation to designing interactive physics-based audio systems - all while working with (and around) Unity.

But building a tool is only half the battle. We will also dissect the critical business and marketing decisions that turned a passion project into a commercial product. You'll get a look at the entire lifecycle: from initial concept, design, production, and seemingly impassable roadblocks to an eventually successful public launch and the realities of monetization and growth. This is the talk I wish I had when I started.
I’m excited to share insights into the deep technical challenges of 3D audio software development, along with practical business lessons from my journey as a solo founder, from zero to monetization.
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Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JMLEC7O1OUeDtQ_r1LshnWEQno0_PF4-zAS7VRUqQSI/edit?slide=id.p#slide=id.p
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Noah Feasey-Kemp

Noah Feasey-Kemp is the creator of Audiocube, a 3D Digital Audio Workstation built in Unity. Drawing on his background as an immersive audio producer, Noah spent five years single-handedly designing and engineering a solution to the creative limitations of conventional spatial audio tools. His experimental approach to software merges creative coding with frontier design, and has been featured in industry publications such as Sound On Sound, CDM, and Music Radar. Noah is excited to share the hard-earned lessons from his journey to empower the next generation of audio developers.

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ADC is an annual event celebrating all audio development technologies, from music applications and game audio to audio processing and embedded systems. ADC’s mission is to help attendees acquire and develop new audio development skills, and build a network that will support their audio developer career.
Annual ADC Conference - https://audio.dev/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/audiodevcon

https://facebook.com/audiodevcon
https://instagram.com/audiodevcon
https://www.reddit.com/r/audiodevcon/
https://mastodon.social/@audiodevcon
---

Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium Ltd: https://online.digital-medium.co.uk
---

Organized and produced by JUCE: https://juce.com/
---

Special thanks to the ADC25 Team:

Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra

#adc #audiodev #dsp #audio #conferenceaudio #audioprocessing #audioproduction #audioprogramming #sound #music #musictech #soundtech #audiotech #audiotechnology

Filed under: UncategorizedTagged with: , , ,

Digital Audio Workstation Architecture – Evaluation and Evolution – Ilias Bergström – ADC 2024

https://audio.dev/ -- @audiodevcon​
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Digital Audio Workstation Architecture - Evaluation and Evolution - Ilias Bergström - ADC 2024
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Last year’s “Architecture of Digital Audio Workstations” talk was a broad introduction, followed by an overview of two DAW applications’ architectures, and the decisions behind these. While it covered a great deal of ground, it also had to leave out several important topics.

This talk concentrates on two additional areas:

Evaluating Architecture
Evolving Architecture

We will discuss how requirements, constraints and quality attributes come into play when evaluating architectural decisions. This is needed throughout the design process - definitely while creating the initial architectural design, but equally importantly, continuously while maintaining the software.

The familiar saying bears repeating: “Software is finished when no-one uses it”. Throughout its lifetime, software is bound to evolve. The evolution will be driven by sometimes drastic alterations, making it inevitable that the architecture also changes.

After a general coverage of these two new topics, four concrete example cases will be discussed, connecting practice to theory:

1. On how changing requirements result in architectural changes, and introducing new design decisions, resulting in overall improvement.

2. How an existing architecture allowed adding a complex unpredicted feature, without altering the architecture.

3. How mistaken design choices can create “debt” in the codebase, and when/how to address this.

4. How adding a new feature requires designing around the existing architecture, and finding a good compromise between refactoring, and meeting the new requirements.

Inevitably there will be some overlap with last year’s talk, but that will be kept to a minimum. So while I encourage attendees to watch that talk first, this one will be created so that it can be followed regardless, for an audience with some knowledge of software architecture.

This subject area is vast, but I hope that this introductory coverage of the two additional important topics, of architecture evaluation and evolution, will help further build on the knowledge shared on this very central topic for our community!
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Slides: https://data.audio.dev/talks/2024/digital-audio-workstation-architecture/slides.pdf
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Ilias Bergström

Computer Scientist, Researcher, Interaction Designer, Musician, with a love for all music but especially live performance.

I've worked on developing several applications for live music, audiovisual performance, and use by experts, mainly using C++.

My career spans more than 20 years of developing media technology software, and of working as a researcher on the topic, in equal measure.
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ADC is an annual event celebrating all audio development technologies, from music applications and game audio to audio processing and embedded systems. ADC’s mission is to help attendees acquire and develop new audio development skills, and build a network that will support their audio developer career.
Annual ADC Conference - https://audio.dev/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/audiodevcon

https://facebook.com/audiodevcon
https://instagram.com/audiodevcon
https://www.reddit.com/r/audiodevcon/
https://mastodon.social/@audiodevcon
---

Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium Ltd: https://online.digital-medium.co.uk
---

Organized and produced by JUCE: https://juce.com/
---

Special thanks to the ADC24 Team:

Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra

#daw #digitalaudioworkstation #digitalaudio #adc #audiodev #softwareengineering #audio #cpp #audioproduction #audioprogramming #musictech #soundtech #audiotech #audiotechnology

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Using JavaScript to Render a DAW User Interface at 60 FPS – Arthur Carabott – ADC 2024

https://audio.dev/ -- @audiodevcon​
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Using JavaScript to Render a DAW User Interface at 60 FPS - Arthur Carabott - ADC 2024
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No one likes unresponsive user interfaces, least of all musicians. WebViews are an increasingly common choice for building UIs because of their increased developer productivity, ability to meet the demands of graphic designers, and enormous ecosystem of UI libraries. But when done wrong, they can easily become slow and resource hungry, which is bad for both users and developers.

This talk covers patterns and best practices for creating user interfaces using both the DOM and 2D Canvas API (which is more suitable for custom interactions and graphically demanding tasks). These techniques will be discussed via a real-world case study: a DAW user interface (zoomable waveforms and all) at 60 FPS.

Aimed at all developers new to the web, demonstrations use vanilla TypeScript (no frameworks!) to teach the techniques from first principles, and to have a type system that will make C++ developers feel at home.
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Slides: https://data.audio.dev/talks/2024/high-performance-webview-user-interfaces/slides.pdf
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Arthur Carabott

Arthur Carabott is a Senior Software Engineer at Output where he was the founding member of their DAW project Creator, and designed features for the plugin Arcade. Prior to Output he worked on an interactive musical building for the 2012 Olympics with Mark Ronson, a synchronised "orchestra" of 100 iPads for the Apple Store, a spatial audio iOS app with composer Anna Meredith, and musical robots for will.i.am.

He is passionate about interaction, interfaces, and user experience, which lead to an interest in performance and optimization (of GUIs in particular); and is influenced by the work of Bret Victor, Alan Kay, Jef Raskin, and Douglas Engelbart.
---

ADC is an annual event celebrating all audio development technologies, from music applications and game audio to audio processing and embedded systems. ADC’s mission is to help attendees acquire and develop new audio development skills, and build a network that will support their audio developer career.
Annual ADC Conference - https://audio.dev/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/audiodevcon

https://facebook.com/audiodevcon
https://instagram.com/audiodevcon
https://www.reddit.com/r/audiodevcon/
https://mastodon.social/@audiodevcon
---

Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium Ltd: https://online.digital-medium.co.uk
---

Organized and produced by JUCE: https://juce.com/
---

Special thanks to the ADC24 Team:

Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra

#adc #daw #audiodev #javascript #dsp #cpp #audio #audioprocessing #audioproduction #audioprogramming #musictech #soundtech #audiotech #audiotechnology

Filed under: UncategorizedTagged with: , , ,

How to Build a Simple, Modern & Collaborative DAW for Producers of All Levels – Anurag Choudhary

https://audio.dev/ -- @audiodevcon​
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How to Build a Simple, Modern & Collaborative DAW for Producers of All Levels - Anurag Choudhary - ADCxGather 2024
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We’ll talk about the technological and behavioural shifts occurring in the space of music production, and how the next generation of DAWs should adapt to those. Specifically, we’ll talk about how we can drive simplicity, adopt modern standards, and build for collaboration from the ground up.

The talk will go through the following topics:

- Driving Simplicity: Balancing control and convenience, and a case against skeuomorphism. We’ll also look at how complex workflows can be made more intuitive through manageable and delightful interactions.
- Adopting Modern Standards: We’ll look at three arcs here: AI-native, CLAP plugins, and DAWProject. Each of them are modernising workflows across the user flow, from inspiration to finishing, to interoperability between DAWs. We also discuss what creativity and productivity represent for a producer, what ‘real’ means, and how new technologies should think about ethics and integrity.
- Building for Collaboration: We’ll look at what ‘collaboration’ means for music production, why DAWs have been unable to achieve success in them, and relevant examples from adjacent industries.
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Anurag Choudhary

Anurag is the founder of an early-stage startup, Riffle - a canva for music production. A CS grad from Illinois and an MBA from Chicago Booth, Anurag comes with a diverse set of experiences, from building a no-code platform at Microsoft to being a product lead at Traba building worker experiences.

Having been a semi-pro producer and musician for more than a decade, Anurag has deep empathy for producers of all levels, and is applying first principles thinking with Riffle in imagining a world where producing music is simpler, more modern, and more collaborative.
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ADC is an annual event celebrating all audio development technologies, from music applications and game audio to audio processing and embedded systems. ADC’s mission is to help attendees acquire and develop new audio development skills, and build a network that will support their audio developer career.
Annual ADC Conference - https://audio.dev/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/audiodevcon

https://facebook.com/audiodevcon
https://instagram.com/audiodevcon
https://www.reddit.com/r/audiodevcon/
https://mastodon.social/@audiodevcon
---

Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium Ltd: https://online.digital-medium.co.uk
---

Organized and produced by JUCE: https://juce.com/
---

Special thanks to the ADCxGather Team:

Sophie Carus
Derek Heimlich
Andrew Kirk
Bobby Lombardi
Tom Poole
Ralph Richbourg
Jim Roper
Jonathan Roper
Prashant Mishra

#daw #adc #audiodev #dsp #audio #conferenceaudio #audioprocessing #audioproduction #audioprogramming #sound #musictech #soundtech #audiotech #audiotechnology

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