Why are so many DAW devs based in Massachusetts?

[Obsolete236871]

Is their a specific school or university in Berlin that is notable for bleeding edge electronic/computer music academia? As a lot of us have said, MIT. Paris has IRCAM (which might be the oldest and most venerable). San Francisco/the Bay Area has Stanford and the CCRMA.

Besides DAW developers, there are many other DSP developers who are / were based in Berlin, like U-HE and Cableguys for example.

We have Technical University TU Berlin and other schools, that offer studies where some of the aspects that are applied in DSP are taught, but I'm not aware of any specific institution that is renown as the "DSP school" over here. Most people I met who work for companies such as Ableton and Native Instruments are just very talented and creative hacker guys and Berlin for a long time offered good conditions and opportunities to such: rents used to be comparatively low; developers could work part-time as coders in some established software company and spent the rest of their time developing their own audio software, without having to worry about not being able to survive; then since the 1990s / early 2000s new startups were specifically promoted by the local government, since Berlin has been an economically underdeveloped region in the early 1990s compared to places like Hamburg or Munich (due to the wall and it's special status as a seperated city - West Berlin was an insular enclave within East Germany, East Berlins economy was previously based on the principle of "planned economy" ...)

I was at Native Sessions (Native Instruments public event, where they presented Maschine Jam) just the other day and they also regularly introduce some of their staff. For example, there was one young lady from England (if I remeber correctly) who was involved in the creation and sound design for the new Form synth. Then the lead designer of the Form synth was a Canadian guy, who actually had an background in Mechanical Engineering. Then the guy who is now lead designer of Maschine hardware, used to be a Berlin underground rapper in the late 1990s / early 2000s! So, they come from various walks of life.

https://www.facebook.com/nimaschine/vid ... 120159797/

[LawrenceF]

First things first: I'm a Berliner myself. I hope you are aware that Berlin has become a global hub and when you look at the staff in companies like Ableton, Bitwig or Native Instruments, you will see that they come from many different countries and backgrounds. So, it has nothing to do with German Nationalism, but with the attractive conditions a place like Berlin offered to creative people and startups since the 1990s.

The "not locking up the Nazi scientist aspect" is something that I wouldn't be particularly proud of, if I was American!

Thanks Izak. If you re-read my post (the mention of being a history buff) I was clearly talking about how German scientists were a good bit ahead of everyone else in the past, historically speaking, and invented or discovered a lot of things in the past, including nuclear fisson. It had nothing to do with the current state of Germany.

As to "defecting", a comment someone else made, ... I was talking about what happened to German scientists - after - the war, in defeat, where both Russia and the US were doing covert battle for them. They didn't defect so much as to say "Sure... I'll work for you guys now." It's not like they had a real choice. "Do your science stuff for us or go to military prison." Our space program was largely initially built on the knowledge of German rocket scientists.

But at the time German society was - far - ahead of the most of the world technologically speaking. A lot of that knowledge went to war machines (jet aircraft for example) but still, I can't explain that difference other than maybe the government put more financial resources into science and tech maybe.

But sure Izak, Germany is a great place. I visited there twice in my youth and found the people friendly, smart, bi-lingual (the youth). Had a great time.

[LawrenceF]

Trivia Question: Who drops the "troll" word into almost every thread?

@ Izak: Re: "The "not locking up the Nazi scientist aspect" is something that I wouldn't be particularly proud of, if I was American!"

True. Lots of people weren't, which is why the governments didn't advertise it, did it mostly covertly. It pissed off a lot of people, the idea that some people were given passes for their beliefs because they were very good scientists and we needed good scientists.

It was called "Operation Paperclip". You can look it up. The Russians did the same... and part of it was about that... each one (the US and Russia) not wanting the other to get them and gain an advantage.

[Obsolete236871]

@LawrenceF

I'm well aware of Operation Paperclip and the likes of Wernher von Braun and the role they played in NASA and the US Space Program. That's actually general knowledge in Germany, so no need to "look it up", as if it was still some secret that needed to be thoroughly investigated and researched. The average person in Germany today, anachronistic Pegida and AFD hooligans aside, generally has a good knowledge and critical sense of history.

I'm still not seeing what connection you are trying to draw between today's Berlin based audio companies, that are involved in DSP-work and the advanced military-industrial complex of Nazi Germany in preparation of it's aggressions against it's neighbors?

I mean, it's common knowledge that unfortunately militaristic reasons were often the driving engine behind research. Just check the cooperation of the US military with leading research universities. Everyday technologies, such a voice recognition (Siri, Google OK) were often initially developed with military / intelligence purposes in mind (and are probably used for these exact purposes right now). Even radio, mircophones, loudspeaker... were invented initially or used evetually for militaristic applications.

In a similar way, certain fields of research, that could be used to advance military technology, were nurtured by the Nazis (with the aim of starting war - and it led to millions of dead civilians and soldiers on all sides as you may know). So, what's your exact point?

[LawrenceF]

I'm still not seeing what connection you are trying to draw between today's Berlin based audio companies,

I wasn't making that connection, which is maybe how we got crossed up. My thought there was a random thought about how some cultures can be farther ahead than others tech wise. It was a historical observation, nothing more. Things are quite different now in the information age.

It was, my observation, related to the mini-joke the other guy made... "Belin wins ". It was kind of an observational return joke, not anything to do with current German daw companies... or anything in Germany now.

At any rate, my apologies if my comment was offensive to you.

Anyway, if there is something to be learned from that is that people (any culture) can advance faster if they really put their money and effort behind it. Like you say, there was a concerted effort to do that.

Back on topic: As relates to daws, our daws are what they are (for better or worse) because (seems obvious to me anyway, mmv) the best software engineers aren't building daws, they're doing other much more difficult things.

[.jon]

Back on topic: As relates to daws, our daws are what they are (for better or worse) because (seems obvious to me anyway, mmv) the best software engineers aren't building daws, they're doing other much more difficult things.

For example?

[highkoo]

People in New England and Germany just tend to be smarter than other people and thats just the way it f**king is.

[machinesworking]

Back on topic: As relates to daws, our daws are what they are (for better or worse) because (seems obvious to me anyway, mmv) the best software engineers aren't building daws, they're doing other much more difficult things.

For example?

OS development. BTW the Bay Area (Daly City) is where Digidesign and Pro Tools Started. The thing is Apple, Google etc. are going to be gunning for your best developers. Massachusetts, Redmond and Cupertino are the biggest tech hubs I can think of and only one place isn't where an OS was first developed.

If Germany had an OS developer that paid well it's likely it wouldn't be a DAW hub. <-plus talent tends to flow towards places where there's a demand.

I think a more interesting question is how the homegrown Boston DAWs (DP and Sonar) until recently were single OS DAWs, and now that's coming to an end.

[starflakeprj]

People in New England and Germany just tend to be smarter than other people and thats just the way it f**king is.

Obviously people are smarter in both Gent and Stockholm since there are less people living there, per DAW, than in Massachusetts and Berlin, just sayin'

[LawrenceF]

Back on topic: As relates to daws, our daws are what they are (for better or worse) because (seems obvious to me anyway, mmv) the best software engineers aren't building daws, they're doing other much more difficult things.

For example?

Take your pick. I'm not trying to be obtuse, but daws are clearly not the most difficult things to develop. They're not the easiest things to develop either obviously.

I mean, don't you think people at NASA and similar other places (maybe even Google) might be coding something a good bit more difficult than... Bitwig Studio?

Not to mention coding the thing the daw actually runs in, the OS.

[dogzilla]

Is it because they're fans of the Bee Gees?

[Hink]

Back on topic: As relates to daws, our daws are what they are (for better or worse) because (seems obvious to me anyway, mmv) the best software engineers aren't building daws, they're doing other much more difficult things.

For example?

Take your pick. I'm not trying to be obtuse, but daws are clearly not the most difficult things to develop. They're not the easiest things to develop either obviously.

I mean, don't you think people at NASA and similar other places (maybe even Google) might be coding something a good bit more difficult than... Bitwig Studio?

Not to mention coding the thing the daw actually runs in, the OS.

better than my response was gonna be, I was gonna say working for wikileaks

[BBFG#]

NASA actually still uses 16 bit DOS in certain systems.

[EdgarRothermich]

Why are so many DAW devs based or originated in Germany?

Bitwig, Berlin
Live, Berlin
Cubase, Hamburg
Logic, Rellingen (Germany) before Apple bought them

That leaves only two conceived and developed in Massachusetts. Still impressive since Massachusetts has only 1/10 of the population of Germany.

Then throw in Native Instrument, U-he, or on the hardware side Neumann, Sennheiser, Behringer, then the German "influence" becomes even more obvious.

[LawrenceF]

NASA actually still uses 16 bit DOS in certain systems.

Yep, NASA is a large org. I certainly wasn't suggesting that every coder at NASA is from the top 5% of MIT or similar places, I'm sure they have guys doing simple scripts and anything and everything else in between that corporate coder guys do. I don't think you have to be ... exceptionally talented ... to work there in a typical coding job.

I was more talking about the people at the very top, working on (or guiding) the most critical systems. Those people are (likely) exceptional coders... and physicists + coders + mathematicians and other things.

Much like anything else, like lawyers, if you graduate in the top 5 at University of Michigan law school or similar, you'll get snapped up by somebody big that pays really, really well off the bat. I don't think most of those exceptionally talented people are even interviewing at Native Instruments and similar (on the coder side of that equation) because they'll probably make a lot more money elsewhere... at Apple or Google.