Audio programming - programmer needed

[aciddose]

that can be in theory true, but in a majority of cases it is not. given the same amplitude a waveform with more harmonics contains more energy and is more violent than the same base harmonic all by itself.

it could only be true if you proportionately decreased the peak amplitude such that the energy would be equal but divided into more frequency bands.

[AdmiralQuality]

If my audio is 40% less violent, will that sound 40% better?

Sorry LBarratt, but both the O.P. and yourself use language that indicate you don't know much about audio theory. It takes more than someone saying "I have a great idea". That's why there's a sticky post about "great ideas" on this board, as we get this a lot.



Though to be fair, I see he didn't actually post in the Development board, the O.P. was originally in some other board where it wasn't an appropriate topic, and he got thrown into the lion pit. Rawwwr!

[valhallasound]

The additional harmonics of certain gear always makes a pure sine wave sound better because it moves the ear drum less violently and is far less tiring on the ear.

I think that LBarrett is trying to say that a waveform with added harmonics can be audible at a lower volume than a pure sine wave. Think about a bass guitar through a Fender Super Reverb (Carol Kaye's amp of choice) versus a clean amp through an 18 inch woofer being used for dub. The Super Reverb will have lots of harmonics, and is easily audible through a transistor radio's speaker. In order to hear the dub bass (which is largely fundamental), you need to crank the bass on a good subwoofer. This can generate sound pressure levels that can hurt you.

Sean Costello

[AdmiralQuality]

The additional harmonics of certain gear always makes a pure sine wave sound better because it moves the ear drum less violently and is far less tiring on the ear.

I think that LBarrett is trying to say that a waveform with added harmonics can be audible at a lower volume than a pure sine wave. Think about a bass guitar through a Fender Super Reverb (Carol Kaye's amp of choice) versus a clean amp through an 18 inch woofer being used for dub. The Super Reverb will have lots of harmonics, and is easily audible through a transistor radio's speaker. In order to hear the dub bass (which is largely fundamental), you need to crank the bass on a good subwoofer. This can generate sound pressure levels that can hurt you.

Sean Costello

Define volume. Do we mean power? Or peak level? You can THINK you hear bass that isn't even there, if the harmonic series you're hearing point to a fundamental that's not there.

Anyway, point is, assuming there's no language gap, people who are likely to develop a useful and/or patent-able algorithm, aren't likely to describe their application as "making audio 40% better". Certainly all the developers, and even most of the power users around here, know more accurate language to describe their intent and the process to get it.

Or maybe he's really got a great idea and I just blew my chance get hired to do all the hard work for a flat, one time fee while he gets rich off it.

[asomers]

if it isn't already apparent, audio dsp is a finite field, and most of the people who have what you probably like to think of as credentials aren't going to be making vsts (eg. stanford's ccrma program.. any developers paying back that kind of money making plugins? doubtful).

Sorry for the delayed reply to this, but xoxos you are just wrong. I for one am paying back a debt to stanford making plugs and will be for many years to come (it is a hefty debt...). The majority of my ccrma associates are working in the field, too.

Well, Universal Audio was founded by CCRMA folks, and has 3 CCRMA PhDs working there, and they are able to pay their mortgages/rent. Mind you, these are PhDs, who are largely funded in their research after their first year. The MST program at CCRMA doesn't have any financial support in terms of grants, and I think it recently went from 1 year to 2 years. Which is pretty darned expensive.

AFAIK the audio industry is littered with ccrma people. Digi, Apple, Dolby for starters, and a good handful more at UAudio than you mentioned. BTW I think the MST program recently received some funding for its 2-year candidates.

I'm only replying to these comments to mention that you can get an expensive education and continue making plugins as a career.

[xoxos]

news to me :p i did recently see one ccrma name connected with a commercial project (and i think i saw vesa v.'s name on another as well). it's never seemed as apparent as i had expected. i figured you must all be taking the knowledge to other fields, or ?.

you see these names on paper after paper and it's rare that i can place these names with actual vst products (which is more what i meant by industry) :p glad to be wrong. please continue making things for people to use!

[valhallasound]

news to me :p i did recently see one ccrma name connected with a commercial project (and i think i saw vesa v.'s name on another as well). it's never seemed as apparent as i had expected. i figured you must all be taking the knowledge to other fields, or ?.

you see these names on paper after paper and it's rare that i can place these names with actual vst products (which is more what i meant by industry) :p glad to be wrong. please continue making things for people to use!

Well, how many names could you connect with products from Waves, Native Instruments, Digidesign, Apple, Steinberg, Ableton, etc? It is standard practice in most larger companies to feature the brand, not the developers. Universal Audio was somewhat unique for a "larger" audio company, in that they had the "Ask The Doctors" column in their websize, but this column hasn't been very active as of late.

In addition, I found when I was working in the bowels of industry that I was actively discouraged by my employers from participating in forums, and I'm sure that other DSP developers in larger companies are in similar situations, or are at least discouraged from talking about their current work. Academia is an environment where people publish their ideas, while the music DSP industry tends to have a fair amount of secrecy around those same ideas.

As far as the CCRMA people I know, a few of them are at Universal Audio, others have formed their own company, some are currently professors, and a few have retired or moved on to different industries.

Sean Costello

[doctornash]

If my audio is 40% less violent, will that sound 40% better?

You can THINK you hear bass that isn't even there, if the harmonic series you're hearing point to a fundamental that's not there

is consistent with:

For speakers unable to effectively couple low-frequency energy to the air (and so having a poor bass response), generating overtones from the bass frequencies the speaker can't deliver, and inserting them into the audio stream, tricking the auditory system

Academia is an environment where people publish their ideas, while the music DSP industry tends to have a fair amount of secrecy around those same ideas

Yes, though healthy cross-pollination between academia and industry does exist in Germany (and to perhaps a lesser extent, the US). For example, you can access the proceedings from the international conferences on digital audio effects published by ccrma (normally JOS puts this out). These show movements like Yuhan Nam who worked at Young Chang on Kurzweil gear doing his PHD at ccrma and coming up with alias-free oscillators based on a feedback delay loop, and extending differentiated parabolic waveform synthesis to generate cleaner sawtooths by applying a first-order finite difference to a parabolic wave. Some of this research has, and will, get licensed out to industry