No worries, I studied audio engineering for years putting in my 10,000 hours into mixing and mastering. Learning how to successfully record, mix and master a professional song. Then moved to audio programming around 7 years ago.
I’m aware I definitely came and come across ignorant. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not the most orthodox. I also haven’t converted my project to doubles as I said previously. I posted that earlier, after learning long doubles were a thing. No idea they were 128 bit or floats were 32 bit. All I knew is floats had 8 decimal points and doubles had 16ish. I just hoped it was the same as wav files, but never confirmed.
I would say I am professional because I can focus on one project every day for years at a time that is tailored for producers work flow and what sounds best rather than being a modern computer science architecture coding feat. The moog voyager originally was shipped with a broken filter and is purposely still built that way because of how it sounds.
I’ve also read Will Pirkles book around 12 times, and worked through the projects, in RackAfX 3 times when I first started. I’ve failed at this more times than I can count, but I don’t give up. I used to not know how to debug and I would manually take my code out and put my code back in for hours or days…years at a time. This is why my first plugins were very clunky and had to fight getting into the crouching fetal position many times. I never did though.
Honestly, I think I’m usually pretty misunderstood when I talk or ask questions. My ACT reading score was half of my ACT math score if that tells you anything lol.
I assume this gap in my communication ability with code is derived from how I learned coding, which was homeless or couch surfing living out of my backpack for years, luckily I had will pirkles book. Sometimes walking 4 miles in winter for an internet connection.
For around 3 years I made around 3 or 4 plugins that I eventually took down because of how hackey they were. I remember feeling like anything was possible, when a stranger bought my very first plugin Escape Artist. A delay measured in time not milliseconds, using biquad’s tuned to the Flecture Munson curve.
I then spent 3 years on a plugin called X utilizing the haas effect mixed with a dynamic imager, and verb. It had a space theme. From my understanding most pros mix in LCR/mid/side, or at least, the ones I could get to talk to me. Unfortunately, I quickly realized most people don’t see too much value in dynamic imaging. No matter how cool I thought it was.
This was all while I was working construction, printing t shirts and sleeping in friends garages or in my car, or whatever apartment I could afford for a short lease. I eventually started reaching out to youtubers to sell my plugin X. After the 3 years it took to finish because of how utterly ignorant I was to DSP, C++, and Juce. I was eventually able to make 200 dollars from having 10 youtubers give me a review, and doing ads.
While reaching out to 160 youtubers with personal videos on my phone that didn’t have internet, one youtuber Kyle Beats asked me to make him a plugin. I told him no, because I wanted to go solo, but he wouldn’t give up. I eventually said ok and we started on a plugin called the sauce. One and a half years later it was released and we found that the name was trademarked and then remade all the graphic elements to be called drip. A plugin to maximize work flow. Luckily a lot of the lessons and code from X carried over!
The time we started a project together I was featured as one of ADSR’s plugin and I started to get some traction I finally got a phone, and was able to rent an old house in the middle of nowhere, I found through word of mouth, this was supplemented with my other job auditing gas station inventory 12 hours a day one week a month, printing t shirts, and drywall. The place didn’t have internet, however I would call the phone company move my internet to a lower Gig plan then back to higher gig plan when I needed more data for my phone hotspot. I could not afford a mac. However, I was able to make a virtual machine on a computer I had built 10 years prior when I was 19. Using my community college student loan money for a custom built computer instead of car.
It took me 7 years to get a degree because I was working fulltime. I started programming my senior year. I worked at Volition on Saints Row as a sound designer my junior year and put the sound of my beard in as the grass sound. From the time of graduating college to living in the middle of nowhere on my 5 year journey, I had lost 60 pounds from walking, being broke, etc… I wasn’t doing well, all my free time was into learning dsp, c++, and working on my plugin ideas.
I had been living out of my car for the last two years paying 240 dollars to get it towed place to place, then I used my money from X to get it fixed then… it broke down. Luckily my boss for the auditing job could pick me up until I bought a 300 dollar car from some guy who gave me ride randomly. I still remember the cuts in my hand from turning the key nearly 100 times before every engine start. I lived 5/7 miles from the nearest town and 40 minute walk to get to town. I was living in the middle of no where alone, working construction, auditing, and dedicating all my time learning dsp, c++, and juce. However, I was at my physical, mental, and spiritual end.
When we launched Drip there were 400 users with errors all asking me to fix their mac bugs compiled in the virtual machine that had just crashed again, that took me weeks to build with minimal internet and disc images. The customer service was linked to my phone so it never stopped buzzing launch night. At this point I lost all my optimism I had boldely held for the last 5 years. Even the nights wearing all my clothes in the back of my broken down car during freezing temperatures, I never lost hope. However, this time I finally decided to sit down, break down, cry and give up… My eyes still water talking about it. Both my bank accounts were negative 200, i lost both my credit cards and my rent was late. I was officially pushed too far, there was no way, this was the nail in coffin I couldn’t fix these errors without a mac nor could I try and spend days making another virtual machine in a mac, download Xcode with 10 seconds of delay in mouse movement in hopes it would work. I gave in, got into the crouching fetal position started to cry and admitted I was utterly defeated. The odds were too high, and no amount effort would overcome them. That is when Kyle called me and said I made enough money to buy a mac. Which I wasn’t used too, nor thought about thats who I was helping fix their errors. People who purchased and wanted to use the plugin…
It kind of felt like giving up/ collapsing as you cross the finish line. Since then around 2 or 3 years ago I’ve spent every day working on a synthesizer. I hope to release soon. I’ve gained 80 pounds, which people say I look healthy now. Thats my story, thanks for asking, I hope it encourages someone.
I would encourage anyone reading this who is the nerdy not well spoken type like me to find someone who is good at the business side and work 50% with them. Kyle is one of my best friends, a talented producer and I highly value his input towards development.
To sum up, if I come across stupid in this thread, it’s probably because I am. It took me years to learn profiling apps, debuging, circular buffers, FFT, band-limiting, oversampling, convolution, bi-quads, magnitude, logarithms, exponentials, complex numbers, pointers, references, memory management, and now binary of variables. I love plugins and it was a dream come true when I compiled my first vst. However, to answer your question the only reason I’m a pro, is I’m too stupid to give up.
