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Phil Burk has had an amazing career as an audio developer: from writing DSP code on Z80, through creating a music language, writing code for mobile phones, PlayStation audio support, and Android, up to MIDI 2.0 contributions. He’s also a co-creator of the PortAudio library, which is one of the most popular OS-agnostic audio libraries (and it’s used not just from C/C++ but from Python as well).
He’s been there from the 80s up until today; he’s seen it all!
What I love about Phil is his purely interest-driven approach. He was able to make his hobby his work and thus live a life of passion. Even today, as a retiree, he still codes 8 hours a day just for fun.
After listening to this episode, you will not only learn a ton of useful audio programming knowledge and feel inspired, but you will also feel thankful that the world has audio developers such as Phil; they’re a real blessing, making our lives easier and more pleasant to the ear!
Episode ContentsFrom this episode, you will learn:
This episode was recorded on February 4, 2026.
00:00:00 Podcast Intro
00:00:36 Introducing Phil Burk
00:02:13 Early Music & Homebrew Electronics
00:04:08 Building a Shoebox Synthesizer
00:07:18 Z80 Programming via Hex Keypad
00:10:15 Emulating a 68000 CPU on a Z80
00:14:08 Sponsor: JUCE
00:15:55 Phase-Locked Loops & the Commodore 64
00:18:41 From Biophysics to Programming
00:22:11 Meeting Larry Polansky at Mills College
00:26:02 HMSL: A Music Language Built in Forth
00:32:43 Motorola 56000: Real-Time Synthesis
00:35:30 3DO: First Software Synth Console
00:43:38 Designing a Custom DSP in Verilog
00:54:38 JSyn: Interactive Music in the Browser
01:02:00 Building PortAudio with Ross Bencina
01:05:52 Max Neuhaus Sound Installations
01:14:33 A 14KB MIDI Synth for Mobile Phones
01:27:02 Designing the MIDI 2.0 Standard
01:40:41 Sony PlayStation 3 Audio Libraries
01:44:44 AAudio: Fixing Android Audio Latency
01:53:16 Why Android Audio Lagged Behind iOS
02:03:08 Reviving HMSL with JUCE & PForth
02:07:07 Retirement: Kotlin, AI & New Projects
02:12:17 Every Language Phil Has Programmed In
02:18:42 Are Dedicated DSP Chips Still Needed?
02:20:43 Developer Setup & Favorite Tools
02:23:23 The Music-DSP List & Learning DSP
02:30:08 Just Enough, Just in Time Learning
02:33:05 Audio Is Harder Than People Think
02:36:26 Shower Debugging & Work Habits
02:41:40 How to Reach Phil Burk
02:42:50 Outro
Julian “Jules” Storer is the creator of the JUCE C++ framework and the Cmajor programming language dedicated to audio.
He created JUCE in the late 90s, and it grew to become the most popular audio plugin development framework in the world. Apart from audio capabilities, it is a general-purpose cross-platform application development framework (Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and embedded platforms). Most plugin companies use JUCE; whether you like it or not, it has become a de facto industry standard.
You know that I love JUCE; I created the official JUCE audio plugin development course with them, and they are the sponsor of the podcast. So naturally, I was super excited to be able to interview Jules!
His next big thing is the Cmajor programming language. It is a C-like, LLVM-backed programming language dedicated solely to audio.
He has also given many talks at the Audio Developer Conference, so I encourage you to check them out as a way to relax and get inspired.
Jules is known for his strong opinions and dry humor, so I guarantee you’ll find yourself chuckling every few minutes 😉
Note: If you like the podcast so far, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts, and feedback can help me improve the show and deliver better-quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏
Episode contentsFrom this episode, you will learn:
This episode was recorded on January 30, 2026.
00:00:00 Intro
00:00:33 Introducing Jules Storer, Creator of JUCE
00:02:37 Meet Jules
00:03:11 How Jules Got Into Audio Programming
00:04:41 University: Computing & Psychology
00:05:28 Early Career
00:07:46 Why Jules Built the Tracktion DAW
00:11:04 Sponsor: JUCE Audio Plugin Course
00:12:52 The Mackie Deal & the Birth of JUCE
00:16:35 10 Years Solo: Bootstrapping JUCE
00:18:59 ROLI Acquires JUCE
00:20:56 How the Audio Developer Conference Began
00:21:38 From ROLI to C-Major
00:23:33 Cmajor: DSP Language for Any Hardware
00:28:58 Cmajor Licensing & Commercial Plugins
00:32:57 Cmajor Stability & AI-Written Code
00:36:04 What Building a Compiler Taught Jules
00:39:31 Jules' Dev Setup
00:41:59 Jules' AI Coding Workflow with Claude
00:47:23 Reviewing AI-Generated Code
00:50:18 AI Coding: Where Jules Draws the Line
00:52:22 Cmajor's Language Choice: C++, Go, and Rust
00:54:36 Why Jules Hates CMake
00:59:01 Clean Code: Structure, Files & Naming
01:04:25 API Design Other Developers Won't Hate
01:07:11 Code Review: Excess State & Verbosity
01:11:35 JUCE's Inspiration from Java's JDK
01:14:24 Why JUCE Dominated the Market
01:15:48 Challenges with JUCE, Waveform & C-Major
01:19:56 TDD and the Pain of UI Testing
01:23:06 How to Start Learning Audio Programming
01:26:42 Jules' Daily Routine
01:31:52 How to Contact Jules
01:32:42 Outro
How do you become a C++ Standards Committee member?
Why is C++ prevalent in audio?
Should you still use it for audio software?
Honestly, Timur Doumler is someone I have looked up to ever since I saw his “C++ in the audio industry” talk at CppCon 2015.
He has a rich development history with C++ and/or audio:
I have probably missed a ton of stuff here, but that should already give you a flavor of what Timur is up to 😉
I especially enjoy his technical talks on synchronization with the (real-time) audio thread; For example, at the Audio Developer Conference 2025, he made me finally understand memory ordering in C++ (or so I believe 😅)
In the podcast interview, we discuss his story, tactics, and tips, which I hope will inspire you to follow his footsteps (as they sure did me).
It also turns out we are both fond of the same music band… Listen to the interview to find out which one 😁
All in all, this one of my favorite podcast episodes (audio & C++, what more do you need?), so don’t miss it!
Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏
From this episode, you will learn:
This episode was recorded on September 26, 2025.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00:00 Podcast Intro
00:00:37 Timur Doumler
00:01:55 Timur's Introduction and Background
00:02:46 Early Interest in Music
00:03:35 Linking Music to Software Development
00:04:42 Studying Physics & Astrophysics (Berlin, Lyon, Potsdam)
00:06:08 Learning C & Fortran through Cosmology Simulations
00:07:46 Deciding to Become a Developer
00:10:48 Getting Hired at Native Instruments
00:12:16 Working on NI’s Internal C++ Libraries & Kontakt
00:18:05 Sponsor: JUCE
00:19:37 Moving to ROLI and Working on JUCE
00:22:08 Lessons Learned from Jules & Fabian
00:24:27 Joining JetBrains
00:30:13 Becoming a Developer Advocate
00:34:40 Founding Cradle & Building the First Products
00:37:17 Life as CTO & Startup Reflections
00:39:09 Bloomberg & C++ Contracts
00:41:29 The 2015 Talk: C++ in the Audio Industry
00:46:58 Representing the Audio Industry
00:48:18 Joining the ISO C++ Committee
00:50:19 Timur's Work in the C++ Committee
00:55:24 How the C++ Committee Works
01:02:20 How to Learn C++ Today
01:06:48 Real-Time Audio Programming & Tools
01:08:02 Personal Productivity: Meditation, Exercise, Time Management
01:13:46 Tech Stack and Developer Tools
01:14:13 Music Timur Codes To (Meshuggah, Animals as Leaders)
01:17:15 How to Contact Timur
01:18:59 Outro
Kurt James Werner, PhD, is a senior research scientist at Soundtoys and one of my favorite researchers in audio DSP (virtual analog modeling in particular).
While you may not have read his papers, it’s very likely that you used one of the plugins he worked on:
If you start peeking into the research of modeling analog audio effects in plugins, you stumble across his name right away.
I consider him not only brilliant, but also insanely productive. Definitely a role model for me!
In the research world, he’s mostly known for his work on Wave Digital Filters (WDFs). It’s a technique for creating a mathematical model of an analog circuit that once done is easy to implement (provided you use a WDF library).
WDFs are great for modeling analog audio effects to put them inside plugins.
But as a true researcher, Kurt is involved many other audio subfields that we discuss in the podcast!
Did I mention that he’s a graduate from Stanford’s CCRMA?
In this episode, you’ll learn about Kurt’s transition from academia to industry, his work on products at iZotope, Native Instruments, and Soundtoys, and the realities of being a research scientist in an audio plugin company.
You’ll also learn all about WDFs, which is a powerful tool to master.
Trust me, you don’t want to miss this one 😉
Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏
From this episode, you will learn:
TIMESTAMPS
00:00:00 Podcast Intro
00:00:37 Introducing Kurt Werner
00:04:11 Kurt's Intro and Background
00:07:20 Studying Engineering & Music at UIUC
00:10:06 PhD Studies at CCRMA (Stanford)
00:13:57 Structure of the PhD Program
00:18:23 Sponsor: JUCE
00:20:09 PhD Thesis: Wave Digital Filters
00:21:26 The Culture at CCRMA
00:31:44 Assistant Professor at SARC (Queen's University Belfast)
00:35:59 How Teaching Influences Research
00:44:19 Transition to Industry: iZotope
00:49:54 The Research Team at iZotope
00:52:54 Work on Neoverb, Vinyl, and Trash
00:58:43 Publishing Reserach Papers
01:01:35 Moving to Soundtoys
01:05:12 Role and Soundtoys
01:09:17 Soundtoys SuperPlate
01:11:04 What are Wave Digital Filters (WDFs)?
01:19:28 WDFs Before Kurt's Research
01:20:54 Handling Complex Topologies
01:26:56 Can Circuit Modeling be Automated?
01:33:37 Importance of "Warming Up" the Simulation
01:35:16 Strengths of Wave Digital Filters
01:41:52 Best & Worst Circuits for WDF Modeling
01:44:47 How to Approach Modeling a New Circuit
01:46:47 Modeling the Motown EQ (Altec 9062A)
01:52:28 Circuit Bending & Hardware Hacking
01:56:58 1-Bit Music & Velvet Noise
02:05:35 Deep Learning in Virtual Analog
02:07:29 Do You Need a PhD for Audio Research?
02:10:46 PhD for Software Engineering Roles?
02:12:12 How to Learn Virtual Analog Modeling
02:16:04 Productivity & Writing Research Papers
02:20:04 Tools & Tech Stack
02:21:29 Listening to Music While Working
02:23:16 Outro
Victor Zappi is a creator, researcher, and educator at the intersection of music, technology, and interaction design. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Music Technology at Northeastern University. In his career, among others, he worked on the Bela hardware platform during his time at Queen Mary University of London’s prestigious Centre for Digital Music (C4DM).
In this episode, apart from Victor’s inspiring career, we focus on digital musical instruments:
We conclude with a discussion of Victor’s LDSP C++ framework, which enables low-level audio device control on Android devices.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of musical interfaces, hackable hardware, and the technology that drives them!
Ilias Bergström is a software engineer, researcher, and musician from Sweden. For most of his professional career, spanning over 20 years, he has been working on, as he describes it, “time-based media software.”
In the audio programming world, this means digital audio workstations, video editors, and live audio-visual performance software.
He generously shared his experience in Audio Developer Conference talks, two of which discuss the much underrepresented topic of the software architecture of digital audio workstations.
Software architecture and software design are fascinating topics to me, so I naturally devoured both of these talks 😉
In this interview, we explore not only Ilias’s journey but also go into the details of what makes audio software design hard. He discusses how he connects the dots between different types of media software through his long-running personal project, TWO, which is best described as a Media Control Workstation. It enables the simultaneous interactive combination of digital media control signals (such as OSC and MIDI) from multiple sources.
Finally, we don’t shy away from discussing our favorite books on audio software development! Given that Ilias shares a ton of valuable tips and resources, you don’t want to miss this one!
Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏
Episode ContentsFrom this episode, you will learn:
This episode was recorded on January 15, 2025.
00:00:00 Podcast Intro
00:00:34 Introducing Ilias Bergstrom
00:02:15 Ilias' Background
00:02:50 Getting into Music
00:03:21 Developing Interest in Audio
00:05:03 Masters at UCL
00:07:32 Wolfsound: Learning DSP
00:08:46 Starting Industry Career
00:12:58 PhD at UCL
00:14:24 PhD Research
00:16:25 What does a PhD give you?
00:18:58 Post-doc at Event Lab
00:22:28 Post-doc at KTH
00:24:23 Teaching Career
00:25:15 What is Creative Coding?
00:26:58 Back to the Industry - SCISS
00:28:06 Work at SCISS on Uniview
00:31:24 Elk Audio
00:34:10 Sponsor: JUCE
00:35:41 Future Career Plans
00:36:31 TWO: Media Control Workstation
00:41:08 The Development of TWO
00:46:46 Opinions on Audio-Visual Performance
00:48:45 Writing Large-Scale Software
00:51:08 Software Design in Freelance Projects
00:53:40 Software Architecture
00:58:53 Architecture of Time-Based Media Software
01:01:24 Architecture of Digital Audio Workstations
01:03:00 Documenting Software Architecture
01:07:53 Book Recommendations
01:16:41 Learning Suggestions
01:19:24 Final Quick-Fire Questions
01:24:42 Connecting With Ilias
01:27:00 Outro
Geraint Luff is a seasoned audio DSP developer and the founder of Signalsmith Audio. Geraint’s presentations, such as “Let’s Write a Reverb” and “Four Ways to Write a Pitch Shifter,” are among the most popular talks at the Audio Developer Conference (ADC) thanks to Geraint’s clarity of explanation and easy-to-understand visuals (not to mention the accompanying open-source repos).
In the interview, Geraint shares his insights on his career path, freelancing in the audio industry, and digital signal processing (DSP). He discusses how he gained traction as a freelancer by joining a community, delivering audio-focused technical talks, and sharing open-source repos. We can also learn his approach to learning DSP, problem-solving, and the significance of visualization in explanations.
Theory first of practice first? Listen to the podcast episode to find out! 😉
Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏
00:00:00 Podcast Intro
00:00:38 Introducing Geraint Luff
00:03:30 Geraint's Introduction
00:04:14 Early Interest in Music & Programming
00:05:53 Learning DSP: Asking Dad About MP3s
00:06:50 University Studies: Maths at Cambridge
00:08:25 First Job (Meridian Audio) & 2009 Crash
00:10:36 Experience at Amazon
00:12:26 Hobby Audio Effects Projects
00:13:15 Transferable Skills from Non-Audio Roles
00:15:49 Transitioning to Audio DSP Freelancing
00:19:17 The Importance of Community
00:21:01 Landing the First Freelance Gig
00:21:28 Geraint's Learning Approach
00:22:21 DSP Design Philosophy
00:23:18 Creating the "Let's Write a Reverb" ADC Talk
00:24:30 Sponsor Break: JUCE
00:26:09 Geraint's Path as a Recipe for Others
00:28:20 Approach to Talks & Teaching
00:34:38 Story Behind "Four Ways to Write a Pitch Shifter"
00:39:59 The Open Source signal_smith::stretch Library
00:41:51 Creating Visuals for Talks
00:44:46 Overview of Freelance Projects
00:48:26 Freelancing Challenges & Realities
00:49:45 Experience with KVR Developer Challenge
00:50:19 Value of Specialization in Freelancing
00:56:25 Using WebAssembly for DSP Demos
01:01:05 Approach to Reading Academic Papers
01:04:32 Learning Style: Creating from Scratch
01:05:38 Thoughts on Deep Learning
01:06:43 Testing and Verifying DSP Code
01:10:06 Current Tech Stack
01:16:52 Getting Started in Audio Programming
01:19:00 Advice for Starting Freelancing
01:20:22 Quick Fire Questions
01:24:45 Final Thoughts & How to Connect
01:26:03 Pocast Outro
Orchisama Das is an outstanding audio researcher known for her work in virtual acoustics, artificial reverberation, and immersive audio. She holds a PhD from Stanford University’s prestigious CCRMA and has contributed to groundbreaking research at leading universities and major tech companies.
During this interview, we talk about her path in academia and industry. Orchisama shares her thoughts about the realities of audio research, offering great insights and a very frank and honest perspective on her journey.
We dive into technical topics such as artificial reverberation, virtual acoustics, immersive audio, and open problems in DSP, as well as topics like the gender imbalance in the audio research industry and how to stay productive and motivated during research.
The episode is scattered with many resources and tips for anyone interested in learning the mentioned topics. It is a very inspiring and informative talk for people who are doing audio research, or curious about getting started.
Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏
Episode contentsFrom this podcast, you will learn:
This episode was recorded on November 21, 2024.
00:00:00 Podast Intro
00:00:38 Orchisama Das
00:02:34 Wolfsound: DSP Pro
00:04:33 Orchisama's Background and Introduction
00:05:17 Early Interest in Music
00:06:25 From Electronics to Music Technology
00:10:45 Applying to PhD Programs
00:12:01 PhD Research at CCRMA
00:20:45 Sponsor: JUCE
00:22:26 Internships at Tesla and Meta
00:27:10 Postdoc at the University of Surrey
00:31:27 Moving to Industry: Sonos
00:36:34 Back to Academia: King's College
00:40:44 Artificial Reveberation
00:56:49 Spatial Audio
01:01:29 Machine Learning for Audio DSP
01:04:43 Tools and Technology Stack
01:07:29 Personal Audio Plugin Projects
01:09:08 Productivity Habits for Researchers
01:11:24 Book Recommendations
01:13:10 Focus Music
01:14:04 Do You Need a PhD for Industry Research?
01:15:25 'Women at Sonos' Resource Group
01:17:01 Gender Diversity in the Audio Industry
01:18:36 Comparing Research Institutes
01:20:41 Composing and Performing Music
01:23:23 Connecting with Orchisama
01:25:06 Outro
Julian’s career is incredible: from natural sciences through a master’s in physical modeling, a PhD in virtual analog modeling, an almost decade-long position at Native Instruments, all the way to TikTok and Stability AI, where he’s working now on generative music algorithms.
There are few people who have such a rich background in audio research and industry and even fewer who are willing to share the details of it publicly. That makes this episode all the more exciting!
Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏
From this podcast, you will learn:
Jatin Chowdhury is quite well known in the audio programming community for his numerous contributions:
The list could go on on and on but you get the point: he’s both incredibly productive and highly successful while being very generous to the community with his knowledge.
That’s why it was amazing to have him on the podcast!
Jatin currently leads his own audio plugin company ChowDSP which provides consulting and contracting as well.
During the podcast we discuss his story (which is a kind of “from hero to superhero” tale, if you ask me…), what he learnt along the way, all his current strategies, and most importantly: how you can become someone like a Jatin, a successful audio plugin developer and freelancer.
I was incredibly inspired during the recording of this episode and revisiting it brought up those feelings again.
⚠️ WARNING ⚠️ Listening to this podcast episode will leave you highly motivated to do more audio programming. Listen at your own risk.
Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏
From this podcast episode, you will learn:
This episode was recorded on June 14, 2024.
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