Successful Audio Plugin Freelancing with Jatin Chowdhury (ChowDSP) | WolfTalk #024

Learn from the DSP wizard!

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Introduction

Jatin Chowdhury is quite well known in the audio programming community for his numerous contributions:

various open- and closed-source audio plugins,
a few published research papers on Virtual Analog modeling,
a few audio-related talks, especially at the Audio Developer Conference,
insightful Medium articles on creating audio software in general,
significant open-source contributions including the CLAP plugin standard and Surge Synthesizer.

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 🙏

Episode contents

From this podcast episode, you will learn:

how Jatin developed his interest in all things music,
how he got accepted to CCRMA at Stanford and then to Tesla,
how he started freelancing as an audio programmer,
how he finds clients,
what’s his developer setup,
which tools he’s using,
resources he recommends for learning audio programming and DSP,
personal daily routine for optimal productivity.

This episode was recorded on June 14, 2024.

Jatin’s tips on succeeding in audio plugin development

Do open-source plugins to advertise your work.
Talk to open-source project developers before contributing to understand the issues you are trying to solve and which approaches have failed to solve it.
Start with the basics, low-level understanding.
Ask for timbre examples from clients to get an understanding of the sound that they’re after for a particular plugin.
Prototype: start with the DSP part of the plugin.
Bottom-up approach to coding a plugin is good for experimentation
Be patient with yourself if you don’t understand something. Put it aside for a while and give it time.
Learn the open-source project before contributing.
Think of code in an artful way.
Never be satisfied. Always become better.
How to get the energy for audio programming: be passionate about it. Find something you’re excited about and that feels fulfilling.
Communicate clearly, honestly, and positively with clients.
If you figure things out for yourself, it’s a different level of understanding than if someone explained it to you.

References

Jatin Chowdhury
- e-mail: jatin [ at ] chowdsp [ dot ] com
- Personal webpage
- The Audio Programmer Discord
- Medium blog
- GitHub (← definitely check it out!)
Digital audio workstations (DAWs)
- Ableton Live
- Logic Pro
- Bitwig (supports CLAP)
- Reaper (supports CLAP)
- FL Studio (supports CLAP)
Programming languages
- C++
- C
- Rust
- Jai Programming Language
- Max/MSP
- CMake
Programming platforms
- Arduino
- Teensy microcontroller
Places
People
- Julius O. Smith III
- CCRMA signal processing group:
  - Orchisama Das
  - Elliot Canfield-Dafilou
  - Mark Rau
  - Jingjie Zhan (JJ)
  - Kim
- David Yeh
- Alexandre Bique
- Alfred Fettweis, creator of Wave Digital Filters
- Kurt Werner
- Chris Roberts
- Eyal Amir
- Surge Synthesizer team (Discord)
  - Surge originally by Claes Johanson
  - baconpaul
  - EvilDragon
  - Vince
  - Jackie
- James, Music Producer, (from ChowKick)
  - Kurt Wener’s paper on this
- Jaimie who came up with example-driven development
Plugin formats:
- CLAP
- LV2
- AU (Mac-only)
- AAX (Avid-only)
- VST3 (closed-source, possibly troubling license)
Plugins:
- Surge XT synthesizer
  - GitHub with source code
- Geonkick
  - GitHub with source code
Software libraries & frameworks
- TensorFlow Lite Micro
- xsimd library
- Eigen library
- JUCE C++ framework (podcast sponsor 💝)
Virtual Analog methods:
- Nodal Analysis
- Modified Nodal Analysis
- Wave Digital Filters
- Port Hamiltonian
- Machine Learning
Jatin’s Audio Developer Conference talks (selection):
- A Comparison of Virtual Analog Modelling Techniques
- A Comparison of Virtual Analog Modelling Techniques (Part 2)
Jatin’s projects (selection):
- Water bottle model using modal synthesis.
- RTNeural: neural network inference engine (version 2 is coming).
- ChowTapeModel: an analog tape emulation.
- BYOD: a modular system for creating guitar effect signal chains.
- ChowMatrix: a dynamic matrix of stereo delay effects.
- ChowKick: a kick drum synthesizer based on creative circuit modelling.
- ChowCentaur: a digital emulation of the Klon Centaur distortion pedal, using Wave Digital Filters and recurrent neural networks.
- ChowPhaser: a phaser effect based loosely on the Schulte Compact Phasing ‘A’ circuit.
Tools
- CLion IDE
- 10x Editor IDE
- RAD Debugger by Ryan Fleury and others
- Google Keep
- Linear for Project Management
Jatin’s recommended resources to learn audio programming:
Other

Thank you for listening! 🙏

Who should I invite next? Let me know in the comments below!

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