Reverbs, Pitch Shifters & Freelancing with Geraint Luff | WolfTalk #027

Meet the legendary Signalsmith! ⚔️

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Introduction

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 or 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 🙏

Episode Contents

From this episode, you will learn:

• How Geraint Luff transitioned to audio DSP without formal university training in this field.
• His experiences working at Meridian Audio, ARM, and Amazon.
• Tips and advice on learning DSP effectively.
• Geraint’s freelancing approach, including:
  • The importance of visibility and networking in the industry.
  • How community and conferences helped him establish himself as a DSP programmer.
  • The challenges of quoting projects and managing client expectations.
• Technical insights on reverberation algorithms, pitch shifting, and the Fourier transform.
• His thoughts on plugin development, JUCE, web audio, and C++ (and his hatred of CMake! 😉).

This episode was recorded on December 17, 2024.

Tips from Geraint on Learning DSP

1. A top-down approach can make learning DSP more accessible. Start hands-on and develop an understanding of the underlying principles, reaching the equations as needed.
2. Setting small, achievable goals and rewarding yourself at each stage can help you stay motivated.
3. Teaching reinforces your understanding and helps identify knowledge gaps.
4. Explore Web UIs for DSP tools. Accessible, browser-based interfaces powered by web technologies are becoming increasingly popular and make it easy to showcase your work to clients.
5. Use automated tests to validate basic DSP blocks, which gives you confidence in your implementations.
6. Finding a supportive community to help you when you get stuck is invaluable.
7. Don’t undervalue your skills as a freelancer. Whether you’re starting out or experienced, your time, skills, and knowledge have value.

References

1. People
   1. Geraint Luff
      1. Website (Signalsmith Audio)
      2. GitHub (Signalsmith Audio)
      3. LinkedIn Profile
      4. Email
      5. Blog (Signalsmith Audio)
      6. Geraint’s Music
   2. Jelena (Geraint’s partner and collaborator)
   3. Jules Storer
2. Companies & Academic Institutions
   1. University of Cambridge
   2. Meridian Audio
   3. ARM
   4. Amazon
      1. Amazon Ring
3. Talks and Conferences
   1. Talks by Geraint
      1. Let’s Write A Reverb | The Audio Programmer
      2. Let’s Write a Reverb | ADC 2021
      3. Four Ways To Write A Pitch-Shifter | ADC 2022
   2. Communities and Conferences
      1. The Audio Programmer Discord
      2. Audio Developer Conference
      3. DAFX Conference
      4. KVR Developer Challenge
4. Repositories and Research Papers
   1. Signalsmith Reverb Example Code
   2. Signalsmith Stretch
   3. Signalsmith Plot Library
   4. Cloud Chorus Plugin
   5. Research Papers
      1. Reducing The Aliasing Of Nonlinear Waveshaping Using Continuous-Time Convolution
5. Programming and Tools
   1. Reaper JSFX
   2. JUCE C++ framework
   3. Web Audio API
   4. Web Assembly
   5. Emscripten
   6. CLAP
   7. VST3 SDK
   8. Excalidraw
   9. Programming Languages
      1. C++
      2. PHP
      3. JavaScript
      4. Python
      5. C
      6. Rust
      7. CSound
      8. QBasic
6. Music
   1. Two Steps from Hell

Thank you for listening! 🙏