Recently, Andy was delighted to be a guest on Mr Bill’s podcast, and you can listen to them audio geek out for an hour and a half here: https://mrbillstunes.libsyn.com/mbp-174-andrew-simper
Summary
Bill Day (aka Mr Bill) and Andy Simper had a great chat, where they discussed a huge range of aspects of Andrew’s work, in depth. From audio programming and DSP algorithms, to the past, evolution and future of music production tools, Andrew outlines the challenges of hardware development, like optimising CPU, and recalls his early days of writing VST plugins. Cytomic’s compressor, The Glue, has been part of Ableton Live since 2013, and he has contributed to Ableton’s filters and EQ8. The conversation also explores the technicalities of filters, the transition from bi-quad to state variable filters, and the nuances of summing engines in audio quality. Throughout, they emphasize the importance of efficiency in DSP and the future of audio processing. It was a great chat, thanks Mr Bill!
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Background
06:02 Early Days of Audio Programming
11:56 The Glue Compressor and Its Impact
18:01 The Transition to Better Algorithms
23:55 The Future of Audio Processing
30:33 Understanding Audio Summing and Its Implications
36:06 The Complexity of DSP Equations
41:18 Optimizing CPU Usage in Audio Plugins
52:12 Challenges in Audio Feature Extraction
59:17 The Complexity of Circuit Simulation
01:06:18 Modeling Analog Gear: The Importance of Realism
01:11:39 Criteria for Meaningful Emulation vs. Mimicry
01:20:40 Imagining Unlimited Computational Power in DSP
01:25:42 Unsolved Problems in Digital Signal Processing
More about Cytomic’s partnership with Ableton here: https://www.ableton.com/en/blog/cytomic-on-ableton-partnership and