Hardware Engineering

Discuss anything related to audio or music production.
Post Reply
CNVKT
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2015 7:23 am

Hardware Engineering

Post by CNVKT » Tue Apr 12, 2016 11:38 pm

hello everyone,

So i am currently going to a community college in my area and am a part of the computer science program that they offer hoping to transfer to a four year college. Im very involved in music and production and I'm very interested in the software/hardware that is used in producing music. i would love to get involved in a career revolving around these things but I'm not sure exactly what kind of a major that requires. if there are any of you out there that have any insight on my interest in this field of work feel free to share!

JBlongz
Posts: 507
Joined: Sat Feb 28, 2009 4:29 pm
Location: NYC
Contact:

Re: Hardware Engineering

Post by JBlongz » Wed Apr 13, 2016 6:58 pm

C++ will definitely be a part of your study. Basic electronics and how they work will be the other half. There are DIY kits for learning like http://www.arduino.cc/
rMBP Quad 2.8GHz, 16GB, 1TB SSD | UAD Apollo 8
JBlongz YouTube

MrCravon
Posts: 52
Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2013 7:29 pm

Re: Hardware Engineering

Post by MrCravon » Thu Apr 14, 2016 7:30 am

Hi mate. I have a masters degree in electronics engineering. I must say if you want to make music software you are already on the right track with your computer science program. As mentioned in the previous post C++ can be a great tool for any software development, C++ is sort of the behemoth and mother of modern programming and a decent understanding of C++ will allow you to easily pick up other programming languages in the future. However, if you are interested in hardware as well as software I would recommend that you choose electronics as your major. If you study electronics you will quite early learn how to design circuit boards and how to solder, which is the basics for any DIY project. However you will also learn how to program digital circuits and software to run on micro controllers. And I think the depth knowledge of programming you get easily covers everything you need to make software like VST's and the likes. Knowing how to program a shark chip(Used in UAD plugins and Dave Smith synths++)? No problem with electronics background. Modelling real circuits with advanced mathematics? Sure, you learn to use MathLab. I actually had a course in my master program that was called "Music technology". In that course we mathematically modeled a transistor distortion circuit and then fed a "clean" guitar sound through the mathematical model and out came a beautiful distortion that sounded like a vintage pedal. We even reviewed a mathematical model of an acoustic guitar, simulating things like the vibration of the wood in the guitar, the reflection of the walls, the room temperature and size and how it affected materials and their reflection/dampening qualities. It was very interesting. Now I am not even talking about the analog electronics yet. You can build ocillators, VCA's VCF's ADSR circuits, amplifiers. Maybe you can be the next Dave Smith?

Unless your goal it to work with big databases, data centers, 3D graphics or big corporate IT-systems I belive you are better off choosing electronics as you will get excellent programming skills as well as practical hardware knowledge. Hope this helps.

If you want to get a head start on VST programming. Check out cabbage.
http://cabbageaudio.com/
https://vimeo.com/45021485

CNVKT
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2015 7:23 am

Re: Hardware Engineering

Post by CNVKT » Sat May 21, 2016 12:33 am

thank you so much MrCravon this info has been really helpful! if you don't mind me asking where did you attend college?

MrCravon
Posts: 52
Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2013 7:29 pm

Re: Hardware Engineering

Post by MrCravon » Sat May 21, 2016 9:46 am

I am happy the information was helpful. I am from Norway so I went to a University College in my home town for my bachelor degree. Then I went to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology for my masters degree.

Please let me know what you end up doing. Interesting to see how you get along. My only regret is that I specialized in building satellites in stead of synthesizers. :P

JBlongz
Posts: 507
Joined: Sat Feb 28, 2009 4:29 pm
Location: NYC
Contact:

Re: Hardware Engineering

Post by JBlongz » Sun May 22, 2016 1:49 pm

Satellites are a great field. Do you have any ideas in that field? Especially for consumer level services?
rMBP Quad 2.8GHz, 16GB, 1TB SSD | UAD Apollo 8
JBlongz YouTube

MrCravon
Posts: 52
Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2013 7:29 pm

Re: Hardware Engineering

Post by MrCravon » Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:20 pm

Actually, when I was in university back a few years ago we where building a small double CubeSat type satellite that was going to space in orbit around earth. In space, circuit elements like flash memory can experience random bit flips due to energetic particles in space radiation. So called "single event effects". (http://radhome.gsfc.nasa.gov/radhome/see.htm) We used to joke around with how we could make a web page that would allow anyone to upload a small sample in .wav format. Then we could take those samples and upload them to the satellite and store them on a flash memory chip and leave it there for a while intentionally introducing random bit flips in the data caused by the space radiation. This would essential introduce random noise to the sample, but it would be real space noise coming from space! Which we thought where pretty cool! 8) And since some of that radiation comes from far outside our solar system we could literally have said we made "sounds from outer space"! :mrgreen:

Post Reply