AES Student Blog

Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from and what do you study?

I grew up in Michigan and studied music production and composition in the Performing Arts Technology department at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance. I had also been getting into programming and ended up earning a minor in computer science as well. Later, I got to pursue my interests in computer science and music in the Media Arts and Technology program at UC Santa Barbara, where I focused on software development for real-time audio applications. 

What initiated your passion for audio? When did it start? 

My interest in audio grew out of my passion for music. During my first couple years of college I started writing and recording my own songs, and I became fascinated with the process of composing and producing music. This eventually led me to apply to the PAT program in the music school. Though I was mostly focusing on studio production and composition at the time, I also got to explore audio processing using Max/MSP and Csound. During graduate school I began studying signal processing and further developed my software engineering skills in the context of effects processing and music information retrieval. I think I've been motivated by a desire to really understand the tools I use to make music, and as I've learned more about how these things work I've been inspired to develop new techniques for music production and performance.

Tell us about production of your submission? What is the story behind it? What inspired it? How long did you work on it? Was it your first entry?

The project was developed over the course of my final year of grad school. I had been learning about music information retrieval and audio effects processing and made the connection that controlling the behavior of effects based on the musical content of the signal could be really interesting. Though there are many existing examples of adaptive effects, at the time no one had attempted to generalize that concept in a way that could be integrated with digital audio workstations, so it seemed like a good idea to pursue for my master's project. This was my first entry in the competition. 

What/who made you join AES?

I originally joined AES to get access to journal articles, but I've since found it to be a good resource for meeting like-minded people and keeping track of what's going on in the audio industry.

Tell us about your favourite experiences at the 141st AES convention in LA!

Aside from being a valuable opportunity to get feedback on my project, it was great meeting the other students in the design competition and learning about their work. I also enjoyed wandering the exhibition hall and catching up with some friends at the Real Industry after party. 

To see Owen's project, click here