EMCT: Computing Major Project

Part 1: What is my Project?

Introduction to my Electronic Music, Computing and Technology Major Project.

Many plugins open in a DAW.

When undertaking a large project, one may sometimes know what they’re trying to create. Other times an individual or researcher may have no idea.

I currently find myself with a larger idea but still lack a specific direction for the end project. I know I want to explore the underlying concepts of audio tools or plugins (as they’re known colloquially amongst music producers).

The finalised intentions for what I’m making here are a little lost to me, but the underlying concepts I wish to explore and how I intend to fit them into my Major Project are starting to become apparent. So, first things first:

What is an ‘EMCT: Computing Major Project’?

Our Computing Major Project is a sizeable 6-month-long piece of work which should result in two large bodies of work and a blog (this)*. The first part is an extensive 8000+ word project report, incorporating background research, contextualisation of the project towards its goals and an in-depth breakdown of the development process. The second is the body of work itself, whether that be a singular large product which has been iterated farther and farther through its development process or a collection of works, perhaps (in my case) a group of VST instruments or if the project is more musical, a collection of compositions brought together under one artistic concept.

Understanding this and my university’s desired intentions for the project is of utmost importance; thus, my difficulty in pinning down my final product lies here.

I know what I wish to learn and explore, and as of right now (17th Nov 2022) believe this is what my project will be.

My Project Intentions:

I want to use this project to explore areas of Software Development and Audio Engineering that interest me, namely:

• Low-Level Programming and its concepts:
  — Exploring deeper concepts like thread concurrency, pointers, memory management and getting the software to a product quality standard. I intend to do this in Rust.
• Digital Signal Processing and how to use it:
  —Exploring how DSP algorithms create the different Fx and how to use this knowledge to create VST tools that do what I’m interested in.
• Audio Development and its concepts
  — Exploring Audio Development in more depth, moving away from frameworks that abstract and handle a lot of the underlying hard work for you, JUCE etc.

I hope to realise my own work in all 3 of these categories.

*pardon the C++ pun

Written: Nov 17, 2022