February Meetup: The principles of Ambisonics and Trackers

On the 3rd February we will host the next iteration of our monthly Audio Developer Meetup where Svein Berge will be giving a talk on ambisonics and Christoph Schied will be showing Stracker. See below!

As always, there will be a chance to network over drinks and pizza. Anyone interested in Audio development is welcome!

Doors open at 18:00, talks start at 18:15.

Please note: Attendance is strictly limited to people who have RSVP'd

Talk details:
The principles of ambisonics - Svein Berge
More talk details to follow shortly

Svein Berge has a master's degree in electronics and acoustics from NTNU in Norway and a Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies in lasers and atomic physics from Université Paris 6. He has worked as a software developer in the telecoms industry since the 90s and as an individual developer in the field of ambisonics since about 2009, where he created the Harpex decoder and Spacemic ambisonic microphone array among other things. He has been based in Berlin since 2011, where he runs the company Harpex Audio GmbH.

Writing a modern tracker, how hard can it be? - Christoph Schied
When I started Shield Tracker as a spare-time project in December 2023, I was frustrated by existing hardware and software sequencers. I kept wondering, how hard can it really be, and with little background in audio programming I decided to find out. The project escalated quickly, now sitting at over 45k handwritten lines of code, including a custom UI framework driven by a domain-specific-language, a built-in programmable fantasy CPU, various synth engines, effects, cross platform compatibility, and many more features.
After a brief demonstration of the tracker I will talk about my techniques for achieving a high development speed and maintaining the momentum. With this talk I hope to inspire attendees to build things from scratch and go onto their own explorative coding journeys.

Christoph Schied established himself as a live experimental electronic music performer in the Seattle underground music scene under the moniker "Herr Shield". In his live performances he uses a hybrid hardware setup with his custom-written tracker. He has over a decade of experience as a professional graphics researcher and developer.