Last November, we attended the Audio Developer Conference in Goldsmiths University of London. It is an event organized by the company behind the JUCE library that we, at Springbeats, use to develop audio applications for our clients and for ourselves. Two days of conference on topics related to audio programming, right in central London, which, by the way, is a pretty cold place to live in 😉
Clear trends
If you look at the program, you’ll probably notice for yourself the trends of this year:
- Machine Learning
- Embedded systems
- Embracing new techs / practices / standards
It is funny to see how machine learning invades every field, even sound related ones where you might not expect it. The demos that were made looked pretty convincing so I’m guessing many companies will start integrating this type of technologies in their products in the coming year.
Embedded and mobile systems seem to have reached a more mature state, where the latency and power restrictions no longer hinder the possibilities in terms of mobile audio.
Not really a new trend, but we also see the expressiveness of controllers improve over the years. Roger Linn stated it in his talk, and the products from ROLI are a good demonstration as well.
Overall impression
The organization was flawless, and the event gathered twice more attendants than last year, with all the big names of the industry, and many many small developers like us.
My general impression of the talks was that they did not go into enough technical details for my taste, probably because of the allowed duration for each talk. I heard from small developers, and it was my impression too, that there was not much material for plugin developers.
But in the end, I’m curious to see how it evolves, and will want to go back next year for sure 🙂 .
Part of the talks are now available on YouTube.
