Re: [music-dsp] To EE or not to EE (Was: Job at Waldorf and Possible Job Opportunity)
Sorry for the late reply, I rarely use this address anymore. I had some inquiries about the phrase where I stated my preference for candidates without formal degrees. My intention was not to discourage or discriminate academics here, but lacking a formal degree myself, I thought it might be a good idea to show that in our perception, qualification is not necessarily a matter of academic study only. There are companies run by college dropouts where a formal degree is a basic requirement for applicants, which seems quite unfair to me, so I felt I need to do a little against this perceived discrimination of highly qualified non-academics. Speaking about the EE skills, as we are doing embedded systems here, a basic understanding of hardware and electronics is advantageous, sometimes debugging involves the use of an oscilloscope. As we are also doing analog synthesizers, a deeper understanding of electronics would also be helpful. The job is still vacant, but please don't reply to my address or the list when applying, rather use the address from our website. Regards, Stefan On 5/3/2012 5:47 AM, Ross Bencina wrote: Hi All, (but especially Stefan and Al) I'm wondering if I can draw you on what is it about Electrical Engineering qualifications that is important to these kind of jobs (I have some ideas, but not the full picture, since I'm not an EE). I was interested to see in Stefan's recently posted job: ...Advantageous: - Some insight into electrical engineering [...] Given identical qualification, we prefer candidates without a formal degree -- http://www.waldorfmusic.de/en/jobs.html What is problematic about formal degrees in this context? Then Al posted a job: ...We are considering a broad range of candidates, from recent graduates (electrical engineering or convince us otherwise) I'm someone with a computer music and software development background who's just started taking some math subjects in my spare time to fill in some gaps -- so I'm guessing that mathematic modelling of electronic systems and digital signal processing mathematics are a big part of what you're after. Can you clarify what skills you anticipate from EE graduates or people with insight into EE? Thanks! Ross. -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
Re: [music-dsp] To EE or not to EE (Was: Job at Waldorf and Possible Job Opportunity)
Being guilty of rather promoting the EE idea of course I have feelings or thoughts about the subject: I'd think like with IT type of subjects, the danger exists that the well founded and theoretically usually strong (university) EE subjects should be guarded against mis-use somewhat, to prevent disappointments. Then again I might be more interested more in boosting the levels which I could work at, since I find a lot of results not so up to the standards I'd prefer, but that's morally ok, at least, and probably there's a need for guarding the more reasonable people against the world domination syndrome at small or large scale at times, I don't know, I think that is important, and can effectively be done by observing the relativity of the DSP subjects most abused. In general I suppose my former University (EE and cooperation with IT) work made clear a good university (which it slowly became no longer) is an interesting place to use my talents in, and I'm sure the liason I worked in with private and foundation funds would work fine in general. I imagine it isn't honest to force (engineering/applied sciences) university standards on people in other circles per se: the reasons like I stated were that I felt a lot of delusions exist, and are promoted by people either not knowing theory or deliberately wanting a ivory tower which is made of much lower grade material than ivory, and that that isn't working as well as I'd prefer, for instance in the musical applications realm. Of course many here will have witnessed to rise of home recording and all kinds of plugins/effect for musical applications, and of course in an important sense I am *for* that, but like other main streams in the history of science: if the leadership to make all work right is more than a bit absent, the subjects may well go down, not integrate well and generally become rather sh*tty, even if some self work and an amount of second rate-ness might be entertaining and fun and of course not anyones' problem. I was among the top 10 or even 5 percent of my first year in EE uni, getting the propedeutic (first) diploma right in june of the first year, and I remember that less than a year before that, at the introduction week, I was told to take a look at your right and at your left, because in the end only one of your neighbors will have made it at all (after two years of trying), which I suppose is the real seperation of the wheat and the tares for people wanting to make it at the highest level (at top European level at the time for me, I suppose not quite at Harvard level, though they might not teach EE as such). Of course it is not always fair to let people in a field on the basis of making it through the gate in such way, but the difference between EE or not EE, at least still when I graduated in '91 was also that some people can and others simply cannot because of the intellectual requirements. And that is fine with me, and doesn't make me feel bad when for instance doing a student assistant job: an amount of honor about that principle works good, but maybe not so much anymore, which makes me want to change things. When it concerns business and (preferably actually) commercial work, that's harder but when actual machines or software with value are constructed I find that is probably more effective to bring about good values to in this case the field of digital processing, similar to my experience in the Open Source activities. Making good things, regardless of the actual connection with the highest university levels, and honestly also irrespective of actual profits coming from the work, I find satisfactory. In the OS world, for at least 10 years and over, I find the rewards still somewhat in the future, and that there is way more attention needed for bad attitudes of people than I'd prefer, but at least to me the OS still proves it is interesting to do good projects, and good results (maybe even better in some ways than some commercial efforts in the longer run) are there in practice. There has been strong leadership involved in the past of both the EE and the OS software, and currently that is still true, but the drive to innovate is limited compared to haydays, so I can't help wondering why such is the case, and of course I disagree that's optimal. I graduated (partially) in the field of graphics hardware design and simulation, and am glad that in that field of signal processing, progress has been considerable, which can be used for audio processing (I've tried and prepared some things of the kind). To get back to theory and the practice for a lot of people in Open Source and people in commercial DSP for musical applications, if I'd give a university or commercial course (which I have done in the past) about some interesting subjects, it would be easy to as it were move up in the knowledge hierarchy, but probably I'd find it more of a challenge to deal with
Re: [music-dsp] To EE or not to EE (Was: Job at Waldorf and Possible Job Opportunity)
On 5/2/2012 10:47 PM, Ross Bencina wrote: Hi All, (but especially Stefan and Al) I'm wondering if I can draw you on what is it about Electrical Engineering qualifications that is important to these kind of jobs (I have some ideas, but not the full picture, since I'm not an EE). I was interested to see in Stefan's recently posted job: ...Advantageous: - Some insight into electrical engineering [...] Given identical qualification, we prefer candidates without a formal degree -- http://www.waldorfmusic.de/en/jobs.html What is problematic about formal degrees in this context? Then Al posted a job: ...We are considering a broad range of candidates, from recent graduates (electrical engineering or convince us otherwise) I'm someone with a computer music and software development background who's just started taking some math subjects in my spare time to fill in some gaps -- so I'm guessing that mathematic modelling of electronic systems and digital signal processing mathematics are a big part of what you're after. Can you clarify what skills you anticipate from EE graduates or people with insight into EE? On 5/3/12 5:08 PM, Al Clark wrote: I think it's a hard question to articulate (especially if you are an engineer, since we can't write). I think Stefan I have some of the same perspective. An electrical engineering or similar education is usually the starting point of an engineering career. During this process, you hopefully learn(ed) something about problem solving and a bit of theory and math. It does not make you an engineer, however. If you are a student or recent graduate, you are maybe starting a journey to be a good or great engineer. You also learn engineering by solving real problems and maybe breaking things. Chances are pretty good that your early attempts are/were crap. Many of you know Robert Bristow-Johnson. oh jeepers. He is a bit famous in this group because in part, he did the rb-j cookbook. one-hit wonder. I think it is obvious that Robert needed his engineering education to jump start his algorithm skills. He might have been able to accomplish similar results with another technical background, but it is unlikely he would have gotten there with an engineering technician education. but Al, what about majoring in mathematics or physics and going into signal processing? what the EE degree did was to frame the issues first as these electrical signals that slosh around inside of synthesizers, parametric EQs, compressors, and guitar amps. that is helpful at first, but once one gets past the abstraction, these disciplines we need in doing algorithms just come with different names: e.g. i never had a class called Linear Algebra, but i *did* have one called Linear Electric Circuits which in the 80s or 90s be retitled Linear System Theory and nowadays titled Signals and Systems. now, i don't really need too much about linear T or pi circuits (sometimes called Y or delta circuits) to do algs *unless* i am trying to understand a given analog box that employs such circuits. but i think an Applied Math person could do as well (or as poorly) designing a sample-rate-conversion or pitch-shifting or time-scaling alg. or EQs. I have a few friends who never finished their EE degrees, that are great engineers. That said, they were both only a few credits short. I think it would be very shortsighted to discount people based strictly on education. Education alone will not make you a good or great engineer. I know great engineers with advanced degrees and I know useless engineers with the same degrees. i feel like i'm progressing from the former group into the latter. anyway Al, good luck with your search. if you are developing a product targeted toward the audio community, i wouldn't mind chatting with you about it (not the position, i don't think i can be moving to Cannon Falls Minnesota). L8r, -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
Re: [music-dsp] To EE or not to EE (Was: Job at Waldorf and Possible Job Opportunity)
On 5/4/2012 11:11 AM, robert bristow-johnson wrote: On 5/2/2012 10:47 PM, Ross Bencina wrote: Hi All, (but especially Stefan and Al) I'm wondering if I can draw you on what is it about Electrical Engineering qualifications that is important to these kind of jobs (I have some ideas, but not the full picture, since I'm not an EE). I was interested to see in Stefan's recently posted job: ...Advantageous: - Some insight into electrical engineering [...] Given identical qualification, we prefer candidates without a formal degree -- http://www.waldorfmusic.de/en/jobs.html What is problematic about formal degrees in this context? Then Al posted a job: ...We are considering a broad range of candidates, from recent graduates (electrical engineering or convince us otherwise) I'm someone with a computer music and software development background who's just started taking some math subjects in my spare time to fill in some gaps -- so I'm guessing that mathematic modelling of electronic systems and digital signal processing mathematics are a big part of what you're after. Can you clarify what skills you anticipate from EE graduates or people with insight into EE? On 5/3/12 5:08 PM, Al Clark wrote: I think it's a hard question to articulate (especially if you are an engineer, since we can't write). I think Stefan I have some of the same perspective. An electrical engineering or similar education is usually the starting point of an engineering career. During this process, you hopefully learn(ed) something about problem solving and a bit of theory and math. It does not make you an engineer, however. If you are a student or recent graduate, you are maybe starting a journey to be a good or great engineer. You also learn engineering by solving real problems and maybe breaking things. Chances are pretty good that your early attempts are/were crap. Many of you know Robert Bristow-Johnson. oh jeepers. The price of fame. He is a bit famous in this group because in part, he did the rb-j cookbook. one-hit wonder. You probably have a few more songs in you... I think it is obvious that Robert needed his engineering education to jump start his algorithm skills. He might have been able to accomplish similar results with another technical background, but it is unlikely he would have gotten there with an engineering technician education. but Al, what about majoring in mathematics or physics and going into signal processing? No argument from me. In fact, I know some practicing engineers that are largely self taught, but its a difficult road. A physics or math background is going to include much of the same relevant background material. what the EE degree did was to frame the issues first as these electrical signals that slosh around inside of synthesizers, parametric EQs, compressors, and guitar amps. that is helpful at first, but once one gets past the abstraction, these disciplines we need in doing algorithms just come with different names: e.g. i never had a class called Linear Algebra, but i *did* have one called Linear Electric Circuits which in the 80s or 90s be retitled Linear System Theory and nowadays titled Signals and Systems. now, i don't really need too much about linear T or pi circuits (sometimes called Y or delta circuits) to do algs *unless* i am trying to understand a given analog box that employs such circuits. but i think an Applied Math person could do as well (or as poorly) designing a sample-rate-conversion or pitch-shifting or time-scaling alg. or EQs. I have a few friends who never finished their EE degrees, that are great engineers. That said, they were both only a few credits short. I think it would be very shortsighted to discount people based strictly on education. Education alone will not make you a good or great engineer. I know great engineers with advanced degrees and I know useless engineers with the same degrees. i feel like i'm progressing from the former group into the latter. anyway Al, good luck with your search. if you are developing a product targeted toward the audio community, i wouldn't mind chatting with you about it (not the position, i don't think i can be moving to Cannon Falls Minnesota). Not enough flooding for you? Developing a product would be easy, we are always in the middle of several. I think we are some kind of human RTOS around here. It seems we are always context switching and managing interrupts. Al L8r, -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
Re: [music-dsp] To EE or not to EE (Was: Job at Waldorf and Possible Job Opportunity)
A couple of ideas... First, note that Given identical qualification can imply that someone without a degree might have gotten to the same level as someone with a degree by a lot of digging and figuring on their own. Some call this getting one's hands dirty—implying that you didn't just read books on theory and listen to lectures, you had to do dirty work, and create things—try things and think about why they worked or didn't. Also, a formal education can lock you into a limiting mentality. For instance, we all know the limitations of linear interpolation, but some know it too well. ;-) On May 2, 2012, at 8:47 PM, Ross Bencina wrote: Hi All, (but especially Stefan and Al) I'm wondering if I can draw you on what is it about Electrical Engineering qualifications that is important to these kind of jobs (I have some ideas, but not the full picture, since I'm not an EE). I was interested to see in Stefan's recently posted job: ...Advantageous: - Some insight into electrical engineering [...] Given identical qualification, we prefer candidates without a formal degree -- http://www.waldorfmusic.de/en/jobs.html What is problematic about formal degrees in this context? Then Al posted a job: ...We are considering a broad range of candidates, from recent graduates (electrical engineering or convince us otherwise) I'm someone with a computer music and software development background who's just started taking some math subjects in my spare time to fill in some gaps -- so I'm guessing that mathematic modelling of electronic systems and digital signal processing mathematics are a big part of what you're after. Can you clarify what skills you anticipate from EE graduates or people with insight into EE? Thanks! Ross. -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
Re: [music-dsp] To EE or not to EE (Was: Job at Waldorf and Possible Job Opportunity)
I'm a an algorithmic composer and contributor to Csound. I have no academic qualification for this work. I was a music major in jazz peformance for a year, but my B.A. is in comparative religion. Nevertheless I profoundly believe that formal education can be enormously beneficial. It all depends on the quality of the teachers. I have found that formal education can (a) force you to do the homework, i.e. to get your hands dirty, in an accelerated process where trained (teachers), semi-trained (teaching assistants) and untrained (fellow students) are right at hand to help you out. But more importantly (b) good teachers can convey critical thinking. In good schools, critical thinking is what they are really teaching. In my experience critical thinking does not come naturally, because you have to learn that the first suspect in what is wrong is yourself, and the second suspect is what you assume, and the third suspect is what everyone knows. Also, you kind of need to have a good living example of a critical thinker in front of you to show you how it's done. I guess what I'm really talking about is teachers, nor formal education, but for some reason teachers are most commonly found and most easily located in schools. Regards, Mike On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 5:58 PM, Nigel Redmon earle...@earlevel.com wrote: A couple of ideas... First, note that Given identical qualification can imply that someone without a degree might have gotten to the same level as someone with a degree by a lot of digging and figuring on their own. Some call this getting one's hands dirty—implying that you didn't just read books on theory and listen to lectures, you had to do dirty work, and create things—try things and think about why they worked or didn't. Also, a formal education can lock you into a limiting mentality. For instance, we all know the limitations of linear interpolation, but some know it too well. ;-) On May 2, 2012, at 8:47 PM, Ross Bencina wrote: Hi All, (but especially Stefan and Al) I'm wondering if I can draw you on what is it about Electrical Engineering qualifications that is important to these kind of jobs (I have some ideas, but not the full picture, since I'm not an EE). I was interested to see in Stefan's recently posted job: ...Advantageous: - Some insight into electrical engineering [...] Given identical qualification, we prefer candidates without a formal degree -- http://www.waldorfmusic.de/en/jobs.html What is problematic about formal degrees in this context? Then Al posted a job: ...We are considering a broad range of candidates, from recent graduates (electrical engineering or convince us otherwise) I'm someone with a computer music and software development background who's just started taking some math subjects in my spare time to fill in some gaps -- so I'm guessing that mathematic modelling of electronic systems and digital signal processing mathematics are a big part of what you're after. Can you clarify what skills you anticipate from EE graduates or people with insight into EE? Thanks! Ross. -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp -- Michael Gogins Irreducible Productions http://www.michael-gogins.com Michael dot Gogins at gmail dot com -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
Re: [music-dsp] To EE or not to EE (Was: Job at Waldorf and Possible Job Opportunity)
On 5/3/12, Nigel Redmon earle...@earlevel.com wrote: Also, a formal education can lock you into a limiting mentality. For instance, we all know the limitations of linear interpolation, but some know it too well. ;-) Allow me to share my interpolator polynomial analytic transform tables vis a vis desigining interpolators. I've pummeled the pd-list with them before, speaking of knowing it too well :) I've learned more about programming and chasing down useful problems from being on audio mailing lists. As for math... I think you can make faster progress studying it in a university--it's all just the time you put into it that makes you an expert. Chuck On May 2, 2012, at 8:47 PM, Ross Bencina wrote: Hi All, (but especially Stefan and Al) I'm wondering if I can draw you on what is it about Electrical Engineering qualifications that is important to these kind of jobs (I have some ideas, but not the full picture, since I'm not an EE). I was interested to see in Stefan's recently posted job: ...Advantageous: - Some insight into electrical engineering [...] Given identical qualification, we prefer candidates without a formal degree -- http://www.waldorfmusic.de/en/jobs.html What is problematic about formal degrees in this context? Then Al posted a job: ...We are considering a broad range of candidates, from recent graduates (electrical engineering or convince us otherwise) I'm someone with a computer music and software development background who's just started taking some math subjects in my spare time to fill in some gaps -- so I'm guessing that mathematic modelling of electronic systems and digital signal processing mathematics are a big part of what you're after. Can you clarify what skills you anticipate from EE graduates or people with insight into EE? Thanks! Ross. -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
Re: [music-dsp] To EE or not to EE (Was: Job at Waldorf and Possible Job Opportunity)
I didn't have that experience, Michael. Having homework forced me to do homework. I had a US Government teacher as a senior in high school that made me think about how life works a bit, balanced by a math teacher in college that nearly crushed my interest in math...pretty much everything I use came from wanting to do something, and figuring out how I could do it (in some cases, that meant going to a book store). In other words, motivation. Maybe some people find that from a teacher, but I didn't come across that for myself. By motivation I mean...you could learn to program by picking a language (maybe because it's popular and you can get a job using it), read and memorize language components and learn about compilers, and complete exercises to see it in action, or you can have a task that are passionate about doing that drives your need to learn a programming language. (Maybe you're nuts about video games, and have an idea for one...for me it was synthesizers driving the desire to learn electronics, then discovering microprocessors and realizing that they weren't powerful enough to compute music yet, but were fast enough to control my synth stuff if I figured out how—and would probably be fast enough to make music on their own in 10-15 years, and I figured it would take 10 years to be an expert programmer anyway...) Again, I concede that people may find teachers who spark the fire of motivation in their students. That's awesome. The only part I disagree with is, you kind of need to have a good living example of a critical thinker in front of you to show you how it's done. So many people have done great things from isolation. (And, dam, if you have motivation, access to knowledge is so much easier these days with the internet that it's like cheating ;-) Nigel On May 3, 2012, at 4:18 PM, Michael Gogins wrote: I'm a an algorithmic composer and contributor to Csound. I have no academic qualification for this work. I was a music major in jazz peformance for a year, but my B.A. is in comparative religion. Nevertheless I profoundly believe that formal education can be enormously beneficial. It all depends on the quality of the teachers. I have found that formal education can (a) force you to do the homework, i.e. to get your hands dirty, in an accelerated process where trained (teachers), semi-trained (teaching assistants) and untrained (fellow students) are right at hand to help you out. But more importantly (b) good teachers can convey critical thinking. In good schools, critical thinking is what they are really teaching. In my experience critical thinking does not come naturally, because you have to learn that the first suspect in what is wrong is yourself, and the second suspect is what you assume, and the third suspect is what everyone knows. Also, you kind of need to have a good living example of a critical thinker in front of you to show you how it's done. I guess what I'm really talking about is teachers, nor formal education, but for some reason teachers are most commonly found and most easily located in schools. Regards, Mike On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 5:58 PM, Nigel Redmon earle...@earlevel.com wrote: A couple of ideas... First, note that Given identical qualification can imply that someone without a degree might have gotten to the same level as someone with a degree by a lot of digging and figuring on their own. Some call this getting one's hands dirty—implying that you didn't just read books on theory and listen to lectures, you had to do dirty work, and create things—try things and think about why they worked or didn't. Also, a formal education can lock you into a limiting mentality. For instance, we all know the limitations of linear interpolation, but some know it too well. ;-) On May 2, 2012, at 8:47 PM, Ross Bencina wrote: Hi All, (but especially Stefan and Al) I'm wondering if I can draw you on what is it about Electrical Engineering qualifications that is important to these kind of jobs (I have some ideas, but not the full picture, since I'm not an EE). I was interested to see in Stefan's recently posted job: ...Advantageous: - Some insight into electrical engineering [...] Given identical qualification, we prefer candidates without a formal degree -- http://www.waldorfmusic.de/en/jobs.html What is problematic about formal degrees in this context? Then Al posted a job: ...We are considering a broad range of candidates, from recent graduates (electrical engineering or convince us otherwise) I'm someone with a computer music and software development background who's just started taking some math subjects in my spare time to fill in some gaps -- so I'm guessing that mathematic modelling of electronic systems and digital signal processing mathematics are a big part of what you're after. Can you clarify what skills you anticipate from EE graduates or people with
