Music Tech/Software Companies?

micko4

Hi all

Graduating this may, expecting/hoping for a 1st class honours degree in Computer Science.

I like coding so would be looking into maybe a software development job,
although I have a strong interest in music, and I play in a band and that. For me at the minute if I could find a job that combines music and IT I wouldn't be too picky what sector of IT it was in.

Does anyone know of any companies in Ireland that develop music software or any ideas for me on what I could do?

Cheers
Mick

14ned

Most programmers I know interested in music end up going into game audio rather than music. Much, much bigger hiring pool than straight music production software, though there is substantial overlap, and many drift between both during a career.

The standard framework for games audio is Audiokinetic's wwise. A programmer skilled in wwise finds very ready employment anywhere in the world. I'd suggest firstly doing a Masters in audio production after your degree, and concurrently try ripping out the audio system in an old open sourced commercial game like Doom or Quake and replacing it with a wwise reimplementation as a portfolio showcase. If you don't get hired immediately after graduation with those on your CV, I would be astonished. You may even find immediate employment in Ireland rather than needing to do a stint in the UK or US first, though I'm pretty sure Audiokinetic themselves would be interested in hiring you and relocating you to Canada with the above portfolio.

Audio programmers are comparatively rare. Good audio programmers are very rare, and very desirable and paid above average for computer programmers (i.e. more than a Java programmer). It's a good niche to specialise in if you love music, but be aware you'll need to master C++ and specifically low latency programming if you follow this career path. That means attending C++ conferences and a lot of self driven training to raise your career level and seniority over at least a decade. Still, the above portfolio work will get you employed and in audio immediately, you can build up the low latency programming experience later. Six figure incomes by the age of 35 in Europe or 30 in the US are very realistic in this niche.

Good luck!

Niall

micko4

Cheers Niall

That is a great response, I appreciate you taking the time to write it. A masters at the minute probably is out of the question for me though as I'm 30 already(Mature student) and don't think the pockets can afford another year of college. Although I may definitely look into Audiokinetic's wwise, this interests me a lot. Money is not my first priority anyway but definitely good to hear it pays well

Cheers again, much appreciated!

Mick

14ned

micko4 wrote: »

That is a great response, I appreciate you taking the time to write it. A masters at the minute probably is out of the question for me though as I'm 30 already(Mature student) and don't think the pockets can afford another year of college. Although I may definitely look into Audiokinetic's wwise, this interests me a lot. Money is not my first priority anyway but definitely good to hear it pays well

It can pay well yes, but only if you've invested in your skillset over ten years or so out of uni (it takes that long to properly master C++ in any case).

wwise wears two hats, the authoring side and the programming side. The authoring side lets audio build specialists build out the soundstage for a triple A game without needing to be programmers or understanding programming. These guys are well paid for creative artists, though not as well as graphical specialists. The programming side is mainly deep technical expertise on integrating wwise into a triple A game engine such as Unity or Unreal or cry Engine. There is a standard integration provided by Audiokinetic for each engine, but most games need serious customisation. Deep knowledge of how to do that reliably and quickly is what pushes salaries so high.

Spatialised audio is probably the hottest niche within programmed audio right now because of all the AR and VR applications, plus all the triple A games are substantially improving headphones support because most traditional gamers are dad's playing with the kids asleep. There is also very substantial demand from the car and movie industries, and huge demand from China where B2B trade very extensively uses AR to sell stuff to other businesses remotely. We in the West are far behind China in that, they are easily a decade ahead of us. It's probably a good medium term bet for your career though (if spatialisation at all interests you).

BTW, if you're not familiar with it yet, have a look into Ambisonics. This lets you record an album in 3D, so whilst listening you can wander, live, around the soundset. It's the most impressive for classical music, but there are a few VR movies I've been inside where the ability to wander around the stage with the band AND have the audio exactly map what you're seeing and looking at is pretty amazing.

Point is, even if you're mostly currently interested in playing a guitar in your band and such, these sorts of technologies let anybody experience playing with you and your band in a 3D audio and video recording. It's a nice fusion of your programming interests and your music interests.

Niall

micko4

Deadly, even more useful information!

I did create a first person game with Unity last year as part of a project, and enjoyed selecting the music for it.

I have seen a music video like that where I could walk around the set with the VR headset on, thought it was cool and have been considering creating a music video like that and handing out the cardboard VR headsets with a qr code linking to the video to people when they pay into a gig, have to look into it a bit more. Although I had never heard the word spatialised audio or thought of it from a career perspective before so i will be looking into is some more..

Thanks again for the indepth response it is much appreciated
Mick