A short time ago, I realized that I haven’t posted nearly enough on this blog about myself, and people in the Mac software world might not know how I ended up where I am today. I’d like to think that I had a pretty interesting history that led to my career in software, and my memory about “life before programming” is getting fuzzier by the day.

So, this is the first post in a short series about my involvement with music while I was in elementary school, high school, and the early part of my university career. To say that this was “life before programming” is actually somewhat inaccurate, because I was experimenting with software development quite a bit during this time. However, I do recall that out of the many hours I spent by the computer during this phase of my life, the majority was in front of a different kind of keyboard…

Grade 7 was the first year that students were able to try out for the band. In my school, the band was seen as a fun activity that would get you away from schoolwork, and thus it was important for kids to try and get into this exclusive club.

I was intrigued by the idea of learning a new instrument (after a few unsuccessful brushes with pianos and guitars in the past), so I attended the introductory sessions where the band teacher would allow us to try instruments we were interested in. He taught us about mouthpieces (both for brass and woodwind instruments), and how to use them.

Our band had three sections—woodwind (alto sax, baritone sax, clarinet, flute), brass (trumpet, french horn, baritone), and percussion (5pc drum kit, bass drum, xylophone). First we heard a handful of folks try (many of which failed) to play clarinets and saxophones without squeaking, and then we got to brass.

I liked the look of the baritone, and it seemed to be the choice instrument for the bigger guys in my class (boys playing the flute? not in my school.) I was competent enough to be ‘in’ the brass section, partially due to my prior experience with reading sheet music, and partially because it wasn’t trivial to get sound out of the baritone. So, I was basically in the band at this point.

When the teacher asked who would be interested in playing the drums, we all looked around the class for volunteers. I knew my class, and I knew nobody was going to be competent on these things. I had many a fantasy as a kid of playing the drum kit, but I never had the opportunity to sit behind one before.

One girl in our class—tall, and clumsy as heck—put up her hand and got behind the kit. She basically pulled the equivalent of a toddler with spoons and a pot, smashing aimlessly around and making noise with a big dumb grin on her face. The teacher knew this wouldn’t fly, and I could see the sense of defeat in his face at the thought of a band without a drummer.

After seeing her bang away aimlessly, I figured that I might as well give it a shot—at the very least I could probably learn a few drum patterns over time, and all I had to do was keep time to make it into the band (not very high standards, I know). I sat down nervously at the kit, and took the drumsticks in my hands. I’ve watched a few people play the drums in the past, and had an idea of what kind of ‘position’ I needed to be in, and what bits I could hit to make certain sounds.

I tapped a few drums to get a feel for how they sounded. Snare, floor tom, kick, hi-hat, ride cymbal—this felt neat. I took a deep breath, got into position (right arm crossed over left with the stick hovering over the hi-hat, left hand playing the snare), and went for it.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-boom-tap-snare-tap-boom-boom-snare-tap. I was playing a very simple rock beat! I couldn’t believe what I was doing, and neither could my classmates. More importantly, the teacher was pleased with what I was playing. I played a few bars, hit the splash cymbal at the right times, and knew this was the right instrument for me.

There was a lot for me to learn about playing the drums. Drum rolls, practice drills, keeping steady time, etc. I worked as well as I could without a kit of my own, but not for long. I got a drum set that Christmas, and I was in love with them.

I enjoyed playing drums for the school band, and I got to attend the practice sessions for all band sections (so I had 3x the time away from class as the other band members!) During these sessions, I got to appreciate the different sections of a band, and how they interacted. I started to listen more critically to music, recognizing the different instruments and how they contribute to the overall song.

Unfortunately, I never got to play my drums nearly enough at home—it made a lot of noise, and I never thought the snare drum sounded right (it rang a lot, and never sounded like the kit at school). Being only 14 years old, dedication and self-discipline aren’t exactly in peak form, so my interest waned in the presence of these molehills.

It was around this time that I wanted to try making music of my own. I had a computer, and I was intrigued by the PC music tracking scene. In the next installment of this story, I’ll talk about how I transitioned to a ‘one-man band’ mentality and started experimenting with music composition software and audio hardware.

In past years, I made a point of declaring an area of focus (similar to a New Year’s resolution). 2006 marked a year of making more mistakes, and in 2007 I focused on refinement. All my declarations hold for the future, so I still plan on making plenty of mistakes, and I will continue to refine the products that I release.

This year I held off on my public declaration due to the sensitivity of what I was proposing — in 2008, I declared independence. I resigned from my full-time job to pursue a career in independent Mac software development. My first day as a full-time employee of SuperMegaUltraGroovy is February 8th, which also happens to be my birthday.

This is huge. I am turning my life upside-down to pursue a dream I’ve had since I was in grade school. When I first started to program, I was interested in designing my own software, and making music with my computer. From that point forward, writing audio-related software on my own would turn out to be the ultimate career goal.

I’ve written a handful of applications to work with sound over the years (ranging from software synthesis to MIDI control applications), but the experience required to ship a complex application just wasn’t there. FuzzMeasure gave me an excuse to carry an idea to completion, though over the past year I’ve grown frustrated with my inability to devote more time to the software I love.

In June 2006, at WWDC, I started to wonder how long it’d be until I could live out this fantasy. I was a long way from making my salary with FuzzMeasure, and 3.0 had a few months left to go. During this time, Andrew grew older, and even more fun to spend time with — I very much prefer playing with my son to writing more code outside of my day job.

When FuzzMeasure 3.0 finally launched, the response was great. A healthy fraction of existing customers upgraded, and plenty of new customers came knocking at my door. I was still short of making my salary, but the upward trajectory of sales and interest was hard to ignore. I knew I had to start considering a move to full-time development of FuzzMeasure and future products, and quickly.

The final decision was made over the holidays. My wife and I deliberated over the sacrifices we will have to make, but we both agree that I have the passion and skill to pull this off. Given the current sales growth, and a possibility for increased revenue with new applications, it seems like the right thing to do.

We have enough savings to sustain us for about 2 years in addition to the current (relatively stable) revenue stream. Of course, I’m planning to revisit the whole strategy much sooner than that in case things start to go badly — I can’t afford to bankrupt my family.

So with some big sacrifices, a proven track record of skill, and a burning desire to create outstanding products, I’m confident that I can make this work. I look forward to bringing the world more SuperMegaUltraGroovy applications, and continuing to make FuzzMeasure the world’s best audio measurement tool.

You know, I’ve been meaning to make some measurements of iPods with FuzzMeasure, and post them to this site. However, all my free time has to go straight into building FuzzMeasure, that I rarely get a chance to actually use it.

Well, one of my long-time (and very knowledgeable) customers, Marc Heijligers, has done what I’ve wanted to do for years now. Also, he’s done a great job of it and used many of FuzzMeasure 2.0′s new features in the process (step responses, minimum phase, etc).

Read Marc’s analysis to see how the latest generation iPod has decreased in audio quality. I’m curious how it compares to the ‘high-end’ iPod Touch and iPhone devices.

Okay, so I lifted the title from a funny spamusement comic. I’ve been really busy at work lately, and had to take a bit of a break from most of the other things I do outside of work. That includes updating this page.

There really isn’t much going on with FuzzMeasure to report at the moment. I hit a bit of a road block in 2.1 development a short while ago, and I’m hoping that taking a break will clear my mind enough to finish it off.

In other news, WWDC is fast-approaching, and I really have to start getting back in the mindset of a Mac developer. I had a lot of big plans for what I wanted to have done in time for WWDC, but pretty much every single one of those have fizzled away. Maybe I can still hope to pull a rabbit out of my hat by then, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

This post is a little late, but it’s better late than never!

2006 was a great year for me, both personally and professionally. On the personal front, my son Andrew was born on September 10, 2006, and my life has certainly took a positive turn as a result. On the professional front, FuzzMeasure 2.0 launched with great success, and FuzzMeasure was recognized by the Apple Design Awards judges for excellence in scientific software design. Sales were up over 2005, and I gained more than double (possibly triple) the users in 2006 compared to 2005.

I expect 2007 to be another great year for FuzzMeasure. 2.1 is in the works, and I’m focusing hard on cleaning up all the rough corners left in FuzzMeasure 2.0. All the feedback I get from my users is very valuable for creating an easy-to-use, and more importantly, a useful tool for the people who need it.

At the beginning of 2006, my resolution was to make more mistakes — to learn about running a small software shop as I go along. I certainly lived up to that resolution, and I learned some valuable lessons along the way.

Going forward, I hope for 2007 to be a year of refinement for my business and my software. I need to stick with what works, and carefully reevaluate everything that doesn’t. Here’s to a successful 2007!