Julian “Jules” Storer is the creator of the JUCE C++ framework and the Cmajor programming language dedicated to audio.

He created JUCE in the late 90s, and it grew to become the most popular audio plugin development framework in the world. Apart from audio capabilities, it is a general-purpose cross-platform application development framework (Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and embedded platforms). Most plugin companies use JUCE; whether you like it or not, it has become a de facto industry standard.

You know that I love JUCE; I created the official JUCE audio plugin development course with them, and they are the sponsor of the podcast. So naturally, I was super excited to be able to interview Jules!

His next big thing is the Cmajor programming language. It is a C-like, LLVM-backed programming language dedicated solely to audio.

He has also given many talks at the Audio Developer Conference, so I encourage you to check them out as a way to relax and get inspired.

Jules is known for his strong opinions and dry humor, so I guarantee you’ll find yourself chuckling every few minutes 😉

Note: If you like the podcast so far, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts, and feedback can help me improve the show and deliver better-quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏

From this episode, you will learn:

• How Jules created the JUCE framework and distributed it initially
• How to maintain such huge codebases as JUCE
• Julian’s coding principles that will make you (and me) a better dev
• What problem does CMajor solve, and how
• Which tools is Jules using when coding, especially when it comes to AI
• His exact everyday work routines and relaxation strategies, and
• Does Jules really hate CMake?

This episode was recorded on January 30, 2026.

00:00:00 Intro

00:00:33 Introducing Jules Storer, Creator of JUCE

00:02:37 Meet Jules

00:03:11 How Jules Got Into Audio Programming

00:04:41 University: Computing & Psychology

00:05:28 Early Career

00:07:46 Why Jules Built the Tracktion DAW

00:11:04 Sponsor: JUCE Audio Plugin Course

00:12:52 The Mackie Deal & the Birth of JUCE

00:16:35 10 Years Solo: Bootstrapping JUCE

00:18:59 ROLI Acquires JUCE

00:20:56 How the Audio Developer Conference Began

00:21:38 From ROLI to C-Major

00:23:33 Cmajor: DSP Language for Any Hardware

00:28:58 Cmajor Licensing & Commercial Plugins

00:32:57 Cmajor Stability & AI-Written Code

00:36:04 What Building a Compiler Taught Jules

00:39:31 Jules' Dev Setup

00:41:59 Jules' AI Coding Workflow with Claude

00:47:23 Reviewing AI-Generated Code

00:50:18 AI Coding: Where Jules Draws the Line

00:52:22 Cmajor's Language Choice: C++, Go, and Rust

00:54:36 Why Jules Hates CMake

00:59:01 Clean Code: Structure, Files & Naming

01:04:25 API Design Other Developers Won't Hate

01:07:11 Code Review: Excess State & Verbosity

01:11:35 JUCE's Inspiration from Java's JDK

01:14:24 Why JUCE Dominated the Market

01:15:48 Challenges with JUCE, Waveform & C-Major

01:19:56 TDD and the Pain of UI Testing

01:23:06 How to Start Learning Audio Programming

01:26:42 Jules' Daily Routine

01:31:52 How to Contact Jules

01:32:42 Outro

How do you become a C++ Standards Committee member?

Why is C++ prevalent in audio?

Should you still use it for audio software?

Honestly, Timur Doumler is someone I have looked up to ever since I saw his “C++ in the audio industry” talk at CppCon 2015.

He has a rich development history with C++ and/or audio:

• developer at Native Instruments
• developer of the JUCE C++ framework (podcast sponsor ❤️)
• C++ linter developer and developer advocate at JetBrains (who make the CLion IDE)
• founder of Cradle, an audio plugin startup
• C++ Standards Committee member
• CppCast podcast host
• notorious Audio Developer Conference and CppCon speaker

I have probably missed a ton of stuff here, but that should already give you a flavor of what Timur is up to 😉

I especially enjoy his technical talks on synchronization with the (real-time) audio thread; For example, at the Audio Developer Conference 2025, he made me finally understand memory ordering in C++ (or so I believe 😅)

In the podcast interview, we discuss his story, tactics, and tips, which I hope will inspire you to follow his footsteps (as they sure did me).

It also turns out we are both fond of the same music band… Listen to the interview to find out which one 😁

All in all, this one of my favorite podcast episodes (audio & C++, what more do you need?), so don’t miss it!

Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏

From this episode, you will learn:

• How Timur’s early interests and experiences led him toward audio programming
• His early engineering work at Native Instruments, including contributions to Kontakt and NI’s internal C++ libraries
• How he joined ROLI and worked on the development of JUCE
• The story behind founding Cradle
• How he became involved in the ISO C++ Standards Committee including his audio-related contributions
• What he’s most excited for in the upcoming C++26 standard
• How he approaches software development and maintaining a healthy work-life balance (that was a great one to learn for me personally, too)

This episode was recorded on September 26, 2025.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00:00 Podcast Intro

00:00:37 Timur Doumler

00:01:55 Timur's Introduction and Background

00:02:46 Early Interest in Music

00:03:35 Linking Music to Software Development

00:04:42 Studying Physics & Astrophysics (Berlin, Lyon, Potsdam)

00:06:08 Learning C & Fortran through Cosmology Simulations

00:07:46 Deciding to Become a Developer

00:10:48 Getting Hired at Native Instruments

00:12:16 Working on NI’s Internal C++ Libraries & Kontakt

00:18:05 Sponsor: JUCE

00:19:37 Moving to ROLI and Working on JUCE

00:22:08 Lessons Learned from Jules & Fabian

00:24:27 Joining JetBrains

00:30:13 Becoming a Developer Advocate

00:34:40 Founding Cradle & Building the First Products

00:37:17 Life as CTO & Startup Reflections

00:39:09 Bloomberg & C++ Contracts

00:41:29 The 2015 Talk: C++ in the Audio Industry

00:46:58 Representing the Audio Industry

00:48:18 Joining the ISO C++ Committee

00:50:19 Timur's Work in the C++ Committee

00:55:24 How the C++ Committee Works

01:02:20 How to Learn C++ Today

01:06:48 Real-Time Audio Programming & Tools

01:08:02 Personal Productivity: Meditation, Exercise, Time Management

01:13:46 Tech Stack and Developer Tools

01:14:13 Music Timur Codes To (Meshuggah, Animals as Leaders)

01:17:15 How to Contact Timur

01:18:59 Outro

Kurt James Werner, PhD, is a senior research scientist at Soundtoys and one of my favorite researchers in audio DSP (virtual analog modeling in particular).

While you may not have read his papers, it’s very likely that you used one of the plugins he worked on:

• Neoverb
• Vinyl
• RX
• Guitar Rig (Hammond vibrato/chorus)
• Ozone
• Neutron
• Trash

If you start peeking into the research of modeling analog audio effects in plugins, you stumble across his name right away.

I consider him not only brilliant, but also insanely productive. Definitely a role model for me!

In the research world, he’s mostly known for his work on Wave Digital Filters (WDFs). It’s a technique for creating a mathematical model of an analog circuit that once done is easy to implement (provided you use a WDF library).

WDFs are great for modeling analog audio effects to put them inside plugins.

But as a true researcher, Kurt is involved many other audio subfields that we discuss in the podcast!

Did I mention that he’s a graduate from Stanford’s CCRMA?

In this episode, you’ll learn about Kurt’s transition from academia to industry, his work on products at iZotope, Native Instruments, and Soundtoys, and the realities of being a research scientist in an audio plugin company.

You’ll also learn all about WDFs, which is a powerful tool to master.

Trust me, you don’t want to miss this one 😉

Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏

From this episode, you will learn:

1. How Kurt’s early musical and DIY electronics experiments led him toward audio DSP
2. How was it like to study at CCRMA under Julius Smith, Jonathan Abel, and Ge Wang
3. A clear, high-level explanation of Wave Digital Filters, their origins, and why they matter in virtual analog modeling
4. Insights from his work at iZotope
5. His current work at Soundtoys
6. Creative music practices like circuit bending and 1-bit music
7. Whether you need a PhD to work at an audio plugin company
8. How audio research translates into plugins

TIMESTAMPS

00:00:00 Podcast Intro

00:00:37 Introducing Kurt Werner

00:04:11 Kurt's Intro and Background

00:07:20 Studying Engineering & Music at UIUC

00:10:06 PhD Studies at CCRMA (Stanford)

00:13:57 Structure of the PhD Program

00:18:23 Sponsor: JUCE

00:20:09 PhD Thesis: Wave Digital Filters

00:21:26 The Culture at CCRMA

00:31:44 Postdoc at SARC (Queen's University Belfast)

00:35:59 How Teaching Influences Research

00:44:19 Transition to Industry: iZotope

00:49:54 The Research Team at iZotope

00:52:54 Work on Neoverb, Vinyl, and Trash

00:58:43 Publishing Reserach Papers

01:01:35 Moving to Soundtoys

01:05:12 Role and Soundtoys

01:09:17 Soundtoys SuperPlate

01:11:04 What are Wave Digital Filters (WDFs)?

01:19:28 WDFs Before Kurt's Research

01:20:54 Handling Complex Topologies

01:26:56 Can Circuit Modeling be Automated?

01:33:37 Importance of "Warming Up" the Simulation

01:35:16 Strengths of Wave Digital Filters

01:41:52 Best & Worst Circuits for WDF Modeling

01:44:47 How to Approach Modeling a New Circuit

01:46:47 Modeling the Motown EQ (Altec 9062A)

01:52:28 Circuit Bending & Hardware Hacking

01:56:58 1-Bit Music & Velvet Noise

02:05:35 Deep Learning in Virtual Analog

02:07:29 Do You Need a PhD for Audio Research?

02:10:46 PhD for Software Engineering Roles?

02:12:12 How to Learn Virtual Analog Modeling

02:16:04 Productivity & Writing Research Papers

02:20:04 Tools & Tech Stack

02:21:29 Listening to Music While Working

02:23:16 Outro

Victor Zappi is a creator, researcher, and educator at the intersection of music, technology, and interaction design. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Music Technology at Northeastern University. In his career, among others, he worked on the Bela hardware platform during his time at Queen Mary University of London’s prestigious Centre for Digital Music (C4DM).

In this episode, apart from Victor’s inspiring career, we focus on digital musical instruments:

• What is a “good” digital musical instrument like?
• Is it a fixed “box” that you should learn how to play?
• Or should it be “abused” by opening “the box,” and messing with its internals?
• Can an artist change the digital instrument to make it their own?

We conclude with a discussion of Victor’s LDSP C++ framework, which enables low-level audio device control on Android devices.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of musical interfaces, hackable hardware, and the technology that drives them!

Ilias Bergström is a software engineer, researcher, and musician from Sweden. For most of his professional career, spanning over 20 years, he has been working on, as he describes it, “time-based media software.”

In the audio programming world, this means digital audio workstations, video editors, and live audio-visual performance software.

He generously shared his experience in Audio Developer Conference talks, two of which discuss the much underrepresented topic of the software architecture of digital audio workstations.

Software architecture and software design are fascinating topics to me, so I naturally devoured both of these talks 😉

In this interview, we explore not only Ilias’s journey but also go into the details of what makes audio software design hard. He discusses how he connects the dots between different types of media software through his long-running personal project, TWO, which is best described as a Media Control Workstation. It enables the simultaneous interactive combination of digital media control signals (such as OSC and MIDI) from multiple sources.

Finally, we don’t shy away from discussing our favorite books on audio software development! Given that Ilias shares a ton of valuable tips and resources, you don’t want to miss this one!

Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏

From this episode, you will learn:

• How Ilias’s interest in media creation software led to a career in audio, across both research and industry.
• How he combines music and audio with interaction design, Human Computer Interaction, and even topics such as neuroscience and psychology, and how audio development can be seen as a form of creative coding.
• How different media creation software tools (like DAWs) share the same core characteristics and core architecture.
• Insights into his personal software project, TWO.
• What does a PhD give you? What can a university education offer?
• The importance of software architecture, testing, and documentation.
• A lot of audio development book recommendations.
• Practical advice on how to get started with audio development and audio software architecture.
• 
  

This episode was recorded on January 15, 2025.

Geraint Luff is a seasoned audio DSP developer and the founder of Signalsmith Audio. Geraint’s presentations, such as “Let’s Write a Reverb” and “Four Ways to Write a Pitch Shifter,” are among the most popular talks at the Audio Developer Conference (ADC) thanks to Geraint’s clarity of explanation and easy-to-understand visuals (not to mention the accompanying open-source repos).

In the interview, Geraint shares his insights on his career path, freelancing in the audio industry, and digital signal processing (DSP). He discusses how he gained traction as a freelancer by joining a community, delivering audio-focused technical talks, and sharing open-source repos. We can also learn his approach to learning DSP, problem-solving, and the significance of visualization in explanations.

Theory first of practice first? Listen to the podcast episode to find out! 😉

Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏

Orchisama Das is an outstanding audio researcher known for her work in virtual acoustics, artificial reverberation, and immersive audio. She holds a PhD from Stanford University’s prestigious CCRMA and has contributed to groundbreaking research at leading universities and major tech companies.

During this interview, we talk about her path in academia and industry. Orchisama shares her thoughts about the realities of audio research, offering great insights and a very frank and honest perspective on her journey.

We dive into technical topics such as artificial reverberation, virtual acoustics, immersive audio, and open problems in DSP, as well as topics like the gender imbalance in the audio research industry and how to stay productive and motivated during research.

The episode is scattered with many resources and tips for anyone interested in learning the mentioned topics. It is a very inspiring and informative talk for people who are doing audio research, or curious about getting started.

Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏

From this podcast, you will learn:

• How Orchisama Das started her journey in audio research and her path to earning a PhD at Stanford University’s CCRMA.
• About her internships at Tesla and Meta Reality Labs, as well as tips and advice on how to get internships as a researcher.
• A big picture technical overview of artificial reverberation, virtual room acoustics, and immersive audio.
• Resources for learning about these topics, including books, papers, and tools.
• Tips and advice for a good research carrer.
• Her thoughts on the gender imbalance in audio research and ways to address it.

This episode was recorded on November 21, 2024.

00:00:00 Podast Intro

00:00:38 Orchisama Das

00:02:34 Wolfsound: DSP Pro

00:04:33 Orchisama's Background and Introduction

00:05:17 Early Interest in Music

00:06:25 From Electronics to Music Technology

00:10:45 Applying to PhD Programs

00:12:01 PhD Research at CCRMA

00:20:45 Sponsor: JUCE

00:22:26 Internships at Tesla and Meta

00:27:10 Postdoc at the University of Surrey

00:31:27 Moving to Industry: Sonos

00:36:34 Back to Academia: King's College

00:40:44 Artificial Reveberation

00:56:49 Spatial Audio

01:01:29 Machine Learning for Audio DSP

01:04:43 Tools and Technology Stack

01:07:29 Personal Audio Plugin Projects

01:09:08 Productivity Habits for Researchers

01:11:24 Book Recommendations

01:13:10 Focus Music

01:14:04 Do You Need a PhD for Industry Research?

01:15:25 'Women at Sonos' Resource Group

01:17:01 Gender Diversity in the Audio Industry

01:18:36 Comparing Research Institutes

01:20:41 Composing and Performing Music

01:23:23 Connecting with Orchisama

01:25:06 Outro

Julian’s career is incredible: from natural sciences through a master’s in physical modeling, a PhD in virtual analog modeling, an almost decade-long position at Native Instruments, all the way to TikTok and Stability AI, where he’s working now on generative music algorithms.

There are few people who have such a rich background in audio research and industry and even fewer who are willing to share the details of it publicly. That makes this episode all the more exciting!

Note: If you like the podcast so far, please, go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review there. You can do so on Spotify as well. It will benefit both sides: more reviews mean a broader reach on Apple Podcasts and feedback can help me to improve the show and provide better quality content to you. You can also subscribe and give a like on YouTube. Thank you for doing this 🙏

From this podcast, you will learn:

• how machine learning forever changed audio plugin design and development
• how big audio plugin companies operate internally
• how to learn C++ for audio programming
• whether you need to have a PhD to work in an R&D department of an audio company
• what is the state of the art in generative music
• how to learn generating music with AI
• how to be able to focus on research papers even if you read them after hours
• how to produce quality research
• how to rest & recharge after intense and focused work