Hi, I'm Paul from San Antonio.
I have a Ph.D. in EE & CS, and I designed a compressor that you've probably used...
...but all that is a bit of a joke because I have no actual training in EE or audio circuitry, or any understanding of analog circuits beyond the most basic; I'm a strictly CS guy (retired professor) with a misspent youth in psychology and philosophy. (My compressor you've likely used is sadly not a cool piece of studio hardware, but a data compression algorithm buried inside iOS and MacOS and some datacenter server software.)
I got here partly because of Jim Lill's flawed but (to me) very interesting videos. I'm considering making some videos and how-to's about electric guitars and microphones, somewhat like Jim's but rather less simplistic (and likely less popular), having learned a lot from people here, and from things like Manfred Zollner's book Physics of the Electric Guitar.
Back in the Information Age, when YouTube and Instructables were new and life was easy, I did a few DIY how-to things that got half a million views each. Production standards have risen a whole lot since then, and the algorithms are not nearly as friendly to what I can do (rewarding frequent output, which I can't do), but I think I might make some pretty understandable and moderately engaging videos that do reach some people, and are somewhat more rigorous (and more satisfying to nerdier people) than Jim Lill's videos. (I don't understand a whole lot of physics or electronics, but I'm pretty confident of my ability to convey what I DO understand, which is rather more than Jim Lill attempts to actually explain.)
Back before the Information Age, I learned some basic recording engineering at a community college in Alvin, Texas, where I learned to record some Houston jazz hepcat friends involved with the jazz program there. After that I spent 40 years doing mostly CS and not doing much with music at all, but now that I'm retired I'm working toward being less bad at music and recording. (I don't think I have tons of musical talent, so if I'm ever going to make a contribution to the world of music, it's more likely to be by explaining music technology in an understandable way.)
I have a Ph.D. in EE & CS, and I designed a compressor that you've probably used...
...but all that is a bit of a joke because I have no actual training in EE or audio circuitry, or any understanding of analog circuits beyond the most basic; I'm a strictly CS guy (retired professor) with a misspent youth in psychology and philosophy. (My compressor you've likely used is sadly not a cool piece of studio hardware, but a data compression algorithm buried inside iOS and MacOS and some datacenter server software.)
I got here partly because of Jim Lill's flawed but (to me) very interesting videos. I'm considering making some videos and how-to's about electric guitars and microphones, somewhat like Jim's but rather less simplistic (and likely less popular), having learned a lot from people here, and from things like Manfred Zollner's book Physics of the Electric Guitar.
Back in the Information Age, when YouTube and Instructables were new and life was easy, I did a few DIY how-to things that got half a million views each. Production standards have risen a whole lot since then, and the algorithms are not nearly as friendly to what I can do (rewarding frequent output, which I can't do), but I think I might make some pretty understandable and moderately engaging videos that do reach some people, and are somewhat more rigorous (and more satisfying to nerdier people) than Jim Lill's videos. (I don't understand a whole lot of physics or electronics, but I'm pretty confident of my ability to convey what I DO understand, which is rather more than Jim Lill attempts to actually explain.)
Back before the Information Age, I learned some basic recording engineering at a community college in Alvin, Texas, where I learned to record some Houston jazz hepcat friends involved with the jazz program there. After that I spent 40 years doing mostly CS and not doing much with music at all, but now that I'm retired I'm working toward being less bad at music and recording. (I don't think I have tons of musical talent, so if I'm ever going to make a contribution to the world of music, it's more likely to be by explaining music technology in an understandable way.)
