Audio Developer Conference 2023

We are excited to share that The Audio Developer Conference will return to London and Online November 13-15, 2023. The event will take place at The Mermaid London, a leading conference and events venue in the City of London. 

While ADC22 was a success, the event sold out of in-person tickets causing us to reach capacity at the venue. As a result, many delegates could not attend in person. For 2023, we will move the conference to a larger event space that can accommodate more attendees, speakers, and sponsors.

ADC will continue as a hybrid conference, extending virtual access to all talks and providing a platform for networking and meeting other in-person and virtual attendees. 

From music applications and game audio to audio processing and embedded systems, don't miss your opportunity to join the largest Audio Developer Conference this year! 

Sign up for the Audio Developer Conference newsletter and be the first to know when tickets become available.

Open Mic Night - Submit your Proposal!

Back by popular demand is ADC's Open Mic Night! The ADC Open Mic Night is a fun, informal evening with lightning talks, music performances, and some impromptu standup comedy. Whether attending in-person or virtually, you can contribute to the Open Mic night with a 5 minute talk or performance!

In-Person

  • When: Wednesday 15th November 2023
  • What Time: 19:30 -21:00
  • Where: The Mermaid, London

Virtual

  • When: Tuesday, 14th November 2023
  • What Time: 18:30 - 10:00
  • Where: Gather Space (Not Zoom)

How do I apply?

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!

When do submissions end?

Submissions will close once spots are full!

How will I know if my submission has been accepted?

You will be notified whether your submission has been accepted (potentially at very short notice)

What if I go over the 5 minute mark?

All contributions are strictly limited to 5 minutes (you will be cut off if you run over!)

What should I contribute?

Your contribution can be anything you like – a lightning talk with slides, a musical performance, or a standup comedy gig! We suggest you keep it fun and informal, in line with the spirit of the event 🙂

How will you communicate with me about the event if I am chosen?

We use the ADC'23 Discord server for instant messaging to coordinate things, so please provide a Discord handle. You'll receive an invite to the ADC'23 Discord server before the start of the conference.

Will I be recorded?

No. Open Mic Night will not be recorded, published, or streamed online.

I have a question...

If you have any questions about any of this, please feel free to reach out via email at [email protected]

Virtual Tickets Still Available for ADC 2022

We are grateful for the overwhelming interest in the Hybrid Audio Developer Conference this year, and have announced that in-person tickets have officially sold-out. Tickets to the virtual conference are still available.

The Virtual Conference Ticket not only gives you access to a LIVE STREAM of the 60+ talks from the conference, it also gives you:

Not Your Average Zoom Call

The ADC Team has taken great steps to create a memorable and meaningful online experience for our attendees. All virtual conference goers will have the option to create an avatar, and enter our gamified Audio Developer Conference Hall. As your avatar moves closer to other attendees, a video will fade in based on proximity, and show you the live person on the other end. Just like in a real conference, you can walk past people, and say hello.

LIVE Video Interface

Looking to have a private conversation or interview with another attendee? Private areas for talking are also available. Features such as the "chat" and "locator" buttons allow you to find and interact with people in a variety of ways.

Volunteers will be available within the platform to help ensure that you can find your way.

Virtual Conference Room Connects to Live Talks

Talks can be accessed via conference halls, where avatars can "sit down" and connect to the live-streamed talk.

Virtual Expo Hall

Our sponsors, have worked hard to "set up a booth" in our Virtual Expo Hall. Online attendees can visit these booths, interact and demo different products, view job posts and meet exhibitors.

If you missed the chance to secure in-person tickets, don't miss the opportunity to join online. Virtual tickets are available for an affordable price starting at £49 (approximately $56 US).

Committed to Accessibility

The Audio Developer Conference is committed to providing diversity and inclusion in all aspects of our conference.

In this article, we will explore some of our accessibility initiatives for this year's conference including:

Will You Be Next? : A Panel on Accessibility (Online and In-Person)

This ADC22 session, hosted by music producer, audio engineer and accessibility consultant Jason Dasent, brings together key players from across the music industry, all with a passion for accessibility. The event will take the form of a discussion panel focusing on the current state of accessibility as it relates to music technology, as well as how we can work together to take it to the next level.

Jason Dasent: Owner, Studio Jay Recording
Quintin Balsdon: Software Engineer - Accessibility, Spotify
Mary-Alice Stack: Chief Executive, Creative United
James Cunningham: Queen's University, Belfast
Grace Capaldi: Director, Grinning Dog Records/Echotown Studio
Harry Morley: Software Developer, Focusrite

Topics that will be covered include:

The event will culminate in a 20-minute performance, showing the latest in accessible music tech from keyboards to groove stations, to a fully accessible mixing system.

Accessibility Zone

Throughout the ADC22 conference, in-person attendees* are encouraged to visit the “Will You Be Next?” Accessibility Zone, where they can meet software engineers and managers from a variety of companies who are all already involved in accessible music tech. Visitors to the Accessibility Zone will be invited to get hands-on with all the accessible equipment that will be on display. Attendees will also be able to experience music production from recording to mastering, all with accessible equipment.

Accessibility Zone Schedule

Tuesday morning
10.55 – 11.15 Demo with Quinton Balsdon, Software Engineer – Accessibility, Spotify Design

Tuesday lunch
13.00  Welcome from Jason Dasent & Sophie Carus
13.05 – 13.20 Demo with Eleonora Dolif, Audiomodeling
13.25 – 13.40 Demo with Harry Morley & Cain McCormack, Focusrite

Tuesday afternoon
16.00 – 16.15 Demo with Sam Butler & Francois Quereuil, AVID

Wednesday lunch
13.00 – 13.15 Demo with Pierre Pfister, Arturia
13.20 – 13.35 Demo with Patrik Holmstrom, Softube
13.40 – 13.50 Demo with Tom Poole, JUCE

Wednesday afternoon
16.00 – 16.15 Demo with Adil Ghanty, Native Instruments (edited)

*online conference attendees will have access to the Will You Be Next Panel? Some of the presentations in the Accessibility Zone will be recorded and available for on-demand playback during the conference.

Continuously Improving Accessibility

Please join us in our ongoing commitment to improve accessibility at the Audio Developer Conference and in software and hardware development in the audio developer community. This year, our virtual conference platform Gather, was evaluated by ICAD (International Community For Auditory Display). Additionally, we partnered with Jason Dasent to create an Accessibility Zone for conference goers to experience the latest advancements in audio hardware and software. We hope to continuously present opportunities for education, collaboration and advancement in accessibility.

For more information on how you can get involved, contact: [email protected]

GPU Audio Training Lab at ADC

GPU Audio is proud to deliver three notable events at ADC this year, including an immersive Training Lab titled "Solving GPU Audio Processing Challenges" available to in-person and virtual attendees. As an ADC22 Gold Sponsor, GPU Audio will also participate in the conference by presenting two additional talks:

GPU Audio Training Lab

Off the back of their hugely popular workshops at the NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute, GPU Audio will be showcasing their patented next-generation software to ADC attendees in a 3 hour hands-on ‘Training Lab’, offering a look behind the technology which puts the tech at the cutting edge of DSP. They’ll also be offering two talks during the show; with a technical talk from Andrés Ezequiel Viso and Rumen Angelov (two key developers of the tech), and insight into the company's vision for the future from its CEO, Sasha Talashov and CBDO, Jonathan Rowden.  

Support form NVIDIA, Apple and AMD

GPU Audio has garnered significant attention from (and official partnerships with) some of the biggest tech giants in the world including AMD, NVIDIA and Apple - with their software being developed in collaboration with their respective technical teams. GPU Audio have since rolled out support for a wealth of NVIDIA graphics cards as well as AMD GPUs which Illustrate the ability to deliver incredibly low latency results on a host of architectures - subsequently leading them to collaborate with Apple, for their long-awaited Mac OS support, coming in November 2022. 

“ADC is thrilled to partner with GPU Audio and the NVidia Deep Learning Institute to provide a unique training lab for this year’s Audio Developer Conference. I can only imagine that the audio developer community will be eager to hear about GPU Audio’s advances in parallel processing for audio on GPU cores.”

Bobby Lombardi, ADC General Chair

The first milestone for the company this year was the release of the free FIR Convolution Reverb which came out in March and demonstrated GPU Audio’s intention to usher in a paradigm-shifting new wave of audio technology for everyone with a graphics card. Their presence at the NAMM show in LA demonstrated this innovative plugin and their desire to develop further plugins using the technology. 

GPU Audio have announced an SDK is also in development and will be released before the end of the year, allowing 3rd party software developers to access their patented technology. They’ve signed multiple contracts for plugin developers already and have announced the first collaboration with Mach1, a forward thinking Spatial Audio specialist. 

In early October, GPU Audio unveiled the first instalment of a Beta Suite of plugins with the Modulation Bundle. This collection of plugins features a Chorus, a Flanger, and a Phaser, and initiates their Beta-Suite collection of professional level audio plugins, all powered by your GPU. Look out for more bundles soon! 

Information on Getting a Ticket

This year’s ADC conference will take place in-person in London, and also virtually, November 14-16. GPU’s Workshop will be available both online and in-person. The in-person conference has recently SOLD OUT, however, spots are still available for the online portion.

For more information on how you can get an exclusive spot at the GPU Workshop visit audio.dev, for ticket information!

For more information on GPU Audio, visit https://www.gpu.audio/

Virtual ADC22 on Gather.town

Can't make it to London? Join Us from Home

The ADC team is excited to present a hybrid conference again this year. As Covid precautions forced a completely virtual event in 2020, and a hybrid event in 2021, it was decided to continue the tradition of having both an in-personal and virtual event to accommodate the growing audio developer community.  ADC will take place in person at CodeNode in London, and the virtual event will occur on the Gather Town platform.  

An important piece of the conference experience is networking. To bring the social element to online attendees, the ADC team has built a virtual conference hall using the Gather platform. Virtual participants will create an avatar and enter a virtual conference hall - visit vendor booths, access talks via conference rooms, and even plan meetings with other virtual guests in private rooms.

“Both in-person and online attendees are equally welcome, and we’re looking forward to seeing everyone,” says Tom Poole, Director of JUCE. “The JUCE team has been organizing ADC for the last 8 years, and we are excited to keep the tradition this year. This conference is a constant source of inspiration, and with every event, I learn new things and make connections with new people.”

Workshops

ADC Workshops take place on the first day of the conference (November 14) and will require the Workshops Day Add-on ticket for attendance. Learn more information on how to purchase a ticket.

Highlights of this year’s workshops include:

Practical Digital Signal Processing with Dynamic Cast

What is a digital audio signal? How do we generate them and in what ways can we manipulate and extract useful information from them? In this workshop we'll be exploring the life cycle of an audio signal from a continuous acoustic signal to a discrete digital signal. We'll explore practical methods for processing and shaping audio including: 

Solving GPU Audio Processing Challenges, Parallelizing DSp Algorithms and Executing for Real-Time Offline Rendering with GPU Audio

GPU based audio processing has long been considered something of a unicorn in both the Pro Audio industry as well as the GPU industry. The potential for utilizing a GPU’s parallel architecture is both exciting and elusive, due to the number of computer science issues related to working with sequential DSP algorithm design and the fundamental differences between MIMD and SIMD devices. Now possible, GPU-processed audio can offer processing power for any audio application that is orders of magnitude greater than CPU counterparts; fulfilling a cross-industry need that has quickly arisen as digital media content adopts AI, ML, Cloud-based collaboration, virtual modeling, simulated acoustics and immersive audio (to name a few). The state of research had previously concluded that because of heavy latencies and a myriad of computer science issues, DSP on GPUs was just not possible nor preferable. Recognizing the need to create a viable, low-level standard and framework for Real-Time professional GPU audio processing, GPU AUDIO INC set out to solve these fundamental problems.

The purpose of this workshop is to give you a hands-on experience for what GPU Audio processing solves, and what it can mean for your software and the future of audio. It is a taste of the GPU Audio SDK coming soon.

In this course you will learn about the fundamental problems solved by the new GPU Audio standard, go deeper into our core technology, and learn how to incorporate Real-Time/low latency DSP algorithms into your projects. You will participate in a deep-dive hands-on tutorial in building a simple processor, implementing your own IIR processor, measure performance and playback, and “take home” the code to build an FIR processor. All made possible by the GPU Audio Scheduler. 

Prerequisite(s):
Familiarity with DSP algorithms and designs
Familiarity with modern SWE tools (IDEs, Git, CI/CD)

Analog Circuit Modeling for Software Developers Using the Point-To-Point Library with Eric Tarr

During this workshop, participants will learn about digital modeling of analog circuits. This will be applied to the creation of several JUCE plug-ins. Traditional modeling techniques will be discussed along with the presentation of a circuit analysis library which automates the modeling process. This library, called "Point-To-Point Modeling," is intended for audio software developers interested in rapid prototyping and implementation of circuit modeling. Example JUCE plug-ins using the Point-To-Point library will be demonstrated, along with the process of quickly converting arbitrary schematics into C++ code.


Generating Audio Code with Max/MSAP with Cycling ’74 

View the full ADC22 Schedule for a full list of talks and speaker descriptions.

All ADC 2022 keynotes, panels, and talks will be available to all attendees. In-person sessions will be broadcast live to online attendees and online sessions will be broadcast into the venue.

Panels at ADC22

Workshop Panel: Audio Industry Health Check: A conversation on the current state of the Audio Industry and where it may be headed to next.

Panelists: Pete Goodliffe, Angus Hewlett, Rebekah Wilson, Anna Wszeborowska

Come join us and listen to our fireside chat-style panel with audio software and hardware industry leaders as we explore the current state of the audio industry.

This panel will explore some of the key challenges in audio software and hardware development today as well as new technologies and trends that are shaping and/or disrupting its future.

View full session details

Panel: Tabs or Spaces

Panelists: David Rowland and Julian Storer

A group of opinionated expert programmers will argue over the right and wrong answers to a selection of programming questions which have no right or wrong answers.

We'll aim to cover a wide range of topics such as: use of locks, exceptions, polymorphism, microservices, OOP, functional paradigms, open and closed source, repository methodologies, languages, textual style and tooling.

The aim of the session is to demonstrate that there is often no clear-cut best-practice for many development topics, and to set an example of how to examine problems from multiple viewpoints.

View full session details

Panel: Accessibility: Will You Be Next?

Panelists: Jason Dasent, Quintin Balsdon, Mary-Alice Stack, James Cunningham, Grace Capaldi, Harry Morley

This session, hosted by music producer, audio engineer and accessibility consultant Jason
Dasent, brings together key players from across the music industry, all with a
passion for accessibility. The event will take the form of a discussion panel
focusing on the current state of accessibility as it relates to music technology, as well as how
we can work together to take it to the next level.

Topics that will be covered include: The advancements made by several music equipment
manufacturers in the last 2 years; how to inspire other music equipment manufacturers to
make their products and services accessible; marketing opportunities for companies that
make accessible products, and how we bridge the gap between able-bodied and
differently abled music industry practitioners, leading to more collaborations and
employment opportunities for professional differently abled practitioners.
The event will culminate in a 20-minute performance, showing the latest in accessible music
tech from keyboards to groove stations, to a fully accessible mixing system.

Throughout the conference, attendees are encouraged to visit the “Will You Be Next?”
Accessibility Zone, where they can meet software engineers and managers from a variety of
companies who are all already involved in accessible music tech. Visitors to the Accessibility Zone will be
invited to get hands-on with all the accessible equipment that will be on display. Attendees
will also be able to experience music production from recording to mastering, all with accessible equipment.

View full session details

Quiz Night

Join Derek Heimlich, Quiz Master, as he leads Quiz night on Tuesday November 15th at Code Node. Questions will range from audio programming trivia, to mathematical riddles, to some some real stumpers. Attendees form groups and compete against each other for the chance to win some incredible prizes.

Software and hardware prizes have been generously collected from our ADC22 Sponsors:

From Focusrite:

From Arturia:

From SSL:

...and lots of other incredible software prizes!

We invite all in-person ADC participants to take part in the annual tradition!


ADC Quiz Night

November 15, 2022

7:30 - 9:00pm

Code Node Lower Level

Celebrating Women in Audio

Celebrating Women in Audio is an important ADC Diversity and Inclusion Initiative. The Audio Developer Conference is committed to increasing diversity in all aspects of our community and events, and "Celebrating Women in Audio" has been a positive addition to the program every year.

This year we Celebrate Women in Audio at the Conference with two wonderful events:

Celebrating Women in Audio Reception

Tuesday, November 15

6:00pm - 7:30pm

South Park Hotel (over the road from Code Node)


Celebrating Women in Audio Working Lunch

Wednesday, November 16

12:50pm - 2pm

CAPSLOCK, Code Node

All women, and those identifying as such, will receive a WiA T-Shirt, women's fit, organic cotton. We are grateful to the sponsors of this initiative: Ableton, Focusrite, Source Elements, Softube, and Rafter Marsh