Steve Duda On Teaching Yourself To Make Software

Ableton shared this video from their Fall 2018 Loop conference in Los Angeles, featuring producer, label owner & software developer Steve Duda discussing the practice of creating audio software and virtual instruments.

In the discussion, Duda shares his experience making the Serum VST. The discussion is aimed at aspiring audio software developers and musicians who are interested in creating their own instruments and effects. “

Duda is interviewed by Marijke Jorritsma, Senior User Experience Designer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory & Adjunct Professor at California Institute of the Arts.

Ableton Loop is described as “a three-day summit for music makers”. The next Loop will be held in Berlin, Germany, April 26 – 28, 2020.

17 thoughts on “Steve Duda On Teaching Yourself To Make Software

    1. “Marijke Jorritsma, Senior User Experience Designer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory”

      Dafuq, I watched this video yesterday, but totally missed she actually worked for effing NASA.

      Feeling stupid right now.

      There is another cool panel she moderated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akBYPx8MxIE

      Well, seems you can meet some amazing people in those Loop events.

      [edit: oops, sorry about replying under the wrong comment]

      1. ok but wtf is a “Senior User Experience Designer” ??? tbh this sounds likes those behringer “user engagement engineers” …

        1. Many small tech companies use ‘creative titles’. Usually the longer it is, the less important the job is. (J/K). But in general tech job titles are mature for the tech industry. This title is basically “senior designer”, where the the other part is the area of responsibility – “user experience”, is generally a customer facing support function requiring moderate technical skills, with very good interpersonal skills.

          Usual base job classifications for engineers are:
          Associate engineer
          Junior engineer
          Engineer
          Senior engineer
          Principle engineer
          Consultant engineer
          Distinguished engineer
          Fellow (Executive)

          With the exception of the last 2-3, which generally appear as stated, the title is augmented with job responsibility verbiage. Although, I’ve heard there are some titles that seem to defy interpretation.

        2. “ok but wtf is a “Senior User Experience Designer” ???”

          I dunno, must be some NASA shit I guess…

          “behringer “user engagement engineers” ”

          I guess when they sue journalists and music gear blogs, they are “engineering” the “user engagement”… maybe it is that…. I dunno I’m not a engineer

          1. Tech? That usually means web design. I wouldn’t traditionally put NASA in the “tech” industry, which is basically people selling advertisement online. But it’s true that the days where NASA was doing rockets, science and a combination of those are pretty much over. They’re make a large PR effort to hide the fact since a couple of years and my guess is Prof. Jooritsma is part of the effort …

            1. Maybe next Ableton Loop we can have Steve Duda interviewing her instead, then we can know more about what she does, that would be cool.

              1. Jorritsma was already featured at Loop in Berlin a couple years ago and she came across as effin brilliant.

                The ‘Senior User Experience Designer’ title is one that just about anyone involved in software design will have heard of. It’s a title for developers that focus on user interface design and usability.

                Usability is hugely important for complex tasks like flying a plane or a spacecraft. Think about the 737 Max and what happens when you screw up on usability on something like that.

      1. Good point. However, there is a lot of engineering discipline (design verification) that is lacking in todays software development that you would find in other engineering tasks, such as hardware, systems architecture, mechanical, etc… which makes it terribly expensive to find bugs in the field.

      1. I have 48 US Patents and 35+ years in the computer industry designing multimillion dollar machines. What do you have other than an interesting vocabulary?

          1. The romantically entitled attitude would suggest a newbie maybe. Who gives a crap about how someone else said something let alone what one thinks is engineering? Nice list of job titles. 48 LOL…

  1. The Dude’s use of the english language is really hard to follow, but typical of California -they are like from another planet !

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