INTERVIEW
www.audiomediainternational.com
THE RIGHT TOOLS AMI catches up with Paul Tapper, NUGEN Audio’s recently appointed CEO and the brains behind many of the original algorithms in use by the company’s products today... How did NUGEN first come about and how were you involved in its creation? NUGEN Audio started back in 2004 when cofounders Jon Schorah and I discovered a mutual interest in audio software, coming from very different directions. At that time, I was the lead programmer on a console games project with a leading UK game developer. Meanwhile, Jon was working as an EDM producer and DJ with a major UK record label. When a mutual friend, who had booked a mastering studio to cut a track to vinyl, was told it wasn’t possible due to the stereo in the bass, we became interested in finding a solution to the problem through software. I applied my PhD in Pure Maths to provide a musically pleasing correction to the damaged audio with a software plugin, and after some design and useability work, NUGEN Audio’s first plugin was released. This was soon followed by more stereo-image related plugins, and then plugins exploring other applications of mathematics to music and audio in general.
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How has the company’s ethos helped it to become a market leader and what role have you had in this? Right from the outset, NUGEN Audio has been fully focused on providing solutions to real-life problems. Despite our fascination with, and love of, the technology and theory behind audio processing, we believe in the role of NUGEN being able to apply those techniques to create the tools that real users actually need day-to-day. The goal is always to enhance our users’ lives – either making existing challenges easier to overcome, or producing new and exciting possibilities to ignite the imagination. NUGEN has always endeavored to identify product categories that are either new, or currently under-served, and then striven to create the most practically useful solutions in those categories. My personal involvement in this was initially the audio algorithm design and then software implementation of the products. Over the years my role has gradually transitioned into more management and business development, and led to my current role as CEO – although I do still enjoy being involved in the occasional technical discussion, and still offer advice on the audio processing.
NUGEN Audio’s UK office
March 2019
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04/03/2019 12:37