DSP, Audio Engineering
& Plugin Development
Semi-educational articles about digital signal processing, audio engineering techniques, and the science behind professional audio plugins.
Plugin Development
10 min•Intermediate
No Shortcuts, No Exceptions: How We Test at KnobSmith
Why shipping plugins that don't crash is harder than you think. Inside KnobSmith's obsessive testing procedures, quality gates, and the 719-line test document that keeps our plugins bulletproof.
TestingQAQuality AssurancePlugin DevelopmentWar Stories
Plugin Development
12 min•Intermediate
The Beautiful Mess: What We Learned Building Plugins That Don't Suck
War stories, setbacks, and lessons learned from building industry-leading audio plugins. Thread safety nightmares, aliasing wars, and why our users are simultaneously the best and worst thing about this job.
Plugin DevelopmentThread SafetyADAAPerformanceWar Stories
Plugin Development
10 min•Beginner
Skeuomorphic Knobs and the Ghosts of Hardware Past
Why do plugins still look like vintage gear from 1976? A deep dive into plugin aesthetics, design conventions, and the historical baggage we carry—plus what actually matters in UI/UX.
UI/UXDesignSkeuomorphismPlugin DevelopmentUser Experience
DSP Fundamentals
8 min•Intermediate
What is ADAA? Anti-Derivative Anti-Aliasing Explained
Learn how ADAA eliminates aliasing artifacts in waveshapers without the CPU cost of oversampling.
ADAAAliasingWaveshapingSaturation
DSP Fundamentals
6 min•Beginner
Why Oversampling Matters (And When It Doesn't)
Understanding when to use oversampling, when ADAA is better, and how to balance quality with CPU efficiency.
OversamplingSample RateCPUOptimization
More Articles Coming Soon
We're working on more technical deep-dives and production technique articles. Topics in the pipeline:
Pitch Shifting AlgorithmsFormant PreservationReal-Time DSP ConstraintsPhase Vocoder Deep-Dive