After 35 Years as a Software Engineer, I’m Finally Building the Audio Tools I Always Wanted to Use

I’ve been writing software for 35 years.

Like many developers, I spent most of my career building products for employers, clients and other people’s ideas. Along the way, I accumulated countless side projects, prototypes and half-finished experiments.

One category kept pulling me back: audio.

I’ve always been fascinated by audio processing, signal analysis, equalizers, noise reduction, stem separation and the challenge of making complicated audio technology accessible to ordinary users.

For years, I would see a problem, sketch a solution, build a prototype and then put it aside because work and life got in the way.

Recently I’ve had the opportunity to revisit those ideas and turn them into real products.

Today I have several published macOS and iOS apps, including:

• DeMixer Pro (audio separation and repair)
• Equalizer Studio
• SoundBar
• And several non-audio products that grew out of other long-standing ideas

One thing I’ve learned is that building software never stopped being fun.

What’s changed is that now I get to choose the problems.

Ironically, after 35 years of engineering, the hardest challenge isn’t the DSP, machine learning models, audio pipelines or App Store submissions.

It’s marketing.

Building the product feels natural.

Finding the people who need it is the part I’m still learning.

For those of you building audio tools, creator software or niche desktop applications: what has worked best for you when it comes to getting your first real users?