Ryan Avery

As a DSP engineer, I work extensively with digital filters to modify audio signals. Because we humans have a tenancy towards confirmation bias, I tend to see filters wherever I go. Lots of time it has to do with how we perceive audio. For instance when we hear audio coming from another room, it sounds muffled since low frequencies transmit through solid objects better than high frequencies.

I also find myself figuring out the standing modes of rooms. These are the resonant frequencies that tend to dominate certain spaces. They are especially evident in bathrooms, garages, and empty rooms. It is actually quite easy to do this yourself. Simply start humming at a low pitch, and then increase your pitch until you start to feel the sound increase in volume in your ears. Pretty soon, you will be able to pick out a specific pitch that seems to make the room “sing”. That’s a room mode. And if you go up an octave, you’ll find another mode.

Why does this work? It’s actually a similar principle to why you can make a wine glass generate sounds. The structure that you are “ringing out” has an inherent frequency that corresponds to its size. In the case of the wine glass, the structure will vibrate at a certain pitch when stimulated by fingers running around the rim. In the case of the room, the sound waves will bounce off the walls in response to your humming. Normally the sound waves bouncing off all the walls and the ceiling roughly cancel out each other. But at certain frequencies, the sound wave that bounces between two opposing walls add up and reinforce each other. So a resonant mode occurs, and the result is a huge spike in a room’s frequency response.

I’ve found myself in a couple of awkward situations doing this hum test, in a space I thought was unoccupied. Explaining my actions to someone who isn’t an audio engineer is a completely fruitless endeavor.

But what fascinates me even more is the metaphor of ourselves as a filter. To explain this, we need to know what constitutes a filter.

FIR and IIR Filters

There are two major types of digital filters, and I’ll try to explain these in completely non-DSP terms. Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filters work by storing the incoming audio as it occurs. The filter can take these past values and multiply them by individual numbers ((called coefficients), and then all of these multiplied numbers are added together. Depending on the value of these coefficients, the filter can be made to be a low-pass filter (passing low-frequency sounds and filtering out higher-frequency sounds), high-pass filters (the opposite of low-pass filters), band-pass (passing audio surrounding a certain pitch and filtering the rest), among many other kinds.

An Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filter is similar, except that the output audio (after all of the values have been added together) are also saved. These output values are saved and will be multiplied by individual coefficients, and then added along with everything else to generate the actual output audio signal. Again, you can have low-pass, high-pass, and band-pass filters among others.

We are all filters

So how does this related to ourselves? Let’s talk about self-awareness. How is an FIR filter aware? It is aware of its input audio, it is aware of the coefficients applied to the inputs, and then generates an output.  An IIR filter is aware in the same way, except it is also aware of its output and can even apply coefficients to its current output to further modify its future outputs.

Think of that in terms of people. We have 5 senses. Usually, we use these sensory inputs to take action based on our external surroundings. So when we feel the sun on our skin, smell salt water, and hear the sounds of seagulls, we might breath in deeply and stretch out our arms to increase the amount of the good sensory inputs we’re receiving. In a sense, we’re increasing the coefficient that corresponds to that input. When one sense gets “out of whack” such as when we are in a noisy urban construction area, we have the ability to “decrease” the coefficient of our hearing in order to ignore it.

But like an IIR filter has output coefficients, we humans are also able to tap into the signals we are giving off, and figure out what we need to change so that we generate the output that we desire. For instance, most of us know the feeling where we are talking way too loud for where we are – it causes us to immediately quiet ourselves. It’s the “indoor voices” lesson, and something that people learn in elementary school. Except some people don’t learn that lesson. Or even more importantly, we don’t learn to adjust our output coefficients.

We should all strive to be IIR filters

At its very basic core, this concept of adjusting output coefficients to change the signals we generate is the concept of “self-awareness”. But some people don’t understand that they can change their output coefficients. Maybe they don’t know how, or they just don’t care. But for some reason they still expect others to adjust their coefficients.

Shouldn’t one of our fundamental life goals be to figure out how to best interact with others? Isn’t the very core of that learning to interact well with people? Of course, it is equally important to adjust your input coefficients so that you don’t get overwhelmed with life.

I’m sure you could take this metaphor further, to philosophize what it means for someone to be a low-pass filter or a high-pass filter. But I’ll leave that as the proverbial exercise to the reader.

It is easy to look at the external persona of successful people and ask ourselves “why do they have all the luck?” It is even easier to tell ourselves that our lack of luck is caused by others. In many aspects of my life, I see people blaming others. This especially occurs when you have a group of “blamers” talking to eachother. They feed off of their notions that they are not to blame for their own lack of success, and the conversation degenerates and no real solutions are presented.

In music, this commonly takes the form of “Why are they so popular? My music is much better than that other band!”

The fallacy here, of course, is thinking that music quality is the sole factor for success in the music business. Only a little thought is required to realize that items such as networking, promotion, marketing, and drive are MUCH more important than quality.

Mike Venti at Music Think Tank writes about just this in his article 30 Tips For The Typical Musician. Though tongue-in-cheek in nature, lots of people tell themselves just these things.

If you still don’t believe me, look at another industry. Take, for example, the beer market in the USA. If quality were the deciding factor here, then why would beers like Bud Light, Miller Light, and Coors Light, all be at the top of the list? Surely most people haven’t sampled every beer in the world and found that they like those the best? No, they are at the top because they are promoted and marketed like crazy, and have enough quality to appeal to a general audience. Boy bands, Auto-Tune rap artists, and generic pop singers are the Bud Lights of the music world.

This is not to say that some cream doesn’t rise to the top. It’d be tough to find someone who says that The Beatles, Queen, Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson were talentless hacks. But if they didn’t have the personal drive or motivation to succeed at all costs, they definitely wouldn’t have gotten to the top of the charts.

So how does this apply to other aspects of life? Let’s look at the tips, but abstract away the music business.

Practice

The average person will stop practicing or doing homework as soon as they leave school. Nor will they take lessons (or apprentice) from someone who is considered an expert in the field.

This is a good way to get passed-up by those who do practice. And believe me, there are people out there who practice. A lot! They are the ones who you will be resentful of, because they have exceeded your reach or abilities at a much younger age.

Gigs

Consider gigs like the work they are. Everyone, in life, will make mistakes. The key is to accept you will make these mistakes, and resolve to learn from them every time it happens. Don’t stick to a tried-and-true formula in life, unless you’re perfectly happy exactly the way things are. Even then, if you stick to the formula, the world will change around you and you may find yourself out of a job, slowly losing respect with your friends, or considered “old-fashioned”.

And for god sakes, network like there was no tomorrow. This does not mean just handing out business cards. This means establishing working relationships, friendships, a network of people you trust. Respond to emails. Even better, take the time to email people you haven’t talked to in awhile. Remember, most people are passive in this regards.

When you have to rely on others, understand that they make mistakes too. And more importantly, no one will be more invested in your success than you are. So if your boss, or neighbor, or coworker doesn’t seem to care about you as much as you’d like, then you’re probably right. Accept it. Don’t blame them. Or if it truly is a problem, then actively work to change it. Make them understand why they should care, and how they can best help you.

Your friends are not your customers. Let me repeat – your friends are not your customers. They may become your customers, but your business model should definitely not be “market my services to my friends.” They are the people who will support you as you get off the ground, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find friends who will continually pay you enough money to survive. You NEED to branch out beyond them – this involves marketing, promotion, and actually having something to offer that people want.

Sure, send out a Facebook invite if you’re having a gig, looking for extra work, etc. But if you’re relying on that invite to get business, then you’ve just fallen back into the “friend business model” trap. And don’t blame your friends when they don’t respond to your mass email.

Studio

Let’s replace studio with resources. Whether you’re a musician working in a studio, a programmer working in an office, or a hairdresser working out of their home.

If you skimp, people will notice. Some amount of cost-cutting may be necessary (and it’s always good to price-shop), but at some point you cross a threshold that people will notice. Your dingy windowless office. Your beat-up instrument. Your rusty scissors and bulk generic shampoo. Your ripped clothes. You see what I’m getting at, I hope.

I’m guilty of this, too. The lure of saving a buck can be strong, but can get you into trouble. When you see people react by not contacting you as much, don’t blame them – realize it might be a reaction due to the cost-cutting.

Personal

Yes, you will interact with others. Some people will be very successful, and you will resent them. Some people will be amazing, but will be very difficult to work with. Some people will be flaky, some people will be stubborn. Learn how to work with them all, and as a result start becoming easy to work with, yourself.

If you’re resentful of someone, understand why. Then figure out if your resentment is truly about something that person did, or if you’re really resentful about your own lack of drive.

Go above and beyond what you have seen others do. That will set you apart. But if you see someone setting the standard, then don’t blame them no matter how much “inexperience” they have. Instead, show them what experience looks like, and rise above.

Up until a few days ago, my sole website has been Chance’s End. Though most of the content there has been about my violin breakbeat-electronica music project, I have lots of information about audio engineering (both behind the console and behind the keyboard) and “making-of” content that I have held off on posting until I found a proper home.

In the next few days,  I plan on refining the site layout a bit to match a style I had for an older version of my website. Then, I’ll begin culling through my saved material and posting bits about my production process every week or so.