Learning Digital Signal Processing w/ Rachel Locke | Ep 18

Rachel Locke, the new co-host of The Audio Programmer meetup, shares her inspiring journey from aspiring DJ to research software engineer at Vocleer. Starting with a diploma in electronic music production, Rachel discovered her passion for building music technology tools rather than performing. After working with the JUCE team at ROLI in sales and marketing, she realized she wanted to be on the development side but lacked the technical background. This led her to pursue a part-time Master's in Digital Signal Processing at the University of West London, where she spent three years learning everything from calculus and linear algebra to C++ and machine learning from scratch.

Throughout her studies, Rachel faced the steep learning curve of mastering DSP mathematics without a traditional engineering background, often supplementing her coursework with self-study and online resources like Khan Academy and Eric Tarr's Hack Audio. Her persistence paid off when Vochlea reached out on LinkedIn, offering her a part-time role that eventually became her full-time position. Her Master's dissertation focused on automatic determination of vocal percussive classes using unsupervised learning, developing clustering algorithms to improve drum trigger classification in Vocleer's voice-to-MIDI application.

Rachel's advice for aspiring audio developers emphasizes building a strong LinkedIn presence, creating a GitHub portfolio, and focusing on what you can bring to a company rather than what you'll gain from an internship. She recommends resources like the Hack Audio book, 3Blue1Brown's YouTube channel for visual mathematics explanations, and The Sound of AI channel for machine learning. Her story demonstrates that non-traditional paths into audio development are possible with dedication, continuous learning, and strategic networking.

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Originally recorded on January 27th, 2022.

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