Featured Artist 48
Joa Ebert
Joa D. Ebert. The D is for Diego
Joa Ebert is not only a very talented programmer and musician, he is also Audiotool developer of the first hour and father of the first track released on Audiotool. We still consider Joa as a part of the Audiotool team even if he has now already founded his own company with Tim Richter. Defrac is the foundation for the HTML 5 version of Audiotool to be released later this year. Thanks for all your hard work. Without you, Audiotool would never had been possible.
Interview
Joa D. Ebert Place: Originally from Bielefeld, Germany. You could say it is the modern Atlantis, the town that is nowhere to be found. But nowadays I am living in Cologne, Germany Age: 28
- What is your job at Audiotool?
- I founded Audiotool and worked on it for about five years but our ways parted – no bridges burned though. My main job at Audiotool was the core foundation of the application. I worked mostly on algorithms and data structures. But I did basically everything from drawing little monsters, building and shipping the browser app to developing the website and backend. I also wrote some of the "cool" parts – the desktop and cable rendering for instance. I also developed my personal favorite: the Rasselbock. It went through many iterations: from a first completely autonomous cellular automata, playing stutter effects to what we have now (André also applied his Midas touch to the DSP implementation). I left Audiotool to start a new company called defrac. My co-founder Tim Richter and I are developing a platform to convert compiled Java code to different target platforms like the web, iOS or Android. This is quite technical but really fun stuff! I heard through the grapevine that Audiotool Next is built with defrac
- How would you define your work?
- As a developer you're in the fantastic position of imagining something up and then being able to create it immediately. It is like Lego on steroids. There are no limits and once you hit a wall you have to be creative to find a solution. It's basically never boring and creating a massive Flash application like Audiotool was a real challenge. If you like solving puzzles, you can probably become a really good developer.
- What is your educational background for the job you are doing?
- Blood and sweat. I was a small child when I started programming and went the path of the autodidact. I started to study cognitive computer science once but dropped out which I kind of regret. When I find the time, I seriously want to get that computer science degree.
- When and how did you start programming?
- I think I was about eight years old. Our first computer had no case and the only way to reset the machine was by putting a screwdriver on the jump. We also had two games. GORILLA.BAS and NIBBLES.BAS. Those were written by Microsoft to demo QBasic at that time. The only way to start the game was by starting QBasic first. You always saw the source-code. The love of a lifetime emerged.
- How would you define your musical style?
- Short-circuits, buzzes and noises. Honestly I feel a dwarfed by all the talent on Audiotool and I wish I had the skills to produce the music I have in my head. I really enjoy pads and melodic synthesizers with a hint of glitch. The music I create is the music I want to listen to myself. When there are 100 listens on one of my tracks, you can be sure that I count for 96 of them.
- What is your musical background?
- My mother did a real good job and I am really thankful for her efforts. I went to early music education in elementary school and started playing classical piano around the age of ten. Puberty made me ditch the classical education and I went to a different music school with a focus on improvisation. I also started playing guitar there and I have a bass lying around somewhere. We did a lot of great live gigs with that school and it influenced me a lot. One person suggested a song, then someone who played the drums joined, someone who sings and so on until you have a band for that song. You meet for one or two evenings and then you play on stage. It really showed me that random people can get together and make some music. Hello live collaboration!
- When did you start making music?
- I think in 1996 or 1997 my brother and I received a fantastic christmas present. It was a copy of ReBirth RB-338. Later I started using FruityLoops and got into chiptunes for some reason.
- Message to the community
- Audiotool has the best community ever. Stay exactly like you are. Creating music makes you vulnerable. You share your songs and emotions with complete strangers. I believe that Audiotool is one of the few places on the internet where people aren't talking you down because your technique isn't perfect. Ergo the only thing I can say is that you are simply amazing and that I am proud to be one of the people who made all this possible. PS.: Some people continue to ask why my profile is so weird. I guess one late evening there was so much work that my head was exploding and I kind of expressed it by turning my profile upside-down. When Martin joined Audiotool and took over he kindly kept this tradition!
