4 ms·

I'm a recording engineer, which increasingly means "data wrangler". A couple years ago I taught myself bash and then python in order to write a script to conver

I'm a recording engineer, which increasingly means "data wrangler". A couple years ago I taught myself bash and then python in order to write a script to convert our archives from wav to mp3 (and inject metadata from a crystal reports file). That project has evolved into a web interface for searching and browsing our audio, video and photo archives. I probably spend about 3/4 of my time making recordings and 1/4 writing and maintaining code. I don't remember what first brought me to HN, but I stay to learn about open-source projects I wouldn't otherwise find out about. The next version of my archives site is built with Flask and Twitter Bootstrap, both of which I learned about here. Also, my transcoding scripts use Kenneth Reitz's Envoy for the system calls. Also because I realize that as much as I love music, my decision to become a recording engineer was probably ill-advised. There are days I strongly consider giving it up to move to the Bay Area and try developing full-time, hopefully at a startup.

gbog 15y ago
Was a recording engineer too and stopped because it broke my ability to sit down and appreciate listening to music: I had to analyse it "professionally". Mick Jagger said once he would only listen to classic on the radio. I can believe that. In some areas of human creation being an amateur is necessary. A simple example: China has an enormous corpus of classical painting and poetry, no part of it has been created by professionals. Add: to me writing code is an activity that can be enjoyed professionally, unlike music.