"WORKING with synthesizers"

[The Proteus]

On Thu, 7 Dec 2000, Troy Sheets wrote:

> 
> 
> Where do you live?
> 
> There are a few companies in LA... Alesis is one that comes to mind.
> I don't know if Roland Korg, ect have design facilities in the US, or
> if they are all in japan?
> 

Alesis is interesting. They have two to five people that actually invent
products, but the rest are "worker bees" per se from what I know, and
follow the direction of the senior staff. This is good, because it's kept
them on track all this time - but some people might be stifled by the
possibility of not being able to contribute. If anyone has any information
to the contrary, please correct me.

Korg's R&D facilities are in Milpitas, and there are five people still
working there. They're not hiring, and frm what it looks like they're
trying to phase out this division over time.

Roland's facilities are in Japan, as are Yamaha's. 

> In the san francisco bay area... there is EMU near santa cruz...
> 

See previous post regarding this one :-)

> (but of course, you might get tempted by a much more higher paying job
> in the silicon valley doing non-music stuff....)
> 

Yes, this is VERY true. I could consult both on hardware and software and
make six figures. Instead, I make little more than half of that working
for E-Mu. It's tempting, but I'm doing what I love. 

> -troy
> 

Other places you could consider are some of the smaller synth companies
out there. There's Novation and many others in the UK, Waldorf in Germany,
and Kurzweil on the east coast in Pennsylvania. 

As far as most synth companies go nowadays, they're mainly looking for
good DSP engineers that can churn out solid code - but there are a few
companies with people like me that still need new hardware engineers.
Places like E-Mu focus on mixed-signal design with high-powered embedded
processors (ARM, ColdFire, etc..), PAL and FPGA design in one of the two
"standard" languages, VHDL and Verilog, and at least a basic understanding
of active filter theory. 

I'll dig up more information when I get to work today. :-)

-Prot

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