Audiofile Engineering

Everyone in music tech seems to be talking about Ableton’s new Extensions SDK this week, and for good reason.

Opening up Live to JavaScript/TypeScript tools that can inspect and shape a Set is a meaningful step. Workflow automation, custom utilities, strange little studio helpers: that is fertile ground.

But the part I keep coming back to is the tension underneath it.

A lot of modern software is trying to remove friction from creative work. Sometimes that is exactly what we need. Repetitive naming, cleanup, organization, file prep: let the machine do it.

But not all friction is waste.

Some of it is the texture of the work itself.

Chopping a sample by ear. Finding the right start point. Listening for the tail. Nudging a loop until it breathes. Making a sound feel like it belongs to your hands, not just your drive.

That work can look inefficient from the outside. In practice, it is often where the music starts to become yours.

At Audiofile, we are thinking hard about this right now. At least one thing we are building may head in almost the opposite direction from the current rush: not away from technology, but back toward the craft inside it. Editing, sampling, listening, and shaping sound by hand.

Tools should be powerful. They should also leave room for taste.

The best music software does not just ask, “what can we automate?”

It also asks, “what should remain human?”

A tool can be intelligent without taking the decision out of your hands.

Hey, we are looking for 5 people: producers, mixers, mastering engineers, who would benefit from having Fidelia tuned for your auditioning/verification plugin/metering chain.

🔊 We're looking for you.

If you run professional plugins in your studio, and you're willing to share your Fidelia experience, you'll get free access to the app, and have influence over its future direction (you may even influence the direction of other things).

Follow & DM for details.

If tiny music companies are shamed out of using modern tools, only the giants will be left.

We are run from a studio in the forest, five miles from the mailbox.

That sentence only makes sense because of buried fiber.

Think about the irony: The most human, place-rooted work we do depends on high-tech infrastructure most people never see.

Now, consider another aspect of that same irony.

Tiny creative technology companies need tools to survive.

Not because we are trying to fake being large. Not because we want to replace taste, craft, judgment, or human relationships.

Because the current music industry is not especially kind to small companies.

The gravity is consolidation. Acquisition. Private equity. A few very large platforms and brands absorbing more and more of the field.

But without tiny companies, music technology loses its soul.

Small shops are where strange ideas survive long enough to become useful. They are where tools can still be built around care, taste, obsession, and direct contact with the people who use them.

So yes, we use agents. We use them for research, marketing operations, planning, back-office work, and sometimes imagery or drafting support.

There should be standards. There should be taste. There should be disclosure where it matters. There should be human judgment all the way down.

But reflexive contempt for small companies using modern tools is not protecting art. It is clearing the field for the largest players.

For Audiofile, agents are not the soul of the work. They are infrastructure.

Like the fiber under the road.

The soul is still in the listening, the engineering, the restraint, the care, and the stubborn belief that small, independent music technology companies still matter.

Audiofile DDP is available now for Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

The artist approving their work should be able to review the actual master.

Playback, disc metadata, and timestamped feedback in one approval flow.

For mastering engineers and studios, Audiofile DDP on macOS creates studio-branded, signed DDP bundles your artists and clients can easily open, review, and respond to from their iPhone.

Don't mind me, just listening to through Capitol Chambers and an 1176. Totally normal.

Oh, hey, also, Fidelia, your favorite music listening and auditioning app, is now FREE. Well, for 14 day trial anyway. Grab it now, link in profile; enjoy my friends.

A music technology brand can look healthy right up until the week it changes hands.

We have all watched it happen: beloved names in music tech restructure, get acquired, lose people, or disappear into larger companies.

Moog. Native Instruments. Sequential. Oberheim. E-mu Systems. Opcode. Ensoniq. Akai.

These were not weak brands. They made tools that shaped records, studios, workflows, and whole musical eras.

That is the fragile part of this business.

The companies building serious tools for musicians are often smaller than they look. Support is expensive. Platforms change. Manufacturing is hard. Software maintenance never ends. And the work only survives when enough people decide it is worth keeping alive.

Audiofile exists because we still believe in that work.

Owned music. Careful listening. Professional delivery. Tools made for musicians, mastering engineers, labels, and people who care about sound beyond the feed.

If there is a music tech company you want to keep existing, support it before it looks like it needs help.

Buy the upgrade. Leave the review. Share the tool. Send the bug report kindly. Tell someone why it matters.

Not out of nostalgia.

Because the tools we keep alive shape the music that comes next.

Sound editing used to be physical.

Tape loops. Timing marks. Machines held in sync by patience and nerve.

Watching Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop is a reminder that audio tools are never neutral. They shape what we hear, what we try, and what we believe is possible.

We’re working on something new at Audiofile, and we keep coming back to this lineage: editing as listening, engineering as composition, tools built close to the sound.

More later.

Physical media is not where most of the audio industry’s attention is right now.

Fair enough. A lot of fine mastering work today is headed straight for streaming.

But DDP delivery still matters for labels, reissues, archives, replication handoffs, and artists who still need a physical master handled correctly.

Audiofile DDP is built for that work.

Proof the DDP on macOS. Inspect the metadata, track starts, gaps, indexes, loudness, phase, and waveform. Then export one signed Audiofile DDP bundle your artist can open on iPhone or iPad.

No unlock code, custom desktop player, or account needed.

The workflow may be considered legacy.
The master still has to be right.

Coming soon.

Photo credit: Ánne Máddji Heatta

Who doesn’t want to listen to Orbital through BigSky and a Studer?

Fidelia 2 can host Audio Unit plugins right inside the player — because sometimes your music library deserves a unique signal chain.

Three AU plugin slots. Built-in mastering-grade DSP. No subscription. No data collected.

This is the best Fidelia has ever been.

I’ve spent the past months refining it, stabilizing it, and carrying forward everything that mattered from the original app while continuing to build out the new foundation underneath it.

At this point, the stability is excellent, the feature set is deep, and the value for new customers is honestly the best it has been. I sincerely believe it is the best music player app available for the kind of listener it was built for.

If you’ve been curious about Fidelia, this is a very good time to step in, especially while the introductory price is still $49.99.

Built with care, for people who still care about really listening.