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Show HN: I used AI to recreate a $4000 piece of audio hardware as a plugin

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Re: Show HN: I used AI to recreate a $4000 piece of audio hardware as a plugin

#31

Post by redfloatplane »

I was hoping that the video was a walkthrough of your process - do you think you might share that at some point?

> I'm not a programmer anymore. I'm something else now. I don't know what it is but it's multi-disciplinary, and it doesn't involve writing code myself--for better or worse!

Yes, I agree. I think the role of software developer is going to evolve into much more of an administrative, managerial role, dealing more with working with whatever organisation you're in than actually typing code. Honestly I think it probably was always heading in this direction but it's definitely quite a step change. Wrote about it a little incoherently on my blog just this morning: https://redfloatplane.lol/blog/11-2025-the-year-i-didnt-writ...

Re: Show HN: I used AI to recreate a $4000 piece of audio hardware as a plugin

#32

Post by hatefulheart »

kaffekaka wrote: post #28
hatefulheart wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect you are living in a different world. Not in a bad way, it’s just you haven’t experienced what maintenance on a large complicated code base is like.

Different worlds yes, but they both exist.

Sure, where one is ignorant of the other. That’s not a pro.

Re: Show HN: I used AI to recreate a $4000 piece of audio hardware as a plugin

#34

Post by franky47 »

rmnclmnt wrote: post #26
franky47 wrote: post #21

I used to do that exact job 10 years ago (without AI, obviously). I figure that career would be very different now. There was something exciting about sleuthing out how those old machines worked: we used a black box approach, sending in test samples, recording the output, and comparing against the digital algorithm’s output. Trial and error, slowly building a sense of what sort of filter or harmonics could bend a wav…

I wonder if we could then have released the *stressor in a few months then...

I’d love to see someone try.

Though using AI to build the devtools we used for signal analysis would have been helpful.

Re: Show HN: I used AI to recreate a $4000 piece of audio hardware as a plugin

#35

Post by [deleted] »

dubeye wrote: post #22

awesome, in 2025 I made a few apps for my small business that I have spent hours trawling the web looking for, and I have little coding skills. Sometimes it feels like I'm living in a different world, reading the scepticism on here about AI. I'm sure there enterprise cases where it doesn't make sense, but for the your everyday business owner it's amazing what can be done. maybe it's a failure of imagination but I can…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: I used AI to recreate a $4000 piece of audio hardware as a plugin

#36

Post by utopiah »

I'm not in the domain, even though I did dabble with DAW and tinker with a PGB-1 and its open source firmware, but how far would you say CMajor helped? I feel like solely picking the right tool, being framework, paradigm, etc can make or break a project.

Consequently here for me to better understand how special this is I'd appreciate how (especially since I don't see a link to code itself) how does one go to e.g. https://cmajor.dev/docs/GettingStarted#creating-your-first-p... to a working DSP.

Re: Show HN: I used AI to recreate a $4000 piece of audio hardware as a plugin

#37

Post by kaffekaka »

hatefulheart wrote: post #32
kaffekaka wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different worlds yes, but they both exist.

Sure, where one is ignorant of the other. That’s not a pro.

Small business owners not being aware of maintenance hell in large org codebases, yes, is that a problem?

I work for a large org and maintenance hell is my job, so I see both sides I think.

Re: Show HN: I used AI to recreate a $4000 piece of audio hardware as a plugin

#38

Post by utopiah »

Blackthorn wrote: post #24

How can you say it's a 100% faithful recreation if you've never programmed DSP before?

Indeed, same questions few days ago when somebody shared a "generated" NES emulator. We have to make this answered when sharing otherwise we can't compare.

Re: Show HN: I used AI to recreate a $4000 piece of audio hardware as a plugin

#39

Post by hatefulheart »

kaffekaka wrote: post #37
hatefulheart wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, where one is ignorant of the other. That’s not a pro.

Small business owners not being aware of maintenance hell in large org codebases, yes, is that a problem? I work for a large org and maintenance hell is my job, so I see both sides I think.

I’m a small business owner and solo developer on that business. Let’s just say I’d rather know the costs of my choices upfront. I’m sure there is not one small business owner in tech who would turn their nose up at that.

Re: Show HN: I used AI to recreate a $4000 piece of audio hardware as a plugin

#40

Post by baq »

Blackthorn wrote: post #24

How can you say it's a 100% faithful recreation if you've never programmed DSP before?

Maybe the OP has the hardware and can compare the sound both subjectively and objectively? Does it have to be 100% exact copy to be called the same? (Individual electronic components are never the same btw)
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