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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

#61

Post by _o1yi »

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…

No you're absolutely right. One of the things I'm starting to see and I wrote another Hacker News post about this is that more people are starting to come out talking about all the mistakes AI is making even as it gets better. Then You've got people like Karpathy talking about how drastic the landscape is shifting

I've been doing this for 25 years and I can tell you that the AI is a better coder than me, but I know how to use it. I reviewed the code that it puts out and it's better. I'm assuming the developers that are having a hard time with it are just not as experienced with it.

If you think your job is going to stay programmer, I just don't see it. I think you need to start providing value and using coding as just a means to do that, more so than coding being valuable in itself. It's just not as valuable anymore.

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

#62

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#63

Post by _o1yi »

Blackthorn wrote: post #41
baq wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

The OP didn't clarify. But if there's a claim of 100% faithful recreation, I'd expect something to back it up, like time- and frequency-domain comparisons of input and output with different test signals. Or at least something . But there isn't anything. The video claims: "It utilizes the actual DSP characteristics of the original to bring that specific sound back to life." The author admits they have never programmed…

Well it's a new project so give it some time. I feel confident that I'm not lying so I can make that claim.

Also its target market is not a technical crowd but people who make music. I'm optimizing more for what they want to see (which are sound demos) rather than what a programmer would want to see.

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

#64

Post by _o1yi »

mycall wrote: post #51
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…

It will be the future for sure, software as a tool for everyone. While there is something lost in prompting, people will always seek out first-principles so they can understand what they are commanding and controlling, especially as old machines become new machines with new capabilities not even imaginable before due to the old software complexity wall.

It's exactly as you say: software as a tool for everyone and it's hard for programmers like me to accept that because I've spent so much time, read so many books, and work so hard perfecting my craft.

But smart programmers will realize the world doesn't care about any of that at all.

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

#65

Post by redfloatplane »

askonomm wrote: post #56
redfloatplane wrote: post #31

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…

As someone who works at a place where we do a lot of code analysis and also research AI's effect on code quality, if you do not even so much as look at your code anymore, I do not believe you are creating maintainable, quality software. Maybe you don't need to, or care to, but it's definitely not what's sustainable in long-term product companies. AI is a force multiplier - it makes bad worse, it _can_ make good bette…

Yes, I didn't do a great job of managing my language in that post (I blame flu-brain). In the case where _someone_ is going to be reading the code I output, I do review it and act more as the pilot-not-flying rather than as a passenger. For personal code (as opposed to code for a client), which is the majority of stuff that I've written since Opus 4.5 released, that's not been the case.

I'll update the post to reflect the reality, thanks for calling it out.

I completely agree with your comment. I think the ability to review code, architecture, abstractions matters more than the actual writing of the code - in fact this has really always been the case, it's just clearer now that everyone has a lackey to do the typing for them.

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

#66

Post by kaffekaka »

hatefulheart wrote: post #39
kaffekaka wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fair enough, that is a good point.

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

#67

Post by vunderba »

_o1yi wrote: post #59
Blackthorn wrote: post #24

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

I had the hardware for both units and use them extensively so 100% familiar with how they sound. And I'm not doing it based off of my ears. I know the algorithm, have the exact coefficients, and there was no guesswork except for the potentiometer curves and parts of the room algorithm that I'm still working out, which is a completely separate component of the reverb. But when I put it up for sale, I'll make sure to g…

Can you sell it, or would you have to do some renaming in order to get around trademark/etc ?

Consider reaching out to Audiority - I know they have some virtual recreations of Space Station hardware.

https://www.audiority.com/shop/space-station-um282

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

#68

Post by _o1yi »

vunderba wrote: post #67
_o1yi wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the hardware for both units and use them extensively so 100% familiar with how they sound. And I'm not doing it based off of my ears. I know the algorithm, have the exact coefficients, and there was no guesswork except for the potentiometer curves and parts of the room algorithm that I'm still working out, which is a completely separate component of the reverb. But when I put it up for sale, I'll make sure to g…

Can you sell it, or would you have to do some renaming in order to get around trademark/etc ? Consider reaching out to Audiority - I know they have some virtual recreations of Space Station hardware. https://www.audiority.com/shop/space-station-um282

Luckily the trademark is public domain!

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

#69

Post by _o1yi »

LatencyKills wrote: post #17

This is fantastic. I’m currently building a combustion engine simulator doing exactly what you did. In fact, I found a number of research papers, had Claude implement the included algorithms, and then incorporated them into the project. What I have now is similar to https://youtu.be/nXrEX6j-Mws?si=XdPA48jymWcapQ-8 but I haven’t implemented a cohesive UI yet.

Right on that's awesome! I think I'm doing more what you did vs. the other way around. Looks like you're pretty established. How long did it take to build your YouTube to what it is? What's that process been like?

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

#70

Post by mycall »

_o1yi wrote: post #64
mycall wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be the future for sure, software as a tool for everyone. While there is something lost in prompting, people will always seek out first-principles so they can understand what they are commanding and controlling, especially as old machines become new machines with new capabilities not even imaginable before due to the old software complexity wall.

It's exactly as you say: software as a tool for everyone and it's hard for programmers like me to accept that because I've spent so much time, read so many books, and work so hard perfecting my craft. But smart programmers will realize the world doesn't care about any of that at all.

We will remain to be programmers but at a higher abstraction where code is just the glue to our means and imagination.
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