Hello, my name's Alex! I like to take things apart, see what makes them tick, and try to make something fascinating out of them. Many of these take place in the world of audio, electronics, and coffee.
I initially started this website as a personal diary of the gear that would catch my interest. Since then, this site has ballooned to include many things:
- Blog: Musical musings and other life updates.
- Workbench: My original equipment adventures, where I buy things and take them apart. I’m working on putting them back together.
- Lists: A loose collection of lists that I have filed away in my head
. This is also where I keep a running list of the equipment I have played with – a superset of what is in Workbench. - Photos: Pictures I take as a hobby photographer.
Whether you identify as a musician/engineer/gearhead or you simply stumbled across this page as a curious mind, I hope that this website is enjoyable in some way.
Professional
Beyond this website, I am a senior research engineer in Qualcomm’s Spatial Audio and Electroacoustics groups and a graduate student at UC San Diego.
On behalf of work, I specialize in classical and deep learning algorithms for spatial audio capture. I also develop finite element simulations that aid in spatial audio development and speaker design, which I sometimes validate using lasers. My work falls under my company’s Audio RecordCtrl+F “3D Audio”, Audio PlaybackCtrl+F “Spatial Audio” and XR AudioCtrl+F “3D Audio” offerings.
On behalf of university, I research efficient embeddings for volumetric soundfields using Bayesian and learning-based methods. This allows for soundfields to be stored and rendered efficiently using common scene-based rendering paradigms (commonly HOA and WFS).
For more detail:
-vLinkedIn-vvRésumé-vvvvSend me an emailatung323@gmail.com
Musical
I believe that music is a deeply intimate method of communicating emotions between people and populations. Although many robust theories have been given for musical cognition, I think that much expression has yet to be explored, particularly in the emotional affects of harmony and consonance. These musings have taken form as numerical models or stereo listening parties.
I believe that my fascination with music and audio can be attributed to a supportive community of music teachers and an early exposure to instruments, which I still try to play. During the pandemic, I briefly played guitar and bass with a couple groups. Despite the lack of opportunity to get together, we still found ways to safely play a house party, record music videos, headline a local festival, and broadcast a live session.
While I don’t advertise myself as a producer, friends do ask me to give mix comments on their songs from time to time. I have been somewhat involved in the songs below.
If you have a few minutes, I invite you to go to somewhere quiet and have a listen!
Never Tell - Luke Chiang
In the East Was the Sun - Haiku Fields
A little listening party came out of this as well
Photos
