Podcast 151: Tim Place

Art + Music + Technology

Tim Place is one of those amazing guys that, at a fairly young age, has already accomplished so much. He is one of the main designer/programmers behind the Jamoma project, developed the Teabox sensor system (as well as designing and building the best sensors in the business...), created the Hipno plug-in package and has been developing objects and systems for Cycling '74 for almost a decade.

I was anxious to talk to Tim for many reasons, but one of them was to talk about his efforts in getting his doctorate in music, why he sort of stalled out on that process, but how he was also able to leverage that experience into a useful career. And his discussions about career are somewhat familiar to me as I surf the variety of people that make it in music tech: he puts out a lot of feelers, works really hard on a lot of things, and one of them happens to 'hit'.

In Tim's case, a number of these things are still on-going concerns, with the Jamoma package at the forefront. But it's interesting to talk to Tim about his continued interest in C++ coding, his re-entrance into math (a subject he abandoned in high school) and his approach to trying many things in search of The Right Thing.

Enjoy!