The simple interface of SamPack, a new music sample generator hitting the market soon, hides some pretty complex technology.
The program takes a phrase like 鈥渂right horn sound,鈥� uses IBM Watson鈥檚 natural language processing features to turn the phrase into a mathematical algorithm, processes the algorithm into audio and returns a WAV file to the user, all with the click of a button. And it was built by a CU-Boulder senior and a friend, in less than 24 hours.
Computer science and applied math major Brian Newsom and Bret Meritt, a sound design student at Columbia College in Chicago, built the program for the听听in March, earning themselves first place in the 鈥淐reation鈥� category and a $3,500 prize to help kickstart their business. He and teammates were also runner-ups in the 2016 New Venture Challenge for their work on听, a mobile app that allows people to listen to and record text articles for consumption on the go, and won $1,000. 听
For Newsom, CU-Boulder has been a great place to cultivate his dual passions for technology and music. In addition to his double major, he has taken classes in the College of Music鈥檚 music technology program and played percussion in the concert band.听
On the technology side, Newsom is part of CU-Boulder鈥檚 growing 鈥渉acker鈥� community 鈥� he participated in the inaugural听听last year and served as a mentor this year.
鈥淗ackCU last year was an amazing experience, and I can see it around campus that it鈥檚 inspired a lot of people to make cool things,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really empowering to have the time and resources to make something you always wanted to.鈥�
Newsom is also participating in the first cohort of the听鈥檚听, which allows seniors with a great business idea to work on a project of their own, rather than on the industry sponsored projects students usually tackle.
That course helped when they got to SXSW, he said.
鈥淚n the entrepreneurial capstone class, one of the things we鈥檙e learning is that you have to validate ideas before you spend a whole lot of time creating something that no one wants,鈥� he said, adding that they spent several hours defining the problem SamPack was intended to solve before tackling the programming.
Hackathons tend to be a whirlwind experience, and SXSW was no exception. At the 24-hour mark, teams had to drop what they were doing and immediately go into judging, where they had one minute to convince industry experts of their prototype鈥檚 potential.
After winning over the judges, SamPack was one of six teams chosen to participate in an incubator session aimed at helping them take their creations from prototypes into startups with real customers. There, they met Alex Ebert of indie folk band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Kiran Gandhi from electronic music group Madame Gandhi, both of whom were excited about SamPack.
鈥淎lex was really excited about the prospect of new sounds because there鈥檚 so much music out there that all sounds the same,鈥� Newsom said. 鈥淭his is a new avenue to create things, and he was excited about directions we could take.鈥�
Gandhi also expressed interest in using SamPack in her next project.听
While Newsom will be working for Twitter upon graduation, he looks forward to continuing SamPack as a side project 鈥� and it won鈥檛 be his only entrepreneurial venture. His team from the entrepreneurial capstone course plan to continue working on OutLoud! 听
