Introducing Pete Goodliffe, an accomplished leader and innovator in the music technology industry. As the CTO of inMusic Brands, Pete leverages his expertise in software development, product design, and team management to drive cutting-edge solutions across various platforms. A long-time partner of zplane, Pete has been instrumental in fostering a successful collaboration between our companies. Today, we have the privilege of interviewing Pete to gain insights into his journey within the music industry, his experiences leading inMusic Brands, and his perspective on the partnership with zplane.
– Pete, we’re delighted to have you here today. Let’s start by delving into your background in the music industry. Could you tell us what first attracted you to this field and how your journey has progressed throughout your career?
- I’m a musician and a geek, and I’ve always tried to merge my two great passions. Working in this industry is incredibly fun, and a huge blessing one should never take for granted!
- I started working at the codeface, always around media projects, moved through architecture and product design, and now run departments of hugely talented folks, enabling them to create the best work of their lives. And I still keep my hand in, working on code.
- All of these various roles have been about just one thing – making awesome instruments that users love. I can’t imagine doing anything else.
– As the CTO of inMusic Brands, you oversee multiple companies and brands. How do you ensure that each brand’s unique identity and technological advancements are maintained while fostering collaboration and synergy within the inMusic family?
- Our inMusic engineering team powers products for brands such as Akai, Moog, Alesis, Denon, Rane, Numark, HeadRush, and more. inMusic’s secret weapon is the ability to share development platforms (both hardware and software) between brands, and creating technology that can be reused across multiple product lines.
- But technology alone is not enough; each of the products we make must speak to the individual musician and be meaningful, powerful, simple, and fun to use.
- We have an incredible team of product designers who understand how to make the technology humane, and how to craft exceptional experiences. In this regard, the technology we use fades into the background, and the musician’s experience is what we focus on.
– The partnership between zplane and inMusic Brands has resulted in the successful integration of our STEMS PRO algorithm in various products. Could you share your thoughts on the impact this collaboration has had on the music production landscape?
- We love working with zplane! Your tech sounds excellent, and it’s always been a great experience working with you. STEMS, in particular, has been a wonderful project – we’ve been collaborating on this for a long time now, and we’re excited to be able to bring your excellent stem separation to both desktop software and embedded hardware devices.
- STEMS enables audio separation facilities in product lines where this has never been seen before. Stems in a standalone grove box is a game changer!
– The MPC community has shown immense enthusiasm for the STEMS PRO algorithm. How does user feedback from passionate communities like MPC influence your decision-making when planning future product developments?
- We are always listening to our users, and trying to delight them. We’re fortunate that all our products have a passionate user base, and almost all of our development team are users ourselves.
- We’re excited to be able to bring stems to life for our passionate MPC customers directly on a hardware device.
Thank you for chatting with us, Pete. We look forward to the next collaboration with inMusic Brands.