What is CodeBass?

“Music speaks what cannot be expressed, soothes the mind & gives it rest, heals the heart & makes it whole, flows from Heaven to the soul.”

One sunny day in late May 2010, I made the spontaneous decision to head down to NCDevCon. While there, I sat in on the “Hands On Flex 101″ taught by Ben Farrell, Adrian Pomilio, and Kevin Schmidt. For Ben’s portion of the program, he discussed Audio Manipulation in Flash / Flex during which he demonstrated a music player he had written.  I was also aware of the fact that, two days hence, Matt Gifford would be giving a presentation at Scotch on the Rocks 2010 called “Getting Started with Adobe AIR” during which he, too, would be demonstrating a music player he’d developed. I went into research mode to discover that neither of these guys knew of the other. How can two people with such similar interests be giving parallel presentations at major Adobe community conferences within two days of each other and not be aware of this? In spite that the two conferences lay across the pond from one another, this seemed almost tragic to me.  I moved about the rest of the day with this knowledge in my head.

That night at the networking event, I met Travis Makarowski (@headsplode) with whom I talked some shop. He casually mentioned a side project he’d started awhile back to help his wife manage an online radio station. Having been interested in live streaming myself for awhile now, I sat down with Travis the next day to look at his project. Turns out he’d written a fully featured ColdFusion CMS from the ground up called Canned Radio that is actively managing several streams as we speak! Wow. How had I not heard of this project?

Upon returning to work, I started talking to my friend and co-worker, Matt LeGrand, to find out he had also dabbled with developing around music. I’d worked with Matt for just under two years, and yet somehow this topic never came up.

In Search of Something

I had gone to NCDevCon in search of something. As a ColdFusion developer, I’ve been somewhat involved with the Adobe community at large for quite some time. However, over the past year or two, several great experiences have led to what I call my “community catharsis”. I desired to get more involved with the Adobe community, and I love to inspire people.  I was not entirely sure the direction in which I was headed with this.  I am also an avid music lover who has been consistently involved with music and musicians on varying levels throughout my life, from playing the piano during my youth to helping various local bands along the way via management and web development.  As the events above unfolded before me, it hit me like an anvil what had to be done.

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With that, CodeBass was born.

Where kindred spirits connect via music & Adobe tech

As I set out to contact my various muses for content, I was thrilled with the enthusiasm I encountered. Today, I am kicking off with features on both Matt LeGrand and Matt Gifford. Ben Farrell and Travis Makarowski are also in the queue! James Allen, who did the voice drops scattered here and there, will eventually showcase his work with Adobe Audition. There are others I’ve reached out to who seem eager to contribute. I hope you will enjoy getting to know these fine folks as much as I have!

What do I hope to accomplish? Name it. If this blog serves only to highlight one talented person after another, I’d consider it a worthwhile endeavor. My ultimate fantasy would see community collaborations occur that result in some killer projects. Perhaps there could be CodeBass Birds of a Feather gatherings to complement conferences down the line. If it brings attention to Adobe technologies from those outside the community, that would be icing on this cake.

If you would like to know how you can be involved, check out the ABOUT page for a rundown of content. Then, contact me via the CONTRIBUTE CONTENT form. Suggestions and nominations also welcome!