Joining us in conversation today is Nathan Willson all the way from Tokyo, Japan. Listeners will learn about the polyglot landscape he works in from Japan, why he believes knowing a language, and mastering it, are two different things, and what his first foray into coding looked like. We touch on the necessary evil of MIDI plugins, and Nathan introduces listeners to GEMS, how you can use it, and what he has done to make it accessible across the globe. We talk latency issues, curbing the potential for abuse, and choosing to make an app open source, before delving into Nathan’s other projects outside of GEMS, including the Elixir app, Biddy, that he built with five friends, When to Chat, and much more. Thanks for tuning in to hear from today’s inspiring guest.

Key Points From This Episode:

• An introduction to today’s guest, Nathan Willson, his Canadian-Japanese history, his obsession with Elixir, and his musical experimental app, GEMS.
• The polyglot environment in which he works which is Japanese and English.
• Why knowing a language and mastering a language are such different things.
• His first foray into coding via Reaper’s plugins.
• Why he considers MIDI to be a necessary evil.
• What GEMS, or Globally Editable Matrix Sequencer, is, and how it works.
• How Phoenix or Elixir can facilitate the use of GEMS anywhere in the world, at the same time.
• How he has approached the problem of the potential for abuse.
• Relative and absolute latency and how that impacts user experience between countries.
• Nathan’s other projects outside of GEMS, including the Elixir app, Biddy, and TreeLib.
• The app, When to Chat, that Nathan has built.
• Where he picked up his design skills with a background in back-end engineering.
• Why he prefers BandCamp to Spotify as a music listener.
• How his knowledge of Elixir has helped him to code Ruby better.
• An invitation from Nathan to reach out with what you are working on.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Tone.js — https://tonejs.github.io/
BandCamp — https://bandcamp.com/
Nathan Wilson — https://nathanwillson.com/
Nathan Willson on Twitter — https://twitter.com/nathanwillson
Nathan Willson on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/nahtanw/
GEMS — https://gems.nathanwillson.com/
What is Max? | Cycling ‘74 — https://cycling74.com/products/max
When to Chat —https://whentochat.co/
SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/

Special Guest: Nathan Willson.