Meet The Team
Helen Georgopoulos
Manager
Glen Kappel
Research and Design
Mike Sliwinski
Software Developer and Designer
Peter Slack
Senior Software Developer – Consultant
Our Story
WaveDNA was founded in Toronto in 2010 by Douglas Mummenhoff and David Beckford. Their vision was to create virtual instruments that dramatically streamline the composition process for songwriters, producers, and composers.
Their story began in the late ‘80’s when Dave noticed the gap between the then recently created standard of MIDI and traditional musical notation. Neither was capable of capturing the performances modern technology had afforded musicians, DJ’s, and producers. David is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, digital audio editor, programmer, and former Technical Director at U of T’s music cognition lab. Dave offers a unique skill set to bear on the effort to bridge the notation gap.
By 2009, Dave had developed a working prototype of what would drive Liquid Rhythm. This engine allowed him to analyze musical compositions. It can isolate and catalog unique rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic characteristics, and recall those elements without sheet music, multi-track recorders, or live musicians. At that time, both he and Doug were working on a project related to the Ryerson’s Emoti-Chair Project. This effort was spearheaded by the university’s CLT and SMART labs. They were developing a technology that would enable the hearing impaired to experience music using their other senses.
Doug was an early adopter of digital technology with extensive experience as a website developer and IT manager. He immediately recognized the potential of Dave’s analysis engine and shortly thereafter the two founded WaveDNA. Their intent was to apply Dave’s invention to innovative software solutions that would enable musicians to achieve their vision quickly and easily, which informed the company’s philosophy of designing intuitive virtual instruments that inspire the creative process.
The Founders
Doug Mummenhoff: (right)
Doug’s experience in IT, as well as in web and multimedia development dates back to 1995. Doug has implemented enterprise infrastructure and application development for various technology and marketing firms. Doug’s personal interests include music creation software, 3-D modeling, and animation.
Dave Beckford: (left)
Dave’s fascination with cognitive psychology and passion for music are the cornerstones of his brainchild: the Music Molecule. This technology drives the engine behind Liquid Rhythm. He has a longtime love for the emotional expression in music and the relative nuances of performance. This has driven him to research new ways for musicians to communicate with these elements through their music software.
Associations
WaveDNA is proud to be a member of the following organizations.
Proudly Supported by CMF since 2015.
Member of NAMM since 2012.
Member of MusikMesse since 2012.
Member of IMSTA since 2013.
Member of CMA since 2014.
Additional Support by NSERC
Collaborative Partner since 2009.
External Credits
To make Liquid Rhythm possible, we had to depend on the hard work and dedication of many amazing people and organizations. We are greatly thankful to the entire open source community which provides the bedrock we depend upon to create new software. We would like to thank the following organizations for their direct or indirect contributions. Whether it was software libraries, code snippets or images and icons, they are the shoulders we stand upon. List in no particular order.
- SomeRandomDude
- Swingx
- TrueLicense
- XStream