We build Artist Apps. Releasing music in the form of apps allows music to be dynamic, interactive, and updated.
Matt Fredrickson
Matt has a passion for music and a deep interest in writing code to create new possibilities for musical artists. With over 17 years of experience as a touring rock musician with the band squint (www.squint.com), he has written on several critically acclaimed albums and has performed more than 1,000 live shows. He spent two years working as an engineer at yellow DOG Studios in Austin, TX.
Matt believes that Artist Apps are the way many musicians will be releasing songs going forward. Apps allow for intimacy between artists and fans that is simply not possible with social media sites or other websites. He believes Artist Apps also provide the opportunity to do things with songs that are simply not possible with traditional records. Songs released through apps can be dynamic, interactive, and updated. The audio can be positioned spatially over a full sphere.
In December of 2019, he will complete the VR/AR certification program from Columbia College in Chicago, including coursework in the production, development, and audio implementation of immersive experiences.
Matt continues to write music, and loves the creative similarities between crafting a song and putting together a great piece of software. His knowledge of the social landscape and needs of musicians uniquely qualifies him to develop solutions to their problems, and he loves Unity development almost as much as he relishes making loud noises with his guitar. Matt enjoys living in Chicago, drinking good beer and supporting the arts, and is most likely the first person you will talk to when contacting Volcanoes for Hire.
Ed Robinson, Ph.D.
Though he’s not an employee of Volcanoes for Hire, Ed is such an important source of knowledge and insight for VfH that it seems only appropriate to include him here.
Ed is a recovering physicist who finally saw the light and reinvented himself as a computer scientist. Already having a BS and MS in Physics, he completed his transformation by getting a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Houston while teaching programming and mathematics at its downtown campus. He then left academia to pursue real world software development landing gigs at IBM, Fannie Mae, US Army, US Department of Defense, and Binary Group. He’s worked at every level of every size of software project from a one-person in-house tool project on up to software architect of a $500M enterprise system. He’s written deliverable code in C, C++, Objective C, Java/J2EE, Python, and even Fortran for Macs, NeXT computers, PCs, assorted Unix Workstations, mainframes, and parallel computers. The bulk of his code has been for distributed and enterprise systems including several dynamic Web apps.After 25 years of teaching and consulting, Ed decided to have a mid-life crisis and went to Abbey Road Studios in London, England and 5AM Studios in Austin, Texas to record an album. Next, he bought, upgraded, and sold 5AM Studios which is now called yellow DOG Studios. Ed has since returned to the software world with a mission to create apps to improve composing, recording, and music distribution.