Instrument Designer

Once an instrument’s samples are recorded (or a synthesizer/effect plugin’s concept is decided), that’s where the Instrument Designer steps in. An Instrument Designer’s job is to use Gorilla Editor and Gorilla Script to develop the “sonic core” of an instrument. By “sonic core” we mean anything relating to an instrument’s sound or playability but not things like the user interface, installer, copy protection, etc. Instrument Designers can also be called on to build custom functionality that helps bring an instrument to life, like key-switching, round-robin sample selection or other behavior.

An ideal Instrument Designer candidate has advanced knowledge of plugins and virtual instruments (i.e., is a producer or recording musician) and understands concepts like MIDI messages, working with samples, signal flow, etc. Instrument Designers will also benefit from having experience with scripting in Kontakt KSP, as it is very similar to scripting in Gorilla Script. The differences can generally be learned on-the-job. The examples in the SDK provide plenty of resources to get started.

Day-to-day responsibilities:

As part of your job, you will support and shape…

Communication with product owner(s) to come up with the perfect instrument.
Designing instruments in Gorilla Editor.
Scripting functionality using Gorilla Scripting language.
Communication with the Application Scripter, product owners and beta testers to fix bugs and find solutions to issues.

Detailed examples what an Instrument Designer might do day-to-day:

Work with a Product Owner or Product Designer to import raw audio samples into Gorilla Editor and arrange the samples in a way that best serves the instrument. The Instrument Designer may look at the block diagram of a synthesizer or effect plugin in order to set up the sonic core inside Gorilla Engine using all the provided building blocks.
Plugins built with Gorilla Engine can have literally hundreds of detailed parameters (filter cutoff, crossfader, on/off switch, etc.) It’s usually not necessary to expose all parameters to end users, so the Instrument Designer uses Gorilla Script to expose the right kind of controls and to set the minimum/maximum ranges of those controls so that they stay in a “sweet spot” and produce musically interesting for customers.
Use Gorilla Script to develop custom functionality that makes the instrument more useful, unique and fun to play. For example, an orchestral library might have key switches to instantly switch between different articulations or a guitar/bass instrument may have fret buzzes or slides automatically thrown in when certain playing conditions are met.

Your Profile:

You have knowledge about Sampling, Synthesizers and Plugins. Ideally, you have developed an instrument in the past (in any platform).

Basic knowledge in Audio Engineering
Experience in instrument scripting i.e Kontakt script
Experience working with samples (mapping, layering, etc.)
Background Knowledge on different musical instruments and how they work
Experience with DAWs like Cubase and Logic etc.

Not required, but a plus:

Strong music theory background (keys, scales, rhythms, etc.)
Knowledge of synthesis methods (subtractive, wavetable, granular, etc.)
Knowledge of instrument sampling

Not required, but it’s icing on the cake if you have skills in the following:

JSON and YAML
Node.js and Javascript