Information about my knowledge, in the areas of computer science, digital audio, and music.
You'll also find a short section about my foreign experience, which definitely changed my approach to life and work.

My studies at the university mainly focused on application developing, programming languages and operative systems.

For my first level degree I did a project in c++, of the duration of about three months, properly a Testing Environment for Biometric Recognition Technologies. It is a MDI application for Windows, capable of reading fingerprints from sensors produced by ST Microelectronics and connected to usb ports. Once a fingerprint is captured, the application procedes with the minutiae extraction, and saves this data in an internal database, or looks for a match among the existing records. A requirement for this application was it had to be compatible with external technologies, and to report information about the quality of different matching procedures (in terms of speed, precision, and False Acceptance Rate - False Reject Rate).

My companions and I did further software projects, which in my opinion were the most educational thing among our various courses.
The project I most enjoyed was a distributed system service we developed in c#. It was about 300k lines long, we made it in four persons and it took us about three months (working full time). It was intended to monitor all the laboratories of the scientific faculties (more than 800 machines) in order to take real-time control of the running processes, and to warn some tutors if anyone was running games or prohibited programs. It could trace every net connection opened by a user, to prevent comunication during exams. We got the maximum note, cum laude, but we know for sure that for the following years parts of that application were used to monitor us...
We started realizing how we had to work together, and how to save time... working in a group can be great if everybody is disciplined. It also happened, in some larger projects when more people were involved, that some persons didn't do their part, or made it badly without enthusiasm: a few of us had to work by night, to respect the presentation date!

The main programming languages I know, in order of decreasing preference, are surely c++, which I use to code my audio plugins, c# and Java.
It happened I had to use assembly: I know in detail the ARM (with Intel XScale extensions) and mips risc assembly, and the Intel's x86 instruction set, with its SIMD extensions.
In the past I also used to program in Visual Basic, LISP, SWI Prolog and Pascal.
I know some web-oriented languages, such as html, asp, xml, php, and the .NET family.
A companion and I used asp.net for a project we developed in 2003 for an automation industry near Milan: a web application, managing MySql databases, which allowed various categories of users, such as customers, resellers, call center aides to authenticate, request for assistance or help solving problems, navigate the detailed product list and make orders.

After my first-level degree, the specialization years that were getting going appeared to me a little idle, as the courses spanned over a myriad of little themes without focusing, and didn't seem specializing at all.
Consequently I chose to matriculate myself to the Artificial Intelligence path: it was a harder area, but this way I received a strong rational formation and a better mathematics background.
I also chose that specialization because I think a good developer should be able to interface himself with physicians and maths experts, to transform their formulas into something which can efficiently be crunched by machines.

For sake of plainness, I won't list all the other topics encountered during my studies, since I got an education which is similar to the one given by most computer science faculties.

About the 90% of what I know about digital audio comes from my personal studies and experiences; my universitary courses just fortified the mathematics background of DSP. In the plugins section you will find some applications of these studies.
Everything had origin in 1995, when I bought my first MIDI sequencer and started composing some music with it: I used to program entire bases, with every kind of instrument, to play over with my guitars; I passed so many evenings filling tracks with score views and event lists...
Until I had my loyal, oldie Cakewalk Apprentice, I neither had a visual sequencer; I remember that before I used to write series of pitch bend or modulation events all by hand, by writing values and positions with numbers. It's funny to say, that way I learnt by memory many powers of two, and the general midi controllers and instruments lists...
When some friends of mine, who were keyboard players, bought some new pieces of hardware such as Roland sound modules, I could experiment with those powerful toys by leading them from my pc.
Who ever liked those awful system exclusive messages?!

When I had my first wavetable card using system memory in place of an internal limited ram, I started making my own sound samples by sampling my electric and acoustic guitars. I did some huge bank by sampling notes about every tone and a half, with both opened and fretted strings, played at the neck or at the bridge, with cue, pizzicato or appoggiato, and programmed those layers with different scale velocities. I passed so many hours by looking for the more natural loop points, and tuning the banks with fine tuning...
Unfortunately, my house has never been properly anechoic, and my equipment was quite limited in those years, so the resulting quality wasn't enough for trading... although I had some good ideas and did my best, I only used those samples for my songs.
After my guitar soundbanks, it was the turn of synths: I was absorbed by resonant filters. Behind various pads and basses I would have early archived, I'm still proud of some saw lead instrument I did; I only used a sampled saw period, and added all the timbrical embellishments with filters and layers, everything was velocity sensitive and sounded so strong...

Later I would have used some good 'gears', just in those recording studios my bands and I used to go rehearsing.
I personally prefer analog mixers, I could appreciate some Soundcraft models, but at the moment it's easier to find in the studios (specially in the little ones) digital hardware, it's cheaper and more manageable: I made some mix for my band with a Mackie D8B linked with a couple of Macs, running Pro Tools.
I really have to thank my friends diplomed at the SAE, in Milan, who gave me the possibility to use a valid equipment for some music project I had in my head. In their semi-professional studio they exhibited a pc with a good assortment of audio softwares, provided with a Creamworks Pulsar audio card and Event 2020 nearfield monitors, plus a little but versatile Behringer mixer.
In their little studio I conceived some new tracks, in which I play my guitar over my midi scores, which sound through a couple of good software samplers.
In some of those tracks, I also used some of my plugins in the effect chain.
During my experiences in the studios, I could dig deeply into workstations such as Cubase, Pro Tools, Sonar and Nuendo: the latter is my favourite one, and it's also the one I used for my tracks in Milan.

I've been playing guitars for many years. For seven years, at my music school they taught me classic pieces and exercices by artists such as Carulli, Giuliani and Sor, while I was studying by myself electric guitar technique, focusing on rock and blues.
I have always been influenced by these two styles, but for sure I'd like to play every music genre on the Earth! During the years I've played in many bands, and in each of them I played a different genre: I started off with rock contamined by the 80's metal, to continue with crossover, pop rock and blues. Recently I've discovered my passion for jazz and in particular for fusion. I like mixing electronic sounds with standard instruments.

Playing the guitar isn't the only way I know to make music and to express myself. While practicing on my instrument, I also studied how to arrange rhythm tracks, orchestral sections, or synth riffs: the midi world gave me this opportunity, and during countless hours I tried to reproduce with the sequencer the arrangements of my favourite cds... It's really interesting to understand how the real instrument works, and obtain a quite realistic mood out of a sampled representation of it.

Since I felt the need to speed up sequencing, I bought a semi-pro midi master keyboard, five octaves and dynamics sensitive, but since I'm not so good at it as I'd like, I still have to refine my recordings with the sequencer's piano roll view... anyway it's a great tool to fix new ideas rapidly, test new sound banks, and increase productivity.

I spent my last academic year in Seville (ES). A companion and I gained our university's economic support and we had the opportunity to discover a new way to work, in that beautiful foreign city.
The computer science faculty of the Real University of Seville has a particular teaching tradition, it's half way between the United States method and the Italian one: we had never did so many laboratory practices before, and also received a good theorical foundation.
The subject I most enjoyed was that of Language Processors: there, the entire course leaded to the creation of a fully working compiler, while in Italy we would have only studied the theory which stays behind it...
It's funny to see how our italian friends took joke of us, by saying we stayed in vacation during an entire year... they don't even imagine how is giving exams in a foreign language, or making the habit to a working method which is totally distinct from ours, and competing to mantain the high note average we already had. In Seville, most exams of the engeneering faculty have a total duration of about ten hours, spanned in three or four dates, plus the time necessary to prepare a laboratory project...

Of course we also had the time of our lives! We used to spend about eight hours per day in the faculty, among courses, practices and study, but in the evening, during the weekends and the vacation periods, we knew great friends from different countries and went exploring with them that wonderful land... It was really difficult to come back, because the hard work was totally repaid by friendship, and by the freedom we had (though we weren't aware yet!).
I suggest everyone to try and win the university's support as we did, and to go abroad, no matters where. What matters is that you will change the way you face life, unlock your limits and minimize your aversions.

I learnt Spanish, and discovered how good is to be able to communicate properly with stranger people: there I've also discovered a passion I have for the German language, and now I'm attending a course.
I'd really like having, in the future, some working experiences abroad.