About
Reel Audio Instruments produces music-making software for macOS and Windows. These are virtual-instrument and effect “plug-ins” for use inside a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) host application.
James Hurst is responsible for everything you see here, from product inception and graphic design through to DSP and all programming (including any bugs). He dislikes writing about himself in the third person, yet here we are.
James has been an occasionally professional musician and audio engineer since the mid 1990s. He has appeared on several albums, countless television and radio programmes, numerous festival stages and possibly at your local dive bar. He was the guitarist of UK pop group North & South, which enjoyed a brief yet baffling amount of success around 1997. He has been a member of London based psych juggernaut Lola Colt since 2010.
His engineering and production credits include multiple albums by both Lola Colt and Ruth Theodore, as well as recording / mixing for artists including Marcus Hamblett, Saint Agnes and Angélica Salvi. He has worked with multi-instrumentalist Jim Sclavunos of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and attended masterclasses with Steve Albini, Michael Brauer and David Kahn.
On a parallel timeline he has accumulated 25 years of professional experience as a software engineer, including a stint at the music technology start-up ROLI.
Originally from London, he now lives in Porto, Portugal, where he continues to try to balance his interest in music, software engineering and drinking beers in the sun. It’s trickier than it sounds.