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Howard Allen (Hal) Chamberlin, Jr. is an American audio engineer, writer and long distance cyclist from North Carolina, most widely known as the author of the book Musical Applications of Microprocessors.
In the 1970s while still at school he built an analog electronic music synthesizer and then a 16 bit computer from surplus IBM 1620 core memories to control it. [1] [2]
He was awarded an MSc in Communication Engineering from NCSU in 1973. The subject of his thesis was the design of a digital music synthesizer utilising an organ keyboard and a Tektronix 453 oscilloscope for a graphics display. [2]
In November 1974 together with others began The Computer Hobbyist magazine. [3]
In 1977 he first published wavetable synthesis in Byte's September 1977 issue [4] and together with David B. Cox started Micro Technology Unlimited. [5] At Micro Technology Unlimited, in 1981, he designed the 6502-based MTU-130/140 microcomputer [6] and the Digisound-16 an early digital to analog converter.
His seminal book Musical Applications of Microprocessors was first published in 1979. [5] [7] [8]
In 1986 he left MTU to work for Kurzweil Music Systems where he remained in one engineering role or another until retirement in 2014. [5] [8] While there amongst other projects he designed the Kurzweil K150 [9]
Audio signal processing is a subfield of signal processing that is concerned with the electronic manipulation of audio signals. Audio signals are electronic representations of sound waves—longitudinal waves which travel through air, consisting of compressions and rarefactions. The energy contained in audio signals is typically measured in decibels. As audio signals may be represented in either digital or analog format, processing may occur in either domain. Analog processors operate directly on the electrical signal, while digital processors operate mathematically on its digital representation.
Computer music is the application of computing technology in music composition, to help human composers create new music or to have computers independently create music, such as with algorithmic composition programs. It includes the theory and application of new and existing computer software technologies and basic aspects of music, such as sound synthesis, digital signal processing, sound design, sonic diffusion, acoustics, electrical engineering and psychoacoustics. The field of computer music can trace its roots back to the origins of electronic music, and the first experiments and innovations with electronic instruments at the turn of the 20th century.
An electronic musical instrument or electrophone is a musical instrument that produces sound using electronic circuitry. Such an instrument sounds by outputting an electrical, electronic or digital audio signal that ultimately is plugged into a power amplifier which drives a loudspeaker, creating the sound heard by the performer and listener.
Digital music technology encompasses digital instruments, computers, electronic effects units, software, or digital audio equipment by a performer, composer, sound engineer, DJ, or record producer to produce, perform or record music. The term refers to electronic devices, instruments, computer hardware, and software used in performance, playback, recording, composition, mixing, analysis, and editing of music.
A music sequencer is a device or application software that can record, edit, or play back music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically CV/Gate, MIDI, or Open Sound Control (OSC), and possibly audio and automation data for DAWs and plug-ins.
Wavetable synthesis is a sound synthesis technique used to create periodic waveforms. Often used in the production of musical tones or notes, it was first written about by Hal Chamberlin in Byte's September 1977 issue. Wolfgang Palm of Palm Products GmbH (PPG) developed it in the late 1970s and published in 1979. The technique has since been used as the primary synthesis method in synthesizers built by PPG and Waldorf Music and as an auxiliary synthesis method by Ensoniq and Access. It is currently used in hardware synthesizers from Waldorf Music and in software-based synthesizers for PCs and tablets, including apps offered by PPG and Waldorf, among others.
The Kansas City standard (KCS), or Byte standard, is a way of storing digital data on standard cassette tapes at a data rate of 300 bits per second. It originated in a symposium sponsored by Byte magazine in November 1975 in Kansas City, Missouri to develop a standard for the storage of digital microcomputer data on inexpensive consumer quality cassettes. The first systems based on the standard appeared in 1976.
A digitally controlled oscillator or DCO is used in synthesizers, microcontrollers, and software-defined radios. The name is analogous with "voltage-controlled oscillator." DCOs were designed to overcome the tuning stability limitations of early VCO designs.
The history of computing hardware starting at 1960 is marked by the conversion from vacuum tube to solid-state devices such as transistors and then integrated circuit (IC) chips. Around 1953 - 1959, discrete transistors started being considered sufficiently reliable and economical that they made further vacuum tube computers uncompetitive. Metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) large-scale integration (LSI) technology subsequently led to the development of semiconductor memory in the mid-to-late 1960s and then the microprocessor in the early 1970s. This led to primary computer memory moving away from magnetic-core memory devices to solid-state static and dynamic semiconductor memory, which greatly reduced the cost, size, and power consumption of computers. These advances led to the miniaturized personal computer (PC) in the 1970s, starting with home computers and desktop computers, followed by laptops and then mobile computers over the next several decades.
Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) was an American electronics company founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico that began manufacturing electronic calculators in 1971 and personal computers in 1975.
The Rockwell AIM-65 computer was a development computer introduced in 1978 based on the MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor. The AIM-65 was essentially an expanded KIM-1 computer. Available software included a line-oriented machine code monitor, BASIC interpreter, assembler, Pascal, PL/65, and FORTH development system. Available hardware included a floppy disk controller and a backplane for expansion.
Kurzweil Music Systems is an American company that produces electronic musical instruments. It was founded in 1982 by Stevie Wonder (musician), Ray Kurzweil (innovator) and Bruce Cichowlas.
Sequential is an American synthesizer company founded in 1974 as Sequential Circuits by Dave Smith. In 1978, Sequential released the Prophet-5, the first programmable polyphonic synthesizer, used by artists including Michael Jackson, Madonna, and John Carpenter. In the 1980s, Sequential was pivotal to the development of MIDI, a technical standard for connecting electronic instruments.
David M. Smith is an American engineer and musician and founder of the synthesizer company Sequential. Smith was responsible for the first commercial polyphonic and microprocessor-controlled synthesizer, the Prophet-5, and later the multitimbral synthesizer. He is also referred to as the "Father of MIDI" for his role in the development of MIDI, now a standard interface protocol for electronic instruments and recording/pro audio equipment.
An analog modeling synthesizer is a synthesizer that generates the sounds of traditional analog synthesizers using DSP components and software algorithms. Analog modeling synthesizers simulate the behavior of the original electric and electronic circuitry in order to digitally replicate their tone.
The TV Typewriter is a video terminal that could display two pages of 16 lines of 32 upper case characters on a standard television set. The design, by Don Lancaster, appeared on the cover of Radio-Electronics magazine in September 1973.
The history of the personal computer as a mass-market consumer electronic device began with the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s. A personal computer is one intended for interactive individual use, as opposed to a mainframe computer where the end user's requests are filtered through operating staff, or a time-sharing system in which one large processor is shared by many individuals. After the development of the microprocessor, individual personal computers were low enough in cost that they eventually became affordable consumer goods. Early personal computers – generally called microcomputers – were sold often in electronic kit form and in limited numbers, and were of interest mostly to hobbyists and technicians.
Throughout its lengthy, multi-model lifespan, the Apple II series computers lacked any serious built-in sound capabilities. At the time of its release in 1977, this did not distinguish it from its contemporaries, but by 1982, it shared the market with several sound-equipped competitors such as the Commodore 64, whose SID chip could produce sophisticated multi-timbral music and sound effects.
Byte was an American microcomputer magazine, influential in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s because of its wide-ranging editorial coverage. Whereas many magazines were dedicated to specific systems or the home or business users' perspective, Byte covered developments in the entire field of "small computers and software", and sometimes other computing fields such as supercomputers and high-reliability computing. Coverage was in-depth with much technical detail, rather than user-oriented. Byte started in 1975, shortly after the first personal computers appeared as kits advertised in the back of electronics magazines. Byte was published monthly, with an initial yearly subscription price of $10. Print publication ceased in 1998 and online publication in 2013.
The timeline of music technology provides the major dates in the history of electric music technologies inventions from the 1800s to the early 1900s and electronic and digital music technologies from 1917 and electric music technologies to the 2010s.