The SoundDroid is an early

digital audio workstation A digital audio workstation (DAW) is an electronic device or application software used for Sound recording and reproduction, recording, editing and producing audio files. DAWs come in a wide variety of configurations from a single software pro ...

James A. Moorer James Anderson Moorer (born November 25, 1945) is a digital audio and computer music engineer, responsible for over 40 technical publications and four patents. He personally designed and wrote many of the advanced DSP algorithms for the Sonic ...

Lucasfilm Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC is an American film and television production company and a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, which is a business segment of The Walt Disney Company. The studio is best known for creating and producing the ''Star Wars'' and ' ...

between 1980 and 1987. It was a hard-disk–based,

nonlinear In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many other ...

audio editor An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproductio ...

developed on the

Audio Signal Processor The Audio Signal Processor or ASP is a large-scale digital signal processor developed by James A. Moorer at Lucasfilm's The Droid Works. He programmed a number of Digital signal processing algorithms that were used in major motion picture featu ...

(ASP), a large-scale

digital signal processor A digital signal processor (DSP) is a specialized microprocessor chip, with its architecture optimized for the operational needs of digital signal processing. DSPs are fabricated on MOS integrated circuit chips. They are widely used in audio si ...

for real-time, multichannel equalization and

audio mixing Audio mixing is the process by which multiple sounds are combined into one or more channels. In the process, a source's volume level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated or enhanced. This practical, aesthetic, ...

History

started putting together a computer division right after ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...

'' as an in-house project to build a range of digital tools for filmmaking. The audio project that became SoundDroid was done in close collaboration with the post-production division,

Sprocket Systems Skywalker Sound is the sound effects, sound editing, sound design, sound mixing and music recording division of Lucasfilm. Founded in 1975, the company's main facilities are located at George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch in Lucas Valley, near Nicasio, ...

, and later spun out as part of a joint venture called

The Droid Works ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

. Only one SoundDroid prototype was ever built and it was never commercialized.

EditDroid The EditDroid is a computerized analog non-linear editing (NLE) system which was developed by Lucasfilm spin-off company, the Droid Works and Convergence Corporation who formed a joint venture company. The company existed up through the mid-'80s ...

and SoundDroid were the beginnings of the desktop tools digital revolution.

Sonic Solutions Sonic Solutions was an American computer software company headquartered in Novato, California. In addition to having a number of offices in the U.S., the company also maintained offices in Europe and Asia. It was acquired by Rovi Corporation in 201 ...

, developed the NoNoise product from SoundDroid.

Capabilities

Complete with a trackball, touch-sensitive displays, moving faders, and a jog-shuttle wheel, the SoundDroid included programs for sound synthesis, digital reverberation, recording, editing and mixing.

References

* . * * * . Digital audio workstation software Digital signal processing Lucasfilm {{Sound-tech-stub