Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546054
120 M PS E . O R G that I thought were needed into three independent software modules: (CM note: Here is some fun geeky stuff!) Some of the genesis of the WordFit process was influenced by actual rocket science—as laid out in a RAND study written for the US Air Force by Richard Bellman on missile guidance signal processing which used a technique described as "Dynamic Signal Processing"— (Now back to our regularly scheduled programming) 1) Putting each signal through a bank of four (octave wide) filter banks to generate time-varying spectral slices. 2) Comparing the two signals changing spectra to determine how to match them together by generating a time- alignment "path" showing where to compress or expand the timeframes. 3) And lastly, using the time-alignment path to drive a careful signal editor to expand or compress the audio where it was needed. Eventually, I programmed these three stages—to run in parallel—so they could be transferred to three separate hardware-implemented processes. Once I was able to use and modify that algorithm, I found we needed to deal with the unpredictable noise in the Guide (on-set actor's recorded voice) versus the perfect quiet of the ADR studio and other real- life issues affecting the fidelity of the input audio. With these refinements in place, we started to see improving results in simulations of my alignment and editing program on the SPG computers. This development processes led to us building a prototype device which could process about five seconds of dialogue recordings in about 20 minutes(!) and led to patenting the system concept because I was petrified someone might come out with something similar before us. One next step was convincing Mayfair ADR Studio, one of the top sound facilities in London, to let us run it in parallel with their manual ADR system while we tested and developed the system further, moving our WordFit hardware prototype system (which was the size of a small refrigerator). The system at Mayfair was used on the feature films Goonies, Passage to India, Dune, Ladyhawke, and others. The WordFit system was commercially made available, at a cost of 50,000 pounds sterling. The cost made it prohibitively expensive for the sort of highly specialised processing that it did. Three of the systems were sold. Following this, Digital Audio Research WordFit