Inventing a Practical Use for a Liberal Arts Education
ALB candidate James Cann featured in Wire about his new music recording invention
James Cann
After working at biotechnology and videogame companies in Silicon Valley, James Cann decided the next chapter in his life would be enhanced personally and professionally by completing his undergraduate degree. Every student has a unique journey on the road to gaining and making use of their Harvard Extension School education. Cann put his newly acquired skills and knowledge into practice by inventing a technology that solves a major problem in music production. Last August, Cann filed a provisional patent application for BionicFX, which turns a 3D video card into an audio effect processor.
Cann turned to making music as a creative outlet and source of relaxation. His father is a jazz recording artist who has played with Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, and many other well-known musicians. The cultural influence of music at home developed into a deep appreciation for and interest in music that he nurtures when time permits. Cann records and distributes music CDs to friends and admits, “in the process, I discovered many of the very real limitations of producing music on a personal computer.” For example, even the fastest PC cannot keep up with the demands of many layered audio effects in multitrack recording. Knowing the graphics chip on the 3D card, normally used to render video games, was sitting idle while making music, he started researching ways to use the video chip as a digital signal processor. Cann developed software that turns digital sound into graphics, then runs audio algorithms against the video textures on the 3D chip. The resulting shaded pixels are decoded back into audio with the sound effect applied. This technique of offloading to the video card frees the CPU to perform other tasks in the music software.
Cann attributes his ability to solve this technical problem to the education he is receiving at Harvard Extension School. “I have spent the past two years learning how to absorb large amounts of complex ideas and information, and then synthesize meaning to find solutions to real-world problems. It’s exactly what I hoped to gain when pursuing a liberal arts education, and the outcome of my research is very similar to the focused efforts required in the classroom,” he explains. The goal in the case of BionicFX is not to maintain honors grades required to remain in good standing as a degree candidate but to achieve commercial success—a practical use of his liberal arts education.
In order to save thousands of dollars in legal fees when applying for a patent Cann studied the terminology, format, and structure required at the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), then wrote the initial application himself—a task he felt confident in undertaking by applying skills learned in expository writing courses. “I had to explain clearly and concisely exactly how the technology works,” he says. “The process was no different than the extremely challenging exercise of writing an exposé where you extract ideas from literature through close readings, develop a thesis and set of claims which reflect your interpretation, then present evidence to support those claims.” The USPTO approved Cann’s provisional patent application in September 2004.
The first audio effect using BionicFX technology is a type of reverberation, which gives music a subtle, rich, and warm echo. The echo is generated in the software by using impulse responses, which are audio recordings of starter pistols fired inside concert halls and auditoriums. The software combines an instrument track with the impulse response through a mathematical process called convolution. The resulting piano, voice, or guitar track sounds exactly like it was recorded in the environment of the impulse response.
In April, Cann was granted permission to capture the impulse response of Memorial Church in Harvard Yard. As unique as snowflakes, impulse responses create an acoustical fingerprint of the building where the file is recorded. Architecture in Harvard Yard is traditionally preserved by historians through photographs, documents, and artifacts; Cann’s efforts add new types of information and data to the archives at the University. The impulse response files will be made available to ambiophonic and academic researchers interested in the architecture of Harvard, as well as to musicians around the world who want to record songs that sound like they were performed here in Cambridge.
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