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Apple Continues Beefing Up Digital Audio Expertise by Hiring Dana Massie From Audience

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Apple is continuing to expand its digital audio expertise with the recent addition of digital signal processing (DSP) expert Dana Massie to its team as an SoC Audio Architect. Massie has over 30 years of extensive experience working with DSP hardware and software architecture with high-profile companies such as Audience and Waves, as well as prior brief stints at Apple and NeXT.

dana-massie-linkedin.png
While at Audience for the past nine years, Massie was the Director of DSP chip architecture, focused on developing "the most advanced audio processing algorithms available for speech enhancement." Massie also formerly worked at Apple starting in 2002 as the manager of audio hardware. In his year-long stint, Massie was responsible for the audio input/output system on Apple desktops and notebooks.

Apple and Audience have a history of working together, with Apple licensing Audience's voice processing technology to use in its iPhone 4 and 4s. The Cupertino company used a standalone voice processing chip from Audience in the iPhone 4 and opted to incorporate this signal processing functionality directly into the A5 chip used in the iPhone 4s. Audience's earSmart noise cancellation technology was a key component powering Siri in the iPhone 4s.

massie-linkedin-experience.png
Massie joined Apple this month as an SoC Audio Architect following a six-week sabbatical upon leaving Audience. It's unclear what his exact duties at Apple will involve, as Massie not surprisingly only says he will work on "audio stuff" in his LinkedIn profile. Given his work history, Massie may be tasked with improving either voice recognition technology or audio quality in upcoming Apple hardware.

Massie joins other audio pioneers employed by Apple in recent years. The growing list includes Audio expert Peter Eastty of Oxford Digital Limited who was hired earlier this year and THX pioneer Tomlinson Holman who joined Apple in 2011.

(Thanks, Manu!)

Article Link: Apple Continues Beefing Up Digital Audio Expertise by Hiring Dana Massie From Audience
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/12/08/apple-dana-massie-dsp-audience/
Massie also did a lot of work for E-Mu Systems, a company that was a pioneer in electronic synths, keyboard samplers, sample-based drum machines. And also worked for NeXT Computer, Inc. for a while.
 
Do you remember when Apple was in a dispute over the Macintosh name and agreed not to make "great audio" since the other company was the high end HiFi hardware firm McIntosh?

Apple paid McIntosh a settlement that allowed both to go forward in audio reproduction. Now Apple is dominant in digital audio capture, edit, reproduction, and distribution. Hiring every major recognized expert too.

McIntosh continues to be a leader in analog audio reproduction, the very style of music Steve Jobs himself preferred, as do I.

http://www.mcintoshlabs.com/us/Pages/Home.aspx#

Rocketman
 
Nothing really major has happened in the world of sound or DSP for a while now. I wonder what all the acquisition of talent is building up to.
 
MH01 said:
Guy is highly skilled and experienced, does not mean he can work miracles!
Click to expand...

On the contrary, if all the complaints of Beats audio quality are to be believed, it would only be difficult to make them sound worse.

Full disclosure: I have never actually used Beats headphones, so this is just based on hearsay.
 
a 6 week sabbatical! wowies!

is just calling it 'vacation' or 'in between jobs' not hip enough on linkedin?
 
MH01 said:
Guy is highly skilled and experienced, does not mean he can work miracles!
Click to expand...

Well, Massie was one of the guys (from E-Mu Systems) that Creative Labs, the makers of what was then the very crappy SoundBlaster soundcards, brought in, so he helped Creative get started down the path of making better sounding soundcards and other audio devices. People familiar with Soundblaster "quality" from the 1980s probably view that a as "miracle." ;)
 
So audio is coming along... what about TV and my almost useless Apple TV.
 
I would love to see the management structure at Apple. More than just SVPs who report to Tim Cook but the design team who report to Ive, the Tram who report to Eddy Cue etc
 
The only way they will get me serious about buying their music is when they start giving us the ability/option to download CD quality or higher audio files. Hopefully this is another step in the right direction.
 
ee4life said:
On the contrary, if all the complaints of Beats audio quality are to be believed, it would only be difficult to make them sound worse.

Full disclosure: I have never actually used Beats headphones, so this is just based on hearsay.
Click to expand...

Well, current "hearsay" has changed on this subject, latest products are competitive in good audio (without being the best).
 
Audio Effort

It's hard to see how these hires benefit Apple from an audio standpoint. Both Massie and Eastty are primarily data guys. And Tomlinson Holman isn't really anything. His THX program collapsed as everyone discovered the process had no real technical underpinnings. Holman's not even an engineer, but more of a marketing self-promoter. He's loathed by the real engineers on staff at Apple and is more of a liability.

I would guess Apple is working to optimize their iTunes and other streaming products for efficiency and ease of transmission. There is no evidence that Apple is doing (or able to do) anything related to actual audio reproduction as they've yet to hire anyone knowledgable in acoustics.
 
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