Prosoniq Products Software was a German software developer of

audio Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound *Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound *Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum * Digital audio, representation of soun ...

and

music Music is generally defined as the The arts, art of arranging sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Exact definition of music, definitions of mu ...

tools, mostly known for their sonicWORX, OrangeVocoder, TimeFactory and

Hartmann Neuron The Hartmann Neuron was an electronic musical instrument designed and built by industry designer Axel Hartmann of the German company Hartmann Music in the years 2001–2005. The Neuron synthesizer used an Artificial Neural Network to create a di ...

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis ...

products. It also licensed proprietary technologies in the audio/music

DSP DSP may refer to: Computing * Digital signal processing, the mathematical manipulation of an information signal * Digital signal processor, a microprocessor designed for digital signal processing * Yamaha DSP-1, a proprietary digital signal ...

sector to software manufacturers including

Emagic Emagic was a music software and hardware company based in Rellingen, Germany and a satellite office in Grass Valley, California. On July 1, 2002 Emagic was bought by Apple Computer. Emagic's Windows-based product offerings were discontinued o ...

Steinberg Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH (trading as Steinberg) is a German musical software and hardware company based in Hamburg. It develops music writing, recording, arranging, and editing software, most notably Cubase, Nuendo, and Dorico. It als ...

Digidesign Avid Audio (formerly Digidesign) is an American digital audio technology company. It was founded in 1984 by Peter Gotcher and Evan Brooks. The company began as a project to raise money for the founders' band, selling EPROM chips for drum mac ...

, TwelveTone Systems, Merging, DAVID,

AutoDesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered ...

/Discreet and others. Headquartered in

Karlsruhe Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian German, South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, third-largest city of the German States of Germany, state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital o ...

, Germany, Prosoniq pioneered the use of

artificial neural network Artificial neural networks (ANNs), usually simply called neural networks (NNs) or neural nets, are computing systems inspired by the biological neural networks that constitute animal brains. An ANN is based on a collection of connected units ...

s for commercial audio processing.

Company history

Prosoniq was founded in 1990 by Stephan Sprenger (later married as Stephan Bernsee). It began as a privately held company involved in artificial neural network software development for medical applications. Stephan Bernsee, being a music enthusiast and an avid keyboard player, became interested in the application of artificial neural network processing to sound manipulation. He created an automatic audio

morphing Morphing is a special effect in motion pictures and animations that changes (or morphs) one image or shape into another through a seamless transition. Traditionally such a depiction would be achieved through dissolving techniques on film. Sinc ...

software for the ATARI 1040ST which was later ported to the

Silicon Graphics Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and soft ...

computers and ultimately to the

Apple Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software ...

, for which it was sold under the name " sonicWORX" from 1994 to 2004. Distributed by

and bundled with

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

and

Creative Labs Creative Technology Ltd. is a Singaporean multinational technology company headquartered with overseas offices in Shanghai, Tokyo, Dublin, and Silicon Valley (where in the US it is known as Creative Labs). The principal activities of the compa ...

hardware, sonicWORX reportedly reached a distribution of over 500,000 copies quickly becoming the most successful product of the company. However, with the PC becoming more popular in the 1990s and sonicWORX being an

-only software specifically optimized for

Mac OS 9 Mac OS 9 is the ninth major release of Apple's classic Mac OS operating system which was succeeded by Mac OS X (renamed to OS X in 2011 and macOS in 2016) in 2001. Introduced on October 23, 1999, it was promoted by Apple as "The Best Internet ...

it was finally discontinued in 2004. In 1993, the company was acquired by the rapidly growing Under Cover Music Group (UCMG), founded by Joachim Keil, who drew benefits from custom tailored software solutions for their music production facilities and in turn provided funding for the future research and development of Prosoniq. In 1995, the UCMG network had outgrown its company structure and was split into individual subsidiaries - Prosoniq became a separate company again. This was when

Bernhard Bouché Bernhard is both a given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include: Given name *Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar (1604–1639), Duke of Saxe-Weimar *Bernhard, Prince of Saxe-Meiningen (1901–1984), head of the House of Saxe-Meiningen 1946 ...

, a former colleague of Stephan Bernsee, joined the company. Both filled the position as CEO and CTO from 1995 to 2004. In 2003, the UCMG who at that time held 54% shares in Prosoniq filed for insolvency, nearly killing Prosoniq in the process. In 2004, Stephan Bernsee retired from the daily business at Prosoniq to concentrate on the development of new technologies at th
DSP Dimension
leaving Bernhard Bouché in position as the CEO. In 2008, Prosoniq released its OrangeVocoder and audio

algorithm as a Cocoa Audio Unit plug-in, as well as a Mac OS X version of its TimeFactory time stretching and pitch shifting software, all developed by their former CTO Stephan Bernsee. At

Musik Messe Musikmesse Frankfurt was an international fair regarding the music industry that took place in Frankfurt am Main, Germany from 1980 until 2019. In 2012, 68,587 visitors and 1,512 exhibitors from 51 countries were counted. Despite an exhibitor drop ...

2009, Prosoniq announced that it would discontinue all Windows software development starting June 2009. Since Prosoniq's CEO alluded that this decision was primarily due to piracy on the Windows platform this created a lot of controversy in the blogosphere. A revised version of the press release that came out a few days later tried to make it more clear that even though piracy was a major problem on both platforms. Prosoniq also announced a successor of its sonicWORX audio editing software designed to extract, process or suppress individual sounds, notes and instruments in a song. The software got widespread coverage in the media when they demonstrated its capabilities (and potential impact on the music industry) by extracting

Peter Gabriel Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and activist. He rose to fame as the original lead singer of the progressive rock band Genesis. After leaving Genesis in 1975, he launched ...

's voice from his famous song "Don't Give Up". According to its developer, sonicWORX Pro is based on their PANDORA technology developed in 1996, which allowed automatic suppression of voice in a mono or stereo mix. Limited by the processing power of desktop computers of that era and due to contracts that gave the exclusive right of use to an unknown party, the product was never developed into a fully featured end user product until 2009. As of May 2010, Prosoniq sells a scaled down "sonicWORX Isolate" version that contains the key features demonstrated in the YouTube video at a reduced price. The Pro version with its additional modules has been announced for end of 2010. Within the first days of the

FIFA World Cup 2010 , image = 2010 FIFA World Cup.svg , size = 200px , caption = ''Ke Nako. (Tswana and Sotho for "It's time") Celebrate Africa's Humanity'It's time. Celebrate Africa's Humanity'' (English)''Dis tyd. Vier Afrika se mensd ...

, Prosoniq came out with a free "VuvuX" AudioUnit plug in to remove the Vuvuzela noise from the audio commentary without affecting speech and background atmosphere. According to their web site the plug in is not using a notch filter and is based on their sonicWORX de-mixing technology which utilizes statistical signal properties. In September 2013, Prosoniq announced that it has sold its entire line of products, intellectual property, patent rights and research data to the Hannover-based Zynaptiq startup company, who will continue to offer and maintain their products in the future. Prosoniq also entered

liquidation Liquidation is the process in accounting by which a company is brought to an end in Canada, United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, and many other countries. The assets and property of the company are redistr ...

, a process by which a company is brought to an end, and the assets and properties of the company are to be redistributed. Stephan Bernsee, founder of Prosoniq came back as CEO to oversee the process. Liquidation ended in January 2016 with the dissolution of the corporation.

Products and developments

* MCFE (Multi-Component Feature Extraction) analysis, a neural network-based adaptive time-frequency transform replacing the use of the

Discrete Fourier Transform In mathematics, the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) converts a finite sequence of equally-spaced Sampling (signal processing), samples of a function (mathematics), function into a same-length sequence of equally-spaced samples of the discre ...

in their products * automatic audio

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...

s * polyphonic

formant In speech science and phonetics, a formant is the broad spectral maximum that results from an acoustic resonance of the human vocal tract. In acoustics, a formant is usually defined as a broad peak, or local maximum, in the spectrum. For harmo ...

correction for

pitch shifting Pitch shifting is a sound recording technique in which the original pitch of a sound is raised or lowered. Effects units that raise or lower pitch by a pre-designated musical interval ( transposition) are called pitch shifters. Pitch and tim ...

applications *

PANDORA In Greek mythology, Pandora (Greek: , derived from , ''pān'', i.e. "all" and , ''dōron'', i.e. "gift", thus "the all-endowed", "all-gifted" or "all-giving") was the first human woman created by Hephaestus on the instructions of Zeus. As Hes ...

voice reduction software/vocal separator * sonicWORX audio editing software * TimeFactory polyphonic

time stretching Time stretching may refer to: * Audio time stretching and pitch scaling, in audio * Time stretching, in video * Time dilation In physics and relativity, time dilation is the difference in the elapsed time as measured by two clocks. It is ei ...

and

algorithm "MPEX" *

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower * Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum ...

Vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...

VST VST may refer to: * Vancouver School of Theology, a theological graduate school in British Columbia, Canada * VST, Stockholm Västerås Airport in Sweden (IATA airport code) * Vehicle safety technology * Virtual Studio Technology, Steinberg's stand ...

/ RTAS

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...

plug-in *

Hartmann Hartmann is a Germanic and Ashkenazi Jewish surname. It is less frequently used as a male given name. The name originates from the Germanic word, "hart", which translates in English to "hardy", "hard", or "tough" and "Mann", a suffix meaning "man", ...

Neuron A neuron, neurone, or nerve cell is an membrane potential#Cell excitability, electrically excitable cell (biology), cell that communicates with other cells via specialized connections called synapses. The neuron is the main component of nervous ...

synthesizer *

NeuronVS synthesizer *

Magenta Magenta () is a color that is variously defined as pinkish- purplish- red, reddish-purplish-pink or mauvish- crimson. On color wheels of the RGB (additive) and CMY (subtractive) color models, it is located exactly midway between red and bl ...

resynthesizer * Rayverb inverse ray tracing room simulation * Ambisone

3D audio effect 3D audio effects are a group of sound effects that manipulate the sound produced by stereo speakers, surround-sound speakers, speaker-arrays, or headphones. This frequently involves the virtual placement of sound sources anywhere in three-dimensi ...

Prosoniq morph Prosoniq Products Software was a German software developer of Sound recording and reproduction, audio and music tools, mostly known for their sonicWORX, OrangeVocoder, TimeFactory and Hartmann Neuron synthesizer products. It also licensed proprie ...

audio morphing * Dynasone Multiband Dynamics Compressor * Pyramix Time Stretching *

Cakewalk The cakewalk was a dance developed from the "prize walks" (dance contests with a cake awarded as the prize) held in the mid-19th century, generally at get-togethers on Black slave plantations before and after emancipation in the Southern Unit ...

Sonar Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances ( ranging), communicate with or detect objects on ...

Time Stretching *

Nuendo Nuendo is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed by Steinberg for music recording, arranging, editing and post-production. The package is aimed at audio and video post-production market segments (marketed as an 'Advanced Audio Post-Productio ...

Time Stretching

Hartmann Music

In 2001, "Hartmann-Music", a joint-venture spin-off with designer

Axel Hartmann The Hartmann Neuron was an electronic musical instrument designed and built by industry designer Axel Hartmann of the German company Hartmann Music in the years 2001–2005. The Neuron synthesizer used an Artificial Neural Network to create a dig ...

was founded. Some of the well known shareholders of this new company were former

Waldorf Music Waldorf Music is a German synthesizer company. They are best known for the Microwave wavetable synthesizer and Blofeld virtual analogue synthesizer. History Waldorf Electronics GmbH was founded in 1988 by Wolfgang Düren, who at the time wa ...

CEO

Wolfgang Düren Wolfgang is a German male given name traditionally popular in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The name is a combination of the Old High German words ''wolf'', meaning "wolf", and '' gang'', meaning "path", "journey", "travel". Besides the regul ...

of Design-Box and composer

Hans Zimmer Hans Florian Zimmer (; born 12 September 1957) is a German film score composer and music producer. He has won two Oscars and four Grammys, and has been nominated for two Emmys and a Tony. Zimmer was also named on the list of Top 100 Living ...

. Hartmann-Music developed the

synthesizer which was based on Prosoniq's artificial neural network technology to create "models" from sampled sounds and allow for extensive sound manipulation. Despite winnin
many awards
for innovation and havin

in the music industry Hartmann music had to file for

insolvency In accounting, insolvency is the state of being unable to pay the debts, by a person or company (debtor), at maturity; those in a state of insolvency are said to be ''insolvent''. There are two forms: cash-flow insolvency and balance-sheet in ...

in 2005 after a dispute over the product distribution rights with their former distributor.

References

{{Reflist

Company history

Products and developments

Hartmann Music

References

External links