Jamie Robertson has over 28 years experience designing and deploying real-time software, hardware and embedded systems for the music technology and entertainment electronics industries, with a formal background in physics and engineering.

Career Highlights

• Designed hardware and software for milestone electronic musical instrument products, including the Synclavier Digital Music System, the Linn9000 drum machine and the 360 Systems Pro MIDI Bass.

• Developed theme park industry’s first interactive digital audio system for roller coasters and theme park rides, now a standard feature in all new major Disney rides.

• Supervised show control system installation for Disneyland Paris and EPCOT Center.

• Director of Walt Disney Imagineering R&D lab in Cambridge, MA.  Disney corporate liaison to the MIT Media Lab.

Employment History

4/04-now:       Robertsonics, Waltham, MA

                        Hardware / Software Engineering Consultant.  Design, engineering and product development.  Developed wireless USB products for recording studio environments.  Designed, programmed and installed rugged and reliable interactive music exhibits for The Boston Children's Museum and The New York Hall of Science.  Developed audio DSP hardware and algorithms for acoustic guitar effects - patent pending.

10/06-11/08:  iZotope, Inc, Cambridge MA

                        Director of Hardware and Embedded Development.  Audio digital signal processing for embedded applications.  Managed development of SHARC-based adaptive real-time noise reduction product for the professional broadcast market. Developed hardware and audio processing algorithms for SHARC, Blackfin, SigmaDSP and several versions of TMS320Cx DSP devices.  Detailed knowledge of VisualDSP, SigmaStudio and CodeComposer Studio.

10/92-4/04:    Walt Disney Imagineering R&D, Glendale, CA

                        Principal Technical Staff – Director.  Technology R&D for the Walt Disney Company.  Designed (hardware and software) proprietary on-board wavetable digital audio system for ride vehicles, now used in all new major Disney attractions.  Designed and installed binaural digital audio system for Aladdin’s Magic Carpet Virtual Reality Lab (EPCOT Center).  Designed and programmed hand-held, location-sensitive photo capture device for park guests.  Developed low-level PC plugins for internet radio venture (Go Radio).  Created Win32 interactive music engine utilizing a context sensitive digital audio mixer and a multi-path MIDI sequencer.  Developed PocketPC simulations of hand-held, IR-capable, promotional interactive TV devices (ESPN & Disney Interactive).  Developed PC-based animation and audio control system.  Designed electronic igniter for revolutionary air-launch fireworks system.  Candle flicker controller patent awarded. Director of Cambridge, MA R&D lab, with 6 researchers.

8/85-10/92:    Digital Ovations, Burlington, VT

President, Principal Engineer.  Engineering and R&D consulting group. Contract design, engineering and product development. Clients include:

360 Systems, Inc:  Hardware design and firmware for full line of professional MIDI and audio products for the broadcast and recording studio environment, including Pro MIDI Bass, MIDI Patcher, MIDI Merge+ and Audio Matrix products.

Capital Cities/ABC, Inc:  Developed a series of computerized studio rigging control systems for World News Tonight, Good Morning America and All My Children studios.

Universal Studios Florida:  Lead systems engineer for extensive redesign and installation of the Earthquake! attraction ride control system.

Disneyland Paris:  Supervised on-site installation, test and adjust for Tomorrowland attractions.  Provided park-wide support for hardware and software troubleshooting.

Dartmouth College:  Designed, built and installed a custom PC-based MIDI network communications controller for the landmark Bregman Electronic Music Studio.

8/82-8/85:      New England Digital Corporation, White River Jct, VT

                        Project Engineer – Hardware R&D Coordinator.  Hardware design for the Synclavier Digital Music System.  Projects include 76-note weighted velocity and pressure sensitive keyboard and programmable digital oscillator for 32-voice sampling system.

6/80-8/82:      Walt Disney Imagineering, Glendale, CA

                        Electronics Engineer, Sr.  Developed and installed park-wide monitoring and control systems for EPCOT Center and Tokyo Disneyland.  Designed portable animation system for Audio Animatronic™ figure programming.

6/79-12/79:    RCA/David Sarnoff Research Center, Princeton, NJ

                        Microsystems Engineer.  Patent applied for adaptive stepper motor controller.

Expertise

Software:        C/C++ (Visual C++, Embedded Visual C++, VisualDSP).  Assembler (StrongARM, SigmaDSP, Microchip Pic, Cypress enCoRe, PSoC and wireless USB, 80X86, 80196, 80C31/51, 680X0).  PLC (Allen Bradley, Siemens, AutomationDirect, Koyo).

                        Win32, COM, DirectX, DirectShow, WinSock, low-level Windows multimedia, MIDI processing, Firewire video capture, PocketPC

Hardware:      Embedded systems (Intel, Microchip, Cypress, Motorola), Digital audio (A/D, D/A, wavetable synthesis, AES-EBU), Audio DSP (Ensoniq), Communication interfaces (USB, wireless USB, RS-485, IR), Packaging and PC board layout and manufacturing.

Creative:        Digital music production.  Write, perform and engineer original compositions.  Accomplished musician: fingerstyle acoustic and electric rock/pop guitar.  Reached national top 10 (August 2002) on IUMA.com for Instrumental & Progressive Rock.  Released 2 music CDs in Fall 2007, available on iTunes & CD Baby. Excellent knowledge of MIDI and audio recording, processing and mastering software and hardware. Excellent artist empathy skills.

Applications:  Real-time character animation systems, both Audio Animatronic™ and CGI.  Media development tools (3D Studio MAX, PhotoShop, CorelDraw, Sonar, WaveLab, SoundForge, Adobe Audition, Vegas Video, MotionBuilder).

Education

1976-1980:    University of Maine at Orono, Orono, ME

                        Degree: B.S. Engineering Physics, with Highest Honors & Highest Distinction

                        Major: Physics            Minor: Electrical Engineering

Awards:          Holmes Award (Outstanding Senior in Physics)

                        Hovey Award (Outstanding Senior in Science & Engineering)

© 2009 by jamie robertson, robertsonics