Re: OT: Apple has a patent on tremolo!
Re: OT: Apple has a patent on tremolo!
- Subject: Re: OT: Apple has a patent on tremolo!
- From: Richard Dobson <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2007 19:23:19 +0000
Paul Evenblij wrote:
..
As far as I can see (after reading the complete text),
the patent application does not have anything to do
with tremolo or amplitude modulation, apart from the
side effect you get when mixing a sine wave with
another, slightly detuned sine wave.
But this is not about sine waves. In my understanding,
the patented method is a way of getting beat
frequencies which are constant along a large range of
main frequencies. I.e. if you have your two
oscillators playing C3, and the beat frequency is 3
Hz, then if you play C4, the beat frequency will be 6
Hz using 'prior art'. Using Apple's method, this beat
frequency will *always" be 3 Hz.
My two cents.
Tremolo is defined as slow regular amplitude variation (whereas vibrato
is slow regular variation of pitch); the net effect of all beats = 3Hz
is identical to the net effect of applying 3Hz tremolo. The patent
describes a complicated way of doing something that is so easy it is
banal, and in patent terms comfortably within the scope of one
ordinarily skilled in the art. Of course, AM is different from
detuning; this has been known ever since the dawn of synthesisers; and
everyone has always known how to achive both. It makes a nonsense of the
whole patent process - but then it is not the first time that has been
done! It may however become my favourite example of a ridiculous patent.
It does not protect anything, and Apple will never ever be able to sue
anyone for "infringing" it!
Richard Dobson
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