Keith O. Johnson

US recording engineer, born March 29, 1938. In the 1970s, he worked with rock band [a152083] and partnered with producer [a157075] to develop the Projectron, one of the first tools to incorporate expressive polyphonic sampling, used on . In 1976, he joined producer [a502016] and [a3097548] to form Reference Recordings, launching a legacy of high-end/half-speed mastered LPs and high-definition CDs (DDD). Co-invented the HDCD technology with Michael Pflaumer and in 1996, they formed Pacific Microsonics to introduce the concept of high-resolution audio. In 2000, Microsoft purchased Pacific Microsonics and continues to incorporate HDCD technology into its PC offerings. Prof. Johnson subsequently consulted with Microsoft; one project, Speaker-Correction, uses modeled correction of speakers to improve computer sound and can be found in XP software.