Julius Smith

Julius O. Smith III
Born
Julius Orion Smith III

1953 (age 72–73)
Alma materRice University (B.S., 1975)
Stanford University (M.S., 1978; Ph.D., 1983)
Known forDigital waveguide synthesis
Shazam audio fingerprinting
Closed-form spatial localization
Windowed-sinc sampling-rate conversion
Sines+noise additive synthesis
AwardsFellow, Acoustical Society of America (2003)
Fellow, Audio Engineering Society (2008)
Richard C. Heyser Memorial Lecturer (2006)
Scientific career
FieldsDigital signal processing
Music technology
Computer music
InstitutionsStanford University (CCRMA)
NeXT Computer (1986–1991)
Thesis Techniques for Digital Filter Design and System Identification with Application to the Violin  (1983)
Doctoral advisorGene F. Franklin
Websiteccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/

Julius Orion Smith III (born 1953) is an American educator and engineer who is Professor Emeritus of Music and, by courtesy, Electrical Engineering at Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). He is known for pioneering digital waveguide synthesis, a physical modeling technique adopted in commercial instruments such as the Yamaha VL-1 synthesizer. Smith is also co-inventor of the core audio-fingerprinting algorithm behind the music-identification service Shazam.