In 1969, Lee founded American Data Sciences (ADS) with junior partner Charles L. Bagnaschi, an engineer. The company's name was changed to Lexicon Inc. in 1971. Their focus was applying digital delay to audio technology and language instruction. In 1973, Lee brought in Ron Noonan as CEO to diversify Lexicon in the professional audio market.
Digital Cardiac Monitoring System Lee applied his knowledge of digital design to
Electrocardiography (ECG) technology. At the time, waveforms moved left to right across the screen, then returned to a starting point. A digital delay device would allow heartbeats to be monitored with a continuous moving image on a cathode ray terminal (CRT). Lee brought in Professor Stephen K. Burns, an MIT colleague with a strong interest in bio-medical electronics, to help develop the machine, patented in 1971. Lee and Burns licensed the machine first to Becton Dickinson Company, a bio-medical company, followed by
Hewlett-Packard and
General Electric Company.
Audio delay The cardiac digital delay unit led to Lee's work in digital audio delay. At the time, sound delay technology (used to create deliberate echo effects) relied on tape loops and recording devices. MIT lecturer Barry Blesser suggested they try running audio through Lee's digital delay apparatus. With Bagnaschi, they created the first digital signal processor. Steve Temmer, the president of New York City’s Gotham Audio, heard about the experiment and commissioned 50 units of what would be sold as the Gotham Delta-T 101 in 1971, introducing digital delay to the live sound industry.
Digital Digital Time-Compression and Expansion: Varispeech In 1972, Lee filed a patent for a device that could compress or expand the time duration of sound waves while preserving normal sound quality. That year, Lexicon introduced Varispeech, an electronic speech compressor for use in the language instruction market, specifically to help blind students access text more quickly and persons with speech disorders study spoken language. Varispeech, the first commercially available pitch shifter, could speed up or slow down recorded speech, while maintaining normal pitch.
Audio Time Compressor and Expander An advanced version of Varispeech—the Time Compressor 1200—was introduced in 1981. The device coupled audio time-compression with visual components, allowing broadcasters to show movies and recorded programs at an accelerated rate without audio distortion. Programming and advertisements could be made to fit time slots without cutting. Technicians referred to this process as "lexiconning." Lexicon's Time Compressor Model 1200 received an Emmy in 1984 from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for its technical contributions to editing.
Controversy and creativity Critics argued that the Time Compressor technology, particularly when applied to movies and older television programs, amounted to "defacing" a creative work, analogous to
colorization. ==Selling Lexicon==