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Antares Audio Technologies was founded in 1990 as Jupiter Systems by Dr. Harold (Andy) Hildebrand. From 1976 through 1989, Dr. Andy had worked as a research scientist in the geophysical industry, producing groundbreaking work for Exxon Production Research and Landmark Graphics, a company he co-founded to create the world's first stand-alone seismic data interpretation workstation. Upon leaving Landmark in 1989, he returned to one of his first loves, music, studying music composition at the Shepard School of Music at Rice University. In the course of his studies, Dr. Andy encountered what was, at the time, considered an unavoidable limitation of the process of digital sampling. Faced with this limitation , the inability to create seamless "loops" in samples of multiple instrumentalists -- he set about to overcome it. Utilizing cutting-edge digital signal processing (DSP) technology drawn from the geophysical industry, he had soon invented a new looping technique that, to the amazement of everyone who heard it, did indeed succeed in "doing the impossible" (a description that would be applied with uncanny consistency to each subsequent Antares product). Convinced that there was a market for his new technology, he formed Jupiter Systems to further develop and market the program, now called Infinity. Infinity met with immediate market success, becoming (and remaining to this day) the premier looping tool for professional sound designers. Following the success of Infinity, Dr. Andy next turned his attention to the emerging market for software plug-ins. Drawing again on geophysics-based DSP technology, he developed and introduced MDTÔ (Multiband Dynamics Tool), one of the first successful Pro Tools plug-ins. This was followed by JVPÔ (Jupiter Voice Processor), SSTÔ (Spectral Shaping Tool) and, in 1997, Auto-TuneÔ, a program that corrects pitch problems in vocals and other solo instruments. Auto-Tune became an instant phenomenon, firmly establishing Antares (as the company had been renamed) as a developer of truly astonishing products using DSP technology. Auto-Tune quickly became the largest-selling plug-in of all time. In 1997, Antares made the decision to move into the hardware DSP effects processor market with the ATR-1, a rack-mount version of Auto-Tune. Antares incorporated in May 1998 and, in January 1999, acquired Cameo International, their former distributor. In late 1999 Antares once again created a new product category with the Antares Microphone Modeler, a plug-in that allows any reasonable quality microphone to sound like any of a wide variety of other microphones. It was followed in 2000 by a hardware version, the AMM-1. At the Audio Engineering Society Conference in September of 2000, the Mic Modeler was honored with the TEC Award as the year's Outstanding Achievement in Signal Processing Software. In addition to directly addressing the hardware and software DSP market, Antares is committed to wider distribution of its proprietary technologies through strategic relationships with other key partners, both in and out of the professional audio and musical instrument industries. Partnerships have currently been established with Mackie Designs, Inc., TASCAM, and MusicYo.com. Others are currently in the works.