Clifford A. Henricksen Inventions Information

Cliff Henricksen is a musician, inventor and audio technologist. He is self-taught as a musician with a graduate degree in mechanical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Throughout his career Cliff has found innovative ways to apply engineering basics to electro acoustics and to audio technology as it applies to music and in particular to live music performance. He has invented and engineered a wide variety of technologies and products well known in the world of professional audio. Today he balances work in audio and work as a performing musician.

Cliff Henricksen was born on July 12, 1943 in Kew Gardens on Long Island NY, the son of Norwegian immigrant Birger ("Bill") and Alice (née Totland) Henricksen, and grew up in Elmont Long Island NY. His father's early career was as first engineer on ocean-going ships for the Moore McCormack Company. He subsequently took a land-based day job as a mechanic and welder in order to participate more actively in home and family life. He also became an accomplished musician, playing accordion, drums and fiddle, and performing as a well-known square dance caller with a country music band called "The Ranch Boys". He also played drums at nightclub gigs and was bandleader of his own "society orchestra" that played events in venues like New York City's Waldorf Astoria Hotel. It was his father's facility with all things mechanical, as well as his love of music and his fascination with the technology behind the music, which was the single most important influence in Cliff's formative years.

Microphones, PA systems, home hi-fi systems, and tape recorders were a constant and ever-evolving part of the Henricksen household and played a significant role in shaping Cliff's technical and artistic sensibilities. By the time he got to graduate school at MIT, Cliff was playing regularly with a Boston-based cover band while still managing to make it to his 8 a.m. engineering lectures. He also met his future wife, then Bonnie Zimmermann, and together they started a family that grew to include 9 children (5 boys and 4 girls).Today Cliff and his wife Bonnie make their home in Framingham MA.

Cliff began his career in professional audio by starting a research group at Altec Lansing in Anaheim CA in 1974. In the course of that work he met and became friends with Bill Putnam and Allen Sides, both of whom became important inspirations for achieving a balance between audio aesthetics and engineering excellence. Putnam's work on the UREI Time Align studio monitor loudspeaker, and Side's work through his Ocean Way studio business (then operating out of a garage in Santa Monica CA) were fundamental and profound influences in showing Cliff how to listen diagnostically to the audio qualities of speakers, microphones and music electronics generally. The importance of "audio aesthetics first" has been a guiding principle in all of Cliff's work since that time.

Because of this code of work and his experience as a performing musician, Cliff is one of the few audio professionals able to voice major arena sound systems by ear and to develop L1 and T1 "Tone Match" presets for Bose Corporation strictly by listening.

A lifelong musician, Cliff Henricksen is aware of the importance of the musical arts and their benefits to society that transcend technology. As an experienced player and composer, he knows this from a true artist's perspective. As an MIT-educated scientist and engineer he has also made it his life's work to bring innovation to the technology associated with the business of professional audio and musical performance.

He has held key senior technical positions at Altec Lansing (Anaheim CA), Community Professional Systems, Electro-Voice, US Sound and Bose Corporation, where he was a key contributor to the invention, development and commercial launch of breakthrough technologies and products that have advanced and inspired the art of live music and professional/engineered sound for over 40 years. In doing so, he was able to contribute directly to enhanced market presence and increased business for his employers.

He was co-owner of US Sound, a "super contractor" with a patented and proprietary sound system components and overall system concept of his creation. It was called "Coherent Zone Technology". Engineered systems were installed, first, in the OMNI Arena (Atlanta) and later at Madison Square Garden (New York City) and used for many years for normal MSG events of all kinds. A road system was developed for The Judds and for solo shows of Wynonna Judd, mixed by house engineer John Cooper, and for Bruce Springsteen in collaboration with Audio Analysts of Colorado Springs. US Sound was sold at its prime to Bose Corporation where its product line (renamed "Panaray LT") still is the mainstay of Bose's large-venue engineered sound business.

After a long career working for well-known professional audio companies Cliff is now the owner/operator of Cliff Innovations LLC in Framingham MA, where he is developing new electroacoustic technologies and is in the process of bringing a new, advanced ribbon microphone to market, for use in recording and broadcasting. He also remains active as a performing musician and composer.

Cliff's US patents include 7,936,891 B2; 7,260,235; 7,319,767; D249,509; 3,991,286; 4,050,541; 4,187,926; 4,130,023; 4,811,403; and UK 1,514,007.

Cliff is widely published in a range of well-known and respected technical papers, periodicals and books.

Cliff was honored as a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society, appointed a Kentucky colonel (by the Governor of Kentucky for his contributions to the amplified musical arts) and included in the Electronic Musician's "Hall of Fame" for his basic invention of the Bose L1 line array for live performance.

Ocean Way Audio, Director, New Technology: heading up the new products development team, building on the platform established with the No Limits HR series.

Cliff Mics , a DBA division of Cliff Innovations LLC: Developed the RM1 advanced-technology ribbon microphone.

Bose Corporation “Room Match” engineered sound system: Many in-development/patents-pending (confidential). Co-inventor of the basic electroacoustic technology and means of creating flexible, scalable sound systems using parametric n/c machining and related business-system techniques and unique assembly methods.

Bose Corporation L1® family: Builder/first-live-music-user of first L1 prototypes and inventor of core L1 technologies and methodology, collaborating with Ken Jacob of Bose. Creator of and naming of "Tone Match" instrument/delivery system integration used on all L1 and T1 products, creator of most "ToneMatch" voicing filters by ear, often in collaboration with major instrument makers and microphone manufacturers. Creator of a large volume of support copy, used in advertising of all kinds. Responsible for engineering development and personal use of the first prototype systems. (This overall concept is changing the entire culture of live amplified music.) Held keyboard/vocal chair for the duration of the "Linemen" L1-demo band, this band actually being built around the L1 with local "A-list" players. Many concerts stunned audiences with superb musicianship, arrangements and sound quality in the US, Canada and Europe. Countless concerts were performed in Bose Corporation's own auditorium and live-music theater, where Cliff also performed solo during these shows, playing piano and singing, often performing his own compositions.

Bose Corporation MA12 and MB4: Early spin-offs of the L1 program, before it became such. These components are still mainstays of the engineered sound product line.

Bose Corporation Panaray LT family: Design of core arraying loudspeaker family for high-end large-venue sound including invention and engineering of “V4” manifolded midrange driver.

Bose Corporation sound system for the Holy Mosque, Mecca : Designed a unique horn-waveguide system for this acoustically-challenging, aesthetically-demanding all-marble facility.

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