AES News

 — In the International Year of Sound, Europe’s preeminent professional audio education and networking event will connect the global community of audio professionals and immerse attendees in breaking technology and its applications —

The Audio Engineering Society has announced that AES Vienna 2020, the 148th Audio Engineering Society International Pro Audio Convention will be held May 25 – 28 at the Austria Center Vienna. Convention co-chairs are Piotr Majdak (Senior Researcher in Acoustics at the Austrian Academy of Sciences’ Acoustics Research Institute) and Nadja Wallaszkovits (Chief Audio Engineer for the Phonogrammarchiv sound archives of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and 2019 AES President), who will oversee the convention’s Technical Program, Exhibition and Society functions, in conjunction with an assembled team of industry professionals, students and event partners and sponsors.

For end users, researchers, educators and students, AES Vienna will be the place to commemorate the International Year of Sound and explore “A World of Audio” with audio professionals and peers from around the globe. Spanning the breadth of audio research and the application of audio technology, convention program topics will include Studio Recording, Live Sound, Networked Audio, Broadcast & Streaming, Music Production, Post-Production, Game Audio, Spatial Sound, Audio for AR/VR/XR, Product Development and more.

The latest information on how attendees, sponsors and exhibitors can “Listen, Learn and Connect” at AES Vienna 2020 can be found at aeseurope.com.

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 — Early Bird registration offers best pricing and options for this year’s AES New York Convention in October —

Online Early Bird registration is now open for the Audio Engineering Society’s 147th International Pro Audio Convention taking place October 16 – 19 at the Javits Center in New York City. This year’s convention will “inspire” attendees with a diverse gathering of top minds in the audio engineering industry, leading Technical Program presentations and events tailored to offer attendees the ultimate professional audio education and networking experience. The best housing options and registration pricing are available during Early Bird registration.

This year’s AES New York Convention is being organized by Convention Co-Chairs Agnieszka Roginska, Valerie Tyler and Jonathan Wyner, who have assembled an expert team of Convention Committee members to hone a program covering the most talked-about topics in the industry. The AES New York Technical Program topics and areas of study include Applications in Audio (chaired by Alex Case); Archiving and Restoration (chaired by Jessica Thompson); the Audio Builders Workshop (chaired by Owen Curtin); Audio for Cinema (chaired by John Whynot); Broadcast and Online Delivery (chaired David Bialik and assistant chair Fred Willard); Education (chaired by Magdalena Piotrowska); Game Audio & XR/Immersive & Spatial Audio (chaired by Steve Martz); Historical (chaired by Gary Gottlieb and Dan Mortensen); Networked Audio (chaired by Bob Lee); Papers (co-chaired by Areti Andreopoulou and Braxton Boren); Product Development (chaired by Scott Leslie); Recording and Production (co-chaired by Jim Kaiser, Michael Romanowski and Paul Womack); Sound Reinforcement (chaired by Henry Cohen); Student Events (chaired by Justin Chervony); and Convention Tech Tours (chaired by Jessica Livingston). 

By popular request, this year’s AES New York Convention also introduces several new Technical Program Tracks, including Electronic Dance Music (co-chaired by Alexandra Bartles and Rick Snoman); Electronic Instrument Design & Applications (chaired by Michael Bierylo); and Hip-Hop and R&B (chaired by Paul Womack). Special Events co-chairs for AES New York 2019 are John Krivit and Lisa Roy.

Register now at aesshow.com and make plans to join us at the AES New York Convention – the largest dedicated professional audio event of the year!

— AES Members get exclusive online Early Bird registration and housing access now for this year’s AES New York Convention in October —

The Audio Engineering Society has announced a new member benefit for the 2019 AES New York Convention, now offering exclusive, Early Bird Registration and housing access for all AES Members in advance of the May 1 public registration opening. Taking place October 16 – 19 at the Javits Center in New York City, the 147th AES International Pro Audio Convention is being led by Convention Co-Chairs Agnieszka Roginska, Valerie Tyler and Jonathan Wyner, who have put together an outstanding team to build the program set to inspire audio professionals, students and enthusiasts alike. Multiple registration options are currently available for AES Members including the ultimate four-day All Access pass (as well as one- and two-day options) and the complimentary-for-members Exhibits-Plus pass, offering three days of AES New York exhibition hall access, demos, Project Studio Expo and Live Sound Expo presentations and much more. Visit aesshow.com now to register and receive best possible pricing and housing options, or to find out more about becoming an AES member.

Honoring the convention’s theme, “Inspire,” AES New York will offer the four-day comprehensive Technical Program’s presentations and events, three days of audio exhibition and demonstrations, social events and more, presenting programming to enhance the knowledge and capabilities of anyone involved with the audio industry. 

Once again, the AES New York Convention will be co-located with the NAB Show New York, where AES New York registration will also grant attendees access to an adjacent exhibition hall where NAB Show exhibitors will be on-hand with the latest video and distribution hardware and related sessions. 

Visit aesshow.com to register for the AES New York 2019 International Pro Audio Convention and reserve your housing with AES partner hotels or to find out more about AES membership and benefits.

— Annual scholarship and grant offerings encourage talented students to pursue a career in audio engineering —

Dedicated to encouraging the entry of talented students into the profession of audio engineering, the AES Educational Foundation announced that it is now accepting applications for the annual AESEF Graduate Studies Grants and Mary Lea Simpson Memorial Scholarship. Offering multiple opportunities for applicants to receive financial backing during their studies, the AESEF continues its mission to promote audio education for aspiring audio engineers. Included in the grant offerings are scholarships honoring Larry Estrin, Ilpo Martikainen, Tom Kite and Bruce Swedien, as well as grant awards in memory of John Eargle and Emil Torick, all valuable industry contributors. Since its establishment in 1984, the Foundation has awarded grants for graduate studies to hundreds of exceptional applicants, many of whom have gone on to prominent and successful careers in the audio engineering industry.

The Mary Lea Simpson Memorial Scholarship
This scholarship of full tuition for final year of studies, is being offered to an undergraduate student entering senior year at a North American college or university Audio Engineering/Recording Arts Program. The scholarship honors Mary Lea Simpson, who was a graduate of the Audio Production Program at New England Institute of Art when she died suddenly in 2013 in a tragic building collapse. Deadline for applications is June 1.

Graduate Studies Scholarships:
Grants, including the named Scholarships, are awarded annually for exemplary students dedicated to the art and science of audio engineering. The AESEF Scholarship Committee selects the recipients of the memorial scholarships based on which student best meets the specification for each named scholarship. Application deadlines for AESEF grants is May 15. Current grants include:

The John Eargle Award
This award honors AES Past-President and Fellow, John Eargle, who authored several seminal textbooks on audio, as well as engineering more than 250 CD releases, and was posthumously awarded a Technical GRAMMY Award in 2008. This scholarship is given annually to a student who excels in both technology and music. 

Larry Estrin AESEF Scholarship Fund 
This grant honors the legacy of Laurence H. “Larry” Estrin, a respected pro audio industry innovator who introduced numerous engineering advancements in wireless RF technology, broadcast production and live sound. This grant is offered to students with a demonstrated commitment to audio engineering in the broadcast Industry.

Genelec Dr. Ilpo Martikainen Audio Visionary Scholarship
Coinciding with its 40th anniversary in 2018, Genelec announced the creation of a scholarship honoring its innovative and entrepreneurial founder. The Genelec Dr. Ilpo Martikainen Audio Visionary Scholarship is offered annually to U.S. graduate students in the field of audio engineering who are members of the Audio Engineering Society and have a passion for advancing audio through innovation and technology development.

Advancing Audio – The Tom Kite Scholarship
This scholarship honors Kite’s legacy of dedication to engineering excellence in audio and audio measurement, as well as his achievements within the AES and as Vice President of Engineering of Audio Precision, the scholarship’s sponsor. The scholarship is offered to students who demonstrate creativity and imagination.

Bruce Swedien Scholarship Fund
This fund was established as a way to say “thank you” for Swedien’s many celebrated contributions to the industry and to help aid young recording engineers who believe in putting the “Music First!”, as is his mantra.

The Emil Torick Award
This scholarship honors the former long term AES Foundation President and founding member, awarded annually to an outstanding student with exceptional career goals. Torick held 16 patents and authored more than 60 technical publications He served on the National Radio Systems Committee and was a member of the U.S. delegation to the International Radio Consultative Committee in Geneva.

For further information, online applications and more, visit the AES Educational Foundation site at aes.org/education/foundation.

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— Four days of innovative presentations and events providing insights into the full range of professional audio topics and technologies filled the Audio Engineering Society’s first Dublin convention —

by Graham Kirk

The Audio Engineering Society’s 146th International Pro Audio Convention in Dublin, Ireland drew to a close on March 23, wrapping up four days of audio science and education that drew attendees from 47 countries to Europe’s premier annual professional audio event. “It was a pleasure to bring the AES convention to Dublin for the very first time,” commented Convention Co-Chair and Dublin resident Enda Bates, “and an excellent way to kick off the formation of the new AES Ireland regional section in style. It was also great to see a more diverse range of presenters and topics, something which was specifically highlighted by many attendees as a welcome development.” 

The Convention content was packed with options, notes Co-Chair Ben Kok, with 200 individual Workshops, Tutorials, Paper and Poster presentations and Special Events held in parallel across the four days of AES Dublin in seven auditoriums in the Dublin Convention Centre. Hosting top minds in audio from around the world, this year’s convention featured the AES Heyser Memorial lecture “Learning to Listen” by industry innovator and digital reverb pioneer David Griesinger and the keynote address – arranged by AES Dublin’s third co-chair, Mariana Lopez – “Inclusive Sonic Interactions” presented by Aalborg University Copenhagen Professor Stefania Serafin. 

“For topics like cathedral acoustics and spatial electroacoustic music and education, there was a link between the technical program, off-site and special events,” Kok elaborates, “Overall, immersive/3D sound and spatial audio had a strong presence at the convention, covering both sonic capture as well as reproduction through loudspeakers or headphones.”

Playing a key role in the Convention’s immersive content, Co-Chair Lopez was actively involved in the program including having the “true honor” of chairing the panel “The Present and Future of Audio for Film and Television,” which brought together industry notables Howard Bargroff, Anna Bertmark, Emma Butt and Fiona Cruickshank. 

The immersive audio emphasis was continued into AES Dublin’s innovative hands-on sessions, part of the Convention’s dedicated student programing including the bustling Education and Career fair and the student recording and design competitions. Student attendance was typically strong for AES Dublin, a harbinger of future Society leadership as evidenced by former Student Members who attended AES Dublin as professional Members and participated in paper presentations and workshops, along with AES Dublin planning.

The theme of diversity and inclusion was brought to the forefront of the Convention with Co-Chair Lopez’s AES Dublin Opening Ceremonies challenge for support and participation of the Society’s initiatives, and in the AES Diversity & Inclusion Committee’s Town Hall dialog, which she moderated. Questions about how the Society moves forward towards equality, noted Lopez, “are ultimately about who we are, and who we hope to be.” 

As AES Dublin concluded, the site selection of Vienna, Austria, was announced for AES Europe in 2020 (May 25 – 28). Next on the AES Convention calendar is the upcoming AES New York International Pro Audio Convention (October 16 – 19, 2019).

Research Papers and Engineering Briefs presented at AES Dublin are available in the AES E-Library (a free benefit for AES members). 

AES Dublin Papers: http://www.aes.org/e-lib/online/search.cfm?type=preprint&title=&convnum=146

AES Dublin Engineering Briefs: http://www.aes.org/e-lib/online/search.cfm?type=ebrief&title=&convnum=146

- Awards given for outstanding achievement in audio engineering, research and contributions to the Audio Engineering Society - 

Exemplifying the best in audio engineering techniques and technologies, along with contributions to the Audio Engineering Society’s mission, the AES Dublin Convention Opening Ceremony proceedings included the presentation of a distinguished slate of awards. Presented by AES Awards Committee Chair Alex Case and AES President Nadja Wallaszkovits, the awards highlight outstanding achievements and contributions in audio engineering application, technology and to the Society, including the Board of Governors Award, Fellowship Award and Silver Medal award. Additional awards, presented by the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society Editor-in-Chief Bozena Kostek and Convention Papers Co-Chairs Roisin Loughran and Jamie A S Angus-Whiteoak, were given for the JAES Best Paper of 2018, Best Peer-Reviewed Paper and Best Student Technical Paper presented during the convention.

The AES Board of Governors Award is given for outstanding contributions to the Audio Engineering Society. This year’s recipients, for Chairing recent AES Conventions and Conferences, include Paul Gallo (2 awards), Toru Kamekawa, John Krivit, Valerie Tyler, Christian Uhle and Yuko Watanabe.  

AES Fellowship Awards were presented for contributions to the advancement in or dissemination of knowledge of audio engineering or in the promotion of its application in practice. This year’s recipients are Joel Brito, for advancing the audio industry in Brazil and Latin America through decades of broad contributions to the Society, and John Dawson, in recognition of his outstanding audio hardware design achievements and contributions to the AES over many years. 

The prestigious AES Silver Medal was presented to AES Fellow Jamie A. S. Angus-Whiteoakfor a lifetime of important contributions to audio engineering and instruction, and for outstanding achievement in the field of audio engineering. 

The recipients of awards for the top research papers presented at AES Dublin were:

Best Paper Award co-winners - Ramona Bomhardt, Isabel C. Patino Mejia, Andreas Zell, and Janina Fels for their paper “Required Measurement Accuracy of Head Dimensions for Modeling the Interaural Time Difference”, J. Audio Eng. Soc., vol. 66, no. 3, pp. 114–126, (2018 March). DOI: https://doi.org/10.17743/jaes.2018.0005  

Best Paper Award co-winners - Lode Vuegen, Peter Karsmakers, Bart Vanrumste, and Hugo Van Hamme for their paper “Acoustic Event Classification Using Low-Resolution Multi-Label Non-Negative Matrix Deconvolution”, J. Audio Eng. Soc., vol. 66, no. 5, pp. 369–384, (2018 May), DOI: https://doi.org/10.17743/jaes.2018.0018

Best Peer-Reviewed Paper winners - Matteo Torcoli, Alex Freke-Morin, Jouni Paulus, Christian Simon, and Ben Shirley for their paper “Background Ducking to Produce Esthetically Pleasing Audio for TV with Clear Speech”.  

Best Student Technical Paper winner - Shelley Ann McCarthy Buckingham Coauthor and co-author Malachy Ronan for the paper “Factors Contributing to Gender Imbalance in the Audio Industry”.  

For more information on AES Awards, nominations, and previous winner visit aes.org/awards. 

The 2019 AES International Conference on Immersive and Interactive Audio will take place in York, UK, March 27 - 29, exploring audio technologies that promote audio personalisation and heightened levels of immersion, including new developments in human-computer interaction, head and body motion tracking, artificial intelligence, and more.

Research Papers and Posters being presented at this sold out conference are available online in the AES E-Library:

Papers: http://www.aes.org/conferences/2019/immersive/program_allPapers.cfm

Posters: http://www.aes.org/conferences/2019/immersive/program_allPosters.cfm

Complete conference information availble here.

This month's edition of the AES Inside Track, curated by Jim Anderson, offers links to exclusive AES E-Library resources, AES Live Videos, related events, and more on the topic of Recording.

The AES Inside Track is availble in your AES Member Portal at aes.org/members.

AES Dublin Mobile App and Mobile-Friendly Web Planner Available Now

Download the free AES Dublin 2019 146th International Pro Audio Convention Mobile App to plan your schedule and stay up-to-date with the latest Technical Program, Special Events and Product Showcase details. Search for “AES Dublin” in the Google Play and Apple App stores or see links below: 

Apple App Store - https://goo.gl/bfY9Gn

Google Play Store - https://goo.gl/qQK6we

You can also access a mobile-friendly web planner here - https://aesdublin19.mapyourshow.com/7_0/search.cfm

Complete details available at aeseurope.com.

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— Ranging from Keynote and Heyser lectures, to behind-the-scenes tours of area audio facilities, AES Dublin offers attendees access to exclusive convention presentations and events —

AES Dublin will be filled with the best in professional audio, from the convention’s main presentation hall to backstage insights into historic facilities in the Dublin area. Open to all badge holders, the AES Dublin Special Events series runs throughout the convention, kicking off with the Opening Ceremonies featuring AES Awards presentation and the Keynote address by sonic interactive design researcher Stefania Serafin. Further events include the AES Diversity and Inclusion Committee’s Town Hall panel and party, a Spatial Electroacoustic Music Concert featuring an octophonic loudspeaker array, the Heyser Lecture given by digital reverb pioneer David Griesinger, and for student member attendees, a student mixer. 

Also intriguing for attendees are the AES Dublin off-site Technical Tours, taking place on Thursday and Friday of the show. Open to a limited number ticketholders, tours will include behind-the-scenes visits to the national theatre of Ireland – the Abbey Theatre, the 18th-century Chapel at Trinity College Dublin, including a talk on “Church Acoustics and Sonic Heritage”, and a visit to Dublin’s famed Windmill Lane Studios. Technical Tours are made available on a first come, first served basis to anyone with an All Access badge. Tickets can be purchased during normal registration hours at the convention center.

For further information on AES Dublin Special Events and Tech Tours, as well as the comprehensive AES Dublin Technical Program’s four days of intensive audio engineering presentations, listening experiences and social events, visit aeseurope.com. Advance Registration pricing offering significant savings is available through March 18.

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