Meeting Topic: Audio Workshop for Students
Speaker Name: See report
Meeting Location: Turner Studios, Atlanta, GA
Audio Engineering Society
Atlanta Section
PO Box 77123
Atlanta, GA 30357-7123
For Immediate Release
Contact: Rob Mason
770-908-1833
[email protected]
Atlanta Section of the AES conducts a 3nd Annual Audio Workshop for
High School and College Students
Atlanta, GA — The Atlanta Section of the Audio Engineering Society held its 3nd annual Audio Workshop for Students on Saturday September 9th, 2007. The workshop, held in the post production facilities of Turner Studios, was geared toward high school and college age students with career goals in the audio industry.
There were a total of 24 students in attendance representing a variety of schools including the Art Institute of Atlanta, Clemson University, Grady High School, Georgia State University, Miami University of Ohio and Salem High School.
The workshop included multiple sessions on topics including: Protools Fundamentals, Microphone Techniques and Tracking, Mixing, Critical Listening, and the workshop concluded with a panel discussion on Careers in Audio with the session instructors.
The Mixing class was taught by Ryan Williams, chief engineer and owner of Cynosure Sonics Inc, certified Pro Tools instructor at Atlanta Institute of Music, and sales agent and technician for Atlanta Pro Audio, in one of Turner Studios' sound design rooms. Williams discussed the changing face of modern mixing scenarios, the growing practice of mixing 'in the box', techniques for mixing on limited time and budget situations, He demonstrated mixing techniques using tracks recorded on a Protools HD2 system with 24 tracks of digital I/O.
The Critical Listening session was taught by Turner Studios Broadcast Engineer Selah Abrams in one of Turner's sound design rooms. In this session, students auditioned music samples recorded at a variety of compression settings, EQ's and using various mic preamps. Students also listened to samples recorded in analog and using various digital sampling rates and compared differences in recordings created on a large format Neve console as opposed to Protools HD. Music styles from the past 5 decades were also auditioned and analyzed helping the students develop vocabulary for describing varied recording techniques. Students discussed their own opinions on the various nuances and differences in the recordings.
Microphone Placement Techniques was taught by Turner Studios Sound Designer Moriz Oepen and Turner Studios' Audio Engineering Manager Jay Yeary, along with the help of musicians from performing arts magnet school Grady High School, The session started with a microphone primer ,then students were encouraged to listen to each microphone through a headphone monitoring system to hear the differences in each. Once the baseline was established, different microphone scenarios were discussed and musicians demonstrated how different microphones and micing techniques affect the over all sound of recording.
Pro Tools Fundamentals was presented by Michael Wynn, of ProMedia's Pro Tools Training Center, using a Pro Tools LE system. This session covered start up basics for Protools, editing basics, sequencing, midi interfacing and a primer on plug-ins.
A Career Panel Discussion was held at the end of the day which included Q&A with all the instructors. Many door prizes were awarded including a training session courtesy of Pro Tools Training Center and Sennheiser microphones from Atlanta Pro Audio. Other workshop sponsors included Comprehensive Technical Group (CTG), Digidesign, Techrep Marketing, and Turner Studios.
The Atlanta Section would like thank all of the sponsors and instructors who made this workshop a success! To see photos from the workshop please visit the AES Atlanta Section website: http://www.aesatl.org/
