AES Section Meeting Reports

Meeting Topic: Event Meeting - Guest Speaker

Moderator Name: Rob Roy, co-chair

Speaker Name: Ron Saint Germain - Legendary Producer, Mixer, Engineer

Other business or activities at the meeting: AES Miami Chapter Meeting Minutes

Date: 2/22/2016
Time: 7:30pm
Location: University of Miami — Albert Pick Music Engineering Library

Call to order: At 7:30PM, the meeting was called to order by Rob Roy, Chapter Co-chairman

Member Attendance:

FIRST NAME LAST NAME
Paul Kronk
Colby Leider (co-chair)
Mark Harpster
Craig Chamberlain
Dave Maclaughlin (member at large)
Felipe Tichauer
Max Molander (student chapter)
Brian Gross (student chapter)
Latoya Moore
Rob Roy (co-chair)

(Total Attendance: approximately 60 people — including members and non-members)

Review and Approval of Previous Minutes:
- A review of the minutes from the previous meeting from 11/9/2016 of which were unanimously approved.

Reports:
Old Business: None
New Business: Discussions and Information regarding the following:
- New Gmail Address: [email protected]
- "From" section reads: AES_Update - please add to contacts -
- Maintaining privacy by using "BCC" section for ALL communication to our members.
- Use of Google docs to store Chapter documents: We will upload our Chapters' meeting minutes and other relevant documents to Google docs and share as appropriate.
- Google Calendar use for Reminders & Notifications: We will add our events to our Google Calendar which will in turn send out notifications as well as a form to get RSVP's for meetings and special events.
- AES Miami Facebook Page:
- URL: facebook.com/aesmiami
- To be used as an easy repository for schedules and events as well as a forum to encourage new people to join our AES Chapter. We will post photos and other interesting things we do as a chapter.
- Please "like the page" so that you can "see" all of our activity and participate in conversations to help grow our audio community's audience.
- Post, share and like everything you can. This is an open forum to represent yourself not only as an AES Member, but also as an Audio Professional in our community. This can become a great networking resource.
- Please promote yourself and anything about your audio world. This shows relevant activity for social media for which will in turn grow our audience organically. The Chapter benefits by showcasing active opportunities within our group and inspire others to join our chapter. This will also benefit you because the more you post, the more people will see opportunities in you. In short — Utilize Facebook to connect our audio community -- a forum to network.


Committee/Board Discussions:
- Colby Leider: Discussed the history of tonight's meeting venue: The Albert Pick Library — a historic building -- AES was one of the first formal functions in the building as the new "Audio Engineering Library."
- Rob Roy: An overview of tonight's feature presentation — Guest Speaker, Legendary Producer, Mixer & Engineer: Ron Saint Germain -- Since tonight's doors were open to guests, an overview about the AES, our Chapter and the understanding that to be a part of events like tonight, we encourage everyone to become a member of the AES at the AES website.
In attendance: Several students from SAE Institute of Recording, other Audio Students from the University of Miami as well as local music professionals. (Contact info was acquired for all non-member attendees.)

Floor Open for Questions and final comments: None

Next Meeting:
Is scheduled for March, 9th at time: TBD
At the New World Symphony in Miami Beach for a Manufacturer Representative's presentation from DPA Microphones

The formal meeting was adjourned at 8:00PM to begin our feature presentation with Ron Saint Germain

Feature Presentation: 8PM — 9:45PM

Meeting Location: University of Miami — Albert Pick Music Engineering Library, Miami, FL, USA

Summary

As the Southern Florida Chapter establishes itself, this meeting was focused around a guest speaking event. The guest speaker was legendary Producer, Mixer, Engineer: Ron Saint Germain (40+ years with credits to include: Michael Jackson, U2, Tool, Soundgarden, Jimi Hendrix, Whitney Houston, 311, Bad Brains, Muse and Creed)
The first part of the meeting was focused toward Chapter Members and did a quick overview on the progress of establishing the chapter. (See the actual minutes above). The Chapter Meeting was from 7:30 to 8PM then the doors opened for guests. We marketed this event to our audio community including schools with the hopes to inspire enough interest in the event and promote membership in the AES and our Chapter.
Ron spoke of his journey from when he first entered the industry to reaching some of his biggest success. He reminded the audience about the "passion" that drives us all and how important it is to keep that passion to be successful. Many of his experiences and hurdles were explained by his real life stories.
Some of the stories focused on the importance of songwriting, others focused on his approach to production and how that's changed over the 4 decades of his career. This was coupled with fun stories like the "phoned in vocals" during a Bad Brains session where the lead singer had to report to jail with 1 last song to track and how them managed to pull this off from a technical standpoint.
This event began at 8PM and ended at approximately 9:45PM and was followed by a meet and greet with "The Saint" and our attendees.

"Emulate the people who inspire you. Say something real. Tell a story."
{Ron Saint Germain}

Written By: Rob Roy, co-chair, Southern FL AES Chapter

More About Southern Florida Section