My name is Juan Pablo Rodríguez, i´m from Bogotá Colombia and I just graduated from Universidad de Los Andes here in Bogotá. I am a music producer.
It all started when I was 16 years old and had a basic music production class at my school. I´ve always loved music and I wanted to go further into it as a career, so I chose that class to learn about audio and see if I liked it; I did a lot.
This song was composed by me and my friend Luis Chisco. It all started last year when I needed
to compose something for my graduation project. The entire production was done this year and most of the recording was done in my University. Because of COVID 19, I had to record the accordion and vocals remotely and mix it all at home with headphones (with Sonarworks reference 4 and a Yamaha HS7 as a reference). I finished it in July and presented my graduation project in August, so when the competition opened I said, "Why not, let's send something and see what happens." And it all went wonderfully.
A teacher named Marcela Zorro invited the students to create an AES section last year and I was really interested so I joined. Since then, I have been really happy to be part of it.
My favorite part was the competition. I really liked having the opportunity to receive feedback from very important engineers.
Posted: Tuesday, December 8, 2020
Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from and what do you study?
I'm from Hong Kong and I study music production & engineering at the Berklee College of Music
What initiated your passion for audio? When did it start?
My passion for audio started all because my parents bought a Yamaha Clavinova when I was a kid that had 3 crucial functions - a huge library of instrument samples that I could use the keys to perform with, the ability to record multiple layers of such sounds, and then being able to save and play them back. Essentially having the core functionality of a modern DAW, 12-year-old me began to think: "Well, now that this keyboard can record not just me playing a cover of a song on the keys, but I could also record myself finger drumming and doing other wacky crazy synthesizer sounds over it, I could literally re-arrange music or even re-imagine my favorite music with different melodies and instrumentation."
After recording myself playing different instruments together and listening to it being played back, I thought to myself, "Gee, I feel like I can't hear the drums at all because the piano I played is so loud. I wonder if I could adjust the volume of just the drums, instead of turning the whole damn thing down." To my surprise (as I was fiddling around with the Clavi's software settings), I found volume controls for the individual instruments that I had recorded - essentially a basic mixer. And then from that point on, I knew I had dropped into a HUGE rabbit hole.
Tell us about the production of your submission. What is the story behind it? What inspired it? How long did you work on it? Was it your first entry?
The story behind the production is that my artist, Lina Cooper (who I had met and befriended through having worked on music with a couple of her friends), really wanted to go for chart-topping modern pop production style - which, prior to this submission, I had never done before. I instantly saw that as an opportunity to really sit down and refine my skills as a producer and engineer, and approached her about producing one of her songs. Luckily, she was in the works of writing a song that really captured her life story as a tragic singer-songwriter with all the hardships she faces in this vast industry. She has this huge and unique imagination [that lets her] really outshine the competition. In a time when pop is quickly being dominated by darker and grittier stories of breakups and problems, I wanted to take that a step further and really craft the auditory experience to be an inspiring, dreamy, and uplifting one, but also one that inspires all types of audiences regardless of their background. Lina & I worked on the track for about a year total, going through tons of revisions, and the last quarter of it was done with my submission partner JM for the mixing process. And yes, this is my first entry in the AES student recording competitions.
What/Who made you join AES?
I went to AES NYC in 2019 to see the physical show, as I knew some of my Berklee friends were also planning on going. Little did I know that I would also see the girl I liked (at the time, who is now amazingly my girlfriend) not only attending, but also participating in the AES student recording competition. By winning gold alongside her partner in the traditional recording sub-category, I became inspired by her boldness and confidence to compete. Thus I figured I'd try my hand at seeing how well I'd do alongside the rest of the world's production / engineering students.
Tell us about your favorite experiences at the 149th AES convention online.
Honestly, it was all about the talks and interviews for me. Gaining insight from the masters, be it production or mixing tips from their experiences, has always been a big plus for me at the two AES conventions I have attended. That level of insight and, especially, the ability to ask questions as well is not something I can find anywhere else to such a consolidated and comprehensive degree.
Posted: Tuesday, November 24, 2020
My name is Mie Hirschfield. I'm originally from North Carolina, but I'm currently studying Sound Recording at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
What initiated your passion for audio? When did it start?
I've always had a passion for music. I've played violin since I was four years old and I received both my Bachelor's and Master's degree in violin performance while freelancing in different orchestras and chamber ensembles; I've been immersed in the classical music world for a long time. In 2018, I had the opportunity to take the courses for McGill University's qualifying year for the Sound Recording Master's degree, and was accepted into the program. I found that working in audio is refreshing because you get to focus on the entire picture rather than just a small part of it. I've been fascinated by how various audio technologies can capture different timbres and qualities of an instrument, and how it changes the character of the recording.
Tell us about the production of your submission. What is the story behind it? What inspired it? How long did you work on it? Was it your first entry?
This track was a recording of the McGill Symphony Orchestra and soloist Tyler Song performing Mozart's iconic clarinet concerto. It was recorded during a concert in January of 2020, and remixed for about three weeks in July. Although the concert was performed twice, this concerto was only played on the first night so there was only one chance to get it right. This is my second entry to the AES recording competition.
What/Who made you join AES?
My fantastic professors Richard King, Martha DeFrancisco, George Massenburg, and Wieslaw Woszcyk encouraged all their students to join AES, so I joined as soon as I started at McGill. Since then, I've had the opportunity to serve in the AES McGill Student Section. I love being a part of this community of audio-minded people.
Tell us about your favorite experiences at the 149th AES convention online.
It was really humbling and rewarding to receive feedback from the incredible engineers on the judges panel. Being able to hear from such respected professionals in the industry was a really unique and special experience.
Posted: Wednesday, November 18, 2020
We are honored to announce the winners of Student Competitions!
Student Recording Competition:
Category 1 (Audio):
Sub-Category 1 (Traditional Acoustic):
Judges
Lisa Nigris, Nick Squire, Fei Yu
Sub-Category 2 (Traditional Studio):
Judges
Michael Caporizzo, Brian Masterson, Robin Reumers
Sub-Category 3 (Modern Studio):
Judges
Jennifer Nulsen, Alex Perialas, Liz Teutsch
Category 2 (Sound for Visual Media):
Judges
Kris Górski, Luke Klingensmith
Category 3 (Remix):
Judges
Dan Cantor, Rob Grimaldi, Wes Maebe
Category 4 (Immersive Audio):
Judges
Tomasz Ciotucha, Daniel Deboy, Amandine Pras
Saul Walker Student Design Competition:
Judges
Jamie Angus, Dave Hill, EveAnna Manley, George Massenburg, Tomas Zernicki
MATLAB Plugin Competition:
Judges
Jamie Angus, Joshua Hodge, Jihad Ibrahim, Christos Pangiotopoulos, Stefania Serafin
Huge thanks to our sponsors!
Automated Processes, Inc. (API)
Acustica Audio
Avid
Crane Song
Cycling ‘74
D16
Dance Music Production
Eventide
FLUX
Genelec
iZotope
Leapwing Audio
Mastering the Mix
Mathew Lane
Mathworks
Merging
Native Instruments
PSP Audio
Routledge
Solid State Logic
Sonnox
Steinberg
Sweetwater
Sonarworks
U-He
UVI
Posted: Tuesday, October 27, 2020
We are thrilled to announce that once again the D-Brief Contest for Student Design Competition participants will take place before the AES 149th convention. This is the opportunity for SDC participants to win free registration to the convention by submitting their abstract to SDC judges for pre-check and feedback.
Posted: Friday, August 7, 2020
Stefan Damian won Silver for his submission in the Modern Studio category.
Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from and what do you study?
I’m Stefan Damian, I am from Suceava, Romania and I am currently finishing my PhD in Sound Design For Interactive Media at CINETic-UNATC Bucharest – Romania. Previously I studied an MA in Sonic Arts at SARC – Queen’s University Belfast – UK and a BA at UNATC Bucharest – Romania in sound for film.
What initiated your passion for audio? When did it start?
My passion for music and sound started when I was around 4 and started piano lessons. This also gradually developed into a passion for mixing, sound design, electroacoustic composition and interactive sound, over the years, by being lucky enough to be exposed to various artistic manifestations, which were based or included sound. At the moment I am interested in pretty much everything that has something to do with audio or sound.
Tell us about the production of your submission. What is the story behind it? What inspired it? How long did you work on it? Was it your first entry?
The song called Tripolar is a hip-hop collaboration between Romanian artist Tranda (rapping & lyrics) and myself (music production & mixing). It was my first entry for this competition. Tripolar was made kind of accidentally when Tranda stumbled upon one of my rather basic instrumental demos and got inspired to write lyrics for it. It was completely finished using 2 bedroom studios (one for recording and another one for music production and mixing). Being somewhat of a perfectionist a vast amount of time was spent for music production, recording, arranging and finishing the final mix (about 2-3 weeks). This was also because I needed to work really hard on the vocals to compensate for the poor recording conditions.
What/Who made you join AES?
I first heard about the AES during my first year at university, but wasn’t really involved in the organization’s events and publications until 2018 when together with my peers Grigore Burloiu and Valentin Mihai published an article in JAES. This made me want to engage more, so in 2019 I went to my first AES convention in Dublin and in 2020 to Virtual Vienna, which is my second time.
Tell us about your favorite experiences at the 148th AES convention online.
There were many good presentations with a lot of valuable infos regarding very specific things, which I hope than in the future will somehow connect in my mind and help me to perfect my working with sound.
Posted: Thursday, July 30, 2020
Joris Fernandez won Bronze for his submission in the Remix category.
Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from and what do you study?
I’m in the Abbey Road Institute Paris School, a pretty cool school with a super great teacher. We study here the art of making sound, and music. We benefit from all the history of Abbey Road studio (ex. EMI) laboratory in research and knowledge!
What initiated your passion for audio? When did it start?
My uncle was DJ when he was young, so I bought a DJ Mix Consol when I was around 8 or 9 (that was my first love). That was pretty cool!! After that, I bought a Maschine mk2 and 2-years later, in 2013, I finally bought Logic Pro X, and I fell in love. (Thanks Apple). I made my way from now (electronic music, Dance, Raggaetton, Pop, Trap, Hip Hop, Disco, Movie Music), and I’m here today!
Tell us about the production of your submission. What is the story behind it? What inspired it? How long did you work on it? Was it your first entry?
My teacher Layan Clifford Thornton sent us students this opportunity. I jumped on it, and started to work on it. My goal was to remix a song, in giving him a new life: I wanted the song to be shaped for the radio or the club. I worked something like 8 hours and had the songs. Next, 8 more hours and I have my mix. And 2 days to complete the AES papers to enter in the competitions! This was my first entry.
What/Who made you join AES?
My teacher, Layan Clifford Thornton!
Tell us about your favorite experiences at the 148th AES convention online.
The easy part was making the remix. The hard part (for me) was to do the Zoom meeting with judges, and answer the judges’ questions about our productions, and to answer in English (My friends Anxiety and Fear were here).
Posted: Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Daniela Pardo Quintana won Gold for her submission in the Traditional Studio category.
Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from and what do you study?
My name is Daniela Pardo Quintana. I'm 25 and I come from Bogotá, Colombia. I'm currently doing my master degree in sound recording at McGill University, and I've been playing piano since I was 7 years old.
What initiated your passion for audio? When did it start?
Throughout my life, I’ve been surrounded by music, as most of my family members are musicians, some professionals and some not. Back in high school, I took 2 years of music classes, mainly focused on colombian folk music. There, I understood the importance of keeping our traditions and customs alive, reflected through music. After that I went to the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and got my degree in music, with emphasis on Sound Engineering, and I also took 3 years of piano performance while doing my degree, as I didn't want to stop being a musician. I've always recorded folk/traditional instruments whereas the rest of my peers recorded piano, strings, brass and so on. Once, during one of my recording classes, my professor told me: “you should keep doing that. Sadly it is not common for students to record this kind of instrument and music”. As I heard this, I felt inspired and happy because I was achieving my goal of exploring folk music recording and I had started to fall in love with recording and mixing. It's that same love which brought me here today. My country has an important musical richness and one of my contributions to its legacy as a Colombian is to become an excellent recording engineer in order to work with folk music and show it to the rest of the world.
Tell us about the production of your submission. What is the story behind it? What inspired it? How long did you work on it? Was it your first entry?
This track was part of my bachelor degree's portfolio. The beauty of nature was the main inspiration behind it, specifically focused on the element of water. The name of the song, “Yaku”, comes from the Quechua indigenous language, which means water. We recorded it in two different sessions; the first one focused on the instrumental part and the second one focused on voices. Surprisingly, during the voice recording session, the musicians brought some folk percussion instruments, which I was not expecting to record. However, it's as if magic started to spark as they started to play them. That's when the concept of water made sense to me, as those instruments generated the sensation of a flowing movement, like waves, and created organic sounds through their musicality. Then the percussionist started to improvise an indigenous singing, which I wasn't expecting to record either. Basically, the voice overdubs' session turned into a beautiful, creative and improvised session between the musicians and I. This is my 4th entry. I’ve participated in AES Colombia 2017 and AES Mexico 2018 (silver award) and also LATAM AES Uruguay 2018 (bronze award).
What/Who made you join AES?
During my studies, our professors always encouraged us to join AES and participate in all the workshops, lectures and events we could. When I found the AES Student Recording Competition, I saw an amazing opportunity to meet new people, show my work to the judges and acquire new experiences during the conferences. So I immediately joined AES to participate and it was really worth it!
Tell us about your favorite experiences at the 148th AES convention online.
For me, this 148TH AES Convention online has been the best so far! Although I was not able to meet people in person, this online version gave me the chance to participate in the Recording Competition without it requiring me to travel to Vienna which, in my case, would have been very difficult. Also, in the previous AES Convention, you would sometimes have to choose between two or three amazing events, because they were at the same date and time and you could only attend one of them. Following this, you can watch the conferences online on the website anytime until the end of June which is amazing because of the amazing opportunity to acquire knowledge which you would normally not have the chance to because of scheduling issues. So, all the online experience by itself was wonderful, and provided many different opportunities of learning and getting more involved in the audio industry. I would like to mention two very special moments which I will remember forever. The first one was the conference by Darry de la Soul, about building a career in Sound Engineering. As a student, this presentation was very useful to build my path in the field, I found it to be providing efficient and logical tips and tricks. Finally, the best experience was when I heard my name as the gold award winner in my category. Unbelievably unforgettable moment!
Posted: Thursday, July 23, 2020
Diana Kuls was awarded Gold for her submission in the Student Recording Competition Sound for Visual Media category.
Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from and what do you study?
My name is Diana Kuls, I'm 23 years old and I'm from Warsaw, Poland. I study sound engineering for film and television and also choir singing. I work in a dubbing studio where I do audio quality control.
What initiated your passion for audio? When did it start?
I was raised in a family with musical traditions, so I guess music and sound is a really big part of who I am. My parents always wanted me to become a professional pianist but I knew I wanted to do something more dynamic and diverse. I started thinking of studying sound engineering when I was around 16 or 17 years old. I found out that there's a major which connects music with technology and I thought that it can actually fit my interests and abilities.
Tell us about the production of your submission. What is the story behind it? What inspired it? How long did you work on it? Was it your first entry?
My submission work - Identity - is a 5-minutes long animation movie by Alireza Salehi (Iran, 2019). It's a fantasy story of a man who looks for his lost face inside of a mirror. I liked the story and the universal message it carries. I found the original picture on YouTube while searching for something to work on at my university film sound classes. My job was to create all the sound layers from scratch. Because of the studio renovation, it was much more difficult to record foley effects than it was in previous years so the majority of the effects I used originate from the sound library. It took around 4 months to finalize it. This was my second attempt to the Student Recording Competition - first one was last year, during AES in Dublin.
What/Who made you join AES?
Many of my university colleagues were already members of AES when I joined. I could see how much fun they have at conventions, so finally I decided to go and experience it myself.
Tell us about your favorite experiences at the 148th AES convention online.
As a final year student, I was very busy at the time and simply couldn't take part in a lot of provided online events. I really enjoyed the Student Recording Competition and the form it was made in. It was cool we could listen to each other's works on headphones and exchange opinions on a group chat. I know that this way of organizing the convention provided the access to a bigger group of listeners, but I really missed the physicality of a "normal" event. You know, having a beer with friends while exploring the city after the whole day of lectures... There's no online way to replace it.
Posted: Tuesday, July 21, 2020
Benoit Gerard won Bronze for his submission in the Remix category.
Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from and what do you study?
My name is Benoit Girard, I live in France and I'm a student of Abbey Road Institute Paris. I had a first career in cybersecurity and this year I decided to switch to my initial vocation: be a sound engineer.
What initiated your passion for audio? When did it start?
I started playing music when my parents bought me a Yamaha PSR keyboard, I was 8. I was more interested in trying to reproduce the exact same sound that I heard from different records, understanding MIDI, etc. This gave me a lot of frustration, because you can't do that much with an entry level Yamaha synth (especially when you're not a skilled player) so I switched to computer generated melodies, on ATARI at the time.
Tell us about the production of your submission. What is the story behind it? What inspired it? How long did you work on it? Was it your first entry?
I'm mostly listening and mixing rock music (from electro punk to folk), but the week before the contest I was cleaning up my studio and found some old CDs from the days where I was playing synths. My remix is in that vibe: "synth wave". We were confined here in France during the whole week of the contest. I had the Abbey Road Institute courses in the afternoon and my children to take care during the morning so I worked from 4 AM to 8 AM and did the final mix on the final weekend.
What/Who made you join AES?
Two previous students of Abbey Road Institute were rewarded in 2018 and when I saw their certificates at school I decided that I would try when I had this opportunity. Layan Thornton is our representative for the AES and because everything was closed at the time in France, he gave us the opportunity to work on something that we could make at home: the remix contest.
Tell us about your favorite experiences at the 148th AES convention online.
I guess that this year's convention was quite new for everyone! I really enjoyed the variety of topics, from very technical aspects of scientific audio research fields to more global and artistic ideas. This is one of the think I really love in audio engineering: mixing the pragmatic approach of science and the very empiric domains of feelings and emotions.
Posted: Tuesday, July 14, 2020
