AES Student Blog

Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from and what do you study? 

Hi, I’m Misaki Hasuo from Tokyo, Japan. I graduated my bachelor degree in Tokyo University of the Arts and I’ve been a student of master program in the same university. My specialty is recording and mixing with multichannel speaker systems. My university has some studios which have multichannel system such as 5.1 and 22.2, and I usually do recording and mixing there. In addition to recording music, I also make sound effects of animation. 

What initiated your passion for audio? When did it start? 

I’ve been to the music class to learn classical guitar since I was elementary school student, so I like to play the instrument and listen to music when I was young. When I had to decide my university, I wanted to study something related to music and found Tokyo University of the Arts where students can learn a variety of things about music. I entered there and met my professor, then decided to take the recording course. 

Tell us about 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 work “Cosmic Wind” is the original piece for 5.0 surround system. There is only one classical guitar in this work, no other kind of instruments. This was specially composed for 5.0 surround system, not for stereo. There are 9 guitar parts and one guitarist played all these parts. I recorded them with using main microphones and some spot microphones and mixed up all parts in Protools. The player changed the sitting position according to the part she played. For example, she sat in front of the left microphone when she played L part. Other parts (C, R, Ls, Rs) wes recorded like that. I am always trying to make the best use of the features of the playing system when making (recording and mixing) a work. Then I took such a way of recording because I decided to use 5ch system in this work. The recording took 2 days and mixing took about 2 weeks. Actually, I tried to submit my work to SRC in Warsaw a year ago but there was some accident and I could not. I regretted it very much at that time, so very happy to have received the award this time! 

What/who made you join AES? 

My professor and senior students who are great and cool ;) 

Tell us about your favorite experiences at the 141st AES convention in LA! 

There are many favorite experiences....but I choose 3 points. First, I got valuable feedback on my work from wonderful judges. Second, I got to see and listen to a lot of projects and presentations of students from other countries. That is very exciting for me. Finally, I was able to see a lot of famous engineers, musicians, professors, and take many interesting presentations and sessions. I think AES convention is rare and valuable opportunity to have many experiences that I can not do in Japan. 

To hear Misaki's project, click here