AES Student Blog

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

My name is Quentin Durual, I’m 23 and I come from Lyon in France.
I’ve studied there during 2 years in an audiovisual school called Studio M. After that, I’ve lived in London for a year, to play music, discover another music culture and widen my perspectives. I’m currently studying at Abbey Road Institute in Paris for a one-year training. The school offers recording, mixing, mastering courses. It covers all the fields of the music industry and I definitely improved my skills in arrangement, post-production, music business, marketing courses and so on. 

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

When I was a teenager I started learning how to play guitar by myself because I was listening to some good rock, like Gun’s n roses, Led Zeppelin etc.. I  wanted to be a guitar hero you know ! I began composing music and recording it, on Garageband (with no clue of how it was working, it sounded pretty bad !). But I really loved the process of shaping and harmonizing sounds, even more than just playing my guitar. So I spent a lot of time on it, bought more and more gear. At some point I wanted to take one step further and to start doing it in a professional way. That’s why I went to an Audiovisual school with a sound option. From that point, I knew I wanted to work as a sound engineer.

3) 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?

Actually, I have discovered the category 5 of the contest only a week before the submission deadline. But I was really inspired by the original song « Circle » from Chris Dupont so I decided to have a go. I took on the challenge because the opportunity of competing with engineers from all over the world was thrilling. I had courses this week, so I worked at night and during my spare time at school. It was a very formative and intense exercise, because I had to make choices really quickly and stick to them until the end, no backtracking was permitted. I did the main composition in a production studio in Abbey Road Institute with guitars, keyboards, drum machines.. 

4) What/who made you join AES?

One of my teachers from Abbey Road Institute, Mr Layan Thornton pushed me to join the AES contest. He was working at the AES convention in Milan and he let me know about the contest. The concept was so tempting, I did not hesitate. Today I am very grateful he believed I was able to run the competition. 

5) Tell us about your favorite experiences at the 144th AES convention in Milan!

The research aspect of the convention was particularly rewarding. Seeing professionals looking for concrete solutions to create new sound technologies was appealing.

The award ceremony was really formative as well. I was very thankful when I won the Honorable Mention Award for the category 5 remix. I learnt a lot from the feedbacks of the judges, which were sharp but fair. 
I know I still have a long way to go and I will definitely come back.