Education & Career

AES Student Blog

AES 145 | Meet The Sponsors! Linear Audio

We are happy to have Sweetwater supporting the student competitions once again!

Linear Audio publishes technical articles about technology, developments and the state of the art in audio and perception from a technical perspective.

It is meant for anyone who is interested in technical audio developments or who wants to contribute. Being employed in audio engineering is not a requirement.

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Posted: Saturday, September 1, 2018

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AES 145 | Meet The Sponsors! APS - Audio Pro Solutions

Many thanks to APS - Audio Pro Solutions for sponsoring the student recording competition!

APS - Audio Pro Solutions

Manufacturer of professional monitors and High End Home speakers. APS was born from an encounter between a composer and sound engineer/producer, brilliant speaker designers and a group of highly motivated audiophiles and music lovers.

APS was established in 2006 as a project devoted to studio sound production technique. As we use professional project and measurement tools, we have total control over the final effect at each stage of the product creation. Ready-made projects are implemented into production with maximum attention paid to the quality of the final product. Our present offer includes active studio monitors.

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Posted: Saturday, September 1, 2018

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AES144 Student Design Competition Interview: Denys Volkov

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

I am Ukrainian by the origin. It may be superfluous to say that my hobby and professional passion is audio and acoustics and I am very lucky that it is so. I have just obtained my master degree in Electroacoustics in Le Mans University, France and second one in Acoustic multimedia tools and systems in National Technical University of Ukraine in a framework of double diploma program between those two universities.

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

My interest in audio and music in general has started since my school years. I decided to visit a music school to learn how to play guitar. Also, I was invited to play drums in folk/jazz orchestra. Since that time music became an essential part of my life. Together with that my favourite subjects in high school were math and physics. These two passions helped me to determine my further steps and choose to study acoustic equipment in the university as it was a great combination of art and science. I would like to express my deep gratitude to all my teachers at Le Mans University for their lessons, experience sharing, endless help and faith in my ideas and this project. To my family for their support of my professional path in audio. And to my friends for their useful advises and testing of my prototypes.

3) Tell us about production of your submission? What is the story behind it? How long did you work on it? Was it your first entry? What kind of problem can it solve or improve?

The idea to develop the system that I have presented in a competition was inspired by an intensive development of smart-audio system market. These systems provide a broad range of possible applications and wide functionality to their users. Except, that they are not flexible in terms of radiation directivity and could not reproduce multichannel audio content. In that way, they cannot fully satisfy all customer’s needs.

Proposed system will help to solve this issue. By varying different assemblies between the cells, it will be possible to use same system to be putted in front of TV and radiates directly for one listener, or to perform wide coverage for several people, listen to common 2.0 stereo or to organize 5.0 or 6.0 home theatre.

4) Did you considered commercializing your project? Are there any business or product possibilities?

I will be of course very happy if my prototype will become one day a final product availab

le in market. However, it is quite difficult to do any further steps and improvements by myself as it will need a lot of electronic design and software development. So, I am open for further proposals and discussions!

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

I cannot single out any particular tutorial or lecture at the AES convention to be my favourite (except SDA design competition of course). I just enjoyed its atmosphere completely! This event is an amazing opportunity to feel yourself as a part of audio industry, to meet colleagues from all over the word, discuss news and just have some fun together!

Posted: Sunday, August 26, 2018

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AES 144 Student Competition Interview: Krzysztof Kicior

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

I have been living almost my entire life in Warsaw, Poland and I study at The Fryderyk Chopin University of Music. After graduating from the Sound Engineering Department, I continue my studies in Composition.

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

It is very hard to pinpoint a single point in my life, so I am going to choose three.

Age 2: I started to explore the audio world by hitting random objects with a stick, checking out the sounds they would produce. By then my parents knew what was going on.

Age 15: My radio adventure began, resulting with becoming a host in the local student stations and a somewhat close cooperation with Polskie Radio. By then I knew I loved the devices with flashing lights and faders.

Age 17/18: For the first time ever I heard Mew's albums "And The Glass Handed Kites" and "No More Stories Are Told Today, I'm Sorry They Washed Away // No More Stories, The World Is Grey, I'm Tired, Let's Wash Away". By then I knew my future would be somehow entwined with audio.

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?

The entire remix category came out of the blue. I did not plan on submitting anything there, because I simply did not expect it!

It all took seven weeks. In that time, I had to decide that I want to take part in the Competition, listen multiple times to the source material, find the right ideas, remix the song, pass the local eliminations, write the documentation and submit my work. I guess there was no time for any doubts, but luckily also no inspiration was needed: that was simply a labour of love. I did not do it for the recognition, so I was shocked to make it to the final of the competition and delighted to receive an award.

That said, it was my first entry ever.

4) What/who made you join AES?

I found out about AES from our Faculty Advisor, dr Tadeusz Fidecki. It took a while, but I finally decided to join the organisation for various reasons - just in time for the 136th Convention in Berlin!

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

Again, I'm going to choose three. Two things that happened to me for the first time ever, one thing that amazes me at every convention.

Friday: fulfilling my dream of a few years to present my work in the Student Recording Competition, receive the feedback from the judges and watch everyone's reactions.

Thursday: joining the D&I Committee meeting and discussing some issues with the "adults". For me, it was a whole new side of the convention.

Wednesday: seeing so many passionate people gathered in one place. It always fills my heart with joy.

Posted: Saturday, August 25, 2018

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AES144 Saul Walker Student Design Competition winner Interview: Bartlomiej Chojnacki

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

My name is Bartlomiej Chojnacki, I’m master student in Noise in technics and environment course at AGH University of Science and Technology in Cracow, recently graduated in Acoustic engineering in the same university. Currently I’m finishing my master’s thesis to begin the PhD studies in acoustic engineering. Professionally I’m working as a operational director of acoustic treatment manufacturer Mega-Acoustic.

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

It has started with my first project on the 2nd year of my bachelor degree in the end of 2014. It was Marconi’s Spark Gap Radio, surprisingly – it worked. By this project I was awarded on local Students Scientific Conference, and then… many other project occurred, with my flagship project of Piezoelectric Omnidirectional Source and scale modeling in acoustics, which was awarded twice on previous Student Design Competition editions. Currently I’m an author of over 15 scientific publications and winner of many awards in the scale of Poland and international. I think my passion for audio was mainly supported by this additional project and very wide field of study with my courses on the university, also with the great support of educators. Brainstorming and workflow is the best catalyst for the scientific work.

3) Tell us about production of your submission? What is the story behind it? How long did you work on it? Was it your first entry? What kind of problem can it solve or improve?

This year I’ve submitted the project which was the basic tool used by myself in my master’s thesis, which was the room sound field scanner and the method for acoustic field analysis for the acoustic fault detection. It was first entry for this project, but it was developed about a year ago – all we need to prepare was correct method of analysis for the received data and validate the results. This is the main part of the engineering work- engineering mean calculation and validation… so it was about a year that took me to develop the project in the current status. It was designed to improve overall possibilities in sound field diffuseness and spatial quality estimation for rating quality in the qualified acoustic rooms like concert halls and studios, also it needs to be applicable on the designing process before launching the construction process. Fortunately, all this points was included and working in current project status.

4) Did you considered commercializing your project? Are there any business or product possibilities?

This project has very big potential, but for now I don’t think about commercializing yet. This is quite early status and cannot be operated by no one than me because it still need a lot of documentation and validation. This is the problem with many DIY projects – they very often stop on the development process because later you need to provide instruction for it, which is not always the thing that students want to work… because it’s boring! And many of the project like that has very narrow recipients number, so the commercialization may not be profitable at all... comemercialization is a good idea for projects easy to develop with wide range of possible uses. Some of the inventions must be left as a pure science, like mine :( .

5) Do you know or consider any future steps? Will it be linked with the project you’ve presented?

My project presented in Milan was the early stage of the research I’m leading for a year and plan to lead in the next 3-4 years, also as the topic of my PhD thesis. Room sound field diffuseness estimation and its perception is very common topic in the field of room acoustic, so it will be definitely continued. The application of room sound field scanner itself need just small correction which will fix the bugs and allow better performance, especially the data export, but the project itself will be lead in more scientific, analytical and data collection way. In the closest future i plan to develop some papers and articles about this system, also including some reports about the prize it was awarded on AES in Milan! In my opinion, the succes is just 50% until you will make a report and promote it... no one cares about how big projects are you making until you let the world know them. The AES Design Competition is one of the places where it can be done best - provide the presentation of epic projects to the world.

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

During the 144th Convention the best part was the casual students meetings next to the canal! First after the students party, later – anytime, casual and spontaneous, people was just arriving because they knew that other will be there for sure. Great party with great people, I’ve met many AES students that i haven’t know before.

Posted: Friday, August 24, 2018

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AES144 Saul Walker Student Design Competition winner Interview: Leon Merkel

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

Hey, I’m Leon Merkel, natively from Hanover/Germany. In spring I recently finished my Bachelors Degree in „Sound and Music Production“ at the media department of the university of applied sciences Darmstadt. I’ve learned the process of Audio Production many formats from stereo radio features and rock/pop-music, surround classical music and film score to artificial 3D-Audio projects. The interactive part of the studies included extensive object-based programming in Max/MSP and the developing of hardware synthesizers with Arduino. My profound interest in 3D-Audio lead to my decision to study electrical engineering/audio engineering at the university of music and performing arts in Graz.

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

Like many others, I’ve started to play the piano in my childhood. I’m very happy that my parents offered me that opportunity. In my youth played in a couple of bands and taught myself how to play the guitar. We mostly played our own compositions in different genres as my interest in producing my own music grew.

3) Tell us about production of your submission? What is the story behind it? How long did you work on it? Was it your first entry? What kind of problem can it solve or improve?

http://www.aes-sda-media.org/media/Bartek_photos/144_interview/leon2.jpg

The idea of my project evolved during an internship in an acoustics company. I prepared the acoustical simulations for a new big recording studio and found out how accurately the simulated impulse responses match the recorded ones. I stared thinking about a convolution reverb with simulated IR’s. The advantage was, instead of recording many IR’s for the reverb, to simulate them with a computer. I followed through with my idea and developed a convolution reverb based on acoustically simulated impulse responses as my bachelors research project. It took me three months to develop the software. The software enables the user to change the position of the listener and different sound sources in the spatial environment with ease. An individually simulated ambisonics impulse response exists for every possible position in order to create a realistic feeling of depth and accurate localization.

4) Do you know or consider any future steps? Will it be linked with the project you’ve presented?

Yes, I will work further on that software. After the AES convention I added a feature to use headtracking headphones to enable the user to turn around 360° and experience a better and more realistic room sound. For the future I will also upscale the impulse responses to fifth order ambisonics. I hope to present my further work on this project and the resulting reverb at the 30th Tonmeistertagung in Cologne.

Posted: Thursday, August 23, 2018

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AES144 Student Recording Competition Interview: Andrei Mankevich

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

I’m Andrei Mankevich, from Belarus. Minsk. This year I have finished Belarusian State academy of arts at sound engineering specialty. Also before academy I had finished Republican Gymnasium-College under Belarusian Academy of Music at Choir conducting specialty. For several years I’ve been working as a sound engineer at well-known acapella band “Camerata” based in Belarusian State Philharmonic. Also I work as the sound engineer and composer/arranger at the recording studio.

I Wish to continue study in this direction and planning to join master program at one European or North American university. For me it’s one of very important steps in chasing my goals.

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

By a chance I took part in an audition for entering music school when I was a child. This period of time strongly influenced me and the formation of my personality. Step by step, I discovered the music world, and tried myself in different roles, also I sang and played different instruments in music bands. While studying in college, I also began to dive into the world of sound, bought a microphone, began to record my music, work with musicians and their music. After graduation from college, I decided to learn more about the world of sound and entered the university at the specialty of sound engineering. I think I’ve made the right choice, because the skills in sound engineering give me the opportunity to hear music in a different way and make my sound better.

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?

It was my first submission. I’ve heard about previous participants of this competition in my country and started gathering information about this event. I’ve decided that I definitely have to try it.

This song wasn’t recorded specially for this competition, it was just one of the songs from the album that we were recording at that moment at the studio.

When we work with musicians first of all we have to understand what this song is about, the main message of the song and we have to preserve and develop their main idea. This song is some kind of a protest that aimed at fighting with actual social problems. This song is based on classical rock standards but also has modern loud punchy and heavy compressed output. It was recorded and mixed a few months before the competition. Until the very last moment I wasn’t sure about my submission, but strong energy of the song made my choice.

4) What/who made you join AES?

First I knew about student recording competition and then I discovered what is AES and began to read about it. I definitely like their ideas and principles, that it is an independent organization which serves to advance technologies and knowledge, but doesn’t sell and advertise consumer products.

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

Actually every part of this event was really great and useful. Especially I liked different workshops which not only give us exact knowledge, but also show us new different directions and teach us to ask the questions. And of course competition was one of the most exciting moment of the convention, it was very surprising when I’ve heard my name as one of the winners.

Posted: Wednesday, August 22, 2018

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AES144 Student Recording Competition Interview: Agnieszka Szczepańczyk

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

I am from Poland and I study Music Production at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw where I am doing my last year of master’s degree. I am also interested in other fields of sound engineering such as radio dramas and, of course, sound for visual media.

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

It started during my first year of studies at the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz. I was not sure if I had made the right decision about my future job, but courses and my first internships persuaded me that working in audio is the best decision. Making sound for different purposes gives me opportunity to express myself and present my point of view of reality. I consider it as a great combination of technology and art. It is also amazing that the group of people, who may not have known each other before, can create something unique together.

Before finishing bachelor studies in Bydgoszcz, one of my Professors told that the most important thing in life is to do what you love. I always remember about it, and I am glad, that I have the opportunity to work as sound engineer in different musical and film projects.

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?

I made sound for the submitted animation ‘Llapse’ because I have been impressed by quality and strength of the picture. In original soundtrack there is only music, but the plot gives opportunity to create variety of sounds. I decided to challenge myself. I began my work by expanding the story with additional, original plot elements. For me, the cube represents the unintended effect that the human civilization has on its environment. It was also crucial to me to tell through the sound the story in a way that would match fast-paced action and tension of the picture. After the presentation at the university, some of my friends suggested that I should try to submit my work. It was my first AES student competition entry.

4) What/who made you join AES?

Mainly, the recommendations of students, especially Krzysztof Kicior who is the chair of Warsaw student section. After short conversation with him I checked reports from previous conventions and some AES publications that I found interesting. It convinced me to join.

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

My favorite experiences were connected with amazing people who came there. That was wonderful to meet many students and professionals from the industry from all over the world and be able to share ideas and opinions with them. During the convention I had a feeling that I am the member of one big family of audio enthusiasts.

Posted: Tuesday, August 21, 2018

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AES144 Student Recording Competition Interview: Krzysztof Ptak

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

I'm from Kielce in Poland - the city located in Świętokrzyskie voivodeship. I'm studying sound engineering at Fryderyk Chopin University of Music. I make beats since 2010. I love music, especially jazz, soul, hip hop and electronic.

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

I think i got it from God as a talent. My parents showed me good music and took me to music school when I was 7 years old. I play piano and organ. Music was always important part of my life. In medium school I've became interested in music studies, but I wanted to connect music with technical subjects. I love mathematic, physics etc. I searched and I found sound engineering in Warsaw.

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?

I heard about remix category from my friend in march. I gathered for a long time to start remix. I've started my work about two weeks before deadline. First thing was to listen all song and then track by track. Fast picked guitar inspired my to make remix in drum and bass genre. I make it in two weekends. It was my first entry so I'm so shocked and excited that I was awarded a bronze medal.

4) What/who made you join AES?

My girlfriend Dominika and my friends from studies. I'm sure that I wouldn't make this remix without their "keeping asking" me about remix and motivating me to do something.

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

Everything was exciting. Talking with people from different countries. Listening lectures from many areas of audio. Competitions. My friend submitted participant in all category. For me the most unpredictable moment was contest results announcement of my category - remix.

Posted: Monday, August 20, 2018

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AES144 Student Recording Competition Interview: Kevin Langlois

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

I'm from France, I studied in Paris and I finished this year my school of Audio Engineering and Studio Production at AbbeyRoad Institute Paris.

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

I am passioned by music since my childhood and I discovered sound engineering by searching how the actual music could be sounded like today. I had understood how a band played and why they played like that but the engineering part of that was absolutely dark to me. And the electronic music, darker than that! So I wanted to discover this other part of music's world, the technics part and the engineering of it.

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?

My production for my submission was a real opportunity to construct a project from scratch. That was the first time for me to do that, to have a deadline to show and present a finish and concret music project. My goal was to use this opportunity to meet, construct and share a good music I like, and go until the end who cares the results (and finally was good!). So I contacted different bands I liked, some of them heard at radio like Canari (the one I recorded) to propose the project : record them on a new track never released before, or start from a jam and construct from it ; and after, use that recording to produce for real. I finished this project like I wanted, with adding a personal touch just before starting to mix it. So yes, that was my first and only one entry to the contest. I was on the project for 1 month and worked on it concretely 7 entire days spread on this month.

4) What/who made you join AES?

I joined the AES the year before when the event was in Paris, I had news from my school and be able to go there due to it. After that, it was Layan Clifford who made me come at the next event at Milan and participate at the contest. He works at AbbeyRoad Institute and works for AES to record all the conferences ; that what I did there before have the results of contest, sound recording assistant during the conferences!

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

My best experience was that moment I heard my name as finalist in my category contest! I was the 4th name called while the other categories before had only 3 finalists! I thought that was finished and no one from us was finalist and... yes, I was! It's very personal but it's my favorite moment during the convention!

Posted: Sunday, August 19, 2018

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