AES Student Blog

Thank you to D16 Audio Group for their support and sponsorship with numerous of their plug ins!

D16 Group Audio Software officially launched in 2006 with the aim of producing virtual instruments and effects for producers and musicians who required top quality and inspiration in their music.

Today, D16 Group Audio Software have become a premium audio plug-ins vendor. Continuously high level of quality and will of improvement allow us to deliver virtual instruments that set a new standard of sound perfection and effects that take creativity to the next level. Solid trust from audio community and respect for products fruitful in many rewards make D16 Group Audio Software the company of choice for many musicians around the globe.

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A huge thank you to Acustica Audio for sponsoring the AES Student Recording competitions with several plug in bundles!

Acustica Audio creates faithful software plug-in emulations of rare vintage or modern hardware gear and new hybrids impossible in the analogue domain. Our core tech is based on dynamic sampling and Volterra series nonlinear convolution. This approach help us create plug-ins that deliver gear-like transient response, accurate phase, and tone which will make you smile! Our main product, the 'Nebula' gear sampler is in version 4 now and it has been around since 2005. N4 and the free N4 Player are both capable of loading 3rd party gear libraries. Our website hosts the official online store for such libraries and an entire line of standalone Nebula-based plug-ins know as 'the Aqua range'. 

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Nadine is an associate professor in sound design and technique for the picture at the University of Stavanger in Norway. She is a 2000 graduate from a film and TV bachelor program in Lebanon, a post graduate diploma in composing for the screen, and an MA in sound design from Bournemouth University. Nadine´s professional career has spanned from radio and television advertising to working with music artists and award-winning directors.

Her passion for teaching started in 2004, when she began lecturing about sound and storytelling at the Académie Libanaise Des Beaux Arts (ALBA). This was followed by teaching positions at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK) and currently the University of Stavanger. Nadine’s primary area of interest lies in the exploration of the intricate relationship between audio and how it influences the perception of the visuals in a moving picture. Nadine speaks four languages fluently and enjoys reading and playing the piano.

Leslie Gaston-Bird AMPS, MPSE  Vice President, Western Region (USA & Canada) AES began working in 2002 at Post Modern Company in Denver, Colorado, restoring soundtracks for classic Sony / Columbia films from as early as the 1930's. At the same time, she began work on her Master of Science in Recording Arts (MSRA) degree at the University of Colorado Denver. 

She earned her MSRA degree in 2003 with a thesis titled, “Music Video Vérité”, a pioneering work in recording mulititrack audio alongside performances filmed in multiple locations and edited together as one seamless performance. Shortly afterwards, she accepted a tenure-track position at CU Denver and is now an Associate Professor of Recording Arts. 

Leslie has been involved in research with Dolby Laboratories in San Fransisco and Gates Planetarium in Denver. She continues to do freelance work, and is currently exploring ways to improve the audio experience as a whole. In 2011 she was granted a Fulbright award to research Blu-Ray audio at the University of York in York, England. 

Amandine Pras teaches Digital Audio Arts at the University of Lethbridge in Western Canada. She completed her PhD thesis at McGill about best practices for studio recording in the digital era. Her research investigates interconnections between technological innovation and new music production from esthetic and sociological perspectives. She recently premiered her video documentary entitled 'A Home Away From Home' based on a cross-cultural experiment that she conducted in India with improvisers from New York and from West Bengal. In July, she will take part of fieldwork research in digital studios in Mali. Graduate from the Advanced music production program (FSMS) of the Paris Conservatoire (CNSMDP), Amandine produced albums with musicians as diverse as the ARC Ensemble, Jim Black, Quatuor Bozzini, Daniel Carter, Nels Cline, Benoit Delbecq, Mary Halvorson, Tony Malaby, Fabrice Marandola, the Metropolis Ensemble, Andy Milne and William Parker.

Magdalena Piotrowska (Plewa) is a mastering engineer and researcher based in Poland. She first became excited by sound whilst still at kindergarten, where she dreamed of becoming a builder of musical instruments. This early enthusiasm later became the basis for her education at music school.

Uniting her passion for sound and international travel, Magdalena participated in postgraduate studies in Music Production and Recording at the University of Stavanger in Norway as well as in the recording program at the Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada). In 2016 she received a PhD with her thesis dedicated to Music Information Retrieval. She is now involved in research making connections between science and practical applications in the field of audio technology at Gdansk University of Technology.

After several years of education, training and supervision, in 2016 she started her own facility, Hear Candy Mastering.

Magdalena has worked with artists across a diverse range of musical genres, including KARI, Further Away, SALK, Kirbanu, Ceri Jones, Laura Dickens, Claire Chase, IMA KYO, deuair and Annalie Wilson. A production that she worked on recently as has been nominated for a Fryderyki 2018 Award.

Since 2013 Magdalena has served the Society as Education Committee Vice Chair and Coordinator of Student Events during AES Conventions in the US and Europe. She was Vice Chair of the AES Education Committee, In 2015-2017 she served as a Governor.

Magdalena is also active as an educator. She has lead classes in audio subjects at universities in Poland (AGH, Kraków; PJWSTK, Warszawa, Silesia University, Gdansk University of Technology). She was awarded the Ministers of Science and Higher Education Scholarship as well as study grants from the Committee for International Research and Education, the Acoustical Society of America and the Audio Engineering Society Educational Foundation.

Magdalena is the author and co-author of scientific papers presented at numerous international conferences, including AES Conventions. Her goal is to is make connections between science and practical application in the field of audio technology.

 Maro Music, (real name, Marek Walaszek) is a prolific DJ, producer and mix engineer. For more than 20 years, he has DJ’d at major nightlife venues throughout Europe. As a music producer and sound engineer, Maro Music has worked with some of the biggest names in hip-hop, reggae and electronic music, including Agallah, Dominique Young Unique, Wu-Tang Clan, Sizzla, Redman, Bang La Decks, DJ Kazzanova and others. Sought after by the biggest international brands – Coca-Cola, Absolute, Jaguar, BMW, The Voice among them – to create music for their advertising campaigns, Maro Music has proven his skill in the recording studio time and time again. HIs mixes and production earn certified Platinum and Gold albums and him youtube view are counted in tens of millions. His studio and record label, Addicted To Music, maintains a heavy schedule crafting original productions and doing mixing and mastering work for internationally recognised artists. The studio regularly produces Polish artists for Warner Brothers as well as for the bigger Polish record labels.

Marek Walaszek is in high demand on the lecture circuit, widely sought by universities to speak about music production. He has served as a judge for the Audio Engineering Society’s modern music and sound engineering contest at the annual AES conventions in New York City, Berlin, Hungary and Warsaw. He was also featured in Luca Pretolesi “Fly on the wall” youtube series. Maro Music has released music as the producer for MXF alongside DJ Frodo. Maro Music’s solo mixes have landed him consistently in the “top 5” charts on Mixcloud.

In 2011, Walaszek founded Bettermaker, an award-winning, critically acclaimed manufacturer of professional-grade mixing and mastering hardware and software built for professional musicians and audio engineers. Bettermaker is used by a who’s who of studio professionals, including the GRAMMY-winning and GRAMMY-nominated mix engineers, Dave Pensado, Jimmy Douglass, Luca Pretolesi and Greg Wells. Artists like KO:YU and DJ Kazzanova also use Bettermaker products to achieve a supreme quality of sound.