AES Student Blog

The MATLAB and Simulink product families are fundamental applied math and computational tools adopted by more than 5000 universities and colleges. MathWorks products help prepare students for careers in industry, where the tools are widely used for data analysis, mathematical modeling, and algorithm development in collaborative research and new product development.

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PSPaudioware develops high quality audio effect and processor plug-ins. Their products garner rave reviews and endorsements from every corner of the music production, engineering, composition, and post-production worlds and become staples in professional and home studios worldwide. www.PSPaudioware.com

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

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group. We are the leading publisher in media technology, providing engaging, and practical content, and tools to help you excel in fields including Audio Engineering, Recording, Mixing, Mastering, Editing, MIDI, Music Business, Dance, DJing, and more. For further details visit www.routledge.com/audio 

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

Hi, I’m So, and I’m a student in Tokyo University of the Arts, Japan. I’m studying master’s degree in recording and psychoacoustics. I always record classical music in our studio and concert hall, and also research about special evaluation for 3D Audio recordings.

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

In my childhood, I have wanted to be a pianist and practiced every day. One day, I recorded my playing for checking details. I used portable MD player/recorder and sony’s one-pointed microphone. It was my first recording. At that time, I tried to record my playing better again and again. It was very difficult for me, but very interesting for me. After that time, my piano teacher told me that recording was a kind of occupations and they was called “recording engineer.” That is my origin of recording.

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 second time entry. My first entry was in 2014, L.A.. In this time, I recorded a classical concert that soloist who was a student in our university and orchestra in our university played Viola Concerto which was composed by Béla Bartók. This is a live recording but there was less time for preparing and recording because of concert’s schedule.

My purpose was ‘Gain the best impression as few microphone as possible.’ I placed some spot microphones for being localisation clear, and main microphones for gaining spacial impression. And I mixed these microphones to best balance. It was very difficult for me to think about function of center channel speaker. I wanted to use it for being localisation clear, but that made my mix bad. I want to try other way next time.

What/who made you join AES?

In our course, some people belong to AES Japan students section, and they introduced about AES.

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

All time in L.A. was my favourite and impressive. I got many hint for my recording and research, got many people friends, learned many kinds of products, and more. 

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

We are Halley Eduardo Jaimes and Nestor Mauricio Santamaria, we are from Colombia and studied at the University of San Buenaventura in Bogotá. We are students of sound engineering and we are about to continue our career. Our passion is music and recording studios.

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

In our case, we started as musicians, Eduardo as Guitarist and Nestor as bass player, we started to know the audio world from a young age, however, at this time we didin't think we would be part of this beautiful audio world. When we began to study mathematics and physics at the University, it began to be part of our lives that together with music turned the recording studio into our true passion.

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?

Cuarteto bacata is a quartet of traditional andean music from Colombia, conformed by two “bandolas”, one “tiple” and a electric bass guitar. The Goal of the project was to introduce the bandola in different types of andean rhythms, this time they played the rhythm “pasillo”. First we have the “Bandola” that sounds similar to a mandoline. On the other hand we have Colombian “Tiple” that is similar to a twelve Steel string guitar, but it has a brigther sound. With that in mind, the most complex thing was that the instruments are not conventional, which means that we had to find the best way to record them and find the most natural sound of these instruments.

It was a very cloudy and sad day, we really don't know why, but "milagro" it's a melancholic musical piece so the energy at the studio was perfect. We think that in this record is imminent the homesick feeling that the song want to transmit. In our opinion it's a really beautiful piece.

What/who made you join AES?

We joined the AES thanks to our University. We participated in local competitions about a year ago. The benefits of being linked to the AES are great and we are very grateful for the great work they have done.

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

The best thing about the convention was the closeness we had with the most important people in the audio industry, learning from their experiences, listening to their recordings, comparing them and asking about them. We had this same kind of closeness to all the elite audio brands that were part of the commercial convention area. Everything was incredible. Thanks to AES, you guys are the best.

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

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

I live in Provo Utah with my wife Alaura and new born son Lando. I am also a Senior in the Commercial Music Program at Brigham Young University. I auditioned and was accepted into the Jazz Studies Program on Baritone Saxophone, but on my first day of school realized that the Jazz Studies Major was being absorbed into Commercial Music and being offered as a specialized track. Being a new Commercial Music major I was required to take a Music Technology class that immediately peaked my interest. It was a beginner's introductory course to Pro Tools and recording technology and I immediately became obsessed. I started taking less and less performance based courses and focusing on recording and engineering. I grew up in a home of musicians and remember listening to bands like Tower of Power, Earth Wind and Fire, Sly and the Family Stone, and my all time favorite James Brown. This era of music always appealed to me but it wasn't until I started getting deeper into recording and engineering that I understood exactly why. I felt immediately drawn to learn how to produce, record, and mix music that is high caliber like my musical idols.  

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 am Head Engineer for BYU's Studio Y. This gives me the opportunity to work on projects of every imaginable style and genre. BYU Animation is a program that is well known for submitting and winning Student Emmy's, and it came time to record the music for that year's short film entitled Papa'. Instead of a traditional smaller studio orchestra, the Director of Commercial Music wanted to involve one of the School of Music's biggest premier orchestras, the Philharmonic. I was ecstatic to be recording a 90 piece orchestra. The session overall was difficult to pull off. We could only record during their normal rehearsal time, which was 1-3 pm which included the orchestra setting up and taking down. There are classes taught in the same room before and after so the session prep was done at 4 am that morning. All the mics and stands were then moved to line the walls while classes were taking place and then at 1 o clock it was a mad dash to reset the room. We recorded in mid December with a Student Emmy submission deadline of January 15th. My goals for the project were to, at all costs, preserve the sound of the full orchestra. So I focused and taking full takes of cues. After recording the orchestra we brought in other instruments for an overdubbing session like the accordion, acoustic guitar, acoustic piano. We didn't have final, locked picture when recording the orchestra and edits were made by the directors in the ending of the film, so we used supplementary virtual instruments in the last 15 seconds. Other than the edit in the final scene I was able to use all live instruments, which I'm very pleased about. The music was the hallmark of the film and represents the vast majority of my work. The sound design elements were reduced due to time restraints but given proper time I'm sure would have enhanced the film more.

What/who made you join AES?

I have great mentors at BYU in Jeff Carter, Ron Saltmarsh, and Aaron Merrill. Jeff mentioned one day that I should submit one of my projects to the AES student competition. I had always wanted to attend AES and until Jeff mentioned it I had no idea there was a student competition. By the time I became a registered member I only had a week to submit my project. I felt going in that because Papa was lacking in Sound Design and Foley I didn't stand a chance of being competitive in the Student Competition. I was blown away I was a finalist and awarded a Silver award. I am so grateful for the opportunity to submit my work and have it evaluated and critiqued by working professionals. The judges were extremely complimentary of the music and gave valuable feedback regarding the Sound Design that I'm already employing in my current projects.

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

The whole Student Competition and critique sessions are definitely a stand out experience for me at AES. But the single thing that blew everything else out of the water was the clinic George Massenburg gave showing off his raw stems from Earth Wind and Fire sessions. My mentor Jeff Carter did workshops with George and has taught me techniques he learned from George in those workshops. I could watch the Producer and Engineer I respect the most show off stems from one of my favorite bands, from one of my favorite albums. It was incredible.  

To hear and see Parker's project, click here

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

I'm originally from New York City, but I came to Montreal to do my undergrad at McGill University in Percussion Performance, and have since graduated and I am now in my second year of the Sound Recording Master's Degree at McGill. 

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

My passion for Audio definitely began in High School, when I first started making electronic music. I was making beats all throughout my undergrad, and when I began mixing my first EP I realized that working on records in my DAW was something that I truly loved to do, so I decided to work toward entering the Sound Recording Masters to work more on my production skills. 

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 submission was part of a 5 song EP that I submitted as my end of first year "production project" for my master's degree. I first started working on the song with Henri over the summer of 2015, and then decided that I wanted to work on a whole EP with him for my 1st year project. We went through the pre-production slowly until about February 2016, when we began tracking. The song was done by the end of April 2016, I believe. The project was quite interesting to work on, since when we started there wasn't a group together to perform the songs. So Henri and I had to write out parts and find musicians to play them for all of our recording sessions. This also made producing the record kind of fun, because we didn't have the constraints of having a set instrumentation to conform to, so the limit was really our imagination. This was actually my first entry into the student recording competitions. 

What/who made you join AES?

I initially joined the AES to attend the convention in New York in October 2015. 

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

Probably my favorite experience at the 141st convention was attending the student recording competitions, and hearing both the skill of my contemporaries, along with the judges' feedback for each of the different categories. Additionally, it's always fun and exciting to window shop at all of the gear retailers booths. 

To hear Will's project, click here

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

We are from Bogotá Colombia and we study sound engineering.

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

Andres Osorio: The passion for audio start when I was in the secondary school, I have played on the guitar. I started finding the best sound for the guitar testing some delays compressor and some others processors to find the best sound and that's how it all started.

Julian Rincón: My passion for audio began mainly with music, since I was in school, I wanted to know how the recordings of great musical productions were made and it was for the music that I began to make home recordings and I began to discover the great amount of things that have sound engineering and I decided that I was going to study this career.

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 project start when we were looking for the project to take the sound engineering degree, was a big investigation about to solve a problem that is common in the recording studios, the versatility to have a control surface with the possibility of controlling several DAW with a monitoring option in one devise. The whole project was carried out in one year.

What/who made you join AES?

We joined because it was necessary to participate in the event and because it is a great tool to be updated in everything related to the audio industry and get multiple benefits like the news paper among others.

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

Was won the gold award, the tour to Capitol Records and see the biggest brand in the audio world.

To see Julián and Andrés's project, click here