AES Student Blog

Big Bear Audio is a high end audio design house based in London, founded by AES UK Vice Chairman Charlie Slee. Focusing on both pro and consumer audio products, Big Bear Audio designs and manufactures analogue electronics tools for the professional and audiophile.

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From groundbreaking audio consoles to innovative video production systems, Solid State Logic has evolved to become the world’s leading manufacturer of analogue and digital audio consoles and provider of creative tools for film, audio, video and broadcast professionals.

With more than 3000 SSL-equipped studios and facilities operational today, the excellence of SSL consoles is universally recognized for unrivaled sonic quality, superb ergonomics, outstanding automation and an international support infrastructure second to none.

Founded by Colin Sanders in 1969, SSL has since expanded to its present 15 acre science park in Oxfordshire, England. SSL's unrivalled resources, including R&D, manufacturing, training, service and product support, operate in a unique high technology, customer oriented environment.  The company invents, designs and manufactures technology for the creative manipulation of sound. Users and industry experts from all over the world visit SSL's Oxford HQ to consult with SSL audio experts and evaluate SSL equipment. There are more than 3000 SSL systems in service around the world.

  Since the birth of Nebula in the summer of 2005, a dynamic collaboration was born between forward thinking developers, beta testers, audio engineers and equipment samplers from around the world. The research and development has gone through many stages and possesses innovative processes and technologies as of yet unheard of in other products or devices.

Acustica Audio website

iZotope makes innovative products that inspire and enable people to be creative. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, iZotope has spent over a decade developing award-winning products and audio technologies for professionals and hobbyists alike. Used by millions of people in over 50 countries, iZotope products are a core component of GRAMMY-winning music studios, Oscar and Emmy-winning film and TV post production studios, and prominent radio studios, as well as basement and bedroom studios across the globe. Through a robust licensing program, iZotope also powers products made by industry partners such as Adobe, Avid, Microsoft, and Sony. iZotope was recently honored with an Emmy® Award for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development for its flagship audio repair suite, RX®.

Meet Merging, the company that brought the incredible DAW Pyramix into the industry, and one of our sponsors for the student recording competition!

Merging Technologies is the world’s foremost manufacturer of high-resolution digital audio recording systems.  The list of customers reads like a who’s who in the recording industry and recordings made with Merging Technologies’ systems regularly receive the recording industry’s prestigious Grammy® Award. 

The company was founded in 1990 in Chexbres, Switzerland by Claude Cellier; an electronics graduate of the Institute of Technology in Lausanne  Prior to this, Claude worked for the famous Swiss audio maker Nagra Kudelski for 10 years. Within a short time of its founding, Merging quickly established a reputation for their expertise in digital signal processing and associated hardware, and with their Pyramix Virtual Studio, was one of the first companies to produce a DSD recording system. 

In 2007, Claude Cellier was presented with the Audio Engineering Society Fellowship Award  for outstanding contributions to the development of high-performance, high-resolution audio workstations.  Merging Technologies currently has over 20 employees with offices in Switzerland and the UK.

Matt Foglia was a 14-year veteran of the New York City sound for picture industry before joining Middle Tennessee State University (35 miles SE of Nashville) in the Fall of 2008 – where he is a Professor specializing in sound for picture and broadcast, teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels.  While in NYC, Matt was an audio post engineer for Sony Music Studios before taking the position of Chief Audio Engineer for PostWorks NY in 2001.  Matt has mixed hundreds of projects for networks, DVD, cinema and the web. He has two Emmy Award nominations and four Cinema Audio Society (CAS) Award nominations (including two wins), and was privileged to be the sound mixer for the 2007 Grammy Award winning Best Long Form Video “Wings For Wheels,” which documented the making of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born To Run” album.

Matt holds a Bachelor of Science in Music Technology from UNC at Asheville and a Master’s of Music in Music Technology from New York University.  He is a member of the AES and the Cinema Audio Society – where he acts as contributing author and co-editor of their journal, the “CAS Quarterly.”  Matt continues to mix and edit remotely for clients from his studio in Nashville.

Piper Payne joined the staff of Michael Romanowski Mastering in 2011.

Piper received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Performing Arts Technology–Media/Sonic Arts Concentration from the University of Michigan. While pursuing her degree in this technologically-rigorous program, she gained five years of experience as a Resident Student Engineer (RSE) in the U of M recording studios, specializing in classical music recording. Her position as RSE placed her at the hub of a major studio upgrade and gave her high-level experience in teamwork and project management. Piper continued her education at the University of Stavanger in Norway, receiving a Graduate Studies Certificate in Music Production and Recording. In Norway, Piper had the opportunity to learn analog-to-digital archiving with MemNor Sound Archival Service and apprenticed with Thor Legvold at Sonovo Mastering. In 2009, she worked as mixing engineer and mastering assistant with Bob Katz at Digital Domain in Orlando, Florida, and in 2010 accepted the post of Senior Audio Associate at The Banff Centre in Banff, Canada.

Piper is a Governor on the SF Board of the Recording Academy and Chairs the Producers and Engineers Wing. She also serves on the Education Committee. In addition she is an active member of the AES, the Women's Audio Mission, and Balanced Breakfast Music.  While Piper’s focus is in mastering, she also works in software development for Digital Audio Workstations. Piper’s location recording skills are being challenged with Coast Recorders and the Bay Area recording scene, where she is a first-call for large-venue live concert recordings and many classical performances and she is also the Chief Content Creator for Giving Stage, an online concert venue benefitting nonprofits and causes.

Award winning Mandy Parnell became interested in recorded music at the age of 5, listening to records on a portable Dansette player - the iPod of the time. 

She studied music and music technology through her school & college years, trained and worked in recording studios until landing an internship, which led to her becoming a world renowned mastering engineer. 

Mandy then decided to launch her own facility  - Black Saloon Studios.

Mandy Parnell's 30 years of experience have allowed her to discover and develop her philosophies in analogue and digital audio, while working with an amazing array of artists including Björk, Feist, The XX, Herbert, Frightened Rabbit, Sigur Rós and Brian Eno. 

Mandy's unique style as a mastering engineer has afforded her respect from all areas of the industry. She has mastered countless records that have achieved silver, gold, platinum and grammy status around the world, as well as winning the  prestigious MPG Mastering Engineer of the Year award twice.

In recent years Mandy has been working with Annie Lennox, mastered Aphex Twin's first release in 13 years 'Syro', Jungle, Tom Jones, Glass Animals, Judas Priest, SBTRKT, Jóhann Jóhannsson's soundtrack for the films "Prison" and "Theory of Everything", Ólafur Arnalds' sountrack for the TV series "Broadchurch", and Björk's critically acclaimed Vulnicura. Further Mandy has been featured on the BBC, Resolution magazine, Sound On Sound, Prosound news, NME and Audio Musica & Technologia.

As a firm believer in educating the next generation of producers and engineers, Mandy frequently lectures on mastering and the music industry at universities, colleges and organizations.

Alex Kosiorek is a published recording engineer, media technology specialist and manager, who focuses on projects and initiatives that promote excellence utilizing advanced production techniques. Specializing in classical and acoustic music recording as well as radio and television production, Alex has been the manager of the award-winning audio-media production service Central Sound at Arizona PBS since 2012. He oversees hundreds of recording productions, end-to-end management of production facilities, design team coordination and close affiliation with dozens of internationally recognized arts institutions.

As a conservatory-trained musician and an adherent of close teamwork, Alex has facilitated numerous productions ranging from the recent Emmy-Winning Texas Tenors You Should Dream PBS special to broadcast specials for some of the nation’s leading classical musicians and orchestras.

With years of experience, Alex has accomplished many industry firsts. Previously, Alex Kosiorek served as Director of Recording Services at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he oversaw the modernization of the department, to include completing the first THX PM3-certified studio in a music conservatory worldwide and becoming the first conservatory to launch multi-platform mobile applications. As the senior recording engineer for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Opera and May Festival broadcasts, Alex also served as audio recording and mastering engineer for the Corbett Studio at Cincinnati Public Radio, where he was instrumental in creating the first U.S. radio station to initiate surround programming. Another first was the completion of one of first high-quality award-winning classical Internet streams, attracting worldwide praise.

Early career highlights include engineering for the former Radio Smithsonian and post-producing the programs ‘Folkmasters’ and ‘Jazz Smithsonian.’ In 1996, Alex began his audio-for-video and surround endeavors with the Games of the XXVI Olympiad (1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics) and later that year became the first Audio Engineer Fellow for the New World Symphony, with Michael Tilson Thomas. During his tenure there, he honed his skills in surround-sound production, recording the symphony’s European Tour, in surround, in great halls of Europe such as the Barbican (London), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), and the Konzerthaus (Vienna). Alex Kosiorek earned his degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, with supplemental graduate education from Case Western Reserve University School of Law and Bowling Green State University.

- Chief Engineer, M Works Mastering, Cambridge, MA

- Education Director, iZotope Inc, Cambridge, MA

- Associate Professor of Music Production and Engineering at Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA.

Jonathan began his career as a Mastering Engineer in 1985 and has more than 5000 album credits. His credits range from the extremely well known (James Taylor, David Bowie, Aerosmith, Josh Groban, Kiri Te Kanawa, Nirvana, Miles Davis), to the more idiosyncratic and independent artists and labels (Aimee Mann, Tiny Tim, Rahsaan Roland Kirk). In 2005 Jonathan received a Grammy nomination for producing a program for Deborah Henson-Conant with orchestra entitled Invention and Alchemy that also aired on PBS nationally. He has several firsts/superlatives to his credit including mastering the first interactive CD Game (Play It By Ear, Rykodisc), the first recorded opera (Madame Butterfly recorded 1912 by the BBC). His skills extend forensic and restoration work.

He has also trained numerous assistants and interns at M Works Studios in Cambridge, MA, several of whom have gone on to become successful mastering engineers in their own right.

Jonathan has taught hundreds of students about the practice of music/audio mastering at the Berklee College campus in Boston, via the online course he co- authored with Marc Dieter-Einstmann for Berkleemusic’s online school and during online webcasts and sessions. In June of 2012 he published ‘Audio Mastering: Essential Practices’ released by Hal Leonard/Berklee Press.