AES Student Blog

  We are proud to announce that we have gathered an amazing group of Judges for the Student Recording Competition at AES 135. All participants will have their work reviewed and scored by three Judges per category. All of them are well known industry professionals and here you can find out a little bit about each of them.

Andres Mayo

CAT 2 - TRADITIONAL STUDIO RECORDING

Andres is a multiple award-winning stereo & surround Mastering Engineer with strong recording and sound post-production skills, and a DVD producer, with wide knowledge of interactive platforms.

He pioneered the art of CD and DVD mastering in Latin America since 1991, with credits in more than 1500 albums by many of the best known artists in the region, and currently runs his own facility Andres Mayo Mastering, with high resolution 5.1 mixing and mastering capability.

As an audio Engineer, Andres won five Carlos Gardel Awards to the Technical Excellence in 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2011 and several nominations to the Latin Grammy ® Awards and MTV Music Awards since 2002. As an independent producer, he has won 2 Latin GRAMMY ® Awards in 2008 for his 7-DVD collection “Buenos Aires, Days and Nights of Tango”, winning in the categories of Best Tango Production and Best Recording Packaging.A

  We are proud to announce that we have gathered an amazing group of Judges for the Student Recording Competition at AES 135. All participants will have their work reviewed and scored by three Judges per category. All of them are well known industry professionals and here you can find out a little bit about each of them.

Jonathan Wyner

CAT3 - MODERN STUDIO RECORDING

   We are proud to announce that we have gathered an amazing group of Judges for the Student Recording Competition at AES 135. All participants will have their work reviewed and scored by three Judges per category. All of them are well known industry professionals and here you can find out a little bit about each of them.

Prof. Jim Anderson

CAT 2 - TRADITIONAL STUDIO RECORDING

President of the AES, 2008-2009, Jim is an internationally recognized recording engineer and producer of acoustic music. He is the recipient of numerous awards and nominations. His recordings have received nine Grammy awards and 25 Grammy nominations; radio productions have received two George Foster Peabody Awards and there have been two Emmy nominations for television programs. He is also a professor in the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music at NYU and was the Chair of the department for four years.

  We are proud to announce that we have gathered an amazing group of Judges for the Student Recording Competition at AES 135. All participants will have their work reviewed and scored by three Judges per category. All of them are well known industry professionals and here you can find out a little bit about each of them.

David Bowles

CAT 1 - TRADITIONAL ACOUSTIC RECORDING

 David Bowles’ recordings have been GRAMMY-nominated (Classical - Best Orchestral Performance) and won the “Classical Orchestral Album” prize from Just Plain Folks Awards. Other Bowles-produced and engineered releases have been named “Record of the Month - Editor's Choice” from Gramophone Magazine and Opera News; also “Record of the Year” from the New York Times, the New Yorker, Miami Clásica and Classical Candour. He has worked with Nicolas McGegan/Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg/New Century Chamber Orchestra, Chanticleer, flutist Carol Wincenc, and composers Yehudi Wyner, William Bolcom and Jake Heggie.

Mr. Bowles is a member of the AES (Audio Engineering Society): he was on the Board of Governors and served on convention committees between 2008 and 2012. He alternated between chair and co-chair of the San Francisco section of the AES between 2005 and 2010. He is also a voting member of NARAS (National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences) and SPARS (Society of Professional Audio Recording Services).

As an educator, Mr. Bowles has been Visiting Professor of Recording Arts at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. He has been guest lecturer at New York University’s Tonmeister Seminar (Steinhardt School of Music), at the Banff Centre and at The Peabody Institute.

  We are proud to announce that we have gathered an amazing group of Judges for the Student Recording Competition at AES 135. All participants will have their work reviewed and scored by three Judges per category. All of them are well known industry professionals and here you can find out a little bit about each of them.

Ulrike Schwarz

CAT 1 - TRADITIONAL ACOUSTIC RECORDING

 Ulrike Schwarz is Diplom-Tonmeisterin and recording engineer specialising in classical music and jazz.  She graduated from the University of Arts in Berlin. Furthermore, Ulrike studied multichannel recording formats from 5.10 to 22.2 with Akira Fukada and Kimio Hamaskaki in NHK and NHK Science and Technical Research Laboratories in Tokyo. As an AES Member, Ulrike Schwarz is a frequent lecturer at AES events. Her last appearance was in 2010 during the AES Conference on Spatial Sound (Tokyo, Japan) with a presentation of „Paradies und die Peri“ performed by BRSO and Simon Rattle in 9.0, 3-D sound. She has been an AES Governor 2004-2006."

 We are proud to announce that we have gathered an amazing group of Judges for the Student Recording Competition at AES 135. All participants will have their work reviewed and scored by three Judges per category. All of them are well known industry professionals and here you can find out a little bit about each of them.

Martha de Francisco

CAT 1 - TRADITIONAL ACOUSTIC RECORDING

Martha de Francisco is a record producer and recording engineer who specializes in classical music. She is a professor for Sound Recording at McGill University in Montreal. An internationally acknowledged leader in the field of sound recording and record production, de Francisco has recorded with some of the greatest classical musicians of our time for the most prestigious record labels and in the best concert halls. She has credits on over 300 recordings, mostly for worldwide release. De Francisco has been entrusted with the recording legacy of world-class soloists and orchestras from Alfred Brendel to the Philadelphia Orchestra. She has worked with such artists as Jessye Norman, Claudio Arrau, Simon Rattle, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, John Eliot Gardiner, the English Baroque Soloists, the Monteverdi Choir, Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Kent Nagano and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. She has recorded in a variety of venues throughout the world, including the Musikverein in Vienna, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Moscow Conservatoire, Bayreuth Festspielhaus, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, and the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. De Francisco is a frequent lecturer at international professional conferences as well as a guest lecturer at leading schools for higher education in Audio in locations as varied as Banff, Moscow, Düsseldorf, Bogotá, and New York. 

One of the best reasons to attend AES conventions is the opportunity to make important connections with your fellow audio educators from around the globe. With this in mind, we would like to invite you to take advantage of a FREE table that is being offered to you at the 135th AES Convention's Education and Career Fair. This 90 minute event is an opportunity to promote your school's academic program and a chance for you to connect with other educators.

It will take place on Saturday, October 19 from 11:00am to 12:30pm in a public area of the Jacob Javits Convention Center, New York.  Academic Institutions offering studies in audio (from short courses to graduate degrees) will be represented in this “table top” session. Information on each school's respective programs will be made available through displays and academic guidance. There is no charge for schools/institutions to participate. Admission is free and open to all convention attendees. If you have not already done so, please follow these links to sign up: 

Education Fair: http://www.aes.org/events/135/students/signup/education.cfm

Career Fair: http://www.aes.org/events/135/students/signup/career.cfm

Meet Benedikt Schöller from Berlin, Germany, who won the Silver Award in Category 3: Modern Studio Recording

Tell us a little bit about yourself: Where are you from? What do you study? How did you discover your passion for audio? 

I grew up in Munich, Germany. My passion for audio started with a RME Fireface 800 and a cheap condenser mic that my dad bought for me when I was 15 years old. I just began to record my band and took it from there. My first professional steps were my training as music producer and manager after I finished high school. Having studied musicology for one year, I moved to Berlin to study Tonmeister at HFF Potsdam, where I'm currently finishing my bachelor thesis.

Additionally, I work as a freelancing mixer, producer and songwriter of popular, jazz and film music and am currently signed to BMG Rights Management.

Are you a musician yourself? What instruments do you play and in what musical context?

Yes, I'm a classically trained piano player. In my bands however I usually play the guitar and sing.

Tell us about the production of your submission. What is the story behind it? How long did you work on it?

The song is called “Wir Laufen” by Benito & Kestin, my main project as a musician at the moment. It's a pop, hip- hop song with an acoustic vibe and part of the album “Tausend Farben” which will be released later this year. As I also wrote, produced and mixed the album it's hard to tell, but from the writing process to the final mixes it took about three onths for the whole record I guess.

What were your most significant, funny or inspiring experiences as an audio engineer?

Oh, there are many. First of all, music is what inspires me most! Then it's probably the great masters of our craft. Even though I met only a few personally so far, I've read and watched many interviews and I’m inspired by their attitude towards music and mixing. 

Accidents happen: What was your biggest mistake in a production and what did you do to redeem the situation?

Mistakes happen, but I learn from them and get better. From time to time I lose sight of the big picture and get stuck into details, I have to work on that.

What’s your advice for engineers who are just starting out?

Just go out there and work as much as possible, ask bands if they want to work with you and do what you love. It will eventually lead to success. Also, stay curious, be honest and respect the work of other engineers.

And the most important thing: Train your ears and take care of them!

Tech talk: What are your favourite pieces of equipment?

It changes all the time. At the moment, it might be Metric Halo ChannelStrip's EQ, also Valhalla Room, which I use a lot (thanks to Jonathan Feurich who told me about it). Outboard, probably the Tubetech CL-1B and I really do like theColes 4038, Neumann U47 and Gefell M 1030.

What is your favourite recording or production?

That's a tough one. Ryan Lewis did a great production of Macklemore's record (The Heist), as did Steffen Wilmking onCasper's XOXO. I also love the sound of OK Kid's self-titled debut record, produced and mixed by Sven Ludwig, and the more experimental approach of Earl Sweatshirt's, Jay-Z's and Kanye's new albums (Doris, Magna Carta Holy Grail and Yeezus, respectively) - especially the mixes by Jaycen Joshua on those.  

What do you like about the AES? How does it help you to become a better and more successful audio engineer?

I like the AES conventions a lot! They give me the chance to get to know people, like Simon Franglen and George Massenburg. Their experience helps and inspires me to become a better audio engineer. 

Tell us about your favourite experiences at the 134th AES Convention in Rome!

Rome was great, I got to meet lots of interesting people! My favourite experiences were Simon Franglen's tutorial on music production for film, and getting honest feedback from the judges on my mix.

All students who enter the Student Design Competition are invited to present at the Student Design Exhibition. Check out these projects from AES 133 and submit your work for AES 135!

More Information about the AES Student Design Competition