AES Student Blog

Interview with Daniel Meyer (Berlin University of the Arts) – SILVER Category 3, SILVER Category 4

SDA:   How long did you work on your competition entry? Was this your first entry?

     DM:     With Malleus, who performed “Water Bearer” for Category 3, we recorded three songs within three days. It took me about 20 hours to mix “Water Bearer”; in the end, I worked hard on small details. On my film entry, “Paranormal”, I was pretty fast with a first version – it took me maybe 15 hours to write and produce the music. Later, I reworked some stuff, which took some time.

SDA:    Tell us about the production of your entry. Stories? Inspirations?

     DM:     Shawn Everett had a big influence on the mixing of my entries. He is a Los Angeles-based engineer who I met at the Banff Centre, and he always has crazy, unconventional ideas and is lightning fast with Pro Tools. Also thanks to the Banff Centre, I learned a lot about music for film from Mark Willsher.

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

     DM:     As a child, I loved my cassettes so much that I took them with me in my bed when I went to sleep. Apart from songs on the radio, the first thing I recorded with a cassette recorder was me and a couple of friends banging wooden spoons on cooking pots and switching on and off alarm clocks while I was shouting a poem that I wrote to annoy my older sister.

SDA:   Funniest experience as an engineer so far?

     DM:     Once, I and a fellow student recorded a singer who was always dancing while he was singing. His dancing was so funny that me and my fellow student had to hide under the mixing desk because we were laughing so hard. We just could not stop.

SDA:   Biggest mistake you made during a production?

     DM:     No mistakes so far ;-) (LIE)

SDA:   Favorite frequency?

     DM:     1/28800 Hz – it’s the frequency of my meals.

SDA:   Favorite mic, outboard box, and plugin?

     DM:     KM140, 1176, iZotope Ozone (EQ and Exciter are great).

SDA:   Best recording of all time?

     DM:     I really like the album California by Mr Bungle – it’s packed with strange sounds. But there are too many great recordings...

SDA:   Do you play any instruments?

     DM:     Electric guitar (mostly rock), piano (mostly classical)

SDA:   Any other hobbies?

     DM:     Repairing my bicycle. (It’s from ALDI, a cheap German discounter, and it breaks every month. Don’t buy your bike at ALDI.)

SDA:   The best part of the 132nd AES Convention?

     DM:     Meeting people from Banff again.

SDA:   The best thing about the AES organization?

     DM:     So many great members.

SDA:   Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

     DM:     Hopefully I will be engineering and producing interesting bands, and writing music for films or video games.

The Student Section Vienna has announced their program for the 2nd CESS and opened the pre-registration!

Every AES Student who is traveling in Europe this summer is invited to take part at audio workshops, lectures, the roundtable and the student party in Vienna.

 Get all the details and the sign up form for the 2nd Central European Student Summit here.

Interview with Nikola Jeremic (Advanced School of Electrical Engineering, Belgrade) – GOLD Category 4
 

SDA:   How long did you work on your competition entry? Was this your first entry?

     NJ:     I worked for about a week on it. Two days for recording, two for editing, and three for mixing. Yes, it was my first entry.

SDA:   Tell us about the production of your entry. Stories? Inspirations?

     NJ:     Two of the most interesting things that I ever did were on this recording: I made a spaceship cabin atmosphere by placing a mic inside a blender and running the blender on different speeds to capture a variety of sounds. Then, I used Nuendo to do a lot of pitch bending and shifting to get the sound I wanted. I also recorded animals at Belgrade Zoo for aliens that are featured in the video. The monkeys were difficult to record because they were throwing feces at me!

I get a lot of inspiration from movies, video games, and books. I am a big fan of all of the projects that have come out of Skywalker Sound.

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

     NJ:     My passion for audio was initiated quite accidentaly. I wasn't a very good student in highschool, and eventualy I had to find an occupation for myself, so I started playing guitar. I had a couple of bands, but they didn't last for long. I started working on my own and got interested in film and game soundtracks. I took that path and never looked back. I learned most things by myself; I am a self-educated musician and composer. After some time, I decided to bring my creativity to a higher level and applied for Advanced School Of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade to start learning the technical side of sound.

SDA:   Funniest experience as an engineer so far?

     NJ:     Hmmm... Definitely the monkeys and the flying feces while I was recording sounds for this competition entry!

SDA:   Biggest mistake you made during a production?

     NJ:     Recording the monkeys. Also: forgetting to shut down the “destructive recording“ in Pro Tools. That's a bad thing to do.

SDA:   Favorite frequency?

     NJ:     120Hz of big, bad, Taiko Drum bass boom.

SDA:   Favorite mic, outboard box, and plugin?

     NJ:     Favorite Mic – AKG 414 (It's great for any type of studio recording)
Favorite Outboard Box – Lexicon PCM 96 Reverb
Favorite Plugin – UAD Neve 88RS Channel Strip

SDA:   Best recording of all time?

     NJ:     The whole sound for the movie “Inception”, including Hans Zimmer's music score.

SDA:   Do you play any instruments?

     NJ:     Yes, I play guitars, anything with a keyboard, and some percussion instruments.

SDA:   Any other hobbies?

     NJ:     Watching a lot of movies, playing video games, reading, collecting Fighter Airplane models.

SDA:   The best part of the 132nd AES Convention?

     NJ:     The Education Forum, Carreer Fair, and, of course, The Student Recording Competition.

SDA:   The best thing about the AES organization?

     NJ:     A whole lot of people who love the same thing, getting together in one place to share their knowledge and experience.

SDA:   Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

     NJ:     Hopefully working at Skywalker Sound or Warner Brothers Scoring Stage, writting my own music for films and video games.

Nikola Jeremic has made available his submission for viewing at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OLq6AxQYN0.

Nikola has also recently been featured on PreSonus' blog for his tutorials on their Studio One DAW. Read his articles here:
www.presonus.com/blog/index.php/2012/04/26/orchestral-scoring-in-presonus-studio-one-2-pt-...
www.presonus.com/blog/index.php/2012/05/07/orchestral-scoring-in-studio-one-2-part-2/...

 

Attention Student Design Engineers!
 

The complete rules and entry form for the 133rd Student Design Competition have been posted! Visit aes.org/students/awards/design to download your copy.

Like the Recording Competition, the Student Design Competition is a tremendous opportunity for current students and recent graduates* alike to compete for worldwide recognition with scholars from all over the globe. Start preparing your submission today!

*See complete rules for eligibility.

The Student Delegate Assembly wants to thank once again to our sponsors who helped us run Student Recording Competition on 132 Convention in Budapest and who kindly gave away great prizes to the competition winners.

This time we would like to thank D16 Group, who generously donated SilverLine Collection plug-in bundle, making it a prize for Yoann Saunier from Conservatoire de Paris and Daniel Meyer from Berlin Student Section, both winners of silver prizes in Category 3.

See a full list of the winners here.

SilverLine Collection plug-in bundle contains all effect plug-ins from Silver Line family: Devastor (Multiband Distortion Unit), Fazortan (Controlable Space Phaser), Decimort (Bit Crusher), Redoptor (Vintage Tube Distortion), Toraverb (Space Modulated Reverb) and Syntorus (Double Path Analog Chorus).

Check out more pictures from the SRC in Budapest on our Facebook account and follow us on Twitter.

thank you D16

Interview with Simon Lindskog (University of Lulea-Pitea) – SILVER Category 1

SDA:   How long did you work on your competition entry? Was this your first entry?

     SL:     I worked for two whole days recording two different pieces and spent one late night editing them. After that, I listened to them a lot and decided which I was going to send as my entry. Yes, it was my first entry!
 

SDA:   Tell us about the production of your entry. Stories? Inspirations?

     SL:     I love Bach pieces, but have always wanted them to have a more percussive sound and a closer feel, like a cembalo (harpsichord) being played in someone’s house – the way I think the piece was played years ago. It might have been a bit risky, but it was really fun exploring new ways to record and listen. The pianist I was recording was going to submit the song with her application for the Sibelius Academy in Finland, so we worked really hard to capture her performance. She loved the sound!

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

     SL:     It started when I was about 11 or 12 years old. I plugged my dad’s electric guitar into his Cubase rig and just sat and recorded whatever sounds I could make. My dad walked in and burst out, “How do you know how that works?!” Later, I started recording ideas for my band and we tracked some songs in our garage. I was mixing for days, learning by trial and error.

SDA:   Funniest experience as an engineer so far?

     SL:     When I was running a TV-show rehearsal at the university, the show host went to the men's room without telling me, the wireless mic still attached to his jacket. I sat there wondering, “What is that sound?” After a few seconds, I realized what was being sent to the in-ears of the whole crew...

SDA:   Biggest mistake you made during a production?

     SL:     Fortunately, I haven't made many mistakes, not big ones anyway. Once, me and one of my classmates recorded a symphony orchestra playing Mozart’s requiem. We used two A/D converters together to fit all the channels, but they weren’t synched correctly so we had awful pops in half of the channels. Luckily, our main stereo channels were safe.

SDA:   Favorite frequency?

     SL:     Any frequency that’s in the right spot! If I have to pick one, I’d say about 4322.065 Hz or so.

SDA:   Favorite mic, outboard box, and plugin?

     SL:     Hmmm... Mic: Thuresson C402, I guess. Outboard box: UA 1176. Plugin: Waves API 560A.

SDA:   Best recording of all time?

     SL:     That’s a very good question. One of my all-time favorites is “A Day in the Life” by The Beatles.
 

SDA:   Do you play any instruments?

     SL:     Yes; I play the piano, guitar, bass, and I also sing.

SDA:   Any other hobbies?

     SL:     I like writing a lot. I exercise quite often, so I’ll guess that’s a hobby, too.

SDA:   The best part of the 132nd AES Convention?

     SL:     The Student Recording Competition, of course!

SDA:   The best thing about the AES organization?

     SL:     That it even exists! It is always inspiring knowing that there are others like me, and even a whole society!

SDA:  Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

  SL:     I see myself running a music studio in Sweden, where I write and record with inspiring artists and friends. I also want to freelance as a sound engineer for national television, and as a sound designer for films and games.

The Student Delegate Assembly wants to thank once again our sponsors who helped to run the Student Recording Competition on 132 Convention in Budapest perfectly and who kindly gave away great prizes to the competition winners.

This time we would like to thank IGS Audio, who generously donated IGS Audio COOL MINER Channel Strip, making it a prize delivered to Konrad Glas from Vienna student section, Austria. Konrad won a gold award in Category 2 – Traditional Studio Recording.

See a full list of the winners here.

The COOL MINER Channel is built of two independent blocks. The first is a typical mic-line preamp and the other is a 1176 type transistor compressor. Both blocks are well-known, classical structures, also appearing as separate IGS Audio devices (NE71 preamp and Alter Comp).
IGS Audio is now one the most desired studio equipment brands in Poland and it is continuously expanding internationally.

Check out more pictures from the SRC in Budapest on our Facebook account and follow us on Twitter.

thank you IGS

The Student Design Competition is returning to the 133rd AES Convention
in San Francisco, October 26-29! Watch our promo video to learn more.

Once again THANKS go to our sponsors for the Student Recording Competition, who kindly give away the prizes that finalists receive at the contest.

Now we'd like to say thank you once again to Audiotech Professional Studio Equipment, who generously donated a pair of CharterOak SP-1 Headphones, which went straight to category 4 gold-award winner Marta Olko from the Warsaw Student Section in Poland (full list of winners here).

Audiotech is a company distributing exclusively to Poland audio gear from brands such as Adam Audio, Brauner, Cartec, CharterOak, Cloud Microphones, Elysia, Empirical Labs, Focustire, KRK, Kush Audio, Novation, Pelonis, SSL, Sontronics, StudioLogic, TLAudio, Ultrasone, Variohm, and Vovox. Get more info here.

Check out more pictures from the SRC in Budapest in our facebook account.

thank you audiotech

Once again THANKS go to our sponsors for the Student Recording Competition, who kindly give away the prizes that finalists receive at the contest.

This time around we'd like to thank New York-based Cockos Inc., who generously donated 12 licenses for the REAPER DAW software, making it a prize delivered to all 12 finalists at the AES132 Competition (full list of winners here).

REAPER is digital audio workstation software: a complete multitrack audio and MIDI recording, editing, processing, mixing, and mastering environment. Find more info here.

Check out more pictures from the SRC in Budapest in our facebook account.

thank you reaper