SAN FRANCISCO: Audio industry veteran John Strawn is chairing his second consecutive SF Audio Engineering Society Convention. With planning well underway, the 121^st AES Convention will be held in the Moscone Center Oct. 5 – 8, 2006. “Our experience with the 117^th Convention was tremendously gratifying for the entire SF Committee,” Strawn says. “Over16,000 attendees and more than 400 exhibitors participated in 2004, and we are extremely optimistic about this year’s event.”

“Our current Committee is an AES “A” team, and we’re fortunate to have attracted many of the same Chairs who made invaluable contributions to the 117^th event,” Strawn adds. “As with every AES Convention, the ultimate goal is to provide attendees with the most comprehensive array of Special, Live Sound and Historical Events, Workshops, Technical Papers, Tours, Panels, Tutorials and Student programs. There has always been a healthy ‘can you top this’ attitude between east and west coast Committees, and that spirit clearly benefits our attendees.”

Strawn emphasizes the continuing effort by manufacturers to improve existing technology and develop new, faster, more flexible, more powerful and (occasionally) more cost-effective tools, as a factor which makes the AES Technology Expo one of Convention’s most important attractions. “We have already begun to hear about a number of innovative new products being introduced this year,” he adds. “There is a very positive buzz on the street.”

A long-time Bay Area-native, John Strawn was trained as a keyboard artist. A Fulbright Scholar with a Ph D from Stanford (’85), he played an integral role with Lucasfilm’s Droid Works affiliate. As a co-founder of Yamaha Music Technologies, USA, he headed an R&D group focused on electronic music instruments. Dr. Strawn’s S Systems, an independent consulting practice, has advised such significant high-tech computer game and digital music instrument companies as: Atari, 3Com, Audio Precision, Mattel, QSC, Centigram, SRI International, Kurzweil and NeXT Inc.