AES London 2010
Technical Tour TT1

Saturday, May 22, 14:00 — 16:00

TT1 - British Library Sound Archive

Abstract:
The British Library Sound Archive holds more than a million discs and 200,000 tapes, featuring around 3.5 million recordings. The collections come from all over the world and cover the entire range of recorded sound from music, drama, and literature to oral history and wildlife sounds stretching back to the earliest experiments in sound recording. In 2007 the BL opened a new suite of technical facilities for the work of the Sound Archive. The key objective was to create acoustically isolated studios, a tough challenge given that they are sited within 100 meters of several underground tunnels. The visit will include a tour of the studios, an introduction to our processes ranging from the rescue of signals from the earliest sound carriers to mass-digitization processes. The tour will finish with “Fakes and Forgeries”—a talk by audio engineer Nigel Bewley featuring sound excerpts of rare collection items.

Capacity limited to 40 persons. Transportation by tube.

Technical Tours are made available on a first come, first served basis. Tickets can be purchased during normal registration hours at the convention center.

Price: Free