For Release: August 29, 2011

131st AES Convention Workshops & Tutorials: Programs on Progress

The Mobile Generation; Delay FX; MP3 Can Sound Good 

Natanya Ford

NEW YORK:  “In a convention program crowded with illuminating options, Workshops and Tutorials represent beacons of focused knowledge sharing,” observes 131st AES Convention Chair Jim Anderson. “Workshops/Tutorials Chair Natanya Ford has performed the herculean task of sifting through dozens of worthwhile submissions to develop eminently relevant presentations.  Participants will attain authorative, detailed information from every event on their ‘don’t miss’ lists.”

AES WORKSHOP PRESENTATIONS INCLUDE:

The Mobile Generation of Music Creation and Production: Chair Jay LeBoeuf; Panelists: TBA. Mobile devices, cloud computing and innovative software algorithms have enabled a further democratization of the music creation/production process.  Innovative iPad/iPhone apps and cloud creation sites are turning virtually everyone into a content producer.  This panel will explore how technology is enabling this revolution.

Grateful Dead Europe 72: In 1972, the Grateful Dead toured Europe with a new (modified) Ampex MM1100 tape recorder in tow. In Sept. 2011, Rhino Records will release a massive CD box set containing every note recorded on this 22-show tour. 70+ hours of music on 73 discs. This Workshop will reconvene the production/ engineering team which restored, mixed, and mastered this historic music. Excerpts will be played, and the project workflow and creative challenges will be discussed.

Sound Quality Evaluation: Chair- Frederik Nagel; Panelists -Søren Bech, Poppy Crum, Schuyler Quackenbush, Nick Zacharov: Tasked with reviewing current listening test preparation, execution, and evaluation, this panel will cover test options; selection of participants; means of statistical evaluation; convenience samples and, what can we learn from the results? 

Audio Asset Restoration – Pound of Cure or Ounce of Prevention: Chair, Ed Outwater - Panelists: Chuck Ainlay, Engineer/Producer; Jeff Anthony, Iron Mountain Entertainment Services; Bob Ludwig, Mastering Engineer: Properly archiving entertainment assets goes well beyond safely storing tapes and hard drives. This all-star panel will review procedures for "rescuing" improperly archived assets. A critical concern for audio restoration, preservation and migration, given the acceleration of the industry’s fundamental technological transformation. In today's up and down-loadable, cloud-based, e-delivery-centric marketplace, preserving music assets directly from the Archive is essential. 

TUTORIAL SESSIONS INCLUDE:

Delay FX --- Wait for It:  Presenter - Alex Case, U of Mass. The humble delay is an essential effect for creating the loudspeaker illusion of music that is better than real, bigger than life.  A broad range of effects – comb filtering, flanging, echo, reverb and more - are born from delay.  One device, one plug-in, and you’ve got a vast pallet of production possibilities.  This event will provide comprehensive insights into one of the most powerful signal processes in the audio toolbox: Delay.

MP3 Can Sound Good: Presenters: Schuyler Quackenbush, Thomas Sporer - Why does MP3 get such a bad rap? A brief history of MP3 coding as a medium for portable music players, and a discussion of how these early approaches have shaped the way MP3 is perceived in the audio community, will suggest ways to develop robust methods to characterize audio quality, e.g. double-blind tests, and appropriately trained listeners. Examples of several subjective tests of audio codecs will be presented.

Noise on the Brain - Hearing Damage on the Other Side:  Presenter, Poppy Crum - It is not widely known that drinking a daily glass of orange juice may actually protect hearing.  Most discussions of hearing damage focus on what happens to the cochlea and inner ear. New research on the effects of acoustic and chemical trauma, and, how this damage manifests throughout the auditory pathway as changes in hearing sensitivity, cognition, and the experience of tinnitus, will be reviewed. Recent developments in chemically preserving hearing and combating these conditions with supplements as common as Vitamin C will also be considered.

Drum and Percussion Programming:  Presenter, Justin Paterson - Drum programming has been evolving for over 30 years. Technological options for enhanced creativity, from sequenced MIDI one-shots to sample loops, and from DAW cut and stretch techniques to deterministic beat-slicer plug-ins, have emerged with beat-like regularity. Today’s palette of sounds ranges from hyper realistic to synthetic/exotic. This tutorial will embrace and demo many of these techniques and more. 

OTHER WORKSHOPS & TUTORIALS INCLUDE:

  • Ear Training for Mastering Engineers 

  • Acoustics for Sound Reinforcement 

  • Got Metadata? Historical, Cultural & Future Issues of Information Association for Archiving Audio Materials

  • File Formats for Higher Resolution Audio

  • What Every Sound Engineer Should Know About The Voice

Photo: 131st AES Convention Workshops/Tutorials Chair Natanya Ford

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The Audio Engineering Society was formed in 1948 by a group of concerned audio engineers.  The AES counts over 14,000 members throughout the U.S., Latin America, Europe, Japan and the Far East.  The organization serves as the pivotal force in the exchange and dissemination  of  technical information for the industry.  For additional information visit http://www.aes.org