Technical Committee on Microphones and Applications Report on TC meeting held in conjunction with the 132st AES convention Budapest, Hungary, April 28, 2012 Attendees: Helmut Wittek, Schoeps, wittek@schoeps.de David L. Josephson, Josephson, dlj@josephson.com Hans van Maanen, Temporal Coherence, info@temporalcoherence.nl John Woodgate, J M Woodgate and Associates, jmw@jmwa.demon.co.uk Eddy Bøgh Brixen, EBB-consult/DPA Microphones, ebb@ebb-consult.com The meeting was convened by chair Eddy B. Brixen. Report from AES131 The report was accepted as written. AES International Conference Since last TCMA-meeting it has been decided to organize an international conference on microphones. This is based on the response to a TCMA/SC0404 questionnaire issued some month ago. The chair has now forwarded this proposal and applied for a time slot around spring/summer 2014. This has achieved a preliminary acceptance from the AES Conference Policies Committee. A final acceptance is depending on the presentation of a more detailed planning which should be provided in connection with the CPC-meeting at AES133, October 2012. In the TCMA-discussion it was underlined that the conference must be devoted to leading edge knowledge in order to attract the right group of people. We must look into areas which have not been covered very well by the AES, i.e. microphones for hearing assistance and microphones for communication, providing noise cancelling, directivity, etc. Almost nobody has been talking about manufacturing which of course is also very interesting. It is vital to the AES to embrace a larger part of the microphone community. The conference must support cross-learning among real experts. We must reach out to other organizations like IEEE and ASA. A suitable venue has to be found. It is preferred that the site provides full accommodation as this supports networking. So far there is no geographical preference. Two sites are mentioned so far: Asilomar, CA, USA and Pharmakon, Hillerød, Denmark. DLJ will check the conditions for Asilomar and EBB will check the Pharmakon (two days, approximately 80 persons). EBB mentioned that the bi-annual conference on Audio Forensics may take place during spring/summer 2014 in Denmark. There is an option for organizing a “double conference” (2+2 days) because there certainly are fields of common interest. If the US and DK sites are not attractive or available HW mentioned that there are many sites in Germany that might accommodate a conference like this. Proposals for upcoming conventions There are always proposals for microphone application workshops organized outside the TCMA. Our job is basically to complement these workshops covering necessary topics. For the AES134 it was decided to forward these proposals: 1 Tutorial: Understanding microphone specifications (DLJ, follow up on X85). 2 Workshop: PA-miking. (What is important regarding specs, set-up, alignment regarding microphones on lectern, on musical instruments, stage pick-up, etc.) Status on microphone specifications DLJ: The work in SC0404 is about to be concluded. This will be done within the next year. However, we still need a common format for the presentation of data. Emerging trends A technology using ultrasonic transducers for a virtual microphone was presented at this convention. This technique looked very promising. Any other business None. Minutes by Eddy B. Brixen