AES News

For more information on UNESCO’s World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, visit https://en.unesco.org/wdah2017.  

Next up, the Audio Engineering Society returns to the west coast for the AES@NAMM Pro Sound Symposium, Live and Studio, to be held in NAMM’s education campus, adjacent to the Anaheim Convention Center, during The 2018 NAMM Show, which runs January 25 – 28, 2018 (aesatnamm.com). This first-of-its-kind education and training event is a collaboration with NAMM, bringing AES expertise to AES@NAMM attendees while offering registrants access to the NAMM exhibition. The AES celebrates its 70^th Anniversary as the Society returns to the Javits Center in New York for AES New York 2018, the 145^th AES International Convention, taking place October 17 – 20, 2018, co-located once again with The NAB Show New York. Visit aes.org/events for AES event updates throughout the year. 

—   Spatial audio workshops on broadcast, recording and gaming to be highlights of Immersive Audio Super Saturday events —

The AES New York has announced a full-day program dedicated to Spatial Audio and its production and applications. “Immersive Audio Super Saturday” will showcase the latest in spatial and 3D audio in a series of presentations and workshops on Saturday, October 21 at the AES New York Convention at the Jacob Javits Center. The Immersive Audio Super Saturday sessions will utilize a large-scale 9.1-channel system from PMC and, for binaural sessions, a Sennheiser wireless headphone system. From Xenakis to Doctor Who, and spanning VR, broadcast and music production, the sessions draw from the Convention’s Game Audio & VR, Broadcast & Streaming and Recording & Production tracks.

“Immersive audio has become the state of the art for film sound, as well as for gaming, home entertainment and personal listening. During Immersive Audio Super Saturday, attendees will have an opportunity to experience the sonic and emotional impact of immersive audio at its very best,” said Bob Moses, AES Executive Director. “This is a unique event that will bring an exciting crescendo to the technical program at AES New York.” While the Super Saturday sessions require All Access registration, those who can’t take advantage of the entire four-day Convention technical program can register for a one- or two-day pass and chose to include Immersive Audio Super Saturday.

A spectacular large-scale demo room featuring a full 9.1 channel PMC loudspeakers system will host the “Radical Interpretations of Iconic Musical Works” session, in which contemporary works from Morton Feldman and Iannis Xenakis will be played in 9.1 immersive audio. The Xenakis piece was recorded twice, from the perspective of a listener, and with overhead mics to capture the sound as experienced by the performers, and will be played back in both formats to demonstrate the ways in which immersive audio can capture and convey a variety of listener perspectives.

The iconic TV series Doctor Who has been around for more than 50 years – but now its audio is as futuristic as the Doctor’s TARDIS time machine. At the “What’s This? Doctor Who with Spatial Audio!” demo, BBC lead engineer Chris Pike will utilize a binaural playback system to demonstrate the way post-production transforms a normally-recorded episode into a spatial audio spectacular. Follow us into the next sonic realm with our favorite Time Lord!

In the “Binaural Listening Experience” session, Marta Olko of New York University will present a selection of binaural recordings and mixes from various artists, composers, and recording and mixing engineers, all created to highlight the ways in which binaural audio can complement and enhance the music.

Immersive audio is also a vital component of virtual reality gaming. In “Create Sound and Music for VR and 360 Using Common DAW Workflows,” Tom Ammermann of New Audio Technology GmbH will focus on the latest initiatives and developments of virtual and augmented reality development centers worldwide, including the first publicly-funded VR/AR lab in the US, located in New York.

“Creating Audio for Virtual Reality Applications” will be hosted by Bob Schulein of ImmersAV Technology, who will look at how the quest for more engaging listener experiences has raised the challenges to create more compelling audio. Elements of binaural hearing and sound capture have come to play a central role in existing and evolving production techniques, and this seminar will present and demonstrate techniques for enhancing audio for games, music, radio and music education.

Immersive Audio Super Saturday Schedule, October 21

9.1 sessions, Room 1E06

9:00 – 10:30AM, RP17 “Radical Interpretations of Iconic Musical Works” by Morton Lindberg

10:45 am–11:45 am, SA13 “3D Ambeo and Live Recordings” by Jim Anderson & Ulrike Schwartz

1:15 pm–2:45 pm, SA15 “Afternoon Listening Session in 9.1” by David Bowles and Paul Geluso

3:00 pm–4:00 pm, SA14 “Capturing Height” by David Bowles, Paul Geluso and Sungyoung Kim

Binaural sessions, Room 1E13

9:00 am — 10:00 am, SA11 “Creating Audio for Virtual Reality Applications” by Bob Schulein

10:15 am — 12:15 pm, SA12, Binaural Listening Experience” by Marta Olko

1:30 pm — 2:30 pm, GA15, “Create Sound and Music for VR and 360 Using Common DAW Workflows” by Tom Ammermann.

3:00 pm — 5:00 pm, B13, “What's This? Doctor Who with Spatial Audio!” by Chris Pike

Register before Monday, October 16 for Advance Registration online pricing, and make plans to join us at AES New York 2017. The convention will be co-located with the independent and adjacent NAB Show New York 2017. Registration, at any level, for AES New York 2017 will give attendees access to the NAB Show New York exhibition floor and the content in the NAB Show New York’s Core Package (a $75 value). Register now, upgrade to All Access registration, either four-, two- or one-day, for the Maximum Audio experience, including Immersive Audio Super Saturday, at aesshow.com.

More Information – Scroll over session titles here

 — Honors presented for Best Peer-Reviewed Papers and Best Student Papers —

The 143rd Audio Engineering Society Convention, taking place October 18 to 21 at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan, will feature the presentation of the annual AES “Best Peer-Reviewed Paper Award” and “Best Student Paper Award” distinctions, which honor outstanding achievement in academic papers being presented at the convention. The awards will be presented during the Opening Ceremonies on October 18 by AES New York Convention Papers Co-chairs Braxton Boren and Areti Andreopoulou.

This year’s “Best Peer-Reviewed Paper Award” distinction will go to Sean Olive, Todd Welti, and Omid Khonsaripour, each from HARMAN International – Northridge, CA, USA, for their paper “A Statistical Model that Predicts Listeners’ Preference Ratings of In-Ear Headphones: Part 1 — Listening Test Results and Acoustic Measurements.” The paper will be presented on Thursday, October 19, as part of Paper Session P07. ("Part 2 – Development and Validation of the Model" will be presented as part of Paper Session P14 on Friday, October 20).

The “Best Student Paper Award” goes to Sarah R. Smith and Mark F. Bocko, both students of University of Rochester – Rochester, NY, USA, for their paper “Modeling the Effect of Rooms on Frequency Modulated Tones,” which will also be presented on Friday, October 20, as part of Paper Session P15. 

Abstract for Best Peer Reviewed Paper – “A Statistical Model that Predicts Listeners’ Preference Ratings of In-Ear Headphones: Part 1—Listening Test Results and Acoustic Measurements”
Part 1 of this paper presented the results of controlled listening tests where 71 listeners both trained and untrained gave preference ratings for 30 different models of in-ear (IE) headphones. Both trained and untrained listeners preferred the headphone equalized to Harman IE target curve. Objective measurements indicated the magnitude response of the headphone appeared to be a predictor of its preference rating, and the further it deviated from the response of the Harman IE target curve the less it was generally preferred. Part 2 presents a linear regression model that accurately predicts the headphone preference ratings (r = 0.91) based on the size, standard deviation and slope of the magnitude response deviation from the response of the Harman IE headphone target curve.

Abstract for Best Student Paper Award – “Modeling the Effects of Rooms on Frequency Modulated Tones”
This paper describes how reverberation impacts the instantaneous frequency tracks of modulated audio signals. Although this effect has been observed in a number of contexts, less work has been done relating these deviations to acoustical parameters of the reverberation. This paper details the instantaneous frequency deviations resulting from a sum of echoes or a set of resonant modes and emphasizes the conditions that maximize the resulting effect. Results of these models are compared with the observed instantaneous frequencies of musical vibrato tones filtered with the corresponding impulse responses. It is demonstrated that reduced models may adequately reproduce the deviations when the signal is filtered by only the early or low frequency portion of a recorded impulse response.

Best Paper Awards and other presentations are all part of this year’s AES New York Convention, taking place next month. The convention will be co-located with the independent and adjacent NAB Show New York 2017. Registration, at any level, for AES New York 2017 will give attendees access to the NAB Show New York exhibition floor and the content in the NAB Show New York’s Core Package (a $75 value). Register now, upgrade to the All Access registration for the Maximum Audio experience, including all of the research papers and engineering briefs within the hundreds of sessions that make up the full Technical Program, and reserve housing for the 143rd AES Convention at aesshow.com. Online Advance Registration discounts end Monday, October 16.