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Meeting Recaps

Meeting Attendance Statistics   — wonder about the demographics of our meetings?
Meeting notice archive.   Meeting notices from past meetings. If it's not there, it likely doesn't exist. If you have a meeting topic that you'd like to see covered, please let someone from the Section Committee know about it.

2009

  • September 2008
    Jeffrey Bruton took us on a tour of his newly completed remote truck and discussed the basics of remote recording in the year 2008.
  • October 2008
    JJ Johnston took us on a tour of the insides of a personal music player.
  • November 2008
    Section Chair Steve Turnidge spoke about Mastering for Television, with some real-life experience to keep things interesting.
  • December 2008
  • January 2009
  • February 2009
  • March 2009
  • April 2009
  • May 2009
  • June 2009

2008

This year's meeting coverage is very much a work in progress, so if you come across links that return 404, it means "under construction."
  • January 2008 
    JJ Johnston and Serge Smirnov spoke about Room Correction: Perceptual vs Acoustic Ideals. The concepts are part of the Audio Subsystem within Microsoft Windows Vista.
  • February 2008 
    Using Arrays of Loudspeakers for Focusing or Diffusing Sound. Mike Seltzer, Jasha Droppo, Ivan Tashev, and JJ Johnston spoke about and demonstrated the use of loudspeaker arrays for creating a very noticeable hot spot within a room and for creating a diffuse source that was not readily localizable.
  • March 2008 
    Michael P. Matesky, attorney with Klarquist Sparkman LLP, spoke about copyright law, especially in connection with music and recording.
  • April 2008 
    Surround Mixing for Live Sound with David Miles Huber
  • May 2008 
    Acoustics 101 for Geeks and Nerds
    The PNW Section's own Mark Rogers tackled this gargantuan topic at warp speed.
  • June 2008 
    An Evening With Frank Laico
    Frank Laico worked for CBS/Columbia as a mixer/engineer between 1940 and 1982. The depth and breadth of his work during that time is both incredible and everlasting.

    For now, there are only pictures.

2007

  • January 2007 
    An all-day workshop revolving around the topic of digital filtering. Powerpoint decks from this meeting are available from the link on the homepage of this website.
  • February 2007 
    This meeting featured a film by Scott Budman and Don Hardy, Sound Man, about the life and times of Jack Mullin. Jack was a Smart Guy who had the curiosity and position to investigate just how it was that the Germans were able to broadcast (WW2 timeframe), in high fidelity, material that was obviously recorded somehow. This is the story of a fateful left turn that brought about the birth of the tape recording industry in the United States. After the film, Steve Turnidge and Rick Chinn presented a short tutorial on magnetic recording.
  • March 2007 
    A/B Stereo Recording — Newgrass in the Big Apple. Matt Gephart, staff engineer at Sage Studios, described a recent recording project with Chris Thile of Nickel Creek fame. The concept was to capture a newgrass band live in the studio using the a/b microphone technique (spaced omnis).
  • April 2007 
    Brian Kehew and Kevin Ryan, authors of the landmark tome Recording the Beatles spoke about this monumental project, how they came to work together on it, the process of vetting a mountain of information, and why they decided to self-publish their work. It was a very well attended meeting with standing room only. This meeting was co-presented with NARAS and EMP.
  • May 2007 
    Dave Tosti-Lane, Performance Chair at Cornish College, demonstrated how a sound design makes the transition from script to theater.
  • June 2007 
    Philip Nickolay of Virtual Earth Audio took us on an in-depth look at an SSL 4000 mixing console, from the inside out, and gave hints and tips for audio console maintenance.
  • August 2007 
    Although we usually take the summer off, Dan Mortensen offered to take us on a tour of his medium format live sound system while it was set up for an actual event at Woodland Park Zoo.
  • September 2007 
    Kevin Jablonski and Toussaint Myricks of the Axios Law Group took us through the intricacies of Copyright, Patent and IP law, especially as it applies to the Audio Arts.
  • October 2007 
    Chris Lyons and Luis Guerra from Shure Inc. gave an in-depth look at what is likely to happen after February 19, 2009 when the FCC throws the DTV switch and the upper portion of the UHF TV band is no longer part of the TV Whitespace.
  • November 2007  Roy DuNann spent the evening with the PNW section talking about his experiences recording Jazz in the late 1950s.

2006

  • January 2006
    Marty O'Donnell and Jay Weinland of Bungie Labs share the details of the audio integration for the Halo 2 game on the Xbox platform. It was a fascinating meeting on many different levels.
  • February 2006 This meeting was brought to us by Meyer Sound Laboratories. The Meyer team spent the day showing us the ins, outs, and details of their SIM3 source independent measurement system.
  • March 2006 Ableton Live — Indistinguishable from Magic. Matt Frazier, of M Audio, provided an interesting hands-on demonstration of this capable program.
  • April 2006 JJ Johnston introduces the concepts of loudness and SPL.
  • May 2006 Born Digital: Will recordings survive the 21st century? John Spencer, of BMS/Chace discussed the implications of various forms of data management and long term storage. Like any religion, the topic has its believers, disciples, and non-believers (or at least those who are in serious denial).
  • June 2006 Audio on the PC. Elliot Omiya, of Microsoft, described the guts of the audio subsystem of the Windows Vista operating system.
  • No meetings during the summer months!
  • September 2006 Our opening meeting of the 2006-2007 featured Dan Lavry local digital audio guru and nationally recognized high-end converter manufacturer. Dan spoke about conversion in general and why he feels that 96k is far enough.
  • October 2006 JJ Johnston, from Microsoft discussed how our perception of audio and video are similar and different.
  • November 2006 Jack Endino, producer/engineer to the stars, spoke to us about recording, techie things, tape machine performance, especially at high speed, and tales of gory (or is it glory? from the trenches.

2005

  • January 2005 Our January meeting featured James Russell, inventor of optical CD recording, telling us about the origins of CD recording. The meeting report, photos, and MP3s of the meeting are available here. 
  • February 2005 Juergen Wahl brought us his especially informative and innovative multimedia presentation about Microphone Subjective Evaluation and Applications.
  • March 2005 Ken Greenbaum hosted a panel discussion with co-authors of is book, Audio Anecdotes
  • April 2005 Mark Rogers and JJ Johnston  tackled the settings of Gains and Losses in a sound system.
  • May 2005 Bill Whitlock talked about balanced interfaces and connecting anything to anything.
  • June 2005 Our June meeting was an all day discussion about Virtual Synthesizers.
  • October 2005 Ed McNichol and Clark Schroeder demonstrated three audio applications for the Apple Macintosh computer. The meeting report and photos are here. 
  • November 2005 Al Swanson demonstrated and discussed orchestral recording technique.

2004

  • September 2004 Our September meeting  was a special screening of the documentary film, Tom Dowd and The Language of Music.
  • October 2004 J. J. Johnston  on Hearing, Acoustics, and Soundfields: What can we hear and what can't we hear?
  • November 2004 Dana Troxel of Rane Corporation discusses the how and why of acoustic feedback and demonstrates Rane's feedback killer module as used in their DragNet™ line of DSP-based audio signal processors.
  • February 2004 From Hear to Eternity - Sampling, Conversion and the Limits of Hearing. An all-day seminar  with James Johnston, Dr. Melissa Harrison, Dr. Richard Cabot, Steven Green, and Bob Moses.
  • April-May 2004 The Science and Voodoo of Electric Guitars. We held three meetings covering various aspects of guitar pickup electronics, pickup construction, and guitar amplifiers.
  • June 2004 Dave Gunness of EAW described and demonstrated their new Digitally Steered Line Array speaker.

2003

  • November 2003 Richard Erwin takes us on a tour of Marion Oliver McCaw Hall   at Seattle Center.
  • September/October 2003 The PNW Section hosts a panel discussion on CD Mastering   at Shoreline Community College.
  • June 2003 Dennis Bohn and Rick Jeffs from Rane Corporation   talk about active filters, equalizers, and crossovers.
  • May 2003 Mike Overlin and John Strawn talk about Yamaha's mLan   music oriented LAN.
  • April 2003 Bob Smith, Medtronic-Physio Control demonstrates the importance of good audio   in a non-traditional audio application, a defibrillator.
  • March 2003 The Surround Sound   Seminar, presented by Mike Sokol of Fits and Starts Productions visits our corner of Paradise once more.
  • February 2003 Mark Rogers revisits our old friend, the Decibel.  
  • January 2003 Concepts and Practices   for Evaluation of Rooms and Sound Systems using FFT Analysis. An all day workshop with Daniel Casado, Bruce Main, Mark Rogers, and Blair McNair.

2002

  • December 2002 There was no meeting in December.
  • November 2002 Bill Whitlock,   Jensen Transformers Inc., tells a capacity crowd about the Top Ten Signal Interconnection Myths.
  • October 2002 A look at Music for Film   from the composer's perspective with noted film music composer Hummie Mann.
  • September 2002 Taking a cue from the Los Angeles Section, we present An Evening with Greg Mackie.  
  • June 2002. The Soundbridge   at Benaroya Hall is a multimedia experience designed to connect listeners with the symphony orchestra.

  • May 2002. Internet Audio Networking   with Bob Moses, Island Digital Media Group. As the dust settles from the dotcom hoopla, one thing is for sure - Internet Audio is here to stay. Some industry pundits predict that online consumption of audio/video media will eventually eclipse brick and mortar commerce. But critics point out that online music sounds bad, and such a tremendous transformation will take years, perhaps decades, to complete. Moreover, downloading music to a PC and listening to it while seated at a desk is not exactly a replacement for listening to a CD in the comfort of the living room. Bob Moses spoke aboutt the lastest advances in the business and technology of Internet audio. He reviewed the trend toward home networks so that audio and video can be digitally transported around a home along with other computer data. We listened to a variety of audio compression formats.

  • April 2002. Mark Rogers   takes us through the ins and outs of the current National Electrical Code, especially with regard to how it affects audio systems wiring and performance.
    With photos  

  • March 2002. Opus 4 Studios   uses Lexicon LARES to break down the walls of the traditional studio environment to provide an acoustically comfortable recording environment for a variety of musical genres. Steve Barbar of LARES takes us through an unusual application of a remarkable tool.
    With photos  

  • February 2002. Trimpin   mixes art, music, and computers. We visit his studio for this meeting.
    With photos  

  • January 2002. A house of worship   sound system design. Rick Smargiassi, Integrated Light and Sound Inc. takes us through a recently completed installation. Daniel Casado, manufacturer's rep for Electro-Voice discusses the Asymetrical Coverage loudspeaker used for this install and Rick takes us through the high points of the Sabine DSP audio processor.
    With photos  

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996
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Last modified 11/3/2008.