On June 21 the Hamburg Student Section hosted a workshop on microphones and loudspeakers. Martin Schneider, R&D engineer at Georg Neumann GmbH Berlin, took the audience on a journey through the physical principles of studio microphones and their impact on the recorded sound. The workshop included impressive demonstrations of the robustness of studio microphones to extreme pressure and extreme environmental conditions like humidity (and this demonstration needed just a cup of water). Dr. Paul Modler of Karlsruhe Unversity of Media, Arts and Design gave an overview of sound reproduction techniques in his talk on unconventional loudspeaker setups. From an audio artist's viewpoint he presented classic and contemporary approaches to sound reproduction in audiovisual installations, leading the audience to a discussion on the usage of loudspeakers in an artistic context beyond surround or 3D audio.
