Meeting Topic: Shure Inc - The Science of Microphones
Moderator Name: Jeffrey Whalen
Speaker Name: Ken Platz, Shure Inc
Other business or activities at the meeting:
Announced two audio/acoustic related events that were of interest to AES members:
1) A presentation on baseball bat acoustics hosted by the Acoustical Society of America (ASA)
2) A binaural recording presentation by HEAD Acoustics hosted by the Center for Acoustics and Vibration (CAV)
Meeting Location: 306 Hammond Building, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802
Ken Platz, accompanied by Lindsay Spanjer, of Shure Incorporated gave a presentation entitled "The Science of Microphones". Ken started off by speaking briefly about the company history, how Shure has progressed, and some of the newest additions to their line of microphones. This led him into an in depth talk comparing and contrasting two of the company's most widely used types of microphones (dynamic and condenser) along with their newest addition to the product line (ribbon microphones). Ken gave insight as to the fundamental workings behind each type of microphone along with the different possible applications that each one might be used for. At the end of the talk, the audience got to listen to recordings made by each of the difference mics and guess at which microphone was used for each particular recording. The meeting ended with an extensive question and answer session that included talks on other types of microphones, Shure's interaction with celebrity musicians, the linearity and frequency response of particular mics, and the electronic components (or lack of) in certain mics. It was great to see such an enormous interest in the audience to the point where students were staying up to 45 minutes after the presentation had already ended!
