AES Student Blog

If you were smart, lucky or fortunate enough to be able to attend the 131^st Convention of the Audio Engineering Society October 20-23, 2011, you will no doubt attest that it was worth any amount to be there!

Students who made their way to the New York, along with 16,000 other fellow participants, took part in an amazing program of workshops, tutorials, technical programs, demonstrations and parties.

The world’s top audio professionals were available to student participants as mentors, recording competition judges, panelists, presenters or just to walk up to and speak with!

Students from all over the world crowded into the meeting rooms for the first and second meetings of the AES Student Delegate Assembly where outgoing North and Latin American Regions SDA Chair Philip Parenteau presided.  A representative from each student chapter introduced his or her section and announced how many members had made the trip. Initiatives of the SDA were discussed and Don Puluse of the AES Educational Foundation spoke briefly about scholarships that were available for graduate study in the field of audio.  Finally, the announcements of which entries would be finalists in the Student Recording Competition were made.

The four new categories of the Student Recording Competition made their US debut to an excellent response.  Esteemed judges included mainstays Jim Anderson, Ulrike Schwarz, David Bowles, Mark Rubel, Ron Prent, Darcy Proper, Geoff Mitchell, Martha De Francisco and Richard King. New judges who joined us this year included Grammy winner Staff Sergeant Brandie Lane, Mika producer John Merchant and noted game audio designer Steven Harwood.

Sponsors who donated prizes included PMC, API, Avid, Auralex, Shure, Sennheiser, Melodyne/Music Marketing Canada, Merging Technologies, Schoeps Mikrofone GmbH, Solid State Logic, Sweetwater, Reaper and Extreme Isolation Headphones.

The judges recognized the following entries: 

Traditional Acoustic (category 1)

•           Jamie Tagg,  (UMass - Lowell) SILVER

•           Padraig Buttner-Schnirer , (McGill Schulich School of Music) GOLD

•           Adam Grover, (The Hartt School: University of Hartford ) BRONZE

•           Eric Xu, (Steinhardt School, NYU) BRONZE

Traditional Studio (category 2)

•           Jeff Braun,  (Middle Tennessee State University) GOLD

•           Andrew Cass, (The Hartt School - University of Hartford) BRONZE

•           Takino Masumi, (Tokyo University of the Arts) GOLD

Modern Studio (category 3)

•           Hiromu Tanokura, (Tokyo University of Arts) SILVER

•           Taylor Bray, (Middle Tennessee State University) SILVER

•           Kevin Harper, (Ithaca College) SILVER

•           Robert Hunt, (Institute of Audio research) HONORABLE MENTION

Visual Media (category 4)

•           Tariq Burney,  (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana) SILVER

•           Kevin Fallis, (Vancouver Film School) GOLD

•           Ja-Ann Wang, (New York University) HONORABLE MENTION

•           Sundiata Devore, (Institute of Audio Research) BRONZE

While the above entrants can feel good about the awards that they received, the true value of the Recording Competition will forever be the helpful criticisms and suggestions put forward by the judges.  Because this is done in a public forum, all who show up will reap the benefit of the judges’ wisdom!

For those perhaps not up for the competition, Dr. Ian Corbett and David Greenspan of the AES Education Committee put on three hours of Student Recording Critiques where students, in a non-competitive setting, were able to listen to comments from experts.  Thanks to Maurice Patist of PMC who made this and other great events possible by hosting it in his demo room and for providing not one but two wonderful PMC playback systems!

Students and recent graduates were able to find great career advice at the session called: Speed Counseling with Experts-Mentoring Answers for your Career. This event was organized by Kirk Imamura of SPARS (Society of Professional Recording Services) who brought together an amazing group of 22 respected industry pros in six different career tracks including record production, mastering, post, sound for film, gaming and live sound.  Niko Bloas, Leslie Mona-Mathis and Randy Merrill were just  three of the pros who spoke to the 88 individual attendees. 

For those looking for a sampling of academic audio programs or to find opportunities in the professional world, the Career and Education Fair had its strongest participation ever with universities displaying information about their audio programs and companies speaking with students about jobs available. 

While the exhibition hall gave students access to over 300 companies showing new products and offering a perspective on trends in the industry, the SDA offered its own booth just outside the main doors where student and education activities from sections around the globe were chronicled.  Student chapters were invited to share pictures and written descriptions of regional events including the Central Region Audio Student Summit (CRASS) held in St. Louis, The Central European Student Summit held in Poland and the Boston Area Definitive Audio Student Summit (BADASS) held in Boston.  The SDA booth also served as a great meeting place for students where information like results of the Recording Competition was posted.

Because all students love a good party, the opportunity to meet and socialize with other audio students was provided at the Student Social that was hosted downtown at NYU.  Students hob-nobbed, ate some awesome New York pizza and made friends they’ll see at conventions to come!

On the final afternoon at the second meeting of the SDA, awards were presented, prizes were given, photographs taken, outgoing SDA Chair Philip Parenteau was officially commended for his outstanding service and an election was held for a new SDA officer. Colin Pfund of the University of Hartford squeeked out a narrow victory over another worthy candidate to become the new SDA Vice Chair for North & Latin American Regions.  Congratulations Colin!

So, what was your favorite part of the 131^st AES Convention?  Did you get to see Alex Case’s lectures on Delay and Comb Filtering?  Did you meet the inventor of the MP3 Karl-Heinz Brandenburg?  Did you get your photo snapped with rock star Ben Folds (I did!)  Did you witness Recording Competition judge Jim Anderson hear things that you thought no one could hear? Did you make the connections to pros and to other students that will change your life? I want to know so please share your AES stories with the community and we’ll see you at the next convention.

John Krivit

Chair, Education Committee

Audio Engineering Society