AES Student Blog

Accomplished mastering engineer Darcy Proper will be joining the SDA in Budapest to judge submissions in the "Modern Studio Recording" category. Be at the 132nd Recording Competition finals. Don't miss her excellent insight! 

Darcy is Director of Mastering and Partner at Wisseloord Studios in Hilversum, the Netherlands.  Her mastering room there has been operational since September of 2011 but the complete Wisseloord facility just celebrated its official re-opening a few weeks ago at the end of March.

Darcy began her mastering career at Sony Music Studios in New York City where she started as an editor/assistant engineer in the Classical Department, later focusing her skills on mastering and broadening her musical scope to include in all genres.  From New York, she made the leap to Belgium where she was Senior Mastering Engineer at Galaxy Studios for several years before moving on to the Wisseloord venture.  Her mastering work spans the range of recorded music from reissues of early acoustic mono recordings to current high-resolution surround releases for BluRay.

Over the years, Darcy has been honored with 2 Grammy awards and 7 nominations.  She has also won several TEC awards and Surround awards for her work.

She has had the pleasure of mastering historical reissue projects for such prestigious artists as Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Johnny Cash, and André Hazes.   She has also worked on stereo and 5.1 front-line releases for many talented artists including Steely Dan, The Eagles, R.E.M., Donald Fagen, Porcupine Tree, Peter Maffay, Stef Bos, Toots Thielemans, Anouk, Manowar, and Marcus Miller.

Loyal audio guru Jim Anderson will be judging student entries at AES 132. Come hear his expert critiques at the Recording Competition Finals in Budapest!

"Jim Anderson is an internationally recognized recording engineer and producer of acoustic music for the recording, radio, television, and film industries. He is the recipient of numerous awards and nominations in the recording industry: his recordings have received nine Grammy awards and 25 Grammy nominations; his radio recordings have received two George Foster Peabody Awards and there have been two Emmy nominations for television programs.

A graduate of the Duquesne University School of Music in Pittsburgh PA, Jim has studied audio engineering at the Eastman School of Music and Sender Freies Berlin. During the 1970s, he was employed by National Public Radio and engineered and produced many award-winning classical, jazz, documentary, and news programs. Since 1980 Jim has had a career as an independent audio engineer and producer, living in New York City. Jim has had a wide ranging career from the Muppets to "In Performance at the White House", to name a few of his clients. He has been a frequent lecturer and master-class guest faculty member at leading international institutes, including the Berklee College of Music, The New England Institute of Art, McGill University, The Banff Centre, Universite de Kunst in Berlin, University of Luleå in Sweden, the New School University, University of Georgia, University of Massachusetts at Lowell, and Penn State University. He has served as Vice President for Eastern Sections of the Audio Engineering society (AES), chaired the New York Section of the AES, Chair of the 119th AES Convention, and was Chair of the 123rd AES Convention, fall of 2007. In fall of 2006, he was made a Fellow of the AES and received the AES’ Board of Governor's Award. He is a professor and the former Chair of the Clive Davis Department of Recorded music, in the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. He is a Past-President of the Audio Engineering Society, 2008-2009."

Attention student leaders!

Do YOU have what it takes to be the next SDA VIce Chair for the Europe and International region? We're looking for motivated students to run for this exciting position at AES 132 in Budapest. This is a great way to give back to your student community and become involved with the international society!

Candidates must be current Student Members of the society and must be nominated by a Faculty Advisor or Region VP. Contact us if you would like to learn more!

Reminder!

Submissions for the AES 132 Budapest Student Recording Competition are due by 11:59pm EDT on Monday, April 2nd, 2012. Stay tuned for information about uploading procedures.

Before you submit, please read our complete Rules and Policies here.

The AES Student Recording Competition is a great way to connect with other audio enthusiasts and show off your work to industry professionals. Don't miss your chance to present in Budapest!

The Student Booth at the convention is where you will see us the most. IT IS YOUR BOOTH and we want you to once again send us all the AES-related information about your chapter/section/region. We will have banners, posters, brochures, magazines from a Student Section displayed at the booth the whole time, and we are also accepting pictures, reports, audio and video material (any file format) from your student event to take with us to the booth as from today.

Please send us materials on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/AESsda or directly via e-mail: [email protected], [email protected].

AES Budapest 2012 is quickly approaching! Watch our promo to learn
more about the Student Recording Competition!

Click here for details.

Interview with ERIC XU (student at NYU, USA)

- BRONZE AWARD, Cat 1.

How long did you work on your competition entry?

The recording of it took a couple hours and the mixing/listening took a week or so to finalize

Tell us about the production. Stories? Inspirations?

Since it was a live concert, the production was fairly simple...I was recording a live concert and wanted it to sound good.

What initiated your passion for audio?

When I was eleven, I started helping out with sound at church. I was always interested in music, especially writing and crafting music, which naturally leaded to an audio interest.

Funniest experience as an engineer so far?

Testing I/O between Pro Tools and a console once and setting the tone generators to 60Hz square waves, which scared my teacher thinking there were ground hums on every channel.

Biggest mistake you made during a production?

Forgetting to bring the 1/4 inch adapter for headphones so I couldn't monitor the recital I was recording.

Favorite frequency?

60Hz.

Favorite mic, outboard box, or plugin?

Favorite cardioid mic is the Schoeps CMC 6, omni is the Sennheiser MKH 20...plugin has to be Altiverb.

Best recording of all time?

Has a lot to do with the performance too, so I'd have to say Herbert von Karajan doing “Sibelius 2nd Symphony” with Berlin Philharmonic on EMI, or Cleveland Quartet playing Beethoven's “2nd Razumovsky” (Op.59 #2) on Telarc.

Do you play any instruments?

Yes. Violin.

Any other hobbies?

Volleyball, biking.

The best part about AES?

Watching my friend Ja-Ann Wang make it as a finalist in Category 4.

Where do you want to be in 10 years?

Carnegie Hall.

 “The Audio-Files:  The Environment, The Gear and the Engineer”

An in-depth discussion on Critical Listening and the Listening Environment with Luke Manley, Bob Hodas, Michael Romanowski, and Piper Payne

Saturday, March 3, 2012 - 6:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Hosted at Michael Romanowski Mastering Studio

1340 Mission Street San Francisco, CA 94103

Between 9th and 10th Streets 

(Street parking is free after 6:00 p.m.)

R.S.V.P.   [email protected]  (30-Person CAP)

Registration for the Central Indiana Audio Student Workshop at Ball State University is now open!!

Scheduled for March 10, 2012, the conference is a chance for audio enthusiasts in the Midwest to mingle, network, and learn more about the art and science of audio. Attendees will have access to a full day of presentations and demos by folks like Mark Rubel of Pogo Studios, educators and authors John Fishell and Gary Gottlieb, Daniel Porter of Auralex, and Marc DeGeorge of SSL. Recording critiques, business tips, career seminars, and a whole lot more! And it's all FREE for students, pros, and hobbyists!

Learn more and register at http://centralindianaaes.org/