PRESS RELEASES
105th AES CONVENTION PRESENTS FOURTEEN WORKSHOPS
Highlights Include 5.1, Internet Audio, DVD
SAN FRANCISCO: The 105th Audio Engineering Society Convention, set for September 26-29 at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center, will present a program of fourteen major workshops. Convention co-chairs David Robinson and Valerie Tyler report that Workshops co-chairs Annemarie Staepelaere and Dave Harris have coordinated an especially worthwhile series of events. Highlights include:
5.1, 7.1
Call of the Wild
Audio on the Internet
That workshop will be followed by Internet Audio Production, on Sunday from 2:00-5:00 pm. Chair Steve Mack will explore techniques to combat the side effects that accompany lossy low bitrate encoding, brought on by the competition between Internet audio and video.
Sunday, 9:00 am-12:00 pm, Randy Hoffner of ABC Television (NYC) chairs Audio for HDTV, a highly relevant topic in view of its imminent launch.
DVD
Monday, September 28, 9:00 am-12:00 pm, Jim Johnston of AT&T will chair Perceptual Audio Coding. Also from 9:00 am-12:00 pm, Russ Berger of The Russ Berger Design Group will chair Nuts & Bolts of Studio Design.
Mastering
On Monday, 2:00-5:00 pm, Jim Brown of Audio Systems Group Inc. chairs Weather Related Issues in Outdoor Sound Reinforcement. (Note: This event will be held inside the convention center.)
Workstation Control Surfaces will be chaired by Eddie Ciletti of EQ Magazine and Manhattan Sound Technicians, on Tuesday, September 29, 9:00 am-12:00 pm. Also on Tuesday from 9:00 am-12:00 pm is Choosing the Right Digital Format, chaired by EQ technology editor Craig Anderton.
Surround
Multichannel
"The workshops program is a cornerstone of the AES convention," explain Staepelaere and Harris. "Each session is chaired by leaders in their respective fields. Attendees benefit from hands-on experience with the latest techniques and technical advances, and we have tried to put together a program that encompasses many of the major issues facing today's pro audio world."
Formed in 1948 by a group of concerned audio engineers, the AES counts over 12,000 members throughout U.S., Europe, Japan and the Far East, and serves as the pivotal force in the exchange and dissemination of technical information for the industry.
On Saturday, September 26th, from 12:30-5:00 pm, co-chairs Rodger Wiersema and Will Harvey of Music Annex will moderate Aesthetics of Mixing Music 5.1, 7.1 - Quad for the '90's or Will it Fly? The challenges of mixing for the new formats will be addressed in this hands-on session.
Chair Amy Hunter of the Nature Sound Society heads Field Recording in the Wild on Saturday, September 26, 2:00-5:00 pm. Speakers will share their wild recording adventures from around the world, illustrating the unique challenges, trials, and tribulations of field recording.
Internet Audio Systems will take place on Sunday, 9:00 am-12:00 pm, as Chair Chriss Scherer of Broadcast Engineering magazine is joined by panelists Yvette Soler
of RealNetworks and Phil Wiser of Liquid Audio. Under examination will be the systems that use different audio encoding schemes, making the idea of "Internet Radio" a reality.
Also on Sunday, 2:00-5:00 pm, Audio on DVD chair Skip Pizzi of Microsoft will examine the Digital Versatile Disk (DVD), soon to become the new format of choice for distribution of audio, video and multimedia to consumers and professionals. This session will address the significant differences in formatting and functionality of audio on DVD as compared to previous systems.
Recording artist, engineer, producer, label exec and AES keynote speaker Alan Parsons will participate in a workshop Mastering in the Face of New Technologies chaired by Cheryl Engels, Partial Productions, on Monday, September 28, 2:00-5:00 pm.
John Norris of Harman International chairs Virtual Surround on Tuesday, September 29, 2:00-5:00 pm. The session will explore systems for creating virtual multi speaker home theaters with a variety of methods.
On Tuesday, 2:00-5:00 pm, Malcomb Hawksford of the University of Essex chairs High Resolution Multichannel. DVD is fostering the vision of high-resolution multichannel audio. This workshop will address high-resolution digital audio, DVD coding options, multi-channel sound, and complementary enabling technologies.
