AES London 2011
Special Event Details
Friday, May 13, 12:45 — 13:45 (Room 1)
Opening Ceremonies
Abstract:
This year’s Keynote Speaker is Trevor Cox. He is Professor of Acoustic Engineering at the University of Salford, a Senior Media Fellow funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and President of the Institute of Acoustics (IOA).
Cox has a long track record of communicating acoustic engineering to the public and has been involved in engagement projects worth over £1M. He was given the IOA award for promoting acoustics to the public in 2009. He has developed and presented science shows to 15,000 pupils including performing at the Royal Albert Hall, Purcell Rooms, and the Royal Institution. Cox has presented fifteen documentaries for BBC radio including: Life’s soundtrack, Save our Sounds, and Science vs the Strad. His latest BBC radio 4 program due for broadcast in June is titled Green Ears. The title of Cox’s keynote speech is “Sounding Places, Past and Present: How Spaces Affect the Sounds We Make and Hear.”
Friday, May 13, 18:15 — 19:30 (Room 1)
Welcome Reception and Presentation
Abstract:
Fraunhofer IIS invites all visitors to the AES 130th Convention to meet in a social atmosphere to catch up with friends and colleagues from the world of audio. There will be a short presentation of the "International Audio Laboratories Erlangen—The New Center of Audio Research" followed by a Welcome Drinks Reception.
Friday, May 13, 20:00 — 21:30
Organ Recital
Lincoln's Inn Chapel
Abstract:
Graham Blyth’s traditional organ recital will be given on the new organ of the Lincoln’s Inn Chapel. The Chapel has had a historic role in the life of the Inn. The present building was consecrated on Ascension Day, 1623. The first organ was installed in 1820. That organ by Flight and Robson was replaced in 1856 by a three-manual and pedal organ by William Hill, one of the finest organ builders in the country. This organ was rebuilt on no less than nine occasions, most recently in 1969. As the organ approached its 150th birthday it became clear that its increasing unreliability meant that a decision needed to be taken about its future. After exhaustive research it was concluded that so little of the original Hill organ had remained unaltered that it was impossible to restore it to any original condition. A contract was signed with Kenneth Tickell in 2005 for a new three-manual organ. It was assembled in the Northampton workshops of Tickell in 2008-9, and arrived on site in July 2009.
Graham's recital, which is on Friday 13th at 8.00pm, will be played on the 2010 installed Tickell organ in the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn. Works include Bach's Great C major Prelude & Fugue, Franck's Fantasie in A, two recent pieces inspired by words of Sir John Betjeman by Dennis Wickens, and a complete performance of Widor's 5th Symphony. Programs and maps will be available from the Special Events Desk.
http://www.lincolnsinn.org.uk/ then click on Location (on left under picture)
Saturday, May 14, 11:15 — 13:00 (Room 2)
AES/MPG Event: Where Does The Buck Stop? QC in the Manufacturing Chain
Moderator:
Tony Platt, MPG Director
Presenters:
Karen Emanuel, Key Production
Ray Staff, Award-winning chief mastering engineer, Air Mastering
Pieter Stenekes, Founder of Sonoris Audio Engineering who are responsible for the DDP delivery software
Abstract:
We are all human and can make mistakes. It is also said that we do not recognize our own mistakes. In the video and broadcast world it is standard for the client to pay for an independent QC check at the studio and again at the broadcaster's facility. With vinyl it has always been normal to have a test pressing. All these procedures have been bypassed in CD mastering, and, in general, the passage of a master to manufacture is out of step with any QC that takes place. This can and has resulted in sometimes major and costly mistakes.
Our discussion will focus on the challenges posed by an emerging new shape of the industry where artists, small labels, and producers are dealing directly with manufactures. Furthermore, these problems are also common to downloaded products. The incidences that have raised the issue of QC during the manufacturing stage of CDs can only be exacerbated if consumer delivery moves toward high quality downloads.
The growing tendency to third party agents arranging manufacture and distribution also raise issues in respect of delivery formats to manufacturers and aggregators and with the upsurge in delivery via FTP we need to establish some good practice for checking that what goes to manufacture is correct and most especially who is responsible.
This discussion launches the Mastering Section of Music Producers Guild which will be headed by Ray Staff. They propose to outline what quality control is and where the responsibilities lie and to publish a specification that will be posted on the MPG website so that anyone involved in the process can refer to for good practice and guidance.
Saturday, May 14, 14:00 — 15:45 (Room 2)
AES/APRS/DV247 Event: Talkback-Pro 1—Acoustic Treatment for Small Spaces
Moderator:
Malcolm Atkin
Abstract:
As 3-D visuals hit the screens, there are more opportunities to provide surround-sound mixes. How can small rooms best be set-up to mix in surround and if mixing/control room space is terminally limited, can non-acoustic solutions offer successful fixes? This perennial problem has plagued aspiring producers and production rooms since audio began it’s "democratizing" journey.
Hear studio acoustics experts and technologists debate and demonstrate the best way to exploit small production spaces for both conventional stereo and surround-sound mixes.
Saturday, May 14, 18:30 — 20:00 (Room 1)
Heyser Lecture
followed by
Technical Council
Reception
Abstract:
The Richard C. Heyser distinguished lecturer for the 130th AES Convention is Karlheinz Brandenburg. Brandenburg has been a driving force behind some of today’s most innovative digital audio technology, notably the MP3 and MPEG audio standards. The title of his lecture is “How to Provide High Quality Audio Everywhere: The mp3 Story and More …”
Once upon a time there was the challenge to transmit high quality audio over phone lines. While this seemed impossible, ideas from psychoacoustics and signal processing—work by many researchers—helped the seemingly impossible to become reality: mp3 and other audio codecs enabled seamless transport of audio over thin lines. However, the mp3 story did not end there. The Internet was changing shape, transforming from a text-based medium into a major carrier for sound of all kinds, including music. This meant changes not only for the payload (from text to audio), but also meant new dangers for the audio quality delivered to music lovers, and it changed business models for music sales dramatically, shaking up the music industry.
Today the challenges are different: we have a multitude of (legal) sources of music, and many of us have access to Terabytes of music. How do we find our way through this abundance of available content, how do we find the gems in the millions of medium quality music? Even then, audio reproduction still is far from perfect, so how can we really fulfill the dream of complete auditory illusion, and what are the problems even today? The talk will introduce some current work on both MIR (Music Information Retrieval), on audio reproduction and the psychoacoustic research needed to get further along towards the dream of perfectly reconstructed sound.
Sunday, May 15, 11:15 — 13:00 (Room 2)
AES/APRS/DV247 Event: Talkback-Pro 2—Lead Me Down the Signal Path
Moderator:
Gil Iimor
Abstract:
"All you need is a great mic and a decent pre-amp and you can expect your home recordings to match any studio." A familiar claim but a pretty glib observation, especially when there are so many "affordable" options and such a wide diversity of "subjective" opinions.
“Listen, position, and condition” is the mantra of an engineer trying to capture a live sound accurately. How does each skill impact on the others? Can the flaws in a cheap microphone be rectified by cunning signal manipulation or does the notion of "less is more" apply to signal path?
A group of key experts from academics to manufacturers discuss the fundamentals of audio capture and refinement.
Sunday, May 15, 14:30 — 16:15 (Room 3)
AES/APRS Event—The Recording Legacy of Phil Spector
Presenter:
Barry Marshall
Abstract:
The First Producer? Phil Spector and the Legacy of the Svengali Producer
This lecture will explore the career of Phil Spector, the legendary figure who arguably created the role of the record producer as we know it today. It will trace Spector’s historical development from his early career as an artist, his apprenticeship with Atlantic Records and Leiber & Stoller (the first credited producers), his flowering as a producer-mogul with his Philles record label, his initial “retirement” in 1967, his re-invention as the producer of John Lennon and George Harrison to his later sporadic (yet sometimes still seminal) work with artists like the Ramones. The emphasis of the lecture will be on the development of the role of the producer—through Spector’s initial creation of his “Wall of Sound” and his Svengali approach to artist development—and then through his sublimation of the Svengali role into a more measured approach with his work with the gigantic talents of artists like Lennon and Harrison. The lecture will include lots of examples of Spector’s work.
Sunday, May 15, 18:45 — 22:30
Banquet
The Musical Museum
Abstract:
The Musical Museum
399 High Street
Brentford
Middlesex
This year the Banquet will take place at The Musical Museum containing one of the world’s foremost collections of automatic instruments. From the tiny clockwork Musical Box to the self playing “Mighty Wurlitzer,” the collection embraces an impressive and comprehensive array of sophisticated reproducing pianos, orchestrions, orchestrelles, residence organs, and violin players. The Museum is arranged on 3 floors. On the ground floor there are 4 galleries to display working instruments; upstairs is a concert hall seating 230, complete with stage and, of course, an orchestra pit from which the Wurlitzer console will rise to entertain you, just as it did in the cinema in the 1930s.
While having a pre-dinner drink, you will be able to wander round the exhibits and even listen to some of them. There will also be time at the end of the evening to look round if you missed it before dinner.
The ticket price includes all food and drinks and the bus to the museum and back. There are limited spaces at this event, so book now to guarantee a place! The bus will leave the Novotel at 18:45 and return approximately half an hour later for the second group. The bus will be available at 22:30 for those needing an early night and will return to collect the final group.
Tickets available on-site at the registration desk.
Monday, May 16, 09:00 — 10:45 (Room 2)
AES/APRS/DV247 Event: Talkback-Pro 3—The Myths and Mysteries of DSP
Moderator:
Wes Maebe
Abstract:
Where would we be without DSP? Given the colossal and ubiquitous influence DSP processing has all our functionality, the answer probably would be "way back in the analog world" but is there good DSP and bad DSP? What should our priorities be when it comes to spending on A/D – D/A, soft auxiliaries, tracking and mixing programs, and master/finalizing tools.
Issues with interfaces, latency, compression, and plain taste will always plague the subjective judgments of engineers and producers. Is there a "normal" digital base upon which creativity can grow unhindered by the pitfalls of mismatched technologies, uneven standards, and deliberate hurdles to interoperability.
Clearing the cloudy mists that envelop proprietary toys will be a panel of technologists, enthusiasts, and practitioners.
Monday, May 16, 14:00 — 15:45 (Room 2)
AES/APRS Event—I Didn't Get Where I am Today . . .
Moderator:
Peter Filleul, APRS
Panelists:
David Fisher
Elliott Randall
Dennis Weinreich
Abstract:
Careers are magically unpredictable things. So many successful icons in the audio world will blame serendipity, a chance meeting, or the whims of luck for how they ended up. Others had a clear direction, a specific focus, and have stuck to their original ambition and some swear by training and qualifications.
Prominent audio characters describe what influenced their "career moves" and whether flexibility, a broad outlook and the "maverick" spirit are essential elements to achieving longevity in the audio business and muse on the expectations generated by audio education and training.
A 90 minute seminar moderated by Peter Filleul of the APRS exploring the differences between the theory and the practice of the career ambitions of a set of accomplished audio addicts.
