AES Dublin 2019
Workshop Details
Wednesday, March 20, 09:15 — 10:45 (Liffey Hall 1)
W01 - Loudspeaker Reliability Test Signals
Chair:Steven Hutt, Equity Sound Investments - Bloomington, IN, USA
Panelists:
Laurie Fincham, THX LTD - San Francisco, CA, USA
Wolfgang Klippel, Klippel GmbH - Dresden, Germany
Philip Knight, Phil Knight Associates - Hook, Hampshire, UK
Richard Little, Goertek Electronics Inc. - Santa Clara, CA, USA
Roger Schwenke, Meyer Sound Laboratories - Berkeley, CA, USA
Test Signals used for loudspeaker system reliability testing utilize tailored attributes such as band width, duty cycle, and crest factor to evaluate input capacity for loudspeaker systems. While noise can be shaped to emulate music's spectrum and crest factor, music has correlated time/frequency event cycles that impose different thermal and mechanical stress on a loudspeaker. Panelists will discuss correlation of music signals to different test signals as specified in AES and IEC standards or alternatives and comment on how anticipated duress of a loudspeaker system in the field affects useful life.
 | This session is presented in association with the AES Technical Committee on Loudspeakers and Headphones |
Wednesday, March 20, 14:15 — 15:30 (Liffey A)
W02 - Metadata and Why Every Audio Engineer Needs to Understand It
Chair:John Krivit, Professional Audio Design - Hanover, MA, USA; Emerson College - Boston, MA, USA
Panelists:
Lynne Earls, NARAS PE Wing - Ireland
Paul Jessop, County Analytics Ltd - Dunstable, Bedfordshire, UK
Buddy Judge, Apple Music - CA, USA
Helienne Lindvall, VEVA Sound - London, UK
Drew Waters, VEVA Sound
This panel presents and demystifies the purpose, practical application, and value of capturing metadata at the point of inception—in the studio. We will engage all those with a vested interest in the collection and propagation of quality metadata, including; engineers, producers, production engineers, songwriters, performers, second engineers, and production coordinators across different genres and parts of the industry—thereby creating a cross section of contemporary voices to add insight to this crucial aspect of industry growth.
Wednesday, March 20, 16:30 — 18:00 (Liffey Hall 2)
W03 - Recording Orchestral Music and 3D Audio: Challenges, Considerations, and Solutions
Co-chair:Will Howie, CBC/Radio-Canada - Vancouver, Canada
Toru Kamekawa, Tokyo University of the Arts - Adachi-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Panelists:
Kimio Hamasaki, ARTSRIDGE LLC - Chiba, Japan
Alex Kosiorek, Central Sound at Arizona PBS - Phoenix, AZ, USA
Hyunkook Lee, University of Huddersfield - Huddersfield, UK
Orchestral music maintains a surprisingly ubiquitous place in modern life, heard regularly in the concert hall, commercial recordings, TV and radio broadcasts, film scores, video game soundtracks, VR and AR scenarios, and any other number of settings. Capturing an orchestral sound scene for three-dimensional reproduction involves many considerations, including repertoire, venue, setup time, post-production budget, and sonic aesthetics. Currently proposed microphone techniques suitable for 3D orchestral music capture range from largely spaced arrays prioritizing envelopment and sound scene control, to near-coincident techniques designed to combine spaciousness with accurate ensemble imaging, to single-point coincident/ambisonics-based techniques that represent an increase in convenience in terms of setup. In this workshop, we compare differences in impression due to differences in design and implementation of 3D recording technique through actual recording examples, and discuss how these methods impact technical and aesthetic considerations for orchestra recording.
Wednesday, March 20, 17:00 — 18:00 (Liffey A)
W04 - Integrating History into the Modern Audio Curriculum
Chair:Scott Burgess, University of Colorado Denver - Denver, CO, USA
Panelists:
Fiona Doyle-O'Neill, University College Cork - Cork, Ireland
Mark Drews, University of Stavanger School of Performing Arts - Stavanger, Norway; Norwegian Institute of Recorded Sound - Stavanger, Norway
Gabe Herman, The University of Hartford, The Hartt School - Hartford, CT, USA
Mariana Lopez, University of York - York, UK
Audio engineers know the value of an old microphone and understand the uses of classic equipment and techniques. However, many current audio students still need to be connected with the rich history of our craft. This panel of experienced educators will discuss how to incorporate history into the curriculum of audio schools. Several approaches to a stand-alone history class will be discussed, as well as methods of including history in survey courses. Among these are the use, maintenance, and repair of historical equipment, examination of documents relating to audio history, preservation and restoration of older recordings, and utilization of recording techniques from bygone days. Our ultimate goal is to inspire students to take this history to heart by incorporating it into their present-day careers.
Thursday, March 21, 09:00 — 10:00 (Liffey Hall 2)
W05 - Computation and Procedural Literacy in Audio Engineering Education: Teaching the Art and Science Panel Discussion
Co-chairs:Nyssim Lefford, Luleå University of Technology - Luleå, Sweden
Charlie DeVane, Mathworks - Natick, MA, USA; University of Massachusetts Lowell - Lowell, MA, USA
Panelists:
Rebecca Stewart, Imperial College - London, UK; Queen Mary University London - London, UK
Jonathan Wyner, M Works Studios/iZotope/Berklee College of Music - Boston, MA, USA; M Works Mastering
Most technologies used in professional audio production are digital and involve some form of computational operation in the processing and delivery of an audio signal. Content is distributed in digital formats via digital platforms that utilize computation to search content and facilitate and generate listening experiences. Given this, it is reasonable to expect audio engineering curricula to include, alongside microphone techniques, acoustics and other fundamental concepts, some basic concepts in computer science and digital signal processing. However, within the teaching community, there is little consensus about what concepts are essential and where in the curriculum they might sit. If we mean to prepare students for long careers in our ever-evolving, digital world, these topics deserves deep consideration.
In other areas of media content creation, for example computer graphics, we have seen that innovation comes from technologies that enable low-level scripting of computational procedures. Similarly, technologies such as Arduino, Pd/MAX, etc. are inspiring musicians to make their own interfaces and thereby explore new modes of music composition and interaction. In audio, the enabling potential of computation is growing as well. How do we prepare our students to open new creative doors?
For over a decade, media educators in other domains have promoted “procedural literacy” (Mateas, 2005), and the importance of “[l]earning to become computationally expressive” (Bogost, 2005). This panel considers: where does computational thinking and computer science fit into audio engineering education? How do we or can we teach our students the art and science of computation? What concepts are most pertinent for today’s audio creators? How can we best prepare students for today and for what computation will make possible in the future? The panel will explore these questions and will provide some real-world examples of where knowledge of computation and procedural literacy has been important to industry audio engineers.
Thursday, March 21, 09:00 — 10:30 (Liffey Hall 1)
W06 - MPEG-H 3D Audio Goes VR
Chair:Jürgen Herre, International Audio Laboratories Erlangen - Erlangen, Germany; Fraunhofer IIS - Erlangen, Germany
Panelists:
Adrian Murtaza, Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS - Erlangen, Germany
Nils Peters, Qualcomm, Advanced Tech R&D - San Diego, CA, USA
The MPEG-H 3D Audio is a recent MPEG standard that was designed to represent and render 3D audio experiences while supporting all known production paradigms (channel-based, object-based and Higher Order Ambisonics based audio) and reproduction setups (loudspeaker, headphone/binaural). As the audio production world moves forward to embrace Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR), MPEG-H found considerable adoption and re-use in recently finalized VR standards, such as MPEG-I OMAF(Omnidirectional Media Format), VR Industry Forum (VR-IF) Guidelines as well as 3GPP "VRStream" (Virtual Reality profiles for streaming applications) where it was selected as the audio standard for VR content delivered over 5G networks.
This workshop describes how MPEG-H technology finds its way into the new domain and provides an outlook into the MPEG-I 6DoF VR/AR future.
| This session is presented in association with the AES Technical Committee on Coding of Audio Signals |
Thursday, March 21, 14:30 — 16:00 (Liffey Hall 1)
W07 - Impact and Audibility of Distortion in Automotive Audio Applications
Chair:Alfred Svobodnik, MVOID Group - Karlsruhe, Germany; Wien, Austria
Panelists:
Rafael Kassier, Harman Becker Automotive Systems GmbH. - Karlsbad, Germany
Joachim Schlechter, Klippel GmbH - Dresden, Germany
Roger Shively, JJR Acoustics, LLC - Seattle, WA, USA
Steve Temme, Listen, Inc. - Boston, MA, USA
Distortion effects, either linear or nonlinear, are an important aspect of audio quality. Especially for professional audio applications there are lots of research results available. However, the field of car applications is very specific, and not much research has been performed on this topic so far. This workshop will focus on automotive applications and discuss the current state of science on this topic. While the focus will be on audibility, we will especially tackle on active noise control applications and the specific aspects of loudspeaker distortion.
| This session is presented in association with the AES Technical Committee on Automotive Audio |
Thursday, March 21, 14:45 — 15:45 (Meeting Room 3)
W08 - Forensic Audio—What's That?
Presenter:Eddy Bøgh Brixen, EBB-consult - Smørum, Denmark; DPA Microphones - Allerød, Denmark
Working with audio forensics is serious business. Depending on the work of the forensics engineer, people may eventually end up in prison. This tutorial will present the kind of work related to the field. This covers fields as acoustics, when audio analysis can be a part of the crime scene investigation. Voice acoustics: Who was speaking? Electroacoustics: Checking data on tapes, discs or other data storage media: Did anyone tamper with this? Recording techniques: Is this recording an original production or is it a copy of others' work. Even building-acoustics and psychoacoustics, when the question is raised: Who could hear what? However, the most important "everyday work" of the audio forensics engineers is cleaning of audio recordings and providing transcripts.
| This session is presented in association with the AES Technical Committee on Audio Forensics |
Friday, March 22, 09:45 — 10:45 (Liffey A)
W09 - Audio, Accessibility, and the Creative Industries
Chair:Mariana Lopez, University of York - York, UK
Panelists:
Emilie Giles, The Open University - Milton Keynes
Sarah McDonagh, Queen's University Belfast - Belfast, UK
Ben Shirley, University of Salford - Salford, Greater Manchester, UK; Salsa Sound Ltd - Salford, Greater Manchester, UK
Audio is a powerful tool in the provision of accessible experiences for people with disabilities. Advancements in production and broadcasting technologies means that now more than ever we should be thinking about how those can help provide inclusive experiences within the creative sector. This workshop brings together experts in the field of audio and accessibility and will focus on new research on Audio Description for visually impaired audiences, the use of object based broadcasting to better cater for the needs of audiences with hearing loss as well as the use of e-textiles to provide accessible experiences within creative contexts.
Friday, March 22, 10:15 — 11:45 (Liffey Hall 2)
W10 - Mix It! Are There Best Mixing Practices?
Chair:Ian Corbett, Kansas City Kansas Community College - Kansas City, KS, USA; off-beat-open-hats recording & sound reinforcement
Panelists:
Nadezhda Rakhmanova, Mariinsky Theatre - Russia
Paul Thompson, Leeds Beckett University - Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK
This workshop, ideal for students, new engineers, and more experienced engineers looking to speed up their workflow and productivity in studio mixing, live sound and event production, will discuss topics including:
• Starting a mix, and the key elements of a mix.
• General approaches to mixing music.
• Improving the workflow of mixing, and whether there are best practice workflows or procedures that can be followed in order to make the process of mixing together a large number of audio tracks or channels into a cohesive mix an easier, faster, and more predictable experience, and less of a mysterious black-art.
• Common mistakes to avoid.
• What do you really need, and how do you select different tools and techniques for use in your mix?
• Getting the job done and finishing the mix given real-world time and budget constraints and limitations.
Friday, March 22, 11:00 — 12:30 (Liffey A)
W11 - Irish Innovators in Audio
Chair:Alex Case, University of Massachusetts Lowell - Lowell, MA, USA
Panelists:
Kevin Killen
Brian Masterson, Windmill Lane /Soundscape - Dublin, Ireland; Soundscape - Dublin, Ireland
Bill Whelan, producer , composer , arranger - Riverdance , U2 and so much more
A panel of engineers and producers whose audio careers began in Ireland will share the insights that have enabled them to find decades of success, even as the art, technology and industry changed continuously around them. How did they get their start? How do they stay cutting edge? What were some of the key decision points in their career that helped them find and maintain a healthy and successful life in audio? Your career is sure to benefit from some Irish insight and inspiration.
Friday, March 22, 12:00 — 13:30 (Liffey Hall 2)
W12 - Spatial Audio for Contemporary Music Performances and Theater
Chair:Enda Bates, Trinity College Dublin - Dublin, Ireland
Panelists:
Jimmy Eadie, Trinity College Dublin - Dublin, Ireland
Fergal Dowling, Dublin Sound Lab - Dublin, Ireland
Gráinne Mulvey, Dublin Sound Lab - Dublin, Ireland
Alexis Nealon, Quiet Music Ensemble - Dublin, Ireland
Ji Youn Kang, Institute of Sonology - The Hague, Netherlands
This panel discussion will focus on practical issues relating to the use of spatial audio in theater and contemporary music performances and will concentrate on the practical issues that arise in such works and how engineers can adapt artistic requirements to the particular features of different venues and loudspeaker systems.
The panel will be chaired by Enda Bates, a composer and engineer whose research frequently explores the practical issues of delivering spatial audio to distributed audiences.
Jimmy Eadie is a founding member and sound engineer for the Crash Ensemble, and also an award winning theatre sound designer. His work frequently employs spatial audio, most notably for the theatrical presentation of radio plays by Samuel Beckett such as 500+ loudspeakers used for Embers, and the binaural production of Cascando, both in collaboration with PanPan Theatre.
Fergal Dowling, Gráinne Mulvey, and Alexis Nealon have composed and engineered numerous works of spatial contemporary music for composers and ensembles such Dublin Sound Lab, the Quiet Music Ensemble, Kaija Saariaho, Karlheinz Essl, and Jonathan Harvey. They will discuss the importance of communication between composers and engineers, and the challenge of implementing varying spatial strategies within a single concert programme, particularly in terms of their work on the Music Current Festivals in Dublin.
Ji Youn Kang is a composer and member of the Institute of Sonology, the Hague. Most of her music pieces have been composed based on the rites of Korean Shamanism, and many of them were written for Wave Field Synthesis System (192 loudspeakers) playback, exploring the relationship between musical and physical spaces.
Friday, March 22, 12:45 — 14:15 (Liffey Hall 1)
W13 - Video Creations for Music, Virtual Reality, Six Degrees of Freedom (6DoF) VR, and 3D Productions–Case Studies
Chair:Tomasz Zernicki, Zylia sp. z o.o. - Poznan, Poland
Panelists:
Przemyslaw Danowski, Department of Sound Engineering at Frederic Chopin University of Music - Warsaw, Poland
Hans-Peter Gasselseder, Aalborg University - Aalborg, Denmark; Linz, Austria
Maria Kallionpää, Hong Kong Baptist University - Hong Kong
Eduardo Patricio, Zylia Sp. z o.o. - Poznan, Poland
The goal of the workshop is to present spatial audio-video creations in practice. Professional audio engineers and musicians will talk about their 360°, 3D, and ambient productions combining the sound and the vision. Speakers will tell about the process of making 3D audiovisual footage displayed in the 360° dome as well as spatial recordings of the concert music. The workshop will focus especially on the usage of spherical microphone arrays that enable to record the entire 3D sound scene as well as six degrees of freedom experience (6 DoF VR). The separation of individual sound sources in post-production and Ambisonics give creators unlimited possibilities to achieve unique audio effects.
Friday, March 22, 14:30 — 16:00 (Liffey A)
W14 - Circles of Confusion
Chair:Thomas Lund, Genelec Oy - Iisalmi, Finland
Panelists:
Jamie Angus-Whiteoak, University of Salford - Salford, Greater Manchester, UK; JASA Consultancy - York, UK
David Griesinger, David Griesinger Acoustics - Cambridge, MA, USA
Bob Katz, Digital Domain Mastering - Orlando, FL, USA
Mandy Parnell, Black Saloon Studios - London, UK
30.000 year old cave paintings are among human beings' most impressive cultural heritage, while we are unable to experience how music by excellent composers sounded just 300 years ago. Within the last couple of generations we acquired the technical skills to record sound. However, that asset is degenerating because of cognitive limitations and the circles of confusion, because of which "smart" loudspeakers will have the potential to add even more ambiguity.
Without proper anchoring of spectral balance and level, drifting over time is foreseeable in self-referenced systems, thereby putting legacy recordings at the risk of sounding dated for no good reason, or causing irreversible distortion to be added to pieces of art.
The panel will discuss baseline listening requirements for in-room and headphone spectral balance and level that stand the test of time, putting our interests as a species above commercial trivialities.
Friday, March 22, 16:30 — 17:30 (Liffey A)
W15 - Media Preservation and Recovery
Chair:Kelly Pribble, Iron Mountain Entertainment Services - Moonachie, New Jersey, USA
Panelists:
Federica Bressan, Ghent University - Ghent, Belgium
Brad McCoy, Library of Congress - Culpeper, VA, USA
Alex Tomlin, Bonded Services UK - London, UK; Iron Mountain entertainment Services UK - London, UK
Media Recovery Technology is a skill few have mastered but as our cultural heritage in the form of audio rapidly dissembles, the ability to rescue tapes and disc drives proves invaluable. Kelly Pribble is a veteran engineer and archivist that has had extensive work in Nashville TN, London England, New York City and Rio de Janeiro. Kelly leads Media Recovery Technology Program for audio archiving and preservation stalwart Iron Mountain. Alex Tomlin is a veteran audio engineer and archivist based in London, England who specializes in preservation and remediation of media carriers. Dr. Federica Bressan is a post-doctoral researcher at Ghent University, where she has designed and developed software modules to automatize preservation routines and controls for data integrity verification. She has published her work in international peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. She has participated in several international research projects, involving some of the finest sound archives in Europe. Brad McCoy is Senior Studio Engineer in the Audio Preservation Unit at the Library of Congress Packard Campus. Brad has been active in the audio archiving/preservation community for more than 30 years at the Library of Congress. Together, this distinguished group will offer strategies and best practices for preserving and restoring audio.
| This session is presented in association with the AES Technical Committee on Archiving Restoration and Digital Libraries |
Friday, March 22, 17:00 — 18:00 (Liffey Hall 2)
W16 - Object-Based Audio Programs
Presenters:Matthieu Parmentier, francetélévisions - Paris, France
Adrian Murtaza, Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS - Erlangen, Germany
Tim Addy, Dolby
Jacob Smith, Dolby - Royal Wootton Bassett, United Kingdom
Object Based Audio for immersive and interactive contents has been tested several times in real conditions during the past year, thanks to the close collaborations between EBU members and NGA industrials.
With the participation of such panelists, this workshop will highlight the lessons learnt from 3 major use-cases:
• Roland Garros Ultra HD + NGA signal, where object-based audio has been used to feed 7 simultaneous versions at the same time
• Eurovision Song Contest, where NGA has been intensively tested to offer multiple languages and musical mix versions at the receiver side
• European Athletics Championship, where a single NGA production mixed channel-based, scene-based and object-based sources to feed 3 different codec technologies.
Saturday, March 23, 09:00 — 10:30 (Liffey Hall 1)
W17 - The Present and Future of Audio for Film and Television
Chair:Mariana Lopez, University of York - York, UK
Panelists:
Howard Bargroff, Sonorous Post - London, UK
Anna Bertmark, Attic Sound Ltd. - Brighton, UK
Emma Butt, Emma Butt Sound - London, UK
Fiona Cruickshank, AIR Studios - London, UK
Film and Television Sound provides an immense richness in terms of roles and specializations within the industry, and with each role comes unique technical and creative challenges. Our panel of experts will be discussing their career paths as well as how they work as part of a filmmaking team to deliver a finished piece. We will also be discussing the relationship between audio technologies and creativity and "what's next" for the world of sound for film and TV.
Saturday, March 23, 10:30 — 12:00 (Liffey A)
W18 - Breaking Down the Studio Wall
Chair:Alex Case, University of Massachusetts Lowell - Lowell, MA, USA
Panelist:
Kevin Killen
Two iconic albums—U2’s The Unforgettable Fire, and Peter
Gabriel’s So—were released just two years apart, and Kevin Killen was part of both. These records represented major points of creative inflection for each artist. Most of the production took place outside of any traditional studio, recording U2 in a castle and Gabriel in a converted cow shed. These special projects placed unique demands on the producers and engineers to deliver. The Unforgettable Fire was released in 1984, So hit the world in 1986, and the results speak for themselves. The records have become sonic touchstones for many artists and engineers since. Interviewed by Alex Case, Kevin Killen takes us into the sessions so that we might learn from his experiences.
Saturday, March 23, 12:30 — 14:00 (Liffey Hall 1)
W19 - Noise Pollution from Outdoor Entertainment Events
Chair:Adam J. Hill, University of Derby - Derby, Derbyshire, UK
Panelists:
Daniel Belcher, d&b audiotechnik - Backnang, Germany
Etienne Corteel, L-Acoustics - Marcoussis, France
Christian Frick, Rocket Science GmbH - Zuerich, Switzerland
Marcel Kok, dBcontrol - Zwaag, Netherlands; U-Ghent Belgium - Ghent, Belgium
Elena Shabalina, d&b audiotechnik - Backnang, Germany
The issue of noise pollution due to large outdoor (and sometimes indoor) entertainment events has become increasingly problematic, with a significant number of festivals and other events taking place in centrally-located areas that are often under strict noise regulations. The AES Technical Committee on Acoustics and Sound Reinforcement (TC-ASR) formed a study group in 2018 to examine topics related to this form of noise pollution. This session will be led by members of the AES TC-ASR study group, where the group’s initial findings will be presented, covering areas such as noise regulations, guidelines and prediction techniques, audience level regulations, practical measurement methods, and sound system design (primary and secondary) for limited noise spill while maintaining a high-quality audience experience.
| This session is presented in association with the AES Technical Committee on Acoustics and Sound Reinforcement |
Saturday, March 23, 14:30 — 15:30 (Liffey Hall 2)
W20 - Experimental Approach in 3D Audio Production
Presenters:Pawel Malecki, AGH University of Science and Technology - Krakow, Poland
Szymon Aleksander Piotrowski, Psychosound Studio - Kraków, Poland
Workshop presents several audio projects involving various spatial sound techniques. Authors are going to present implementation of spatial impulse responses and discuss challenges of ambisonics and auralization in music production. Examples include virtual choir project (recording and production of 3d virtual choir in big church), Early period classical music and electronic music. For each production workflow, benefits and problems for each employed method are discussed.