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convention report

The 135th Convention at the Javits Center in NewYork was the place to be if you have anything to dowith the audio industry. The exhibit floor, panels,

and technical sessions were jammed with visitors fromOctober 17th through 20th, and as AES celebrated its 65th

Anniversary a five-year-high number of 18,453 registrantswas tallied. By the time the show closed, a 16% increase inregistration had been recorded since the last time the con-vention was in New York two years ago, which representeda staggering 71% increase over last year’s San Franciscoevent, which unfortunately was plagued by smaller atten-dance due to Hurricane Sandy.

Jim Anderson, chair, and his convention committee cre-ated the most ambitious and comprehensive schedule ofsessions in AES convention history; AES135 will beremembered by those in attendance as an exciting andenlightening experience, and one of the most heavilyattended conventions in years.

“I can’t express how thrilled I am with our conventionthis year,” enthused Bob Moses, executive director of theAES. “Our organizing committee really outdid them-selves, with over 250 presentations from an astounding682 leading researchers and practitioners, with many ses-sions standing-room only. The convention floor wasabsolutely packed, and the only complaint I heard wasthat we ran out of convention programs on the second day

135TH

Jacob Javits CenterNew York City, USAOctober 17–20, 2013

AES CONVENTION

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J. Audio Eng. Soc., Vol. 61, No. 12, 2013 December 1031

because so many people showed up. We took some risks with this showin an attempt to bring in lots of new blood and to maintain our posi-tion on the proverbial cutting edge, and the fact that it was such a fan-tastic success gives us confidence to ratchet it up a few more notchesin Los Angeles next year. Actually, why wait for October 2014?—we’llbe back in Berlin in April, and much of what made this show so greatwill be leveraged to breathe new life into our European convention.”

No matter what sector of the industry you are involved in—record-ing and production, broadcast and streaming, game audio, live sound,networked audio, sound for picture, post production, or system inte-gration—AES135 had it all. The convention received support fromover 20 industry sponsors and partners including: Audio Precision,Cerwin-Vega, CharterOak, Focusrite/Novation, Gibson, Hal Leonard,Harman/Soundcraft, iZotope, KRK, NewBay Media, Onkyo, SAEInstitute, Sennheiser, Sound On Sound, Sound and Picture, Stanton,Tascam, and THAT Corporation. Additionally several organizations lenttheir support, including APRS, ASCAP, DTV Audio Group,International Music Festival Conference, Manhattan Producer’sAlliance, the Recording Academy Producers & Engineers Wing, andSPARS, as well as leading audio retailers GC Pro and Sweetwater.

openinG cereMony AnD AWArDSLaunching a standing-room-only opening cer-emony, Bob Moses, executive director, wasexcited to welcome everyone to the 135thConvention, which had topped a five-year highfor preconvention registrations. He offered hisparticular thanks to the staff, which had trulygone the extra mile in preparation for thisevent, and he expressed his hope that everyonepresent would have an “awesome weekend.”Following Moses onto the stage, AES presi-dent Frank Wells reminded the assembledcompany of this being the 65th anniversary ofthe Society’s founding, thanking the conven-tion committee, sponsors, and exhibitors forbringing the whole event together. Conventionchair Jim Anderson played some numbergames on the theme of 135 during his openingpresentation, explaining among other thingsthat Steely Dan apparently went through 135guitars when recording the album Aja. “Makethe most of it!” he encouraged the visitors whotraveled from around the world.

Jim Kaiser was chair of the AwardsCommittee on this occasion, and it was hispleasure to recognize those who had madeoutstanding contributions to the field ofaudio or to the AES. A summary of theawards presented is given in the sidebar.

Keynote“Humans infer many important things aboutthe world from the sound pressure wave-forms that enter the ears,” explained MITprofessor Josh McDermott during hisenlightening keynote address. Tackling theuse of sound synthesis as a way of testingtheories of hearing, McDermott took theaudience on a whistle-stop tour of his research, including numerous informative

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1032 J. Audio Eng. Soc., Vol. 61, No. 12, 2013 December

GoLD MeDALRUDY VAN GELDER in recognition for creating the legendarysound of jazz during six outstanding decades of recording.

SiLver MeDALLAURENCE FINCHAM in recognition for a sustained series ofsignificant contributions to electroacoustics and signal processing

in the area of domestic sound reproduction.

BoArD of GovernorS AWArDWILLIAM CRABTREE in recognition of co-chairing the 50thInternational AES Conference “Audio Education” inMurfreesboro, TN, USA, on July 25– 27, 2013.

MICHAEL FLEMING in recognition of co-chairing the 50thInternational AES Conference “Audio Education” inMurfreesboro, TN, USA, on July 25–27, 2013.

MICHAEL KELLY in recognition of his chairing the 49thInternational AES Conference “Audio for Games” in London, UK,

on February 6–8, 2013.

JIM MCTIGUE in recognition of co-chairing the 133rdInternational AES Convention in San Francisco, CA, USA, on

October 26–29, 2012.

JAN ABILDGAARD PEDERSEN in recognition of his chairing the48th International AES Conference “Automotive Audio” in

Munich, Germany, on September 21–23, 2012.

VALERIE TYLER in recognition of co-chairing the 133rdInternational AES Convention in San Francisco, CA, USA, on

October 26–29, 2012.

UMBERTO ZANGHIERI in recognition of his chairing the 134thInternational AES Convention in Rome, Italy, on May 4–7, 2013.

feLLoWShip AWArDTHERESA LEONARD for her professional achievements and dedication to the Audio Engineering Society and

to its education initiatives.

JOEL A. LEWITZ for contributions to the design of electroacousticssystems in architectural spaces, teaching and mentoring within the

industry, and long association with the AES.

TIMOTHY SHUTTLEWORTH for significant contributions to digitalaudio product design and many years of service to the AES.

citAtion AWArDBOZENA KOSTEK in recognition for her outstanding efforts asEditor to improve the quality, responsiveness, and impact of the

AES Journal.

honorAry MeMBerRONALD E. UHLIG in recognition of his pioneering engineeringachievements to enhance the film sound experience for theaudience, including the development of international standardsetting technology that allowed stereo variable area soundtracksto replace monaural film sound, and later, the development ofdigital data read/write capability for 35mm digital audio.

AeS AWArDS At the 135th

Jim Anderson

Jim Kaiser

Frank Wells

Bob Moses

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From left, Brett Leonard and Bozena Kostek present Teemu Koski andDavid Romblom with Best Student Paper Awards.

Yoshito Sonoda and Toshiyuki Nakamiya (left) and Esben Skovenborg(right) receive the Best Peer-Reviewed Paper Awards.

Board of Governors Awards: from left, Michael Fleming and BillCrabtree and Michael Kelly

Gold Medal Award,Rudy van Gelder

Silver Medal Award,Laurie Fincham

Board of Governors Awards: from left, Jim McTigue and Valerie Tyler, Jan Abildgaard Pedersen, andUmberto Zanghieri

Fellowship Awards: Joel Lewitz (left) and Tim Shuttleworth Citation: Bozena Kostek Honorary Membership:Ron Uhlig

135th convention AWArDS preSentAtion

Fellowship Award:Theresa Leonard

audio examples. He’s interested in the way that certain sound texturessuch as water, wind, applause, and rain can be described by statistics.Such sounds have a relatively stationary quality that doesn’t change alot over the long term, but they have short term “broadband events”that are correlated between frequency channels in a spectrogram, suchas the crackles in fire sounds. Basic synthesized noise spectra attempt-ing to emulate these sounds don’t sound much like the real thing, butwhen temporal statistics are added they become more realistic. Listen-ers also get better at identifying them over longer excerpts because thestatistics tend to converge. Perhaps the brain is mainly working on thestatistics and throwing away the detail, he suggested. Certain sounds

seem to be synthesis disasters, Joshexplained, and they are also poorly iden-tified by hearing models, which suggeststhe brain is recognizing something thatthe model is not. These sounds point theway to a better understanding of the wayin which the brain distinguishes other-wise similar sounds.

Josh McDermott,convention keynote speaker

exhiBitionThe convention garnered praise from its exhibitors. As PiersPlaskitt, CEO of Solid State Logic stated, “We went into the 2013AES with high expectations, a new console for the live market, acool summing box for our music professionals, and a MADI/Dantebridge for our broadcast customers. We staffed up accordingly, andI’m very pleased to say that we had an extraordinarily busy showthat exceeded our projections on every level. We are looking for-ward to 2014 and the convention’s return to Los Angeles.”

“This AES in New York was the best AES convention in manyyears,” said Eric Mayer, President of DPA. “This year the show floortraffic seemed up, our booth attendees were more qualified, andspirits seemed high. I’m not sure what changes were made, butwhatever they were, they were needed and they worked.” KatyTempleman-Holmes, senior marketing manager USA of Harman’sMixer Group, echoed Mayer’s words: “We had a great show, specifi-cally with the hands-on workshops we hosted. Attendance wasstronger than ever and it was a valuable mix of students and newand veteran engineers all looking to learn and experience the avail-able technologies and products. A good show all around.”

Among the new product launches at the show, Sony brought outits PCM-D100 high-resolution portable recorder, replacing theprevious D50 model. This one includes 192 kHz, 24 bit, and DSDoptions, better stereo microphones, and a five-second pre-recordbuffer so you don’t miss those all important events. On the record-ing side of things, Tascam unveiled a successor to its legendary DV-RA1000HD studio recorder in the form of the DA-3000. The newmachine is sleeker and more modern-looking with upgradedpreamps, and will run at 192 kHz or even do DSD at 5.6 MHz.There’s no fan, which keeps things quiet in the studio.

In the microphone domain, Lewitt introduced two new MTP LiveSeries models—the dynamic MTP 840 DM and the condenser MTP940 CM. The latter can be switched between three polar patterns:wide cardioid, cardioid, and super-cardioid, as well as havingremarkably low self-noise of 9 dB. AEA also brought in a new modelin the shape of the N22 phantom-powered ribbon microphone,which is so highly protected it can be used in live applications with-out a pop filter. Marking its 10th anniversary, Lipinski Soundlaunched a new self-powered, upgradable loudspeaker system—therevised L-707A family of monitors.

Avid introduced a significant new addition to its family of controlsurfaces, in the form of the S6. The S6 can control multiple ProTools or other DAW systems using the EuCon protocol originallydeveloped by Euphonix, and it can be customized in modular fashionso that it can be adapted to different workflows or growing needs.Calrec Audio’s Callisto was another important new console, designedspecifically for live broadcasters. A 17-inch touchscreen enables theuser to control the mixer using familiar tablet-like gestures, and thewhole thing is designed with power efficiency and ease of mainte-nance in mind. Emphasizing the live sound theme of the convention,

SSL brought out itsnew Live consoleaimed at FOH andstage monitoringsound production. It’sbased on thecompany’s new Tem-pest processing plat-form and can have asmany as 976 inputswith 192 processingpaths working at

96 kHz. As with the Calrec mentioned above, the Live also usestablet-like multitouch gestures on a touchscreen for many aspects ofoperation, along with more conventional hardware controls. Lawoshowed a number of new improvements to its mc2MKII productionconsole, including dual operator control, improved ergonomics,multirow metering, and an Automix function. There’s an increase inDSP power and full support of RAVENNA networking too.

Reinventing the idea of “mixing in the box,” API fought backagainst the current tendency to mix everything inside a DAW withits new “The Box” analog console, aimed at smaller operations thatmight be tracking, say, three or four tracks at a time. There are twoinput channels with mic/DI/line preamps, and another two chan-nels in which various 500-series modules can be installed for EQ.In all 20 summing inputs are available during mixing. There wasalso a launch at AES for Yamaha and Steinberg’s joint venture, theNUAGE, claimed to be the first truly networkable recording system.

project StuDioexpo AES has a long history ofserving the recordingcommunity, from theearly days of mono-phonic vinyl to today’smodern multichanneldigital audio formats.With the rise of projectstudios, home recordistscan be at a loss as to how best to use the tools at hand. The ProjectStudio Expo brought together the top people, tools, and tech-niques, in order that attendees could learn best practices and tricksfrom the pros, talk to their toolmakers, and connect with theirpeers. Topics ranged from acoustics in small spaces to microphoneplacement, mixing, and mastering.

This second annual Project Studio Expo, presented in associationwith Sound On Sound, witnessed outstanding attendance of over1,000 people, with presentations by leading industry authors, jour-nalists, and educators, such as Craig Anderton, Bill Gibson, MikeMetlay. Project Studio Expo was sponsored by Cerwin-Vega,Focusrite/Novation, Gibson Brands, KRK Systems, Onkyo, SAEInstitute, Sennheiser, Stanton, and TASCAM. Craig Anderton alsohosted a question-and-answer session on Friday with five-timeGRAMMY Award winner and renowned record producer, song-writer, musician, and entrepreneur Jimmy Jam.

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A birds-eye view of the exhibition floor

Delegates listen intently during ProjectStudio Expo session.

Visitors throng the aisles of the exhibition

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Bob Moses, AES executive director, explained that “the ProjectStudio Expo is our answer to a recording business that hasmigrated from the classic big studios of the past to the sparebedrooms and garages of the present. Audio professionals needtraining on a huge range of skills to run their business today, andAES was there to provide that training.” “AES NY is always special,as no other show draws such a diverse crowd of key decision leadersin music, post, broadcast and live sound,” said Phil Wagner, presi-dent of Focusrite Novation. “This year’s AES show had our boothand sound demo room packed with potential customers from startto finish. We were proud to sponsor both the Project Studio Expoand the Networked Audio Track. We look forward to a strong pres-ence at AES Los Angeles next year.”

SySteMS SounD SyMpoSiuMAnother first at the 135th, the SCN Systems Sound Symposium pro-vided AV integrators and consultants with an opportunity to learnfrom leaders in the sound installation market. This day of panelsessions had been finely tuned to offer real-world experience andpractical knowledge on the most pertinent AV business and tech-nology trends of today. Four panel discussions addressed the oppor-tunities and issues affecting business growth and profitability inthe near and long term. These included “Loud and Clear” on intel-ligibility measurement and “AV/IT Convergence” on the practicali-ties of networked audio in permanent installations. AV integratorsand consultants benefited from a whole day’s program featuringrelevant topics with compelling speakers that are changing thecommercial audio business.

Dtv AuDio Group foruMAnother highlight of the show, the DTV Audio Group Forumexplored the opportunities and challenges presented by advancedencoding schemes and debated whether ubiquitous mobile andover-the-top content delivery demands a retrenchment to morelimited audio or could lead to further audio advances. Explainingthe current situation, Roger Charlesworth, executive director of theDTV Audio Group, said “the transition from traditional broadcast-ing to a largely stream-based model opens up a lot of possibilitiesbut potentially adds to confusion as different entities pursue arange of formats and encoding solutions. The demand for moresophisticated interactive and object-oriented services on next-gen-eration streaming appliances, and the transition to streaming ofhighly sophisticated cinema formats at the very high end, aredirectly at odds with the common perception that television audionow needs to be dumbed down for mobile and desktop streaming.This disconnect between competing visions creates a strategicdilemma for content producers who are looking for universal deliv-ery standards and workflow practices across a range of deliveryplatforms.”

The Forum addressed the long-term implications of mobiledata’s inevitable annexation of available broadcast spectrum andthe resulting impact on wireless production and revisited the chal-lenges of producing multichannel music for television.

KnoWLeDGe center SeMinArSThe AES is many things, but perhaps first and foremost it is wherethe broad worldwide audio community comes together to shareknowledge and promote a healthy evolving industry. Many forumsexist at an AES convention for sharing knowledge in the technicalprogram—the research papers, workshops, tutorials, masterclasses, and so forth. Although the AES tries to limit commercialpresentations within the technical program, for reasons of balance

and impartiality, that doesn’t mean commercial presentations areunwelcome at AES conventions. Many businesses and theiremployees have important knowledge to share with their cus-tomers and other members of the audio community. The Knowl-edge Center was introduced as a forum where these companiescould share information on essentially any subject, including prod-uct information, demonstrations, product training, and generalapplications training. The Knowledge Center is an evolution of theprevious exhibitor seminars and last year’s audio industry semi-nars. Knowledge Center presentations do not require peer reviewor an invitation to present and the commercial restrictions in thetechnical program do not apply, though presenters are encouragedto keep their presentations as information-rich as possible in thespirit of AES events.

Here at the 135th, a full program of Knowledge Center eventsfilled the space from Friday to Sunday, including a strong presencefrom PMC with its Masters of Audio series and seminars fromcompanies such as iZotope, Soundcraft, Ableton, and Lectrosonics.A highlight in PMC’s Masters of Audio series on Saturday afternoonwas the presentation by Young Guru on “The Era of the Engineer.”Revered as “The Sound of New York,” Young Guru (Jay Z, Alicia

Keys, Rihanna, Beyoncé)possesses over a decade ofexperience in sound engi-neering and production forthe acclaimed Roc-A-FellaRecords and Def JamRecordings. Guru examinedthe recent emergence of anew generation of do-it-yourself engineers, analyz-ing and demonstratingwhat it means for theculture at large.

SpeciALizeDStreAMS tArGetKey AuDienceSA number of themed trackswere used to guide delegateswith particular intereststhrough the plethora ofevents taking place in thetechnical program, includingbroadcast and media stream-ing (David Bialik), live sound(Henry Cohen, Mac Kerr),

A Knowledge Center event with Jimmy Douglas attracts a raptaudience.

Jim Anderson discusses surround jazzrecording with Jane Ira Bloom in aPMC Masters of Audio session.

Emmy award-winning engineers,Bob Bronow and Josh Earl, explainthe challenges of reality TV soundfor the Deadliest Catch

network audio (Tim Shuttleworth), product design (Dan Foley),and recording and production. The sound for picture track (BrianMcCarty) was very popular, with standing-room-only crowds inmany of the sessions. Most audio produced today is associated withpictures, it was explained,including television, cinema,Internet, streaming broad-casts, and mobile. The soundfor picture track exploredemerging trends in 3-D, large-room reproduction systems,and acoustics and techniquesemployed by some of Holly-wood’s top sound mixers anddesigners. A series of master-classes was presented includ-ing dialog editing and mixing,music production, and sounddesign for film.

The game audio track (SteveMartz) brought its usual largecrowd of followers. Possiblythe most technologicallyadvanced and fastest growingsegment of the audio field,game audio brings togethersignal processing complexity,evolving requirements, andmass market appeal. AES hasbeen on top of this excitingfield since its infancy and thegame audio track at the 135thConvention delivered the latesttechnologies, developers, andideas, including sessions on“Scoring Tomb Raider” and apost mortem into Diablo IIIwhich took a look behind thecurtain with the audio teamshowing the world of gameaudio development theperspectives of the audio direc-tor, sound designer, andcomposer.

heySer LectureA capacity crowd met on thefirst evening of the conventionto hear four-time Grammyaward-winning engineer andproducer George Massenburgtalk on the enigmatically titledsubject “4-44 and Me—Stagna-tion to Transformation: TheReal Future of Music.” Whiletechnology has made musicproduction more accessible, hesaid, it has also affected thequality as there is no longer thealmost mandatory quality control undertaken by experts. Now thatanyone can release recorded music on the world, without alwaysneeding the expensive structures of record companies, there is an

immense opportunity in front of us, Massenburg said. Education isthe key to maintaining high standards as it still takes a lot of prac-tice to become an expert in something, no matter what your innatetalent. As Malcolm Gladwell points out, said George, “Talent is

important, but achievement istalent plus preparation.” There’sno road map for those hoping tounderstand possible future rolesin music as a profession—it’sstill evolving. But there is hope.Music is a part of all culturesaround the world. It takes on dif-ferent forms and is constantlychanging—developing in newdirections. These fundamentalfacts are the best proof of theimportance of music tomankind.

Massenburg was presentedwith a certificate of recognitionand a copy of Richard Heyser’sAES anthology on time-delayspectrometry by FrancisRumsey, chair of the TechnicalCouncil, together with BobSchulein and Michael Kelly, vicechairs (see photo at left).

WorKShopS AnDtutoriALS for ALLNatanya Ford had coordinated atotal of 31 workshops and 23tutorials over the four days ofthe convention, covering topicsspanning the entire range ofaudio engineering interests.These included many of theevents that made up the themedtracks mentioned above, as wellas master classes arranged byAlan Silverman.

On Thursday, for example,Alan Trevena chaired a sessionon applications of 3-D audio inautomotive, looking at advancedspatial rendering in cars andasking questions about what thereference experience should beand how systems can be evalu-ated. The 3-D theme was contin-ued in a variety of waysthroughout the convention,including a series of “workshopswith height” held at New YorkUniversity, which allowed tenconcurrent demo sessions to beset up. These included variouspresentations by Auro 3D repre-sentatives, recordings by NYU

and McGill students, and a demonstration of recording with heightby David Bowles and Paul Geluso. 10.2-, 9.1- and 16.2-channelspeaker arrays were all represented.

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From left, Michael Kelly, Bob Schulein, Heyser Lecturer GeorgeMassenburg, and Francis Rumsey.

Alex Case presents one of his popular “FXpertise” sessions.

The game audio sessions consistently attracted large crowds, as seen inthis workshop on breakthroughs for HTML5 and mobile.

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AeS thAnKS the 135th

convention coMMittee

Student volunteers with their coordinators, Rebecca Yuri Feynberg and Adrian Tregonning

From left, Mac Kerr and Henry Cohen (live sound), Jim Anderson (conventionchair), Brett Leonard (papers), and Michael McCoy (facilities chair)

From left, Brian McCarty (sound forpictures), Natanya Ford (workshopsand tutorials), and Michael Kelly

Giovanni Lobato (facilitiesassistant), left, and MichaelMcCoy (facilities chair)

John Krivit (left) and ColinPfund (students/careers)

David Forshee (facilities Assistant), Dan Foley (productdesign), Harry Hirsch (historical events)

From left, Alan Silverman (master classes), David Bialik(Broadcast Sessions), and Steve Martz (game audio)

David Merrill (tech tours), Tae Hong Park (papers), TimShuttleworth (network audio)

Alex Case presented a fascinating series of “FXpertise” tutorialson compression, EQ, and distortion, followed by panels of industryexperts discussing their unique takes on the design and use ofthese ubiquitous effects processes. Among the panelists in the EQsession were Saul Walker discussing his design philosophy on theAPI series of EQs, George Massenburg on the GML parametricsystems, and Nir Averbuch of Sound Radix on the latest frequency-tracking plug-in EQs that can follow the formants of vocals, forexample.

“Can we measure emotions?” asked Judith Liebtrau of a panel ofexperts on Thursday afternoon. Had you been there you wouldnever look at a music performance competition again in quite thesame light after the presentation by Chia-Jung Tsay of UniversityCollege London. She managed to show quite convincingly, basedon experimental evidence, that judges take very little notice of thesounds musicians make when judging performances but are almostentirely influenced by the visual aspects of the musician’s presenta-tion, in particular the amount of passion and emotion they display.

Learning to be an ace drum programmer or turntable DJ wasanother possibility at the 135th, with tutorials from Justin Patersonand Stephen Webber. Paterson took his students through some ofthe complexities of both synthetic and human-emulated drumprogramming, looking into dynamic processing and intricateautomation, while Stephen Webber showed how the audio engineerand artist become one in the “Art of the DJ.”

technicAL pAperS in focuSPapers chairs, Brett Leonard and Tae Hong Park, had broughttogether a most impressive collection of presentations, includ-

ing engineering briefs, papers, and a number of fully peer-reviewed papers. There were sessions on transducers, signal pro-cessing, education, room acoustics, spatial audio, recording andproduction, applications, amplifiers, and perception, many ofthem as posters in the concourse outside the main halls.

Esben Skovenborg looked into the level normalization offeature films using loudness versus speech, picking up on theimportant theme of loudness management during this conven-tion. He had found large differences between methods ofnormalizing loudness on 35 recent blockbuster movies andshowed that normalizing on speech resulted in less headroomthan general loudness normalization. There were also automaticmethods of identifying speech using a speech classifier, butthese sometimes suffered from the difficulty of identifyingspeech on its own from speech with action sounds, giving rise tosomewhat different results to manual speech measurements.

The engineering briefs provided a great opportunity forrelaxed presentations of practical issues affecting audio engi-neers in their work, including some interesting contributionson recording such as “Controlling Drum Bleed with LaserVibrometry” from two Sennheiser engineers, and “The UrbanMix Engineer” by Paul “Willie Green” Womack, during whichthe presenter gave a first-hand look at what’s involved in mixinghip-hop and other urban music.

Cleo Pike gave a fascinating talk onthe way in which we adapt to loud-speakers and l istening roomacoustics, suggesting that listeningtests are not always representative ofthe way people behave in more natu-ral listening because adaptation totimbral differences takes place overlonger periods of time than used intypical tests. If we want listening testresults to be representative of whathappens outside the lab, we may needto modify them, she suggested.

SterLinG SpeciAL eventSMore densely packed than for many years, the special eventsprogram chaired by Jim Anderson filled the hall from morningto night with industry luminaries from recording, production,and engineering sides of the business. Among the highlights,Jimmy Jam gave the lunchtime keynote on Friday, giving theaudience the benefit of his views on the current and futuredirection of the recording process from an artist, engineer, andproducer’s perspective. A five-time Grammy winner, who hadrecorded hits for some of the biggest names in the business,including Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, and Michael Jackson, Jamtook the theme that technology has to serve art, not vice versa.“Ultimately,” he said, “it’s my job … to have those two elementsmeet and not crash. And that’s when you’re using the availabletechnology to capture the artist in their purest form.”

Ray Dolby, strong supporter of the AES and a household namefor noise reduction and cinema sound systems, died recently atthe age of 80, and here in New York his long-time colleague,Ioan Allen, offered a retrospective of his life along with somereminiscences on what it was like to work with Ray Dolby overfour decades.

We also got to see “Inside Abbey Road 1967” with photos fromthe Sergeant Pepper recording sessions, chaired by moderatorAllan Kozinn. With panelists Henry Grossman and Brian Kehew,

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Ace DJ and Berklee professor Stephen Webber struts his stuff on theturntables in “The Art of the DJ.”

Broadcast panelists with David Bialik (right), broadcast sessions chair

Cleo Pike spoke onlistener adaptation to

loudspeakers.

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the audience got to see pictures and memories of those times,many of the pictures being largely unseen. Kehew, a coauthor ofthe acclaimed book Recording the Beatles, illustrated technicalaspects found in Grossman’s photos, arousing great interestfrom the assembled crowd.

Graham Blyth’s organ recital blew the audience away at theChurch of St. Mary the Virgin on W. 46th St., with his strikingrenditions of Marchand and Franck. With its “open-plan” pipelayout and no shortage of loudness, the Aeolian Skinner Opus891 organ at St. Mary’s was installed in 1933 and is still goingstrong. Graham concluded his recital with the impressive“Grand Choeur Dialogué” by Eugene Gigout, a form of duetbetween two different parts of the organ that has been otherwiseplayed by combinations of brass band and organ or on twoorgans. This recital celebrated the 20th anniversary of organconcerts at AES conventions, the first of which took place atNew York’s St. Thomas’ Church on 5th Avenue in October 1993.

Ever popular at AES conventions, the Platinum series ofevents drew huge crowds in New York. On Friday Justin Collettiof SonicScoop in Brooklyn hosted a trio of multifaceted audiogurus on the Platinum Engineers panel. Chris Coady, PatrickDillet, and Manny Marroquin discussed creative recording andmixing techniques, as well as playing examples of their work toillustrate some of their most successful artist collaborations.The Platinum Producers, Jeff Jones, Dano “Robopop” Omelio,and Dave Tozer, were hosted by David Weiss on Saturday, todiscuss how an understanding of music’s past, present, andfuture helps producers in their quest to realize the artist’svision. On Sunday, Bob Ludwig rounded up a star line-up ofmastering engineers to consider how the world has changednow that there are so many release formats, including therecent Mastered for iTunes initiative. Greg Calbi, Darcy Proper,Doug Sax, and Tim Young offered their wisdom, sounds, andideas about what the future might hold.

Staying in the recording business, and as a tribute to the latePhil Ramone, the Grammy Soundtable assembled on Saturdayafternoon to ask “What Would Ramone Do?” Looking back over50 years of artistic and technical innovation they went behindthe scenes with colleagues, footage, and friends for an analysisof the wisdom and knowledge behind the great man’s achieve-ments. Following hot on this session’s heels, the wisdom ofBruce Swedien was offered for all to hear in his session “I HaveNo Secrets.” During this capacity event, Swedien shared hisinsights into microphone technique and the acoustical environ-ment, presenting an alternative to the plug-in fuelled world thatis 21st century music production.

StuDentS Get BuSyThere’s always a lot going on for students at AES conventions,and here in New York the place was humming with activityfrom start to finish. Under the leadership of Colin Pfund, Student Delegate Assembly chair for North and Latin America,with John Krivit of the AES Education Committee, there was awide selection of career events and recording competitions, aswell as a design competition and exhibition for hardware andsoftware projects, split into undergraduate and graduateclasses. Sponsors such as Earthworks, Reaper, and CharterOakoffered attractive prizes for the talented winners. Speed men-toring was offered in association with SPARS by a committedgroup of volunteer professionals from all the main walks of theaudio business, and a careers fair provided companies with achance to spot the best graduates.

The Grammy Sound Table remembered Phil Ramone.

Graham Blyth on the organ at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin.

Platinum Producers panel

Young Guru Jimmy Jam

StunninG SpeciAL eventS

technicAL tourS Get viSitorS on the roADA total of eight technical tours had been put on by David Merrill,including a visit to Definition 6, an award-winning video and audioproduction facility for market-ing applications. Kaufman Asto-ria Music & Sound was part-nered with a trip to the Museumof the Moving Image for tournumber two, enabling visitors toappreciate the art, history, andtechnology of film, television,and digital media. The Broadwayshow, “Book of Mormon” pro-vided the backdrop to a tour dis-covering all the aspects of whatgoes into the audio productionand lighting for such an event,while WNYC radio stationenabled delegates to drop in onthe weekday arts talk show“Soundcheck.” Battery Studios,Sony Music Entertainment’sNew York facility, took visitorsround their collection of ancientand modern recording equip-ment, along with the latest inmastering tools. There was alsoa chance to visit Avery FisherHall and the post houses Polar-ity and Outpost (“Late Nightwith Jimmy Fallon”).

hiStoricAL proGrAMThanks to the coordinatingefforts of Harry Hirsch, the his-torical program was able tostage a number of sessions atthe 135th, one of which hasalready been mentioned—thetribute to Ray Dolby by IoanAllen. Surveying the history ofjazz big bands, both from amusical and a recording point ofview, Robert Auld fascinated vis-itors for ninety minutes withinsights into a recent recordingof a big band using techniquesthat had been developed in thegolden age of stereo during the1950s. Alan Silverman of Arf!Mastering gave a presentationon the restoration of PeggyLee’s 1959 album “Jump forJoy,” questioning why the stereomixes had never been releasedon CD and recounting a recentproject to do high-resolutiontransfers of these original mixes.

Tom Fine traced the history ofrecording albums on 35mm magnetic film in the 1950s and ‘60s, atrend that began because of the medium’s advantages over othertape formulations, such as lower noise, less wow and flutter, and

higher saturation levels. This eventually died out because tapeimproved and it became prohibitively expensive to work with 35mmfilm. Finally, Nadia Wallaszkovits discussed the restoration, transfer

and digitization of the ArmandoLeça folk music collection,made in 1939–40 in ruralPortugal.

technicAL counciLAnD StAnDArDSMeetinGSCoordinated by Mark Yonge,standards manager, and BruceOlson, Standards CommitteeChair, there was a full programof standards meetings, coveringthe many diverse areas of audioengineering. Two new projects,AES-X224 on metadata integrityin audio files  and AES-X222 ona new audio data connector,were initiated, and the AES67standard on audio-over-IP inter-operability was launched togreat acclaim. The metadataproject will create a guide formanufacturers of audio hard-ware, software, and computerplatforms describing best prac-tices for the management ofmetadata embedded in audiofiles.

Francis Rumsey and hiscolleagues on the TechnicalCouncil led a comprehen-sive program of TechnicalCommittee meetings coveringthe many fields of endeavor thatmake up audio engineering.These committees stimulate andpromote the technical policiesof the Society and plan conven-tion and conference activities toeducate and inform themembership. They can alsopropose standards work andpublish technical documents.

not to forGet…Good technical facilities andassistance are crucial to the suc-cess of a convention, and thesterling efforts of MichaelMcCoy, facilities chair, togetherwith his assistants, David For-shee and Giovanni Lobato, wereappreciated by all those takingpart. A team of volunteersorganized by Rebecca Yuri Feyn-

berg and Adrian Tregonning was also on hand to ensure the smoothrunning of this complex event, and their efforts are to be commended.

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1040 J. Audio Eng. Soc., Vol. 61, No. 12, 2013 December

All aboard the bus to one of the many technical tours at the 135th.

Students discuss audio job opportunities with prospective employers atthe Career Fair.

From left, John Krivit, Simon Wystrach, Marija Kovacina, AndreaPepper, Colin Pfund, and Kyle Snyder at SDA event.

CONVENTION REPORT

J. Audio Eng. Soc., Vol. 61, No. 12, 2013 December 1041

AeS coMMitteeSIn the background, and unseen by the majority of delegates to a con-vention, much of the business of the Society takes place in committeerooms where future conferences, publications, and strategy of theorganization are planned. The Annual Business Meeting at the outsetof the convention confirmed that AES membership is remaining high.During the Regions and Sections meeting representatives of AES sec-

tions from around the world met with the Society’s vice presidents toshare examples of stimulating local events and membership initiatives.The Publications Policy Committee reviewed the introduction of a newonline reviewing system for the Journal and the implications of OpenAccess for the Society. The Board of Governors met on the evening ofthe last day of the convention, during which the society’s future policyand direction was debated.

The AES-67 standards group celebrates the recent success of the launch of the network interoperability standard.

The AES Board of Governors and committee chairs meet after the convention.