Women in Audio: Today's Leaders
May 26, 2021 6:15pm ‐ May 26, 2021 7:00pm
During the past decade, organizations focused on women and marginalized genders have been working to uplift these populations with workshops, mentoring, internships, networking, and other opportunities. Learn about the activities and philosophies that are making a measurable impact in the audio world. Moderated by Leslie Gaston-Bird, panelists include Terri Winston of Women's Audio Mission, Ebonie Smith from Gender Amplified, Karrie Keyes from SoundGirls.org, Erin Barra of Beats by Girlz, and Phebean Adedamola Oluwagbemi of Audio Girl Africa.
Speaker(s):
- Phebean Adedamola Oluwagbemi
- Erin Barra-Jean
- Leslie Gaston-Bird, Mix Messiah Productions
- Karrie Keyes, Executive Director SoundGirls.org
- Ebonie Smith, Gender Amplified, Inc.
- Terri Winston, Women's Audio Mission
Abbey Road Spatial Audio Forum: Audio Production in the Metaverse
May 26, 2021 5:45pm ‐ May 26, 2021 7:00pm
Join the Abbey Road Studios Spatial Audio Forum in an exclusive round-table discussion about the latest technical innovations in spatial and immersive audio productions, with a focus on virtual creativity and how these metaverses could connect musicians and producers in real-time worlds, anywhere in the world.
Speaker(s):
- Stephen Barton, Afterlight
- Anastasia Devana, Hear XR
- Gavin Kearney, University of York
- Muki Kulhan, Muki-International. Ltd
- Ana Monte, DELTA Soundworks
- Mirek Stiles, Abbey Road Studios
Women in Audio Project 2000, A Retrospective
May 26, 2021 5:30pm ‐ May 26, 2021 6:15pm
In 1995 at the Audio Engineering Society's 99th convention in New York, Carol Bousquet invited prominent women to speak about the lack of representation of women in the field of audio. Now, 26 years later, we revisit the event and its impact. Hosting the session is Meredith Goldstein of the Boston Globe who leads a discussion with Bousquet, artist and musician Laurie Anderson, producer Roma Baran, author Leslie Gaston-Bird, and Dr. Stephanie Hull of Girls, Inc.
Speaker(s):
- Laurie Anderson
- Roma Baran
- Carol Bousquet
- Leslie Gaston-Bird, Mix Messiah Productions
- Meredith Goldstein
- Stephanie Hull
- Angela Piva, Adjunct Professor, Audio Recording & Music Production Specialist, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York
NFTs Demystified: What Every Audio Engineer (and investor!) Needs to Know
May 26, 2021 4:45pm ‐ May 26, 2021 5:45pm
Trevor Noah, Clubhouse.... NFTs are the hottest three letters on the audio block right now.
This is what you need to know.
What are they? Are they real? What does an audio engineer or artist create to authenticate? Who owns what?
Our dazzling panelists will demystify no one else wants to touch... Wish us luck.
Speaker(s):
- Chris Cooke, CMU
- Jeremy McKane, OCN/The McKane Organization
- Heather Rafter, RafterMarsh
- Antony Randall, Planet Home
Tech Tours: STMPD Recording Studios
May 26, 2021 4:15pm ‐ May 26, 2021 4:45pm
STMPD recording studios, owned by Dutch DJ Producer Martin Garrix, is Amsterdam’s largest recording studio facility. Designed as the ultimate playground for music and audio post-production. With its grand history, these studios have welcomed (inter)national artists and producers like Pharrell Williams, Lady Gaga, Snoop Dogg, The Black Eyed Peas, The Script, David Guetta, Giorgio Tuinfort, Big Sean, Akon and of course Martin Garrix himself.
After Martin Garrix B.V. acquired the famous FC Walvisch studio complex in April 2017, the facilities have been completely upgraded, giving the place new energy while maintaining the creative atmosphere, high service level and welcoming vibe. Besides music, the studio has a long history in post production, providing audio services like re-recording mixing, ADR, sound design and music composition. Their Dolby Atmos Mix Stage is among the very best in the world, being one out of only 9 awarded with the prestigious Atmos Premier Studio certification worldwide.
Tech Tours: Level Acoustics and Vibrations Lab
May 26, 2021 3:45pm ‐ May 26, 2021 4:30pm
The Level Acoustics & Vibrations Lab is an acoustical laboratory associated with the Eindhoven University of Technology. It houses several chair members of the faculty of Building Acoustics. At the lab they perform different kinds of research in fields like room acoustics, building acoustics and environmental acoustics. The laboratory has three connected sound transmission rooms where they can do sound insulation measurements. One of the rooms also serves as a reverberation chamber. Currently, they are investigating the possibilities of realtime acoustic simulation using virtual reality. Remy Wenmaekers, acoustic consultant and researcher at the Level Acoustics & Vibration company, will take you on a tour showing you the lab and the facilities.
*Keynote Address* A Peek Under the Hood of Perceptual Audio Coding: A review of the history and a look into the future
May 26, 2021 3:45pm ‐ May 26, 2021 4:45pm
Did you ever wonder how your audio files squeeze so much sound into such a small size? Or what is the difference between MP3 and AAC? Or which multichannel audio coding format is best for your application?
The development of perceptual audio coding technologies allowed portable music devices to be launched and “suddenly” these technologies became ubiquitous in our daily lives, residing within mobile devices, DVDs, broad/webcasting, electronic distribution of music, etc.. A natural question to ask is: what made all this possible and where is the technology going?
In her presentation, Dr. Bosi will examine major shifts in audio consumption and how they represented new challenges and opportunities in coding audio for entertainment, information, and other purposes. Based upon her deep experience with digital media coding research and standards, Dr. Bosi will offer unique insights into the widespread use of these technologies in applications ranging from production and distribution of sound to the broader consumer experience, providing the foundation for an informed view of the future of digital media.
Speaker(s):
- Marina Bosi, CCRMA, Stanford University
Listening Test Data Analysis for Everyone: An A/B Test for Car Audio
May 26, 2021 3:00pm ‐ May 26, 2021 3:45pm
Listening evaluations are EVERYWHERE. Whether involved in the creative process, design of gear or selection of components, gear or suppliers, audio is being judged by humans! These evaluations might be informal, perhaps one of many taken on a given day. However, oftentimes, formal listening tests are performed to support business decisions: When the stakes are high, it is often prudent to gather scientific, valid data about the test scenario. In each instalment of the series, HARMAN's data analysis expert Dr. Darlene Williamson will take you through data analytic procedures for a specific type of test. Test design considerations will be covered, but the focus will be on valid data analytic strategies for formal listening tests. Students and professionals alike will benefit from Dr. Williamson’s careful and thorough explanations on the pitfalls to avoid and options to navigate when extracting the meaning from the data. The series begins with probably the most common type of listening test: the A/B Test, which aims to see which of two options are preferable. Analyses from real-world datasets will be showcased, using commonly available software tools. Everyone is invited to come along and give their stats skills a boost!
Speaker(s):
- Darlene Williamson, Harman International
Audio Mythology, Human Bias, and How Not To Get Fooled
May 26, 2021 3:00pm ‐ May 26, 2021 3:45pm
As a spiritual successor to his infamous 2009 "Audio Myths Workshop" session, audio engineer, author and mythbuster Ethan Winer will be joined by Live Sound International technical editor Michael Lawrence to discuss what he has learned from a long career dedicated to investigating and debunking widely held audio-related misconceptions and mythology. Winer and Lawrence will touch on some common audio "truisms" that might not be as true as they seem, along with the perceptual biases that can skew our experiences as listeners, and talk about the "sandbox" approach to designing simple experimentations to test and investigate claims for oneself.
Speaker(s):
- Michael Lawrence, Rational Acoustics
- Ethan Winer
Modern Digital to Analogue Converters: HOW many bits!?
May 26, 2021 1:00pm ‐ May 26, 2021 2:00pm
Recently Digital to Analogue Converters (DACs) that claim to have resolutions of 32 bits have become available. How do they possibly achieve such exalted levels of performance? Almost all, modern Digital to Analogue convertors (DACs) use oversampled multi-bit convertors with noise-shaping to achieve their high performance. Oversampling and noise-shaping allow one to use a DAC with a small number of levels, which is easier to manufacture. Unfortunately traditional noise shaping does nothing to reduce the effect of component tolerances in the DAC, because the analogue output cannot be fed back to the input. However, modern DACs do manage to noise shape the output from the DAC without any feedback. This piece of audio alchemy is critical to the exceptional performance of modern Digital to Analogue convertors. This Tutorial will explain how this alchemy is achieved. It will review the problems of component tolerance in DACs and show how they compromise performance. Then noise-shaping, and how it can be applied, without magic, or knowing the actual converted output, to a practical DAC will be explained. It will conclude by discussing how system aspects may limit their performance and discuss how you might prepare audio signals to maximise converter performance.
Speaker(s):
- Jamie Angus-Whiteoak, University of Salford