AES - TH · 2016. 12. 22. · Fontana di Trevi Conference Centre Rome, Italy May 4 –7, 2013 AES...

CONVENTION REPORT

582 J. Audio Eng. Soc., Vol. 61, No. 7/8, 2013 July/August

134TH

Fontana di Trevi Conference CentreRome, ItalyMay 4–7, 2013

AES CONVENTION

CONVENTION REPORT

J. Audio Eng. Soc., Vol. 61, No. 7/8, 2013 July/August 583

Close to the Trevi Fountain, in the heart of Rome, the Fontana diTrevi conference center welcomed delegates from around theworld for the Society’s 134th Convention. Sponsored by a num-

ber of local and international audio companies, and under the out-standing chairmanship of Umberto Zanghieri (AES VP for SouthernEurope), the convention emphasized important current themes in thefast-moving world of audio engineering. Located in the historic heartof the city, the conference venue offered easy access to Rome’s greatcultural and historical sites, providing delegates with the chance totake in the atmosphere of this ancient place and perhaps extend theirstay to take a short holiday in the Eternal City.

The convention program was structured to emphasize the five topi-cal tracks of recording, live sound, loudness, spatial sound, and soundfor pictures. “Our 134th Convention exceeded expectations in everyway,” reported Bob Moses, AES executive director.

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“Our four-day program of over 150 workshops, tutorials, andround table discussions on digital cinema, loudness, spatialaudio, and other timely topics packed our presentation

rooms. In addition to a solid pro industry turnout, we attractedmany enthusiastic students whose quest for information andmentors was palpable. Our sponsors were uniformly pleased withthe new customers in attendance throughout the Convention. I feelconfident that we are on a good path in Europe and look forward toexpanding this new AES model in future years,” Moses added.

OPENING CEREMONYWelcoming the large group of audio pil-grims to Rome, Bob Moses proposed thatcoming to the city was “a real treat” andwarmly thanked the people instrumental inmaking the convention happen. In additionto the headquarters staff and conventioncommittee, he particularly thanked his col-league and mentor, Roger Furness, whosesupport he greatly appreciated. Moses sin-gled out Umberto Zanghieri for the “vastamount of work” he had expended in put-ting the event together. He hoped that theresults would serve the audience well,thanked everyone for coming, and recom-mended the latest AES mobile app foriPhone that offered an interactive guide tothe show.

Frank Wells, AES president, echoedBob’s welcome to the convention—the firstever in Italy—where such rich historysurrounded the event. Cutting-edge tech-niques that would appear in the productsof tomorrow would be discussed here, hepromised, He also extolled the energeticstudent body taking part in the event,which will form the next generation of ourindustry and Society. Particular thankswere offered to the 22 sponsors that hadsupported the event, to Bob Moses, and to the “hero of the conven-tion,” Umberto Zanghieri, who then took the stage.

Offering a personal welcome to his home city, Zanghieriexplained that the current season in May was one of the mostcharming times to visit. His committee had worked tirelessly toassemble the program and its supporting facilities, and RCF andLambda Audio had helped by providing equipment.

AWARDSJim Kaiser, a past president of the Society and chair of the AwardsCommittee, rose to announce the awards to those being recognizedfor their outstanding contributions in recent years. The BronzeMedal was given to Bob Schulein in recognition of his outstandingservice in the advancement of the Audio Engineering Society sus-tained over a period of more than 40 years. Fellowship Awards werepresented to Zbigniew Kulka, for his outstanding contributions toaudio technology education, his scientific achievements in audioconverter technology, and his work for the AES Polish Section, andto Lauri Savioja in recognition of his contributions to virtualacoustics and parallel computing in audio. A Citation was offered toUmberto Zanghieri in recognition of the great work he has done forthe Italian Section of the AES and for his dedication and commit-ment to the growth of its community.

The winner of the 134th Convention best peer-reviewed paperaward was given for paper 8813, “Loudness Measurement ofMultitrack Audio Content Using Modifications of ITU-R BS.1770,”by Pedro Duarte Pestana, Josh Reiss, and Alvaro Barbos. The awardfor best student paper went to Archontis Politis for “ParametricSpatial Audio Coding for Spaced Microphone Array Recordings”(paper 8905, coauthored by Mikko-Ville Laitinen, Jukka Ahonen,and Ville Pulkki).

KEYNOTEPresenting the keynote address at the opening ceremony was StephenWebber, recently appointed director of music technology innovationat Berklee College of Music’s new campus in Valencia, Spain. Titled“Inventing the Album of 2025,” Webber’s talk sought to consider whatis technologically, economically, and artistically possible, to decipherwhat the record album should look, sound, and feel like come theyear 2025.

Webber had got into the art of “turntablism” and DJing in hisforties, much to the amusement of his wife and daughters. He hadcommissioned a symphony with turntables as the solo instrument,and regards his performances as being at the pivot point betweenhip hop and classical music. Pots and faders are his musical instru-ments, and he practices for hours a day, just as other musicians(should). He talked about how he had been inspired by PhilRamone, who died recently, and in particular about the interper-sonal aspects of record production and how to get an artist to trysomething out of their comfort zone. If Phil Ramone had lainawake at night worrying about whether he’d said the right thing toan artist, he suggested, perhaps there is hope for the rest of us. Anykind of art has to move people on an emotional level or it isn’t art.

The album as an artform developed during the 1960s. Then in1979 the CD came along, followed in 2001 by the iPod. The latterwas already 12 years ago, so what about the next stage, Webberasked. It would likely involve visuals, surround sound, instantdistribution, and user interaction. “The next generation of album isgoing to be great, awesome!” he concluded.

SPONSORSBerklee College of Music, Valencia Campus, and Italian audio com-pany RCF both joined the convention as Gold sponsors. They werejoined by Audio Precision, Audiomatica srl, B&C Speakers spa,bdSound, CESMA, CharterOak, Crane Song Ltd., EKO Music Groupspa, Fairlight Europe, Klippel GmbH, LAMBDA srl, Link srl,Microtech Gefell GmbH, NUGEN Audio, Proaudio Consulting srl,

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Frank Wells

Umberto Zanghieri

Stephen Webber, keynote speaker, draws a large and attentive crowd.

Bob Moses

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Jim Kaiser, Awards Chair Bob Schulein (Bronze Medal) Zbigniew Kulka (Fellowship) Lauri Savioja (Fellowship)

Umberto Zanghieri (Citation) Pedro Duarte Pestana receives the bestpeer-reviewed paper award

AWARDSPRESENTATION

Spherovox, TC Applied Technologies, TecnicheNuove spa, Trinnov Audio, and ZP Engineering srl.

Sponsors enjoyed their close involvement withconvention delegates based on tabletop stands inthe public spaces around the meeting rooms.Following through on his promise to serve busi-nesses in new ways, Moses said the decision not tohave an exhibition floor was deliberate. “I wanted totest a model based on sponsorship,” he said, “incontrast to a traditional exhibition. This event andvenue was a good opportunity for such a test. If youlook at what our sponsors did—training, productplacement, and so on, you can see some very inter-esting and creative ways for AES to serve them. I’mlooking forward to stepping up our sponsorprogram to another level in 2014.”

Commenting on her reaction to the convention, GioiaMolinari, head of marketing for Gold Sponsor RCFremarked, “The emphasis on serious industry issues andmeaningful technical dialogues distinguished this eventfrom the new product introduction focus of many large-scaleconventions. The AES European gathering is sized anddesigned to establish critical new business relationships andto help us assess where the industry is headed technically. Wewere extremely pleased with the quality of the attendees andthe genuine enthusiasm expressed by our co-sponsors. This

was one of the most productive and stimulating conventions wehave participated in.”

“AES conventions are unsurpassed environments for studentinteraction,” said Stephen Webber,director for technology innovationat Berklee College of Music’sValencia Campus. “These are thekinds of events, which inspiredialogues that spark creative breakthroughs. The students weengaged with were bright, inquisi-tive, and grateful for the opportunityto meet with both their interna-

tional peers and the industryprofessionals who are pioneer-ing the changes which are moving our industryforward.”

“The AES Rome Conventiontechnical program focus appealed to us as a manufac-turer,” said CharterOak presi-dent Michael Deming. “Theformat successfully allowed usto present our products in a

focused way in two technical train-

Professional trainingsessions given bymanufacturersincluded, clockwisefrom above, MichaelDeming ofCharterOak, JohnRichards of OxfordDigital, and Ian Dennis of Prism Sound.

ing sessions “Intelligent Compression in the Analog Domain” and“Wide Bandwidth Equalization in the Analog Domain.” Our presen-tation room was filled with industry pioneers, working profession-als, and wide-eyed students, creating an environment for trainingand technical discussions that doesn’t happen on a crowdedexhibits floor.”

Other professional training events were offered from sponsors inaddition to the CharterOak sessions on wide bandwidth equaliza-tion in the analog domain and intelligent compression. Tuesday’s“Audio Design Workshop Live” included sessions on designingtransducers for compact active speakers, with Peter Larsen ofLOUDSOFT, and the role of DSP in optimizing compact loud-speaker performance from John Richards of Oxford Digital. Duringthe second part in the afternoon, Tony Waldron of Audio EMC gavetips on EMC best practice in audio power amps, and Simon Wollardof Prism discussed tips and tricks to verify designs in active loud-speakers.

PAPERS SESSIONSBrought together skilfully by papers cochairs Angelo Farina andVeronique Larcher, a comprehensive set of paper and poster sessionson the latest research and development topics was offered. High onthe list of important topics was spatial and 3D audio, with a keypaper from a long list of authors describing a data exchange formatfor head-related transfer functions (HRTFs). HRTFs describe the bin-aural transfer functions between source and listener’s ears, contain-ing the unique spectral and tempo-ral information that encodes sounddirections. The new exchange for-mat, named SOFA for “spatially ori-ented format for acoustics,” allowsHRTFs to be represented in a gen-eral way, with consideration of datacompression, network transfer, alink to complex room geometriesand common programming inter-faces such as Matlab.

During an interesting postersession on perception and educa-tion, Judith Liebetrau andSebastian Schneider looked into acomparison of measurementmethods for music and emotions.Music emotion recognition (MER),they said, is a part of music infor-mation retrieval (MIR), and exam-ines the question about howdifferent parts of music evokecertain emotions and how thesecan be automatically classified. Ona related theme, Magdalena Plewaand Bozena Kostek’s paper onmusic mood recognition looked athow the mood of a piece of musiccan be automatically categorized.These two papers highlighted an important and developing area ofresearch that moves onto the next stage of perceptual evaluationand automatic listening systems, taking into account and modelinghuman emotions.

Chaired by Frank Melchior, the session on room acousticsincluded an interesting presentation on “archaeoacoustics”—soundthat has been measured, modeled, and analyzed with modern tech-

niques in and aroundancient sites. This newtake on an old scienceshowed how the soundenvironments from longpast can be piecedtogether as a tool forarchaeologists and histo-rians. Following this,Lorenzo Rizzi andGabriele Ghelfi discussedscattering effects in smallrooms, looking at how diffusive scattering panels affect the acousticproperties, using headphone auralization. Balasz Bank looked intothe combination of quasi-anechoic and in-room equalization ofloudspeakers, which helps to correct the low-frequency errors thatcan arise from quasi-anechoic measurements only.

ENGINEERING BRIEFSAn increasingly popular category of presentation at conventions isthe engineering brief, being a lightly reviewed paper of broad inter-est to audio engineers. Among the many briefs presented in Romewas one on timecode-aware loudness monitoring, from ArnaudLaborie and his colleagues from Trinnov Audio. As also shown ontheir stand, if loudness measurements of mixes or broadcasts canbe slaved to incoming timecode values, the various loudnessparameters of a production can be easily calculated at any time.Akiro Nishimura of Tokyo University of Information Sciences pre-sented his work on the measurement of sound quality differencesbetween individual CD media, while Elliot Cook and Joseph Palysprovided an overview of recent patent activity in the audio fieldfrom AES member companies. In alternative vein, Justin Patersonfrom the London College of Music looked into the production of a“free improv” album, “The Making of Quiet Things,” that employeda range of contemporary approaches such as corrective automationand reverb matching.

WORKSHOPS AND TUTORIALSThanks to the coordinating efforts of Natanya Ford, an attractiveline-up of workshops offered a chance to learn about the mostrecent technology and techniques in a wide range of audio fields.Apart from those grouped under individual track themes (seebelow), a number of stand-alone sessions complemented the pro-gram. Chaired by Alan Trevena, chair of the Technical Committeeon Loudspeakers and Headphones, the workshop “Applications of3D Audio in Automotive” looked into the fascinating subject of how

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An enthusiastic author explains his poster

Ron Streicher teaches a packed audience about microphone technology.

Frank Melchior

Sean Olive

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3D surround sound might be implemented in cars. There was alsoa popular workshop on semantic analysis for speech signals,chaired by Jörn Loviscach, considering topics such as speech detec-tion methods, speaker identification, emotion recognition, andautomated editing. Ben Kok and Peter Mapp of the Technical Com-mittee on Acoustics and Sound Reinforcement presented both atutorial and a workshop on acoustic enhancement systems, bring-ing together researchers, consultants, and suppliers working tochange the acoustics of venues by electronic means. For the work-shop they were joined by Steve Barbar, Thomas Sporer, TakayukiWatanabe, and Wieslaw Woszczyk.

Among packed tutorials was Stephen Webber’s “TurntableTechnique: The Art of the DJ,” during which the convention’skeynote speaker challenged traditional notions of music and tech-nology. “Turntable technique is where the audio engineer and theartist become one” he explained to a crowded room full of enthusi-astic listeners. Similarly crowded, Alex Case’s popular tutorial oncreative distortion, subtitled “You Are in the Over-Driver’s Seat,”

explained how distortion, creatively applied to elements of a mix, isa source of energy that lifts tracks up out of a crowded arrange-ment and adds excitement to the performance.

TRACK PROGRAMSOne of the key track themes for the 134th Convention was Soundfor Pictures, chaired by Brian McCarty of the Technical Committeeon Sound for Digital Cinema and TV. Rome is a major center forthis activity in Europe, making it an important theme for theregion. Key among the sessions in that track was a tutorial onmusic production for film by Simon Franglen, a Golden Globenominee who has worked on Avatar, Titanic, and Skyfall 007,among many others. Students and experienced delegates alike lis-tened with avid attention to Simon’s exposition of the last piece inthe production puzzle, explaining how composers have developednew techniques to prepare the music including temporary synthscores. The workshop “Sound Mixers Discuss Their Craft” broughttogether three leading sound mixers from Italy to discuss theirapproach to producing award-winning sound tracks in these days ofdigital cinema.

The loudness track, led by Florian Camerer and sponsored byNUGEN Audio, was concentrated mainly into a single “LoudnessDay” on Sunday, bringing together the world’s expertise in thischallenging new area of legislation and practice. Kicking off thepacked sessions was Florian’s “Loudness 101—A Hitchhiker’sGuide to Audio Nirvana,” bringing participants up to speed regard-ing aspects of loudness control and metering, and Andrew Mason’s“All Loudness Recommendations Are Equal—But Some Are MoreEqual than Others.” Andrew’s tutorial explained the different loud-ness standards used in Europe (R 128), the U.S. (A/85), and in othercountries such as Australia and Japan. The amusingly titled “MakeLUFS Not War” suggested that 2013 could be the year where arenaissance again spreads from Italy. Transparent loudness normal-ization has arrived to radio, TV, and the iPod, and the panel set outto describe the far-reaching implications this will have on audioproduction at large.

Live sound was another major focus of the 134th AES Convention,from small room acoustics to large venues. Microphone placementtechniques, networked audio distribution, mixing, troubleshooting,and many other disciplines and technology trends were explored.Many of the live sound industry’s leading experts were in the city,sharing their knowledge and the latest innovations.

AES has always been at the center of the audio recordingcommunity, and the recording track brought together the top engi-

Left, Simon Franglen talks about sound design on the film Avatar.Right, Stephen Webber struts his stuff at the turntables.

A panel on listening room standards: from left, Thomas Sporer, FrancisRumsey, Sean Olive, Andreas Silzle, and Todd Welti (chair).

Florian Camerer teaches “Loudness 101.”

Brian McCarty (left) chairs one of the highly successful workshop panelson sound for pictures.

neers to share techniques and promote new ideas, from drumprogramming to mixing tricks to listening rooms. On the topic ofspatial sound, surround sound configurations, loudspeakers andheadphones, microphone arrays, head-related transfer functions,Ambisonics, wave field synthesis, and 3D audio in automotivesettings were all part of the line-up.

TECHNICAL TOURSAlessandro Travaglini brought together five rewarding technicaltours, covering some of the local area’s most important audio sites.A visit to RAI Saxa Rubra gave a limited number of lucky delegatesthe chance to see the public broadcasting station’s largest and mostimportant production center in Italy. Monday’s tour of AuditoriumParco della Musica, designed by the famous architect Renzo Piano,was combined with Forum Village Music Studios, to include theCavea (a piazza and open air theater), the Foyer, and the Archaeo-logical Museum, as well as the concert halls. Forum Village studioswas founded in 1969 by Ennio Morricone, among others, and is oneof the most prestigious of Italy’s studios.

Cinecittà Studios and Deluxe Digital Rome made up anothercombo tour for those with a penchant for film sound facilities.Home of great film directors such as Fellini and Scorsese,Cinecittà’s visitors were able to see the permanent outdoor sets. AtDeluxe Digital, the four dubbing rooms and theatrical mixingrooms, as well as editing facilities were on show. Complementingthese, and still in the film sound vein, was a visit to TechnicolorSound Services Rome, where visitors were guided through its stateof the art recording and mixing facilities. Rounding off the filmsound theme, two of Italy’s most acclaimed Foley artists gave aspecial demonstration of their art in the Fono Roma FilmRecording studios, with its 50 editing rooms, 15 dubbing suites,and 6 mixing theaters.

SPECIAL EVENTSAmong the popular special events at the convention, WolfgangKlippel’s Heyser Memorial Lecture drew a large crowd to hearabout his long-time work on the optimization of small loudspeak-ers. The loudspeaker is the weakest part of the audio chain,explained Klippel, and it generates much more heat than soundpower while adding undesirable distortion. As there is an increas-ing trend toward small transducers in portable devices where bat-tery power consumption is a critical factor, high efficiency andminimal use of resources are important. Wolfgang’s research intothe optimization and trade-offs possible in such systems wasexplained with striking clarity and good humor, showing also hownonlinear preprocessing of the signal can be used to compensatefor the problem that voice coils can leave the magnetic gap andgive rise to intermodulation distortion.

The rooftops of Rome and the beautiful parkland surrounding

the Villa Borghese provided a striking backdrop for the excellentconvention banquet, held on the Roof Garden of the charming andprestigious Marriott Hotel Grand Flora. Located on the Via Veneto,in the heart of Rome, the view was breathtaking and the relaxedatmosphere combined with excellent food and wine offered dele-gates the chance to unwind and share good company after a longday at the convention center.

On the Monday night a select group of delegates enjoyed thestrains of the Greg Burk Trio, courtesy of Bob Schulein and hiscompany Immersav, which made a combined binaural and HD videorecording that is available for download from the AES website athttp://www.aes.org/events/134/jazz/. Extracts of these recordings canbe heard both for loudspeakers (with crosstalk cancelling) and head-phones, providing a way for those not able to attend the concert toexperience the sense of being present at the concert venue.

STUDENT EVENTSThanks to the full program of student activities and in-depth learn-ing opportunities at the 134th Convention, a healthy population ofyoung people flocked the corridors and conference spaces. As aresult of the efforts of John Krivit (chair of the Education Commit-tee) and Philip Waldenberger (chair of the Student Delegate Assem-bly), the student program and career development events werepacked with eager customers, trying to discover how best to pursuetheir entry into the audio community.

A student design competition, sponsored by DSP Quattro, wascomplemented by a two-part recording competition in a numberof genre categories, sponsored by Focal Press and Telefunken,with both competitions judged by distinguished audio engineersfrom Italy and around the world. A design exhibition also allowedan opportunity for students to show off their work in a form ofaudio science fair, using tabletop exhibits and posters. TheEducation Fair allowed institutions offering studies in audio topromote their programs, while the Education Forum provided aspace for an exploration of strategies for making connections inthe professional world and to discuss the curriculums andphilosophies of individual education programs. During the finalSDA meeting a new vice chair of the assembly was elected,Simon Claudius Wystrach from York in the UK.

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The Greg Burk Trio in a live jazz session

The Heyser Lecture certificate of recognition is presented to Wolfgang Klippel (center right), flanked by, from left, Bob Schulein,Michael Kelly, and Francis Rumsey of the Technical Council.

http://www.aes.org/events/134/jazz/

TECHNICAL COUNCILAND STANDARDSMEETINGSThe Technical Council and Stan-dards Committee represent vitalfunctions of the AES’s technicalleadership in the industry, andthroughout the conventionmeetings took place in the vari-ous topic-based committees ofthese groups. Discussing newdevelopments in subjects such ascinema sound calibration, digitalaudio, archiving, and gameaudio, and planning the Society’seducation events and standardsstrategy for the coming years,these committees welcomed theleading lights in audio engineer-ing from around the globe.

AES MEETINGSThe Regions and Sections Forum provides a chance for AES sectionofficers attending the convention to meet with regional vice presi-dents and the chair of the Regions and Sections committee, toshare experiences of good practice and hear about the innovativeways that worldwide sections are running their operations. Led byPeter Cook, this dynamic event showed just how much good work

is being undertaken by volun-teer committees in differentparts of the world to educate andinform local members about thelatest in audio engineering.

A number of other AEScommittee meetings also tookplace during the Rome conven-tion, including an informalgathering of the Board ofGovernors after the close of theconvention on Tuesday.

THANKS TO…Particular thanks are due to FacilitiesChairs Alberto Gaetti and Alberto Pintofor getting so much equipment togetherand working in a very short time duringthe convention setup and for their con-tinuous support during the event itself.Michael and Sue Williams did theirusual sterling work in setting up andmanning a packed bookstore during theentire convention, providing a collection

of audio books and resources in one place not found anywhereelse. All in all the 134th should be judged a resounding success,and a model for European AES conventions that can be developedwell in the years to come.

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Francis Rumsey Technical Council meeting: from left, Natanya Ford,Peter Mapp, Bob Schulein, Francis Rumsey (chair) and Michael Kelly

Peter Cook (left)moderates the Regionsand Sections Forum,and Ville Pulkki (above)chairs the PublicationsPolicy meeting.

John Krivit with the winners of the student competitions

Colin Pfund, Marija Kovacina, and PhilipWaldenberger of the Student DelegateAssembly

Question time during a lively Education Forum Education providers show their wares at theEducation Fair.

CONVENTION REPORT


AES THANKS THE 134th CONVENTION COMMITTEE

Umberto Zanghieri, convention chair,with papers cochair, Angelo Farina

Véronique Larcher,papers cochair

Brian McCarty, sound for pictures chair

Alessandro Travaglini,technical tours chair

Natanya Ford,workshops and tutorials

Florian Camerer,loudness chair

Alberto Gaetti and Alberto Pinto, facilities chairs

Philip Waldenberger and John Krivit,student events chairs

Members of the AES Board of Governors and committee chairs after the final session of the 134th Convention.

AES - TH · 2016. 12. 22. · Fontana di Trevi Conference Centre Rome, Italy May 4 –7, 2013 AES...

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