Abstract:

Ambisonics has been around as a system since the early 1970s, although its basics in some ways date back to Alan Blumlein’s work on stereo and Harry F. Olson’s development of directional microphones at the start of the 1930s.

Tarred with the same brush as the Quadraphonics debacle of the 1970s, it was kept alive by a small band of enthusiasts who realised the much greater capabilities inherent in the system. This continued to be the case until the advent of low cost digital technology towards the end of the 20th Century meant that it became, at last, accessible to many more people. In the past decade far more papers have been published on Ambisonics and Ambisonics-related subjects than in the whole of the preceding three decades. Does this mean it has finally triumphed?

Dave Malham has written VST plug-ins for Ambisonic processing, the ‘MRC Stereometer, a
K-system metering plug-in, and (with Matt Paradis) the ‘ambilib’ Ambisonic processing library for PD and Max/MSP. He also has a patent, WO02085068, for the Ambisonic Sound Object Format. Dave teaches digital audio, signal preservation, sound spatialisation and recording techniques on the Music Technology MA course at York.

An abstract will be posted shortly

The conference takes place in the Rymer Auditorium, part of the University of York’s Music Research Centre, on Monday 26th and Tuesday 27th March. A pre-conference event (included in the registration fee) is planned for mid- to late-afternoon on Sunday 25th. More details about this will be published shortly.

Register Now to be part of this important event.

Reduced registration fees are available to AES members as well as preferential rates to a number of related organisations. Visit the registration page for details.

Abstract:

If you’ve ever wondered why audio DSP programming is so hard when the algorithms are so simple, this is the place for you. Hundreds of strange and wonderful audio processors have been developed over the past four decades and the presenter has struggled with dozens of them.

In order to learn from our mistakes this master class will tour examples of gross bad practice (suitably anonymized to protect the guilty) and in doing so we’ll extract some general principles useful to those who will design audio DSPs in the future. As a practical example of what can be achieved, we’ll go from simulator based algorithm development to listening to production quality code in a matter of minutes.

Abstract:

Editing audio to fix timing and tuning problems has now become so commonplace that listeners would be hard-pressed to know when the timing, pitch or other characteristics of a recorded actor or singer have been manipulated to be more accurate or to simply sound better.

However, even with sophisticated software tools, in many situations the editing work required to achieve such polished precision can still be tedious and time consuming, and require considerable skill.

In this talk new processing techniques will be demonstrated which offer automated and precise solutions to certain common situations. These techniques involve automatically extracting, from an accurate ‘guide’ voice or instrument recording, selected characteristics such as timing, pitch, vibrato and loudness, and imposing these features on other less accurate recordings of similar performances.

This approach has many applications in consumer and professional audio processing products, including the following…

For professional applications:
1)     Double and triple (or more) tracks can be made quickly to match, with adjustable precision, an accurate lead vocal.
2)     Alternative performance characteristics can be transferred to a lead vocal.
3)     Prosodic features (including timing, inflection and stress) of recorded dialogue can be transformed to have different but natural sounding features transferred from another recording.

For consumers:
4)     In websites or mobile applications, recordings of amateur singers can be automatically transformed to have the characteristics of a professional vocalist.
5)     A language student’s recording of his or her attempt at mimicking a teacher’s recorded sentence can be modified to make the student’s timing and pitch sound like the teacher’s and provide constructive feedback.

Jeff Bloom – who in 1984 invented the first audio time-alignment algorithms upon which these new techniques are based – will also chart the history of automatic time alignment in dialogue replacement and music applications.

The main studio area, which is a lead-lined, floating room within a room, is equipped with PMC ALM 1 active 7.1 surround sound monitoring and a Studer Vista 8 digital mixing system. All microphone inputs are 24bit/96kHz with full DSP on every channel. RED II can offer simultaneous mixes to a variety of different formats and 40-bit processing.

Recording is carried out via Pyramix, Pro Tools and Logic, and there is also an extensive range of digital effects onboard including a TC Systems 6000 mainframe and Lexicon PCM96 digital reverberation. Uniquely for a vehicle of this type, RED II incorporates an additional production/overdub and video gallery room, which is ideal for broadcast clients who want to set up fly-pack television facilities.

The tour will last approximately two hours. Registration is essential and places are limited so if you would like to attend please register now by e-mailing tech-visits[at]aes-uk.org.

It’s very easy: simply click on this link and you will be directed to Amazon UK’s normal home page, but with an embedded tag telling them that you came via us. Once on the home page you can browse, log-in and buy in the normal way, and the price you pay is exactly the same.

And you don’t have to visit this page each time you want to access the link - just save it to your Favourites and use it each time you visit Amazon.co.uk

We’re already benefiting in a small way from this scheme, but with around 1,000 UK members, many of whom no doubt shop with Amazon already, it could make a significant contribution to our funds.

There has subsequently been an additional vacancy created by the resignation of Tegid Roberts, who is standing down due to increasing business commitments that are preventing him from devoting the time he would like to the committee. Bill Foster has nominated Nikolay Georgiev, who has accepted the invitation to fill that post.

The deadline for nominations has now passed and there having been no other candidates proposed by the membership these three members will be duly elected at the AGM on 13th December.

Candidate biographies

David Pope

David has an HND in electronics and control engineering from Cambridge College of Technology and a diploma in sound engineering from the Association of Professional Recording Services (APRS). Starting as product manager with Neve Electronics, where he brought the highly successful Neve V series to the market, he moved to Sony Cinema Products as a sound dubbing consultant and quickly rose to be General Manager of their European operation.

In 2001 David joined DTS Europe as Director of Business Development, and is well known for his work in supporting the Disability Working Group and establishing a subtitling and audio description service to UK cinemas. In January 2010 he joined XDC as Director of Operations for UK and Ireland, and has firmly established XDC as the leading digital cinema company for the independent exhibition sector.

David is a member of the AES, BKSTS, SMPTE and the Institute of Directors.

Tomos Wise

Tom first joined the AES while studying Electronic Engineering with Music Technology Systems at the University of York and was among the founding members of the York Student Section. He was an active sound engineer for live events on campus and went on to manage the students’ Union technical crew.

Since graduating, Tom has worked as a Research & Development Engineer for a number of prestigious companies including Meridian Audio, Snell & Wilcox and Oxford Digital, all of which are AES Sustaining Members. He has also enjoyed working on a number of freelance projects, notably the consultation and installation of a sound system for an independent cinema and various sound engineering and mastering projects.

Tom has a diverse background in music and is a hi-fi and headphone enthusiast. He has played trumpet, bass guitar and percussion for numerous groups, recording two studio albums and winning several national competitions.

Nikolay Georgiev

Nikolay was born in Sofia, Bulgaria. At 15 he made his first 4-track music recording and since then has been recording and mixing projects from classical, through jazz and folk, pop and rock, to progressive rock, electronic and experimental music.

Nikolay’s diverse educational profile started in 2000 with an undergraduate diploma course in general engineering at the Technical University of Sofia. A year later he moved to the University of Sofia to study Philosophy. In 2004 he won a full scholarship to the Universität des Saarlandes, Germany, where he studied German Language, Classical German Philosophy and Aesthetics, graduating with distinction.

In 2007 Nikolay moved permanently to the UK where he completed a 2-year course in Audio Engineering at the SAE Institute London. He now works as a freelance music producer and sound engineer, and holds a position at the SAE Institute London as technical support supervisor and lecturer.

This is a joint event staged by the AES British Section and the Music Research Centre at the University of York. It will be held on 25th–27th March 2012 at the University of York’s Music Research Centre and Ron Cooke Hub.

Abstract:

Despite enormous progress in understanding how the human auditory system works, most present day loudspeakers cling to outmoded and discredited techniques that have not changed in decades.

The availability of advanced materials and design tools means that the task of advanced speaker design has never been easier, but the necessary steps simply are not taken.

This presentation will look at the criteria for accurate sound reproduction and will show that these criteria can be met. Demonstrations of some alternative loudspeaker designs will be given.