113th AES Convention

Los Angeles Convention Center
Los Angeles, CA, USA
October 5-8, 2002

 

MY ADVENTURES AT AES L.A.
By: Mary Mazurek

I finally got the chance to go to the AES convention.  A little extra time and cheap airfare made the conditions ideal.  While Gary went on the tech tours, I decided to hit the workshops.

DAY 1 Saturday 10/5/02 9:00am
Stereo & Surround Microphone Techniques
Who's bright idea was it to have a music engineering workshop at 9:00A.M.?!?  I usually don't see 9:00a.m. unless I've stayed up from the night before.  Never the less, I got up, walked (exercise), and ate my granola bar from the plane (breakfast of champions) as I went to the convention center.

The workshop was quite worth it.  Among the distinguished panelists were: Geoff Martin of McGill University and Bang & Olufsen, Mick Sawaguchi of NHK Broadcasting, Doug Botnick independent engineer & producer, and Grammy Award winning engineers: John Eargle of JME/JBL Professional (not to mention chief engineer of Delos, author and one of the reasons I'm here), Michael Bishop of Telarc International, and Richard King of Sony Music Studios.  Geoff Martin started off by outlining stereo miking basics (see my article from Sept & Oct) then John Eargle continued with the history of stereo miking and recording.  In the 1950's, there were no pan pots. Engineers place two mikes close to each other to create a center and a spaced pair for left and right.  Can you imagine life without pan pots? The engineers were quite generous with their knowledge.  Here are some of their tips:

  • For orchestra, they tend to start with a four or five microphone array for their main stereo pick-up then surround mikes not too far back in the hall and spot mikes where needed
  • Use as many tracks as necessary because you don't know what the recording will be used for later
  • Convince your boss that surround sound is necessary
  • Experiment, document then share your findings with the world
  • Mix on full range speakers
  • They preferred a phantom center for classical, but they still put a little in the center channel so the consumer doesn't think the disc is defective


I had the opportunity to speak one on one with Michael Bishop and Richard King after the presentation.  Both were really cool and willing to share their approach to engineering.  I've corresponded by e-mail with both of them since the convention.  Hi Richard.  Hi Michael.   But I didn't get a chance to meet John Eargle, maybe at the tomorrow's panel.

What Audio Engineers Should Know About Human Sound Perception Presenting information on this subject were William Martins of The University Aizu, Japan and Durand Begault, Ph.D. of NASA Ames Research Center.  Topics covered were: acoustics, psychoacoustics, equal loudness contours,  interaural timing and volume differences, localization etc. Audio examples were played to demonstrate timbre changes, and spacial hearing perception of azimuth, elevation and distance.  If you'd like more information on this subject, you can check out www.u-aizu.ac.jp/~wlm/tutorials/aes113

The Party at Ocean Way
I hooked up with Gary afterwards and decided to grab some dinner with new friend John Strother of Penguin Recording in Pasadena.  John's an expert on tape restoration.  Dinner was definitely in order, the granola bar was hours ago.  We ate at the historic Pantry.  I felt like I stepped off a time machine and into this classic diner.  Our waiter said he had been there 40 years!  And the food was great!

Now, I would have been much more enthused about going to Ocean Way, but I think I waited too long to eat and was feeling quezy.  As we entered the studio, we were greeted by the thick scent of nauseating incense.  The room's spinning, and I hadn't even had a drink yet.  Must leave! Must sit down!  I bet there's no burning incense in the control room.  I went in A and sat down.  It was after I recovered from my blood sugar roller coaster that I really noticed the control room.  A psychedelic motif illuminated only by the glow of a few candles and the lights of the 72 input Focusrite console.  Next to the Focusrite was an vintage EMI console and behind me racks and racks of gear.  Is that a Fairchild 670? Yes, it is!

Venturing out of the control room, we see EARS members Fran Allen-Leake and Danny Leake who tell us that Allen Sides is in B mixing Phil Collins and we should go back there and say hi.  (Shouldn't be rude, after all, it is his place) To get to B we must first traverse the incense filled studio.  One, two, three, deep breath, go!  We enter B and sure enough Allen is mixing Phil Collins box set in surround.  It's loud but sounds awesome!  Allen takes a few minutes chat to with us, but has to get back to mixing.

Well, I hadn't tossed my cookies yet but decided not to push my luck.  It's back to the hotel for some ZZZ's.

DAY 2   Sunday 10/6/02 9:00am
Good F@%^#&%in' Morning!  Again, whose idea was this?

Mixing And Mastering In Multichannel Surround
The panelists were: Michael Bishop of Telarc, John Eargle of JME/JBL Professional (maybe I'll get a chance to meet him after this presentation), Bob Ludwig of Gateway Mastering & DVD, and engineering heavy weights Frank Filipetti, Elliott Scheiner and George Massenburg.  Here are some of their tips:
  • Very important!  QC all channels separately especially the LFE channel (LFE is the Low Frequency Effects channel. A discrete channel that is directed to the sub woofer)
  • Then QC on a home theater system
  • If you're remixing classic albums don't stray too far from the original concept.  Fans expect to hear the album in a certain way.
  • Since there is more room for drama and experimental ideas, pop music should be "confrontational"
  • For DVD-A you need to do a down mix with Meridian Lossless Compression otherwise you're left with L & R channels only in stereo mode.
  • Edit all tracks at the same time listening only to your stereo reference tracks


I was hoping to meet John Eargle this time, but he left soon after.  Damn!


Protecting Your Hearing Against Hearing Loss
Dilys Jones and Sigfrid Soli Ph.D.. Of the House Ear Institute presented info on protecting  and assessing ones hearing.  Some points to ponder:
  • Incase you didn't already know this, hearing damage is cumulative and permanent.  Damage may manifest itself as tinnitus (ringing in the ears), hypersensitivity, or loss of sensitivity.
  • Some of the warning signs that you have been over exposed are: discomfort, temporary threshold shift, ringing in the ears and difficulty hearing in noisy situations.
  • Some things you can do to conserve your hearing: check your monitor levels and duration (Radio Shack SPL meters are only 50 bucks), limit your exposure during hobbies, take quiet breaks and wear hearing protection properly when necessary.


For more info on the House Ear Institute go to www.hei.org

That night Gary and I met Fran and Danny for a relaxing dinner.  We've been meaning to do this for a while, but our schedules never jive.  (So we had to go all the way to L.A. to do it) Just a note: we always knew Californian's couldn't do pizza, well it turns out that they can't do Italian food either.  The food was mediocre, but the company was great.

DAY 3 Monday 10/7/02
Time To Hit The Convention Floor
Shure
You couldn't miss it.  It was the first thing you saw when you entered.  I said hi to the gang then checked out the new KSM141, KSM137 and KSM 109 instrument mikes.  The KSM141 is a dual pattern that can be switched with the turn of a dial from cardioid to omni .  These durable microphones feature tranformerless preamplifier circuitry, low self noise, sound good and are very reasonably priced.  Check these out.

Sadie
Got a hold of mastering engineer Bob Katz a week before to find out if he was going to the convention.  (We met at an AES/EARS meeting) It turned out he was doing a mastering demonstration for Sadie.  The system has superior fade editing tools and is user friendly.  I'm not a Sadie user, but after this demo I felt that I could be quite functional.

AEA
Stopped by to meet Wes Dooley in person.  If you remember, Wes sent over a Coles 4038, an AEA R44C and an AEA R44CX for the EARS ribbon mike shoot out put together by Gary Khan in Nov of 1999.  While there I overheard an admirer ask Wes how he got to where he is now.  He replied, "By talking to people who are smarter than me."  I just think that's a great quote. Anyway, I checked out their new ribbon mic the R84.  It looked and sounded very much like the RCA77.  I think we have another winner.  While there, I also meet Renee Plummer, Wes's right hand, who is originally from Chicago. Sorry Renee, the Lou Malnatis pizza wouldn't fit in my suit case.

Benchmark
I met Mr. Benchmark himself Allen Burdick.  If your not familiar with his products, he makes extremely accurate and transparent  mic pres and convertors.  According to Bob Katz, the converters are jitter free.  That must be the reason you get such great imaging from them.  While there, I listened to my recording of the LA Guitar Quartet though their DAC-1 D/A converter with headphone amp.  The detail shocked me!  The imaging was sharp and the stereo interplay between guitars was amazing.

Digidesign
Checked out the new 6.0 version for OSX that's due out in January.  This version allows you to easily drag tracks or even sessions into other sessions.  You can also open plug-ins while playing the song.  Sonic Solution's NoNoise is also available for ProTools for about $2000.00. Wanted to hear it, but the convention floor was way too noisy.  If only we could NoNoise that.

Schoeps
I used Schoeps microphones in my work  for years, and I love them, but I don't have a pair of my own. I wasn't going to stop by the booth because I thought "I can't afford them".  I stopped anyway, and I'm glad I did.  Not only did I meet Ulrich Schoeps, I was told they had lowered the price of their microphones by 1/3!  I asked if they had changed anything.  The response was no.  They are trying to break into a larger market.  The American set contains a matched pair, 2 wind screens and 2 shock mounts all in a wooden box.  The cardioids are around $1800.00 for the pair. Our local rep is T.C. Furlong.  I will have my very own pair of Schoeps much sooner than I thought.

After the floor closed for the night, we were invited by our friend and native Chicagoan Gene Radzik, Applications Engineer, for Dolby Labs to check out the Burbank facility.  By the way we met Gene at a Chicago AES meeting. ( If you haven't gone to a local AES meeting, you're missing out.)  It was a good time.  Gary, myself, Gene, Gene's teacher Chris Haseleu of Middle Tennessee U and Doug Mitchell also of Middle Tennessee U, and Bob Katz accompanied by his lovely wife Mary piled into cars and drove to Dolby Labs.  We were treated with a tour of the Dolby Laboratories and the "Dolby Lavatories".  Hah, Hah!  Then watched a pre release of "The Transporter" in the on site reference surround theater.  What a way to see a movie.  Thanks Gene.

The night owls: Gary, Gene and I ended the night by stopping by Hank Neuberger's new endeavor Glenwood Place.  Ex. Chicago tech, Pat Schneider, who worked on Columbia College's Neve and Gravity's Neve, was there tirelessly installing Glenwood's 8068.  Nice room, but the Neve was still in pieces and there was to be a session in two days.  We saw Pat the next day.  He had finished it! Amazing!

DAY 4 Tuesday 10/8/02
LAST DAY

I decided to go on a tech tour of Cello Recording Studios.  I have never seen so many vintage Neve consoles in one place; all of them autographed by Ruppert himself.  This legendary studio has played host for many great artists from Frank Sinatra to Tool.  The Beach Boys recorded "Pet Sounds" there.  We also got a look at the 7 second reverb chamber.  Well it wasn't quite 7 seconds with 30 people jammed in it, but we got the idea.

It was back to the convention center and one last look around the floor.

Earthworks
We stopped by to say hello to Eric Blackmer.  You remember Eric, he brought his Earthworks QTC1 microphones to demonstrate at an EARS meeting.  (By the way, we were so impressed, we bought that pair right after) Now he's added the 1024 Zero Distortion Technology Preamp and the Sigma 6.2 Studio Monitor to his product line.

Telefunken
They've reissued the classic Ela M 250/251 tube microphones.  They feature the M7 capsule and the NOS vacuum tube.  They are hand built to the same German specs that were used 40 years ago.

Well it was time to leave the floor because Gary received a private invite from CEO Jeff Greenberg to see Village Recorders.   We hooked up with John Strother and left.   This once Masonic Temple houses one of the greatest studios in history.  It's very evident by the gold and platinum on the wall that everybody has been through here. ( Tom Petty, Steely Dan, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Heart, Fleetwood Mac, The Red Hot Chili Peppers.....) We went into A, and there it was...the first console I ever worked on.  The Neve 8048 out of Universal.  I felt like I should be bussing 9 & 10 to the master fader.  Too cool!   We then went and saw the Neve VR room where guitarist Bucket Head was overdubbing.  Jeff told us to keep an eye out for this talent.  We took a peek in the room that was designed specifically for Fleetwood Mac,but couldn't stay due to the session in progress. We then took a look in there live room which is basically the auditorium of the Masonic Temple and then up to the roof  when on a clear day you can see the ocean.  At the end of the tour, we were donned with Village T-shirts. Thanks Jeff.

John offered to give us a ride to the airport.  We meet back at the convention center parking garage with all our luggage.  I was thinking, "I didn't get to meet John Eargle, but it was still a good trip."  As we were pulling out, who should walk by, none other than John Eargle.  I dashed out of the car, "Mr. Eargle, Mr. Eargle (no, I'm not a psycho) Mr. Eargle!" After I caught my breath, I introduced myself and told him I was an admirer of his writings and recordings.  (If you haven't read any of his books, you should)  I thanked him for being so generous with his knowledge.  We exchanged contacts, and I asked him if I could send him a copy of my engineering demo.  He said he was busy, but he'd be glad to listen to it.

Well, I did send him a CD and a letter, and he e-mailed back.  He thanked me for my comments and said he would definitely listen to it and get back to me.  Wow, my work being evaluated by the master.  Can't wait!

This was definitely a good trip.


Thanks to Gary Khan for helping me fill in the gaps for this article.

Panelist Richard King of Sony Recording Studios

Panelists: Michael Bishop & John Eargle

Allen Burdick of Benchmark and Bob Katz of Digital Domain

Ulrich Schoeps, Mary Mazurek & Gary Khan

From the roof of Village Recorders

Working on Glenwood's Neve

 
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