Embracing this year’s theme – “The Power of Sound” – the convention will be co-chaired by Alberto Pinto (Professor – CESMA, NUCT University, Stanford University) and Nadja Wallaszkovits (Chief Audio Engineer – Phonogrammarchiv, Austrian Academy of Sciences and AES President-Elect), who have assembled a team of leading audio professionals to organize the events and presentations for Europe’s largest professional audio education, networking and gear exhibition of the year.
“Throughout their 70-year history,” says Wallaskovits, “AES conventions have gathered the foremost minds in audio to educate and connect with attendees. AES Milan 2018 will carry on that tradition in Northern Italy – not only a wonderful locale, but also home to numerous prominent professional audio manufacturers.”
The all-volunteer committee is representative of the caliber of participants in the convention. The committee members are Workshop Co-chairs Natanya Ford (Senior Lecturer – The University of the West of England; AES Fellow) and Magdalena Piotrowska (Manager and Sound Engineer – Hear Candy Mastering; Post-doc – Gdansk University of Technnology), Papers Co-chairs Ville Pulkki (Tenure-track Assistant Professor – Aalto University; AES Fellow) and Sascha Spors (Professor – University of Rostock), Facilities Co-Chairs Marcello Mannini (Sound Engineer, Skeldon Società Cooperativa) and Layan Thornton (Lecturer – Abbey Road Institute, Paris; Senior Member – AES European Convention TPVR Team) and, as Advisor, Umberto Zanghieri (R&D Manager – Z Division, RCF).
“This outstanding committee is developing four full days of content that will educate and enlighten convention attendees,” states Pinto. “For audio professionals looking to advance their knowledge and skills, for students and all others interested in the audio sciences and arts, AES Milan is an essential event.”
“AES Milan is offering Workshops and Tutorials from across the broad range of audio engineering specialties,” elaborates Piotrowska. Sessions will include 3D Audio, Sound Reinforcement, Sound for Cinema, Sound for VR, Multichannel Audio, Recording and Production and Room Acoustics. “Convention attendees can share and expand their audio knowledge from the fundamentals through to the latest technologies,” she furthers.
“New media – AR and VR, game sound, immersive audio, mobile platforms – will be the focus of numerous sessions and panels, including the experience of 3D audio through a high-order ambisonics system with dance and electronica musical playback, among other genres – as well as the presentation of spatial audio production techniques used such as B-format processing and spatial microphone capture. The AES Milan technical program will cover the application of technology – such as live sound system optimization and mixing – as well as present panels and presentations focusing on the latest in topics such as audio processing and portable streaming audio.”
A mainstay of AES Conventions are Paper and Poster sessions, presenting the results of scholarly and commercial research covering all aspects of audio technology and including human perception of sound. Pulkki and Spors are heading the team of peer reviewers busy vetting the bountiful submissions for AES Milan 2018.
Students are also a major part of all AES Conventions. AES Milan is no exception, with student-oriented educational sessions and events that include student recording and design competitions, mentoring and a career and school fair.
The four-day technical program at AES Milan will run May 23 through 26, with the exhibition taking place May 24 through 26. The technical program sessions include over 160 research paper presentations, covering the latest in audio research, technologies and techniques aimed at educating audio professionals and students, alike, while exemplifying the Convention theme: “The Power of Sound.”
The companion exhibition will showcase leading manufacturers with the latest gear on-hand for demonstration and evaluation, along with educational presentations and panels taking place on the show floor. The expo will also feature dedicated demo rooms and other unique listening experiences, complementing the full schedule of special events and social opportunities going on throughout the show.
Spatial Audio
Offering an in-depth look at the rapidly advancing and game-changing technologies of Spatial Audio and Audio for Virtual Reality, AES Milan will offer cutting-edge research presentations, tutorials, workshops and ears-on demonstrations highlighting spatial audio production in a variety of applications and settings.
The workshop ”Stereophonic Techniques for VR and 360º Content” will give examples of stereophonic techniques for VR production and show a workflow suggestion using practical examples, as well as the advantages of using conventional Stereo microphone arrays instead of first-order Ambisonics microphones. Conversely, the presentation “Virtual Reality Audio: B-Format Processing” will discuss the latest innovations in B-Format for processing recording, rendering and post-production.
Spatial and 3D Audio have also found an ever-increasing presence in interactive audio productions and real-world environments and simulations. Tutorials and presentations such as “Intelligent Acoustic Interfaces for High-Definition 3D Audio” and “New Surround and Immersive Recordings” will cover both technical and procedural aspects, while sessions including “Listening Session on Large 3D Audio System,” “Psychoacoustics of 3D Sound Recording” and “Surround with Depth Listening Session on Loudspeaker Cubes” will offer attendees concentrated listening experiences and insights unique to the AES convention.
One of the most exciting uses of spatial audio is in music production for creating immersive listening experiences for audiences in a variety of different formats. The presentation “Production of Dance Music in 3D” will give an overview of basic psychoacoustics, the creation of 3D sounds for a dance track, and implementing 3D audio using keyboards and synthesizers.
Further, the sessions “Kraftwerk and Booka Shade – The Challenge to Create Electro Pop Music in Immersive / 3D Audio” and “ANTON – Universe in 3D: Ambisonics in Electronic Music Production” will give detailed analysis of the technology and innovations used in these productions.
Read more about the Recording and Production presentation sessions.
The Power of Sound Reinforcement
Whether presenting a live performance, playback of recorded audio, or other audible signal to an immediate audience, sound reinforcement plays a key role in the efficiency and perception in which the sound is received. The upcoming AES Milan Convention, taking place 23-26 May at the NH Hotel Milano Congress Centre in Milan, Italy, will offer an inside look and the opportunity to listen to some of the most talked-about topics in the industry while presenting the latest in research and innovations in sound reinforcement technology.
One of the most talked-about and widely-implemented technologies in today’s sound reinforcement industry is networked audio systems. With an ever-emerging variety of network formats available, the AES Milan Convention’s Networked Audio Track will focus on AES’s “Rosetta Stone” standard, AES67, which allows disparate Ethernet audio network protocols to share networked digital audio. AES67 is also the audio carrier format for the new SMPTE ST 2110 Professional Media Over Managed IP Networks suite of standards, which is expected to be broadly adopted in applications where it’s advantageous that audio and video share a network, such as in broadcast production workflows.
The Tutorial “AES67 & ST2110 – An Overview” will address the ramifications and limitations of the marriage of the two Standards. Additional AES67-related sessions include “AES67 Practical — A Guide on How to Set Up AES67 Networks” and “AES67 in Real World Applications.” The workshop “Beyond AES67, a Better and Unified Experience of the Audio Network” will cover network applications beyond audio transport, including monitoring and the AES67 companion AES70 Standard for networked system control.
Acoustic analysis and measurement – cornerstones of sound reinforcement research and development – also hold a leading role in AES Milan presentations. Sessions cover topics including audio systems tuning, equalization and processing, transducer design, automotive applications and more. The tutorial “Hearing the Past: Using Acoustic Measurement Techniques and Computer Models to Study Heritage Sites” will further explore how acoustics measurement and modeling techniques help enhance our knowledge of how our ancestors heard performances in connection to the acoustics of the performance spaces and the surrounding soundscapes.
Other specialized sound reinforcement workshops and tutorials include a wide range of presentations, from “Perceptual and Physical Evaluation of Guitar Loudspeakers” and “Styling Your Live and Recorded Classical, Jazz, and Acoustic Ensemble Sound,” to other technology-driven topics such as “Power Amplification for High Resolution Audio” and “Live Sound Subwoofer System Optimization.” Additional listening session tutorials being held on Saturday of the convention include “Icosahedral Loudspeaker Listening Session (IKO)” and “Surround with Depth Listening Session on IEM Loudspeaker Cubes” experiences.
The AES Milan Convention committee has also announced, as part of its Special Events series, a presentation by AES President and sound reinforcement pioneer David Scheirman titled “Back to the Future, a Technology Project Review: Outdoor Sound Reinforcement of Symphony and Opera for Extremely Large Audiences,” taking place on Friday, 25 May at 11:15. Scheirman will outline how he led a team to deploy and operate a futuristic outdoor sound reinforcement system serving audiences up to 200,000, while pioneering innovative and advanced technologies in design attributes and operating principles.
Location for the 144th AES Convention is:
NH Hotel Milano Congress Centre
Strada 2a, 20090 Assago
Milan, Italy
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