As Copper readers may know, the annual Audio Engineering Society (AES) national conference is one my favorite audio events. The last AES convention, held in late 2024 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York, seemed smaller, but according to conference organizers the number of exhibitors were roughly the same as in 2023, and the halls and panel discussions were well-attended.
AES president Leslie Gaston-Bird welcomed visitors to the AES convention in her keynote address.
One of the most anticipated events was the screening of the trailer of Immediate Family, the sparkling new documentary by Denny Tedesco, who also directed the 2008 documentary The Wrecking Crew. Moderated by Tedesco, who is the son of the late session guitarist and Wrecking Crew member Tommy Tedesco, on hand were Danny Kortchmar, Waddy Wachtel and Steve Postell, alongside Grammy-winning record producers Russ Titelman and Niko Bolas. The film is a deft and loving exploration of this group of musicians, whose work starting in the 1970s helped make James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, David Crosby, Don Henley, Warren Zevon and so many others household names.
The Immediate Family “backstage” with record producer Niko Bolas: musicians Danny Kortchmar and Waddy Wachtel, record producer Russ Titelman, and musician Steve Postell.
Much of the discussions at AES were centered around the increasing prominence of Dolby Atmos and other immersive audio formats. One of most popular rooms was once again the Genelec exhibit, which featured a fully calibrated Dolby Atmos system. Back by popular demand were engineer Morten Lindberg and his team in a seminar about immersive audio. Lindberg demonstrated tracks and approaches to recording, with songs from Yule and Fred over jorden, the recent holiday releases from his 2L record label (see Copper’s review of both albums in Issue 213). Yule was a particular treat, a holiday album even a Jewish boy like me could love. If you want to hear what surround can sound like in the hands of a master, both titles are highly recommended.
During the Q&A period, I asked Lindberg to discuss his post-production strategy, which was that there was almost no post-production work done! Careful microphone selection, placement, attention to venue, and the spacing of the musicians and their performances meant that their recordings were almost “raw.” They sometimes added a bit of reverb, but the idea was to do as little post work as possible. As a result, the listener can enjoy an unparalleled experience, especially in a properly set up room. Lindberg was again nominated for multiple Grammy awards as acknowledgement of his achievements.
Anders Nyman and Thomas Lund of Genelec with 2L's Morton Lindberg.
Other seminars of interest to the pro audio community took place at AES, and I think many were of interest to home audiophile listeners as well. The presenters are, after all, the engineers, producers, and designers who make modern audio reproduction possible. The amazing team of Jim Anderson and Ulrike Schwarz were there to discuss their approach to recording, and their recent release, All is Merry and Bright by the Donald Vega Trio is a lovely Christmas album.
One of more intriguing AES discussions featured Meridian Audio co-founder Bob Stuart. He presented a paper that outlined a theoretical new approach to the design of a DAC involving a different method of quantization, with the potential for improved audio quality. The room was full of eager folks who all seemed to have electrical engineering degrees and knowledge of chip design. I found it interesting, as I wonder how far DAC designs can go, and Stuart’s presentation was fascinating in pointing one possible way forward. When I’ve reviewed DACs for Mac Edition Radio and played with different filter settings, I have been hard pressed to hear a significant difference, or more to the point, improvement.
The seminar was titled, “Improved Analog-to-Digital Converter for High-Quality Audio,” and the description reads: “A high-oversampled, low-bit modulator typical of modern audio ADCs needs a downsampler to provide PCM audio at sampling rates ranging from 44.1 kHz to 768 kHz. Traditionally, a multistage downsampler re-quantizes at each stage, raising questions about audio transparency. We present a decimator design in which there is no re-quantization other than a single dithered quantization when necessary to produce a final audio output of finite precision such as 24 bits. All processing is minimum-phase and concordant with the principles introduced in which optimize for a specific compact impulse response and minimal (zero) modulation noise.”
Two audio legends: Bob Stuart of Meridian and MQA, and John Dawson of Jade Electronics and Arcam.
In the midst of these and other seminars, I was able to obtain a review sample of the new Onkyo TX-RZ30 audio video receiver. It’s an entry level AVR for their flagship line, with a new and improved HDMI 2.1 chipset that eliminates most of the glitches that are well known in some HDMI 2.1-capable products. Most importantly it comes with Dirac Live room correction software, something I was eager to try. The irrepressible PR guru Roberta Lewis was able to garner a license to activate the add-on Dirac Bass Live software in my unit, including the Bass Control feature for multiple subwoofers. But in the setup process I encountered a glitch. No matter what I did, calibration failed. After a couple of four a.m. sessions, I found the reason. It kept reporting that the ambient sound level was too high, but this was in the middle of the night, with nothing making noise in my house. What was to blame?
It turned out that my trusty Wharfedale WH-D10 subwoofer had died. Fortunately, I had the excellent new Vera-Fi Vanguard Caldera subwoofer in house, quickly swapped it into the system, and all was right with the world. When the Dirac Live did a speaker sweep, there was actually a low frequency signal to measure. Gone was the ambient sound level error.
The reason I was so interested in this was that during Morten Lindberg’s presentation, the subject of LFE – the Low Frequency Effects channel in an A/V receiver – came up. Most of us were taught to believe that low frequencies are omnidirectional, and some early subwoofer manuals I’d seen had basically said it didn’t matter where in the room you placed the sub, since low frequencies weren’t directional. (Naturally, subwoofer placement matters, if nothing else to make sure the sub isn’t located in a room mode that will affect bass response.) But with Dolby Atmos supporting up to four subwoofers and enabling an audio mixer to localize immersive bass sounds, low-frequency directionality becomes a greater concern.
One of Lindberg’s discussions had centered around the fact that for many formats like MP3, LFE is mixed to mono, so having multiple subs isn’t as much of a concern in terms of low-frequency directionality. To be fair, most of the applications for multiple subs spread out around your room are for home theater use, where that explosion might come from behind the listener. For music, personally, I’m not sure how critical that is, but I’m sure that some readers might have a different opinion.
The description for the AES “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – Best Practices in Immersive Audio Production” seminar noted, “Current music production has opened up a relatively new opportunity in the creation of 3D content, now easily available online and in various forms. Artists and labels are increasingly asking for 3D content to be delivered along with a standard stereo master.
“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – Best Practices in Immersive Audio Production” panel discussion included George Massenburg, (professor, Grammy award-winning recording engineer and inventor), Richard King (professor, McGill University), Francois Lalonde (vocal producer mixing engineer, creator of the Ultimate Ears model UE 7 Pro "Celine Dion" headphones), Fei Yu (award winning Chinese music producer, supervisor, editor, and recording engineer), and Marc Theriault (mastering engineer, Le Lab Mastering).
Many practitioners, however, are at a loss when it comes to how and what to deliver, as various streaming services implement their own binaural processes. Remixing older catalog content or even recent stereo releases has proven to be problematic when working from stems that are badly prepared, or very costly when going back and remixing from scratch, using the original multitrack masters. The panel will speak to best tactics regarding the creation of stems to be delivered for use in immersive mixing, along with some examples of routing with sub-master processing, along with proper use of LFE and center channel, sides, rear and height channels. Other issues to be discussed include room simulation, loudness measurement and the various binaural processes.”
As you can see, considerations about best practices for mixing immersive audio aren’t just theoretical concerns. [Note: in audio production, stems are a combination of tracks that are related and grouped together, such as drum tracks. They can make mixing and production more manageable. – Ed.]
Increased control over bass directionality and quality is turning into one of the more interesting aspects of immersive audio, and as an aside, it was illustrative for me to experience the before-and-after bass response derived from the Onkyo TX-RZ30 after applying Dirac Bass Control. Mine is not a high-end system, but after calibration and profiling, I was just enthralled to hear Lindberg and Anderson and Schwarz’s recordings in improved surround. For good measure, I also listened to the new Van Morrison Moondance Dolby Atmos release as remixed by Steven Wilson, and Jackson Browne’s classic Running on Empty in the superb 5.1 surround mix that was released on DVD-Audio from Rhino. You can hear the rumble of the tour bus on the tracks that were recorded on the bus.
The current resurgence of interest in DSD, (considering DSD had its origins decades ago), has led many to rethink the roles of DAC design. At the end of the conference, I bumped into Grammy award-winning violinist and educator Martha Mooke and a few of her students. She graciously invited Mac Edition Radio analyst Frank Schramm and me to a small gathering at VoxPod NYC, a studio dedicated to podcasting, voice over, and other recording, where Robert Marshall of Source Elements demonstrated an Atmos project they were working on. Marshall is the co-founder of of Source Connect 4, the latest version of the industry standard in the film and television industries for remote recording, review and approval.
The faces behind the VoxPod NYC studio: Alex Alexander, noted drummer and percussionist; Marion P. Suter, Esq, senior counsel, New York Law Department (retired), and Randolph Hudson, owner. Hudson is credited for disc media services for over a dozen award winning disc titles, and a Grammy nominee for Ringo 5.1: the Surround Sound Collection.
Robert Marshall demonstrated how to build a Dolby Atmos mix at VoxPod NYC.
He showed us how many tracks he had loaded into a maxed-out Apple Studio computer – an almost mind boggling amount of data. If you turned your head, it sounded like you who were rushing through the crowd.
Imagine the audiobooks of the future, but in immersive. Unlike traditional audiobooks, you could hear voices, horses, carts and other sounds all around you. What’s the demand for mixing content like this in immersive audio? Their answer was simple. Kids. More and more, kids are experiencing surround sound in their everyday lives via video games, and to make stories really come alive, normal books on tape in stereo just don’t do it. Formats like Dolby Atmos have the potential to engage the next generation. I can say that all of us were blown away by the demonstration.
Next year’s AES Show 2025 SoCal will move to California, October 23 – 25 at the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center. The AES annual conventions unite over 10,000 audio professionals, enthusiasts, and exhibitors from around the globe. I predict a very different vibe for this upcoming California show, with only the traffic on the 405 to limit the bandwidth, while the Queen Mary glitters just down the road.
Here are more of the many attendees of AES Show New York 2024.
One of my favorite photos from the conference: violist/composer/producer and clinician/educator Martha Mooke on the streets of New York.
Two legendary producers, Roey Shamir (Area 51 NYC) and Lenise Bent (Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac, George Harrison and many others) were all smiles!
Three of the AES Achievement Award nominees, all leaders in their fields. Juan Jiménz, Carlos Fonseca, and Renato Zamora proudly hold their Board of Governors awards and citations. Jimenz and Zamora were recognized for their work on the Latin American AES Conference in Quito, Ecuador, and Fonseca was acknowledged for using his audio detection skills in locating survivors of the 2003 Turkish earthquake.
Rodger Shivley (Shivley Acoustics) with Dr. Gilbert Soulodre, who received the AES Gold Metal award "for extraordinary contributions to audio, including the creation of the loudness meter that helped address loudness issues in music and broadcast."
John Chung King (Chung King Studios, Secret Society records) with Dave Malekpour of pro audio loudspeaker maker Augspurger. Chung King Studios was known as the Abbey Road of hip-hop.
Three gents who define the pro audio business: Buddy Judge (Apple), Andrew Scheps (mixing engineer and producer, owner of Tonequake Records), and John Paterno (music producer and engineer).
Three men from immersive audio company Brandenburg Labs: Lasse Nipkow, Karlheinz Brandenburg, and Jeramey Tyler. Brandenburg is wearing a transmitter/receiver for their spatial audio system, and is also the creator the MP3 audio codec.
Thinking of building a studio? The team at DiGiCo has a console for you! Here's their flagship Quantum featuring a staggering 384 input channels.
Marc Urselli, three-time Grammy award-winning music producer and audio engineer enjoys the show with Chris Berens of Audeze.
The Genelec exhibit hosted a number of immersive audio seminars and presenters, including multiple Grammy award-winning recording engineer Richard King of McGill University.
As this panoramic view shows, the Genelec immersive audio room was extremely well-attended.
A group of students gets practical knowledge from legendary producer Jimmy Douglass (fourth from left). AES has a long history of supporting education and welcoming newcomers.
The AES convention hosted dozens of panels, like this discussion on audio product design. From left to right: Christoph Thompson (Ball State University), Dave Derr (Empirical Labs), Brecht De Man (PXL University of Applied Sciences and Arts), Tony Agnello (Eventide) Audio, George Massenburg (Grammy Award-winning engineer, founder of George Massenburg Labs, and inventor of the parametric equalizer).
Here are the panelists from one of the Grammy "SoundTables," “Songs that Changed My Life”: moderator Andrew Scheps (producer/engineer), Rafa Sardina (engineer), Ken “Duro” Ifill (producer/engineer), Susan Rodgers (PhD researcher in cognitive psychology), and Jimmy Jam (writer/producer).
Immersive audio was one of the hottest topics at AES. Here, Dr. Lee Whitmore (Focusrite), David Rieley (Guitar Center), Tom McAndrew (Dolby Laboratories), and Mark Cummins (ADAM Audio GmbH) participate in the panel, “The Best Practices for Creating, Mixing, and Producing in Immersive Audio for Music, Film, TV, Podcasting and More.”
In the “Analog to Atmos: Bob Marley” seminar, Nick Rives of Universal Music Group discussed and demonstrated work from some upcoming Bob Marley releases.
Grammy award-winning engineer Jim Anderson was featured in this year’s “They Might Be Giants – AES Masters Talk Audio History” series.
Doug Fearn (D.W. Fearn Audio) and Gary Louie (AES Board of Governors/University of Washington) take a break from the show.
Martha Mooke attends the show with students Rachel Madison and Beth Davis of Webster University.
Koji Kuriyama, Yasushi Matsumoto, and Hiroyuki Maeda of TOA Electronics presented a brand new design for a studio monitor. (See Frank Doris's AES show report in Issue 212 for details.)
They’ll let anyone in this joint! Here are Dr. Edgar Choueiri (Princeton University), Michal Jurewicz (Mytek Audio), and David Chesky (The Audiophile Society, HDTracks).
The UMG team involved with Dolby Atmos releases relaxes after their presentation: Kevin Reeves, Chris Walch, and Karen Stavisky.
Header image: producer/engineer Kseniya Kawko gives a talk in the Genelec room. Her experience includes recording and mixing in formats like Auro-3D, Ambisonics, Dolby Atmos, Sony 360, and binaural audio, and is the lead sound engineer at the Jazz Club Unterfahrt in Munich.
All images courtesy of Harris Fogel.
