learning: Expo05

PARSONS AUDIO EXPO

Presentations by Expert Users & Exhibits by Leading Manufacturers

took place on Thursday, Nov. 10, noon - 9PM+, at the Newton (MA) Holiday Inn.

PRESENTATIONS by EXPERT USERS, noon - 9PM+

EXHIBITS by dozens of LEADING MANUFACTURERS, noon - 7PM

free of charge; no RSVP needed

The Newton Holiday Inn is at 399 Grove Street, Newton, MA. That's just off off Exit 22 of I-95/Rte. 128, a half-mile south of the Mass Pike; ten to fifteen minutes west of downtown Boston. It's also next to the Riverside T Stop -- Green Line, D Train.

Parking: 200+ free parking places behind the Inn; hundreds more at the MBTA lot next door ($3.25 a day).

For further directions or to reserve overnight rooms, contact the Holiday Inn at 617/969-5300 or click here.

For event information, contact Parsons Audio: support@paudio.com, or tel. 781/431-8708, x14 or x18.

The PARSONS AUDIO EXPO has taken place every year since 1991. It is both informative and enjoyable. It's also a fine place -- and rare opportunity -- to interact with your peers. Hundreds of audio professionals attend it faithfully year after year. Many arrive at noon and stay through the evening. This year, to make hanging around the Expo even easier, there's a restaurant on the premises.

As one regular attendee says of the event, "The Expo's atmosphere is welcoming, the people friendly, the hype minimal, the exhibits comprehensive, and the presentations excellent." The EXPO is free of charge, courtesy of the exhibitors and Parsons Audio. The media sponsor is Performer Magazine.

No reservations or RSVP's are needed, but some presentations may fill up. If you have colleagues who might be interested in attending, please pass the word.
For latest details about the next Expo, watch this site, subscribe to our e-newsletters, or contact the Parsons Audio staff.

Presentations by Experts, noon until 9PM+
The listening/learning sessions are always a highlight of the EXPO. There's nothing like learning in person from accomplished professionals. This year, the listening system will consist of five Bang & Olufsen BeoLab 5s, which are among the world's finest loudspeakers.(For a demo, visit us.)

All presentations will take place in the Lower Falls Room, just a few feet from the exhibit rooms and restaurant.

As usual, the Expo presentations will be given by some of the audio industry's leading professionals. All are highly experienced, accomplished, passionate about audio, and excellent communicators. See their bios below.

Schedule of Presentations

12PM - Listening with Dave, with David Moulton. For months now, our free Listening with Dave sessions, in the Parsons Audio Demonstration Room and at Moulton Laboratories (David Moulton's studio in Groton), have been a great success. Come listen, and share your thoughts about what you have heard. If you'd like, bring some music to listen to, on any format of CD or DVD. (One thing we know will be here: a few cuts from Cream’s recent performance at Royal Albert Hall, brought by Bob Ludwig.) For lovers of audio, these listening sessions are great pleasure. The sound system will be extraordinary: five state-of-the-art B&O BeoLab 5's.

1PM - Bob Ludwig (Gateway Mastering & DVD) with A Review of the AES Convention. At the recent AES Convention in New York, Bob participated in 5+ panels on surround, mastering (regarding historical reissues), and DVD (re both Blu-ray and HD-DVD). He will report to us about what he learned in those discussions and elsewhere at the show. His work at Gateway places him in the forefront of all those fields. Of additional importance: by a year from now, both new DVD formats will be on the market.

2PM - Alex Case on Convolution Reverbs. Every once in a while, a new technology appears in the recording studio that changes the way we think, the way we work, and the way we create. DAWs and mixing automation are examples. Add to that list the convolution reverb. Before its appearance, we relied on other devices for reverberation. Chambers created a large room sound in a small, highly reflective space. Springs and plates emulated acoustic reverberation through their mechanical resonance. And companies like Lexicon, TC Electronic, Yamaha, and Sony have been offering excellent digital reverbs for years. Now there's convolution. Versions by Waves, Tascam, and others can plug into your DAW and -- with excellent control of reverberation parameters -- emulate both real spaces and artificial reverbs. Join us to learn about convolution and its applications. Return to your studio ready to use it to create better effects.

3PM - Dr. Andrea Pejrolo on Creative MIDI Sequencing Techniques with Pro Tools. Learn about the sophisticated MIDI features concealed in ProTools: Swing, Groove Quantization, etc. Practical examples and interactive presentations will outline how you can integrate MIDI and audio to reach the next level in music production. Your computer, too, can groove! An updated version of an excellent presentation Andrea gave this year to the Pro Tools User Group. [Note: Paul Neyrinck's session, previously scheduled, had to cancel.]

3:30PM - Russ Berger on Design Considerations in Small Rooms. Most recording and production facilities these days are small rooms. Acoustic treatment, isolation, HVAC issues, etc. in your room are of critical importance to how well your projects succeed. Come learn from one of the industry's leading experts.Bring your questions, too. Russ loves helping people to understand the mechanisms of acoustics, and to optimize their studio environments.

5PM - Current Topics in Live Sound: a Panel Discussion with Brad Berger (Berklee Performance Center), Paul Carelli (Eastern Acoustic Works), Steve Colby (Evening Audio Consultants), Dan Craik (Yamaha), and Steve Gamelin (Foxwoods). David Moulton will be Moderator. Live sound is doing well these days, much thanks to people like our panelists. (See their bios below.) Like today's studio systems, performance systems are vital links between performing artists and their audiences. In effect, those systems are musical instruments that artists and their engineers "play" for their listeners. Come hear about what's new in the field, and what's developing. Bring questions.

6PM - OPEN HOUR. A chance to visit the exhibits, eat dinner before the evening session, talk with old acquaintances and new, etc.

7PM - Surround Sound, with Roger Talkov (DVD Labs), Bob Ludwig (Gateway Mastering & DVD), and David Moulton (Moulton Laboratories). As we will hear in this session, there's much fine music being recorded in surround. As we will learn, there's much craft involved in composing, producing, recording, mixing, mastering, and authoring it. As usual, this evening presentation will also serve as the November meeting of the Boston Chapter of the Audio Engineering Society.

Brief Bios of Presenters

Brad Berger teaches sound reinforcement and related subjects at Berklee College of Music. A highly experienced live sound engineer, he is the Production Manager and Chief Engineer at the Berklee Performance Center, which presents performances of every kind.

Russ Berger is founder and principal of the Russ Berger Design Group. He has won eight TEC Awards for excellence in acoustics and studio design. Among his more than 2,500 projects: National Public Radio headquarters, Whitney Houston's personal studio, NFL Films headquarters, and Sony Music. He has published numerous articles, and lectures widely on facilities planning, studio and small room acoustics, audio electronics, audio monitoring, and microphone technique.

Paul Carelli is Touring Systems Manager for Eastern Acoustics Works, one of the leading manufacturers of high-performance professional loudspeakers. He has designed, installed, and operated performance systems for major artists around the world, in venues of every kind.

Alex Case is Assistant. Professor of Sound Recording Technology at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He has degrees in engineering, music and acoustics. In addition to U Mass., he has taught at Berklee and New England Institute of Art. A major focus of his is the modern recording studio. With its sophisticated signal processing, the studio is a musical instrument worthy of study. Alex is a peerless lecturer -- educational and entertaining. He has presented to the Acoustical Society of America and the Audio Engineering Society.

Steve Colby is principal of Evening Audio Consultants, which specializes in remote production and orchestral sound reinforcement. He has been FOH engineer for the Boston Pops for nearly two decades; worked as a live radio mix engineer for the BSO's Tanglewood broadcasts, and for the New York Philharmonic radio series; and mixed for TV and radio for many notable artists.

Dan Craik is National Marketing Manager of Yamaha's Commercial Audio Systems Division, and is a highly experienced live sound engineer, and master clinician for Yamaha's PM1D/PM5D digital consoles.

Steve Gamelin is the chief audio engineer of the Foxwoods Resort & Casino. There, among other responsibilities, he oversees sound reinforcement in a variety of venues. Foxwoods presents a full schedule of performances by a roster of artists that constitutes a Who's Who of the entertainment industry.

Bob Ludwig of Gateway Mastering & DVD is perhaps the world's most renowned mastering engineer. At this year's Grammy Awards, ten of the twenty-eight nominated recordings mastered at Gateway won Grammies. He has won an unprecedented twelve TEC Awards. He knows the art of reproducing the artist's vision, which he has successfully delivered to millions of listeners -- and, increasingly, viewers -- via CD, DVD (DVD-A, DVD-Video, and Super Audio CD), and records.

David Moulton of Moulton Laboratories is the renowned audio guru, author, educator, and Grammy-nominated engineer. An audio polymath ("person of wide-ranging knowledge or learning"), he is an accomplished composer, acoustic consultant, loudspeaker designer (co-creator of the BeoLab 5), author of the Golden Ears Ear-training CD Series, and a teacher and principal at the Parsons Center for Audio Studies.

Dr. Andrea Pejrolo earned a Ph.D. in Jazz Composition/Performance from New York University. He is currently Assistant Professor at Berklee College of Music and full-time faculty at the New England Institute of Art in Boston. He is also a bassist, composer, MIDI programmer, and author of a new book: Creative Sequencing Techniques for Music Production (Focal Press, U.K.). You can find further info at his web site.

Roger Talkov established DVD Labs after working for ten years as a recording engineer at the famed Hit Factory (his credits included Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Mariah Carey, and the Rolling Stones), and for four years as a product specialist with Sonic Solutions. DVD Labs provides a full range of multimedia encoding, authoring, mastering and production services.

Product Exhibits, noon until 7PM
As usual, the Expo will give you the year's best opportunity to see equipment, gather information, and seek recommendations and guidance. This year, more than 50 expert product specialists associated with more than 80 leading manufacturers -- more than ever -- will be there to show their products and technologies. They will be happy to discuss your needs and interests with you. As usual, the atmosphere will be friendly and unhurried. Since this year's Expo comes just weeks after the AES Convention in New York (Oct. 7-10), all Expo exhibitors have significant product news.

Exhibits will take place in the Riverside Room except for Digidesign (in the Bradford Room) and Genelec (in the Winthrop Room). The Riverside Room is next to the Lower Falls Room, where all the presentations will take place. The Bradford and Winthrop Rooms are right around the corner from Lower Falls, up the steps opposite the door to the restaurant.

Exhibitors will include these manufacturers:

Apple Computer (Logic, etc.)

Auralex

Benchmark Media Systems

Cakewalk (with Rain Recording)

Crowley and Tripp

Digidesign

Dolby Labs

DTS

Genelec

Glyph

GRM Tools

Izotope

La Cie

Mackie

Millennia Media

Muse Research

Neumann/Sennheiser

Parsons Center for Audio Studies

Performer Magazine

Rain Recording (with Cakewalk)

Redco

SADiE

Schoeps (Redding Audio)

Shure

Tannoy

TC Electronic

Troodon Technologies

Yamaha

...and more!

...and these manufacturers' representatives:

AudioPros, representing KRK, Stanton, Tascam, Ultimate, etc.

Bay Roads Marketing: Audio Accessories, Dynaudio, ETA, Hafler, HHB, Lucid Technology, Philips, Sony, t.c. electronic, etc.

Chris Ross Associates: Audix, ATI Audio, BBE, Blue Sky, Celestion, dB Technologies, Hosa, Sonic, Stewart Audio, etc.

The Henderson Company: Allen & Heath, Brauner, Denon, Drawmer, Earthworks, Eventide, Furman, Genelec, Marantz, QSC, Soundelux, Soundfield, XTA, Z Sys, etc.

On the Road Marketing: Alesis, Audio Technica, PreSonus, ProCo, Raxxess, etc.

Richard Dean Associates: Auralex, Aviom, Casio, Mackie, Monster, Omnimount, Shure, Tannoy, etc.

Soultech Marketing: Bias, URS, SE Electronic Microphones, Waves, etc.

Several hundred people attend the Expo each year. Some of their remarks about it: