learning: Expo09

The INVITATION to the recent 19th Annual

PARSONS AUDIO EXPO

Presentations by Expert Users

& Product Exhibits by Leading Manufacturers

Tuesday, November 3, Noon - 6:30PM
at the Dedham (MA) Holiday Inn Hotel & Conference Center
The PARSONS AUDIO EXPO has taken place every year since 1991. It is informative and enjoyable, a great opportunity for you to learn from expert users and product specialists; also to meet and interact with your peers from around New England and beyond. Hundreds of audio professionals -- 500+ of them, typically -- attend every year. Many arrive by noon and stay through the day. 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." (You can read further opinions in the box to the left.) We hope that you'll take advantage. If you have colleagues who would like to attend, please pass the word!

FREE, NO RSVP NEEDED. The Expo is free of charge, courtesy of the exhibitors and Parsons Audio. No reservations or RSVP's needed, but presentations can fill up early.

DIRECTIONS. The Dedham Holiday Inn & Conference Center is located on the western edge of Boston, just off I-95/Rte. 128 (Exit 15A/Rte. 1A). It is easily visible just north of the exit. About a hundred yards after you exit, at the first set of lights, make a U-turn. The hotel will then be on your right, behind Joe's American Bar & Grille. Turn right between Walgreen's and Joe's. There's plenty of free parking. (Directions are also available at www.holidayinn.com/bos-dedham.)

FOOD & DRINK. There's a restaurant next to the Holiday Inn called Bamboo ("fine Asian cuisine"), featuring a Sushi Bar and Lounge area; two more (Finz, and Joe's American Bar & Grill) across the parking lot; and more nearby, just down the road, including New England's biggest Whole Foods Market (much prepared food), Bugaboo Creek, Chili's, Friendly's, Dunkin Donuts, J.C. Hillary's, Papa Gino's, Pizzeria Uno, 50's Diner, TGI Friday's, Tahiti, Panera, Midway, Halfway Cafe, Uno Chicago Grill, Kikuyama Japanese Steak House, Vinny T's of Boston, Chipotle, Applebee's, and It's All Greek To Me.

SPONSORS. Performer Magazine is the Expo's media sponsor. Genelec is providing loudspeaker systems for the presentations.

EXPO INFO UPDATES. For the latest event information, watch this site (www.paudio.com), subscribe to Parsons' e-newsletters (send your e-dress to subscribe@paudio.com), or contact the Parsons Audio staff: support@paudio.com, or tel. 781/431-8708, x14 or x18.

COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD. If you have a brochure, business card, job notice, or similar that you'd like EXPO attendees to see, we'll have a bulletin board (with push pins) and table set up in the EXPO lobby for the purpose. When you arrive on Tuesday, just put out or pin up what you've brought. Nothing large, please!

PRESENTATIONS BY EXPERT USERS

Noon until 6:30PM, in the Terrace, Patio, and Midland (Digidesign) Rooms. The rooms are next to each other, down the hallway to the left of the Conference Center lobby, near the Holiday Inn Hotel lobby. Just follow the signs.

The listening/learning sessions are a highlight of the EXPO. They're given by some of the audio industry's leading professionals. The presenters are highly experienced, accomplished, passionate about audio, and they're excellent communicators.

Presentation times and content are subject to change. Watch for updates here, and in our e-mail newsletters (subscribe here), as the Expo approaches. You'll also find informal presentations at the product exhibits in the exhibit hall (the Westwood Room), customized to suit your interests.
IN THE TERRACE ROOM

The Terrace Room is down the hallway to the left of the Conference Center lobby, near the Holiday Inn Hotel lobby. Just follow the signs.

12PM - CREATING 'THE BEATLES: ROCK BAND', with PATRICK BALTHORP and IZZY MAXWELL of HARMONIX MUSIC SYSTEMS (Cambridge, MA). Also: THE ROCK BAND NETWORK, with Harmonix' CALEB EPPS and JEREMY BRIDGE. Harmonix is a videogame development company, based in Cambridge, known worldwide for its addictive music games and groundbreaking design innovation. The company originated both Guitar Hero (I & II) and Rock Band. Their crowning achievement is The Beatles: Rock Band, released to the world with great fanfare just a few weeks ago, on 9/9/09. Harmonix's Patrick Balthrop, audio lead for game, and Izzy Maxwell will report on creating the game, and they'll engage in Q&A. Bring your questions!

In addition, Harmonix' CALEB EPPS and JEREMY BRIDGE will report about The Rock Band Network (http://www.rockband.com/rock-band-network), a new initiative that allows users to put their own music into the game.

Patrick Balthrop is a Senior Sound Designer at Harmonix Music Systems. For the past 6 years, he has been dedicated to creating memorable interactive experiences in video games through sound design. His work has won multiple awards including Best Audio at GDC 2008, Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, and nine awards from the Game Audio Network Guild. Patrick was the Audio Lead for “The Beatles: Rock Band.” As Audio Lead, he was responsible for overseeing all audio aspects of the game. Before working as a Sound Designer in the Video Game Industry, Patrick held positions at PKA Management in Boston, where he worked on marketing and promotional projects for musical artists including Aerosmith. In his spare time, Patrick likes to produce electronic music and design surround sound installations.

Izzy Maxwell is a Senior Sound Designer at Harmonix Music Systems. In addition to contributing his technical and musical skills to the audio team at Harmonix, Izzy performs with several bands in and around Boston. A Boston native, he graduated from The New England Institute of Art with a degree in Audio Production.
Caleb S. Epps is Senior Sound Designer and Audio Lead for the Rock Band Network, Harmonix Music Systems. He joined Harmonix shortly after the release of Rock Band. He has been involved in the production / authoring of the majority of Rock Band's industry leading downloadable content catalogue including Rock Band 2 and The Beatles: Rock Band. Caleb holds a Masters Degree in Experimental Sound Practices from CalArts. Before joining Harmonix, he worked as a theatrical sound designer, film composer, and installation artist.

Jeremy Bridge is Assistant Audio Lead / The Rock Band Network, Harmonix Music Systems. He joined Harmonix Music Systems as intern during production of their very first game, Frequency. Through the years, Jeremy worked as a contractor on the Harmonix games, Amplitude and Karaoke Revolution. He joined Harmonix full time, in 2007, to work in QA on Phase and Rock Band. In October of that year, he became a Composer/Sound Designer and has worked on Rock Band 2, The Beatles: Rock Band and a staggering amount of downloadable content. Jeremy is a classically trained pianist, singer, and composer. He attended Berklee College of Music from 1998-2002, pursuing a BA in Music Synthesis, with a focus in sound design, production, and composition.

1PM - THE ART OF MIKING STRINGS, and more, with TOM BATES. Tom will draw upon his long experience -- including recent months with the Moscow String Quartet -- to talk about how to record ensembles and orchestras. He'll discuss mike choice and placement, EQ, etc. Of particular interest, with the Quartet, he recorded a careful comparison of a number of leading microphones. ("Here's with the Guarneri violin, and [click] here's with the Stradivarius.") He'll play and discuss that comparison at the Expo. He and the musicians agreed that one model rose above the rest. In addition, he will touch upon differences between recording orchestras and ensembles for music recording vs. for film scoring. In the course of his presentation, he will play music that he has recorded recently -- always a pleasure -- to illustrate what he's talking about. Finally, he will play parts of his latest project: an album of chants and mantras (Arab, Tibetan, Hindu, Christian, Hebrew, and Hindu) set to music, recorded and produced in his studio in Portugal.

Tom Bates records major artists in all genres, including rock, pop, jazz, classical, and opera. Eight of his projects have won Grammies. He has been audio director of several Emmy-winning TV shows, including "Saturday Night Live", "Live From Lincoln Center", and "Live From The Met"; and Academy Award-nominated movies. He has also mixed live performances for many artists. He was a co-founder of TimeLine, Inc. and has acted as a technical design consultant for leading American and Japanese equipment manufacturers. Tom also teaches courses at the Parsons Center for Audio Studies and at Tufts University.

2:30PM - GOLDEN EARS AT 40, with DAVID MOULTON. Forty years ago, David Moulton adapted music ear training techniques used in music conservatories to teach his first audio students. He has implemented versions of this in all of the colleges he has taught at, as well as for the National Public Radio Music Recording Workshops in the 1980s, and, for many years, for participants in his seminars at the Parsons Center for Audio Studies, which he co-founded. In 1993, he authored Golden Ears, a stand-alone CD course of audio ear training. It has become the industry standard, an essential part of the training of audio professionals worldwide, helping them acquire and develop the aural skills needed to quickly and accurately identify audio qualities by ear. At the Expo, Dave will take the audience through a number of Golden Ears drills, and will share some of what he has learned about how we hear, what it means, and how we can use that for fun and profit.

Dave Moulton is a 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 B&O BeoLab 5), author of the Golden Ears Ear-training CD Series, and a teacher and principal at the Parsons Center for Audio Studies (PCAS).

3:30PM - BLASTS (NOT LOUD!) FROM THE PAST with BOB LUDWIG of Gateway Mastering. Building upon a presentation that he gave recently at the Platinum Mastering session at AES in New York, the world-renowned mastering engineer will bring a number of the most famous recordings he has mastered, including albums by Bruce Springsteen (he recently acquired his notes from the Born in the USA sessions), Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, and others. He will play excerpts, and tell about those sessions -- lessons in mastering, by one of the best.

Bob Ludwig and his Gateway Mastering & DVD studios in Portland need little introduction. Year after year, a large proportion of Grammy-winning, Grammy-nominated, and gold and platinum recordings are mastered at Gateway. Bob has won an unprecedented number of TEC Awards (more than a dozen). 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, and records.
Bob Ludwig playing an example at last year's EXPO
4:30PM - OPEN HOUR
5:30PM - WAX CYLINDERS AND HARD DISKS with ALEX CASE. A recent recording session at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where Alex teaches, went live to multitrack, and live to wax. A visit from Gerald Fabris, curator at the Edison National Historic Site in New Jersey, inspired composing and recording a new piece of music. To record, the musicians gathered around the horn of the Edison Phonograph, also surrounded by close microphones and room microphones. Come give a listen to a comparison of the wax cylinder playback with 24 bit/ 88.2 kHz digital audio.

Alex U. Case is an Assistant Professor of Sound Recording Technology at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. With degrees in Mechanical Engineering, Music, and Acoustics, Professor Case has dedicated his professional life to the study of aesthetics, perception, signal processing, electro-acoustics and room acoustics for creating and enjoying recorded music. He is the author of Sound FX - Unlocking the Creative Potential of Recording Studio Effects, on Focal Press. He also served as the Workshop & Tutorials Chair at the recent AES Convention in New York.

IN THE PATIO ROOM

The Patio Room is down the hallway to the left of the Conference Center lobby, near the Holiday Inn Hotel lobby. Just follow the signs.

12PM - PRO TOOLS 8: PRODUCING MUSIC WITH THE AIR INSTRUMENTS, with DR. ANDREA PEJROLO. With the release of Pro Tools 8, a completely new and re-designed set of software synthesizers has been added for the joy of producers and composers. Join Andrea for an in-depth presentation on how to use these powerful tools for contemporary music production.Discover the advanced options and programming features that make these software synthesizers cutting edge solutions for any contemporary producer. Learn how to use some of the latest Digidesign virtual instruments: Transfuser, Boom retro drum machine, Vacuum tube-modeled synth, Xpand!2 multipurpose synth/sample workstation, Structure Free sample player and DB-33 tonewheel organ.

Andrea Pejrolo (www.apejrolo.com) is the Assistant Chair of the Contemporary Writing and Production department at Berklee College of Music in Boston. He is a composer, producer, audio engineer and bassist. He is the author of Creative Sequencing Techniques for Music Production (2005) and Acoustic and MIDI Orchestration for the Contemporary Composer (2007) and has written several articles for music magazines, including Sound On Sound, Bass World Magazine (USA), Muralann and Boheme Press (Canada), and Il Capitello Publisher (Italy). Andrea also created the iAcousticA Studio drum library, which is distributed by BandMateLoops.com (www.bandmateloops.com) and available in Kontakt 2, EXS-24, Giga Studio, and Reason NN-XT formats. His recent collaborations include The Lincoln Center, Don Sebesky, Cy Coleman, The Contemporary American Theater Festival, The United Nations, CNN, NBC, ABC, Burning Petals Music Production (U.K.), the Broadway Show Swing, Care2 Web site, The European Community, Le Conservatoire de Strasbourg (France), the Grand Canyon Music Festival, Tony Scott, Terre Roche (The Roches), Birdland, and The Bottom Line. Andrea did his undergraduate studies at Manhattan School of Music in New York City, and received his master's in composition from the University of Bristol (U.K.), and his Ph.D. in jazz composition/performance from New York University.

1PM - OFF THE BEATEN PATH: PLUG-INS YOU NEVER LEARNED ABOUT IN SCHOOL with MICHAEL BIERYLO. So many plug-ins, so little time! Unique and interesting tools have long been the hallmark of a producer’s toolkit. With developers ranging from high school hackers to seasoned DSP engineers pushing the limits of sound exploration, choices abound. This session will provide an informal look at a selection of perhaps lesser known, but forward-looking processing and synthesis plug-ins available for the Mac and PC.

Michael Bierylo is Associate Professor, Music Synthesis, at Berklee College of Music. He is also an accomplished composer, sound designer, and the long-time guitarist, programmer, and electronics wizard with Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, the innovative band whose music fuses rock, classical, minimalism, punk, and free-form sound.

2PM - DSD VS. PCM with John Newton and the staff from SOUND/MIRROR. Using examples from their surround productions of the BSO and other ensembles, John and his staff will describe and demonstrate their Pyramix- and Tango-based DSD recording and mastering process. One project: a 70-track DSD recording that they made of the 1812 Overture.

John Newton was a staff technician for Dolby Labs and Vanguard Records before founding Soundmirror in 1972. He headed the engineering department of the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood for fifteen seasons and was in charge of east coast operations of Soundstream, the pioneering digital recording company. A long professional relationship with Philips led to his serving as head of their recording department for two years. That relationship continues today as John helps develop and promote the Philips SACD format in America. John has provided design and manufacturing services for Studer and Lexicon, and builds custom recording equipment for numerous clients. He has conducted seminars at McGill University, the Berklee College of Music, the Audio Engineering Society, and the Boston Audio Society. In 2008 he won the Grammy for Best Engineered Classical Album.

3:30PM - LIVE SOUND PANEL DISCUSSION, a discussion of current topics, with a panel of experts: Tom Bates, Martin Dombey, Ben Emerson, Bobby Kuhl, Bob Russo, and Jon Sage. Topics are likely to include some of the following:

Technologies. Digital consoles/worksurfaces, signal processing, computer-driven acoustic calibration, networking, live use of MIDI, monitoring (in-ear and otherwise), integration of recording into live performance (often using Pro Tools), the hybrid analog/digital world;

How To.

Knowing your sources and selecting the proper microphone and utilizing correct placement to lessen excessive equalization, phase shift, frequency and temporal smear;

Live microphone techniques for grand pianos;

Proper polarity of both PA and backline reinforcement sources;

Proper temporal alignment of PA, foldback monitors and backline reinforcement sources to provide a cohesive wavefront to the audience;

People skills. "How do you approach your job? How do you deal with your clients, subordinates, bosses, stage hands, etc.? How leave people feeling that they've been treated well?";

Gigs. Where the panelists' gigs come from, how they prepare, what they do on the day/night of the gig, procedures they depend upon.

Bring your topics and questions, too.

Tom Bates records major artists in all genres, including rock, pop, jazz, classical, and opera. Eight of his projects have won Grammies. He has been audio director of several Emmy-winning TV shows, including "Saturday Night Live", "Live From Lincoln Center", and "Live From The Met"; and Academy Award-nominated movies. He has also mixed live performances for many artists. He was a co-founder of TimeLine, Inc. and has acted as a technical design consultant for leading American and Japanese equipment manufacturers. Tom also teaches courses at the Parsons Center for Audio Studies and at Tufts University.

Martin Dombey has been a Clinician and Manager for Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems since 1984. He has been professionally active with music recording since 1976, and has presented seminars and master classes at numerous colleges, universities, conferences, and other institutions. He is also proprietor of a Cleveland-based on-location audio production service.

Ben Emerson is Sound Design Instructor at the Boston University School of Theatre, and Audio Supervisor for the Huntington Theatre Co.

Bobby Kuhl owns and operates KJR Engineering, in Middletown, Connecticut. The firm initially provided live A1 FOH and monitor mixing, equipment leasing, rental and sales. It now also provides A2 technical stage support; RF microphone and in-ear monitor setup and application; sound equipment maintenance; live and studio tracking and mix-down; project management for events, installations and brick and mortar build-outs; and consultation, design, sales, and installation of live sound and recording systems.

Bob Russo is the owner of RRA Engineering (Cromwell, CT), which provides live sound reinforcement and recording services for Concerts, Theater, Corporate , Government, Radio & television, as well as technical event planning. Bob owned Studio One and Pine Brook Recording Studio, along with Seductive Trade Music Publishing, LTD. He was Operations Manager for Snow Sound Inc., and is currently Technical Director for Sound & Video at Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT).

Jon Sage is an Audio Engineer with Boston College Media Technology Services, where he is responsible for the operation of the Audio Services/Special Functions division. His work includes live sound support for academic, social and cultural, and athletic events on the BC Campus. Other responsibilities entail audio production support, consultation, and system design services. Jon is also adjunct faculty in the BC Communications department.

4:45-5:15PM - A REVIEW OF GENELEC'S STUDIO MONITOR TECHNOLOGY, including analog and digital, self-calibration, and more, with an expert from Genelec's U.S. headquarters in Natick. Genelec is providing monitors for the Expo's presentation rooms.

5:30PM - THE BASICS OF SOUND FOR FILM with JEFF LARGENT. Jeff will give an updated version of the excellent presentation he gave at last year's Expo. His presentation will include a history lesson, from "The Jazz Singer" to "Star Wars"; discussion of the evolution of the gear and techniques for sound for film work; and an explanation of the work flow, from production recording to post production, including within the post production sound team -- through Foley, ADR, SFX, and mixing.

Jeff Largent teaches at the Berklee College of Music. Among many other credits, he has been Sound Designer, Sound Supervisor, and Re-Mix Engineer for numerous feature films and dramatic television shows, including Beakman’s World, Braveheart, Gone Baby Gone, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.