AES mastering conference a success
Posted on: Tuesday 20th of November 2018
The world’s first mastering conference hosted by the new AES Mastering Group at University of Westminster, Regent St, London. Mastering engineers from as far afield as LA, New York, Australia, Sweden, France, joined the UK’s mastering community to discuss the future of our industry.
Positive debate was sparked from the start with Guenter Loibl (Rebeat) laying out the technical implementation of his laser cutting technology for vinyl reproduction. Sponsor technical papers covered background behind AVAA base trap technology, delivered by Roger Roschnik CEO of PSI. PrismSound’s new Verifile system to assist recorded file error checking was warmly received. Continuing the discussion around new formats, Bob Stuart creator of MQA discussed how he views the market place and parameters around take up based on the experiences of past technologies.
After plenty of debate over coffee breaks and lunch, David Bell from Whitemark delivered a considered keynote apprising the key aspects he considers in room design for mastering. There was a very engaging paper by Magdalena Piotrowska regarding comparative examination of automatic mastering systems and outcomes. Not surprisingly loudness played a key part in the companies’ customer satisfaction targeting.
The final keynote of the day was from Darcy Proper, in conversation with Prof. Robert Toulson. Darcy’s responses around implementation of surround were both eloquent and insightful. To round off the day they were joined on-stage by speakers from across the conference for a final plenary debate. This triggered some interesting discussions around delivery, ‘the consumer’ and expectations of ‘us’ as mastering engineers. How the role of ME is perceived and what MEs need to change around this was also considered.
Sunday kicked off with papers around remastering and how/can mastering effectively be taught in Higher Education. Mike Wells delivered an engaging appraisal of loudness in the marketplace and applications to address this with consumers. Mike Cave discussed his approach to stem mastering, and Crispin Herrod-Taylor (Crookwood) delivered a compelling exportation of the current and future market place for mastering engineers, sparking diverse conversations in the room.
The day was rounded up with Mandy Parnell being interviewed by Katie Tavini from a new generation of engineers. Mandy brought her ‘A’ game discussing value and the views on the landscape for the community which led Mandy to invite her mentor to the stage. Sean Davies who’s knowledge of vinyl cutting and the mastering process, legacy formats and their real history is invaluable. It was a truly insightful and historic meeting of generations bring the conference to the most positive close.
All in, the debate and communication between professionals has started the mastering group off on a positive trajectory, leaving everyone involved looking forward to the next meeting.
Over the coming weeks a series of videos from the keynotes will be release on www.aes.org
If you are interested in joining the debate: aesmasteringgroup.org
