DAW vs DAW

This AES San Francisco Audio Education Series live+streaming event will put five of the most popular DAWs head-to-head in a friendly competition! Five audio industry professionals will demonstrate functions from basic to advanced as they execute various challenges in real time in their respective DAWs. You will see the screens of Logic, Pro Tools, Ableton Live, Cubase, and Studio One. While beginners will get a good idea about how to efficiently approach simple audio tasks in the various programs, committed users of any DAW will find out about the truths and myths of the “competition” – and maybe even leave compelled to switch over to a new favorite.

This is a livestreamed event.

Speaker Bios

Phil Hawkins (panelist: Studio One)
Phil is an accomplished audio engineer and has worked on recordings by Ray Obiedo, David K. Mathews, Tuck and Patti, Pete Escovedo, Disney Internet Group and many others. Phil has also done complete video productions for artist EPKs, documentary films and product videos for companies such as Lauten Audio, Hudson Music and the United States Air Force. He is a full-time faculty member at Mission College where he has taught Music Production and Audio Engineering courses since 2004.

Matt Blostein (panelist: Cubase)
Matt Blostein is currently the Director of Music Technology and Recording Arts at Cabrillo College near Santa Cruz, CA. He has also taught graduate and undergraduate Music Technology courses at Five Towns College, University of Valley Forge, and Manhattan School of Music. He has an undergraduate degree in Jazz Performance from the Manhattan School of Music, a graduate degree in Music Technology from the University of Valley Forge, studied orchestration at the Mannes School of Music, film scoring with Rick Baitz, and game audio design at Berklee College of Music.

Matt has composed and produced music for television, film, commercials, games, and production music libraries, with his music being featured on over 500 TV shows, including scoring original music for two Nickelodeon series and a theme for a major network news program. Previous to his work composing and producing music for media, Matt spent many years touring as a saxophonist with bands such as Maynard Ferguson, The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, and the Blostein / Sperrazza Quartet, performing in venues such as the Montreux Jazz Fest, North Sea Jazz Fest, Thailand Cultural Center, Kennedy Center, Ravinia Center and many more.

John “JD” David (panelist: Ableton Live)
Early interest in sound and audio lead to interdisciplinary physics, music, CS and EE studies. JD completed a Bachelor’s degree in Physic and Music from Bates College in Lewiston Maine. Inspired by their special course in loudspeaker design, he began working in industry as a loudspeaker System Engineer with a/d/s/-Apogee Acoustics in 1997, then moved to Boston Acoustics in 1998 to serve first as Transducer Engineer for three years. This led to a role there as Systems Engineer and Project Manager at BA on their new Integrated Products team.  In 2005, attracted by the lure of San Francisco and the Bay Area, JD commenced work as an Applications Engineer at Dolby Labs, In 2007, he took over as Manager of DSP Implementation application team, and led that team for four years, focused on Dolby audio codec and post-processing algorithm implementation in SoC’s, DSP’s, Android/iOS and PC/macOS software libraries. In 2012, JD transitioned into Product Management at Dolby, leading development of studio software products used for Dolby Atmos content creation. Since 2017 he has consulted to the industry and private individuals while working on his own musical productions. Clients have included software plugin companies, recording studio professionals, corporate clients designing mixed-use presentation and recording facilities and homeowners adopting Dolby Atmos. He has been using Ableton Live for over 14 years, both for his own work and for recording and producing music for local vocalists. Under the name Palindrome, he crafts unique experimental breakbeat, downtempo and ambient musical works. He also enjoys occasional work as a DJ, and a live-sound FOH engineer for concerts and special events, and offers PA rental and on-site systems engineering for such events too.  His hobbies include guitar, hand percussion, outdoor sports and travel. JD has been a full member of the Audio Engineering Society for over 15 years, and the IEEE for 10 years.

Erik Foreman (panelist: Pro Tools)
Erik Foreman is an award-winning sound designer, re-recording mixer and musician working in the post-production industry since 1994. He grew up as an audiophile; passionate about the sound, the gear and the people that made great recordings.  He worked at Skywalker Sound as an editor and re-recording mixer from 1999 – 2016 covering the film, tv and game industries. He is now at Dolby Labs where he serves as an in-house expert on their technologies helping to develop, teach, and showcase all things Dolby. He has been an active member of AES since 2016.

Austin Rowe (panelist: Logic Pro X)
Austin’s affinity for music and sound started at a young age playing and recording in punk bands and working as a EDM producer. He then founded linear and interactive post-production audio company, Cave Bat, in 2017 and has been working there as supervising sound editor, sound designer, and music composer since. Cave Bat’s work can be heard in Sundance Film Festival acclaimed films, HBO Max and Hulu documentaries, Billabong and Aston Martin advertisements, Amazon Music marketing materials, and indie video games.

Always looking to get involved in the cutting edge of sound, lately he’s been fascinated in pushing the boundaries of interactive audio and finding new ways to capture players’ imaginations sonically. When he isn’t caught up cooking new taco recipes, playing guitar, or making lo-fi hip hop for fun, Austin enjoys long walks on a moonlit beach and brushing up on Star Wars trivia.

Julius Dobos (moderator: Pro Tools, Digital Performer, Ableton Live)
Julius Dobos is an award-winning, platinum-album electronic music and film composer, mix engineer and sound synthesist, best known for his eleven album releases and film scores. His scoring and production credits include Dragon Ball Z, NCIS, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Paul Wall, Erykah Badu and more. Releasing under his pseudonym, forgotten future, he builds musical concepts and creates epic-ambient electronic music with a distinct character that heavily relies on musical sound design and performance. Dobos’ digital installations and live performances, such as the 2019 Human Intelligence Control show, have featured audio experiences that promote human interaction and organic expression in electronic music. With a composition background, EE and MA degrees, Dobos has also engineered, mastered records in his Studio CS for over two decades. He is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Silicon Valley, where he teaches electronic music, film scoring, sound design, sound synthesis and studio production, and directs audio for media projects. He currently serves as Vice Chair of AES San Francisco, is the founder of the AI-Free Organization, and enjoys beta-testing audio tools, tweaking his arsenal of electronic instruments and speaking on production culture, synthesis and education reform topics.