AES San Francisco Section

Audio Engineering Society Swap Meet and Mixer
2016-05-01 13:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Soundwave Studios Backlot, 2200 Wood Street, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Spend a Sunday afternoon buying, selling or browsing great audio gear and instruments with other Bay Area audio professionals, and come hang out at our AES networking patio plaza mixer, where you can mingle with other local audio and music industry professionals.
Hosted by the Audio Engineering Society, this is a volunteer-run, not-for-profit, community event for music and audio industry professionals. All transactions are 100% buyer to seller, with no commissions.
Sellers are signing up and starting to send in their lists of gear available for the May 1 Audio Swap Meet. We will update the list as more details are submitted and would be happy to host a wish list as well, if anyone is looking for specific gear. This is a partial list of what is available.
Tickets to attend:
$5 per person, you can click here to order in advance through Brown Paper Tickets.
At the door: $5 per person, as available
Info for Vendors:
If you have professional audio gear or musical instruments to sell:

Contact us with the form below to reserve a selling space. Give us a rough idea of what you plan to sell.
Once you’ve reserved a spot, we’ll send you the code to pay in advance through Brown Paper Tickets. Vendor space includes admission to the event.

AES Members $10
Non-AES Members $15
Stalls are approximately 6′ x 6′. If you have lots of gear or big things which need a larger space, let us know in advance and we’ll work to accommodate that if we can. Move-in at noon. The Soundwave Backlot has a loading ramp.
Locations on floor will be on a first arrival basis. We’ll be in a roofed area, with electricity available for testing gear.
Bring your own folding table, crates, tablecloths, seats or whatever you need to display.
Sellers are responsible for all of your own transactions and fund collection.

Real Industry LIVE! Silicon Valley
2016-04-14 19:00 - 21:30 | Audience, a Knowles Company, 331 Fairchild Drive, Mountain View, CA, 94043, United States
Two events in one: AES Members and audio professionals are invited to the media technology industry professional networking meetup, following Real Industry: LIVE! Silicon Valley. Be part of a group of 150+ industry leaders in the audio and video technology sphere. Network in a unique and low-key environment with other professionals of all levels – from Universal Audio, Jaunt VR, Dolby, Adobe, Sennheiser, Pandora, and more. You’ll also meet some of the freshest university talent ent​ering the industry.
Students and recent grads, leave your formal wear and resumes at home: The evening is all about diving deep into the media technology industry and having genuine one-on-ones with the people who lead it. No matter your field of study, if you want a top-tier career in media tech, this is the event to attend. Real Industry will provide the food and drinks.
The LIVE! mentor led workshops for students and early career professionals begins with 4:30pm registration.
The post-LIVE! networking party for students and professionals begins with registration at 7:00 pm.
Early bird registration until March 31!
Click here for more information and to register

SSL Broadcast Truck Event
2016-02-10 18:00 - 21:00 | Cogswell Polytechnical College, 191 Baypointe Parkway, San Jose, CA, 95134, United States
The Solid State Logic Broadcast truck will be open for tours at Cogswell College Wednesday Feb 10, 2016.
The tour will bring small groups through for a demo and brief discussion, between 6:00 and 9:00 pm. San Francisco Audio Engineering Society Members are invited to drop by for a tour. You’ll find the truck in the parking lot at Cogswell College’s new San Jose campus.
The SSL Broadcast Equipment Demonstration Vehicle is a custom designed mobile unit which replicates a fully operational on-air audio production suite. The vehicle is equipped with the SSL C10 HD compact digital audio console, a MORSE Router and SSL’s Broadcast I/O. The vehicle is also equipped with a Miranda multi-viewer, Genelec 5.1 audio monitoring, RTS Comms, Savant environmental control and an array of related on-air production equipment. The truck fully integrates and demonstrates all of these systems.

Listening Party at Coast Mastering
2016-02-09 19:00 - 21:30
Sign up for the San Francisco Audio Engineering Society’s February listening party. This is our first visit to Michael Romanowski and Piper Payne’s new location at the Zaentz Media Center in Berkeley. There are two rooms, stereo and surround sound, where we’ll listen and discuss your projects.
You should bring a stereo or surround recording to share: it can be something you’ve previously done or a work in progress. This is a good opportunity to get feedback if you want or just share your work with other audio engineers. By keeping the attendance small, we should have time to play a selection from all attendees and tour the new facility.
Schedule:
7:00pm Mixer with light refreshments
7:30pm Begin listening
Space is limited, so attendees must sign up in advance at http://aeslistening.brownpapertickets.com/
using the password for this event: Coastw29
If your plans should change, be sure to cancel your reservation, as space is limited.
Note: The entry to Coast Mastering is on the Parker Street side of the building.
Street Parking recommended, as the parking lot across the street gets locked at 9pm. Please do not park in the Fantasy Studios/Zaentz Media Center parking lot.

Designing for Ultra-Low Distortion and Noise in Analog Circuits, circa 2015
2015-11-16 19:00 - 21:00 | Cogswell Polytechnical College, 191 Baypointe Parkway, San Jose, CA, 95134, United States
Refreshments 7:00 pm
Presentation 7:30 pm
The talk will be a thought-provoking discussion of analog circuitry design with particular emphasis on practical, real-world solutions. The presentation will focus on objective, measurable imperfections that limit analog circuit performance.

Bruce Hofer, Chairman
Bruce Hofer is one of the founders of Audio Precision (AP) and its principal analog design engineer. He remains technically active as well as being the company’s Chairman. Bruce received his BSEE degree from Oregon State University in 1970. He joined Tektronix and participated in the design of Tek’s famous 7000-series oscilloscopes. In 1978 Bruce made a key career decision to respond to a growing personal interest in audio. He became the engineering manager and lead engineer of the Tek TM500 team that developed the world’s first fully automatic distortion analyzer, the AA501 introduced in 1980. It was here that he also met or hired the other key team members that would ultimately leave Tektronix in 1984 to launch AP. Bruce has received 13 patents and authored numerous articles and papers. In 1998 he was inducted into his alma mater’s “Engineering Hall of Fame” as one of its charter members. Bruce is also a Fellow member of the international Audio Engineering Society (AES) and Chairman of its local Portland chapter.
Cogswell College. room 158
Note: Cogswell College has relocated to San Jose

AES Open Studios Tours Mixer Sponsors and Raffle Prizes
2015-09-25 17:00 - 22:00 | 25th Street Recording, Oakland, CA, 94612
Thanks to 25th Street Recording, for hosting our mixer, and donating studio time for the winners of the mentoring sessions.

The Reel Directory will be at the mixer, with free copies of the latest Reel Directory
Northern California’s one stop production directory for 30+ years. All attendees can get a free listing in The Reel Directory. Go to www.ReelDirectory.com and click “Get Listed”. When you checkout, use the coupon code: AESMixer. This is a FREE lifetime membership to the Reel Directory.

Prize and Sponsors for the AES Open Studios Raffle
Must be present to win. The raffle will be held on September 25, 2015 during the mixer at 25th Street Recording. All raffle tickets are issued to registered participants of the open studios tour. Everyone should get one raffle ticket for each studio you tour, so the more studios you visit, the more chances to win.

Adobe – One year subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud
Creative Cloud gives you an amazing array of creative tools for producing multiple media projects, with Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Illustrator, Audition and more.
Audition is a powerful audio workstation designed to accelerate video production workflows and audio finishing . Mix, edit and create audio content with a comprehensive toolset, which includes multitrack, waveform and spectral display. The Creative Cloud drawing requires a separate entry card, available at the mixer.

Charlie Wilson
Mixing and Mastering

Give your song the professional polish with a thorough mixing and mastering. This is for one song mixed and mastered (up to 4 hours) by Charlie Wilson at Sonic Zen Records

Fantasy Studios
Classic Black Hoodie
With the iconic Fantasy Studios logo on front and meter on back; a great way to commemorate your day of AES East Bay studio tours.

Audio Engineering Associates – Swag
Get some cred from serious engineers when you’ve got your AEA swag, makers of fine ribbon mics and preamps, handcrafted in Pasadena.

Avid – Pro Tools 12, with iLok2
Pro Tools gives you every tool you need as a musician—from composing and recording to editing and mixing. This latest edition includes a collection of plugins to help you create the unique sounds you’re looking for. The box won’t be present at the event, so we’ll collect the winners contact info for redemption after the event.

Christopher Scott Cooper
Mentoring Session

This is for a couple hours of personalized one-on-one mentoring with Christopher Scott Cooper. The winner and Christopher will work out the mentoring topic before scheduling the session, which will be held at Christopher’s own Blue Seven Audio Studio in Fremont. His particular specialties in audio mentoring and teaching include live sound, studio tracking/recording, mixing and running a business in the toughest industry in the world.
Bio: If it involves sound, Chris has probably done it. A lifelong musician with over 30 years as an audio engineer/producer. Currently teaching live sound and studio production at Cogswell Technical College. His education in music composition, years of touring and performing, many hours sitting behind the desk both in studio and out on the road has provided a wealth of experience to pull from. In addition to Christopher’s live sound and recording work, he’s done audio for games, toys, tv and film, systems installs, and is known for his trouble shooting abilities.
Twelve years ago Christopher built Blue Seven Audio, a high end professional recording studio tucked into a modest space that is both intimate and comfortable, with full tracking and mixing capabilities. He continues to provide live sound services (FOH/monitor), consulting on studio design, acoustics and live sound system installations.

David Bowles
Mentoring Session

A one-on-one mentoring sessions with Grammy nominated engineer David Bowles. Whether you need help with your mixing and processing, or help with microphone choice and placement, this is a chance to spend a couple of hours get individualized help. Winner and David Bowles will communicate to determine the scope of the session, which can be held at 25th Street Recording or another location.
Bio: David Bowles, also known as “Golden Ears”, is a classical and acoustic music recording engineer and producer. He has recorded all styles of music ranging from today’s composers all the way back to the Medieval age. His recordings have won awards and acclamation for their vivid sound and committed performances. Also known for high resolution recordings in surround+height, he has taught at the New York University Tonmeister programme for several years and participated in AES panels on immersive sound technology and application. Other institutions Mr. Bowles has taught at include Indiana University, Peabody Conservatory, the Royal Danish Academy of Music and the Banff Centre. He is a member of the AES, SPARS and the NARAS Producers and Engineers Wing.

Dolby Systems – Kindle Fire HDX with Dolby Atmos
This Amazon Fire™ HDX 8.9 tablet provides Dolby Atmos sound on the go.

Mark Willsher
Mentoring Session

A one-on-one mentoring session with award-winning engineer Mark Willsher. With a broad background in audio engineering and teaching, Mark is flexible to spend a couple of hours mentoring a winner on whatever aspect of audio is wanted. This session can be held at 25th Street Recording, or Mark’s studio. Winner and Mark will communicate, to define the scope of the session prior to scheduling.
Bio: As a music editor Mark Willsher is known for his work with Howard Shore and Peter Jackson on the scores for The Two Towers, The Return of the King, and The Hobbit Trilogy. In addition to film and music production Mark is also a partner at Sound Innovations LLC – which develops cloud-based solutions for music production and archiving. He regularly to The Banff Centre as guest audio faculty, and was acting director of audio at the Centre for the summer of 2008. He is a voting member of the Audio Engineering Society (AES), The Recording Academy (NARAS), and the Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE).

Mercury Recording Equipment
Swag and Gear
G8 Sum-It 8:2 Module
The Mercury D Series Passive Summing Mixer is a simple to operate, flexible and convenient mixer to have on top of your work station or in your rack. It gives you many options that you can quickly and easily use during a recording session.

Meyer Sound
Meyer Black Logo Shirts and Jacket
Audio engineers can never have too many black t-shirts, but these Meyer shirts or jacket will set you apart from the other engineers.

Michael Romanowski
Mastering

Winner gets three songs (or two hours) of mastering from multi-Grammy nominated Michael Romanowski at his Coast Mastering studio in Berkeley. You can sit in on the session, or just send your songs off to be polished up.

THX – Logitech Speaker System Z623
A THX certified immersive sound speaker system with 400 watt peak power for your home theater, computer, or gaming console, with a 2.1 system of two satellite speakers and a subwoofer .

Universal Audio
Swag and an Apollo Twin

Designer and manufacturer of audio signal processing hardware and DSP software.
Apollo Twin is the first desktop interface to combine superior audio resolution with Realtime UAD Processing – letting you record through vintage EQs, compressors, reverbs, and guitar amp plug-ins, with breathtaking professional results. Legendary analog sound on your desktop.

Special Thanks to some of our other event sponsors

Lagunitas Brewing- Refreshments

Media Services

SVT is giving 15% off on their next service call to all registered attendees.

Open Studios and Mixer
2015-09-25 12:00 - 22:00 | 25th Street Recording, Oakland, CA, 94612
Get ready for our first-ever open studios, a one day opportunity to visit some of the top audio facilities in the Oakland and Berkeley area, followed by an audio-industry mixer at 25th Street Recording in Oakland. It’s like a pub crawl, open-house, and house party all rolled into one day. To attend and get the latest updates and info which you’ll need to participate, register here for a free ticket. Currently the registration is full. You can check at our ticket registration for openings in case of cancellations. Everybody needs to have a ticket with them to attend the tours and mixer.

Note: It’s very important that you register with the correct email address, because all of the details you need to participate will be emailed to registered participants.
12:00pm to 5:00pm: Open Studios
You can get an inside look at many of the recording and post-production studios in the East Bay.
AES San Francisco will provide a list of participating facilities, and you’ll be responsible for your own for transportation. There is no shuttle. If you’re car-challenged, many of the studios can be reached by BART, bus or bike.
Be sure to pick up a raffle ticket at each location for our raffle drawing during the mixer. The more studios you visit, the more chances you have to win.
5:00pm to 10:00pm Industry Mixer
We’ll gather at 25th Street Recording a social mixer with light refreshments and raffle prizes from our sponsors, including:
Adobe
AEA Ribbon Mics
Avid
Mercury Recording Equipment
Meyer Sound
THX
Universal Audio …with more being added. This mixer is for ticket-holding, registered participants of the studio tours.
A more detailed list of prizes has been added here.
Food: From 5:00-8:00 pm the Fist of Flour Pizza pizza truck will be parked in front, where you can purchase fresh handmade slices or pies, so head on over after the tours.
This is a free event for Bay Area audio professionals and audio students, but you must be registered to attend.
Visit these links to our participating studios to plot your tour:
25th Street Recording
Bayview/Airship Laboratories
Bird and Egg Recording Studios
El Cerrito Studio
Fantasy Studios
Infinite Studios
JingleTown Recording Studios
Megasonic Sound
New and Improved
Santo Studio
Sharkbite Studios
Skyline Studios
Sonic Zen
Soundwave Studios
This might be the complete list. Only registered ticket holders can attend these tours and the mixer event. All of the details needed to participate are being sent by email a couple of days before the event, to registered attendees.
Some of our event sponsors include:
Lagunitas Brewing
SVT Tech Services
The Reel Directory

Gain Sharing Automixing Moves From Secret Weapon to Mainstream
2014-09-25 19:00 - 21:00 | The Art Institute of California – San Francisco, 10UN Civic Center Plaza Room 410, San Francisco, CA, 94102, United States
Dan Dugan demonstrated a prototype adaptive threshold automatic microphone mixer at the New York AES convention in 1974. Subsequently he demonstrated a prototype of gain sharing automixing at the AES in Los Angeles. Forty years later, gain sharing automixing is offered as a feature by Avid, Calrec, Protec Audio, SSL, Studer, Yamaha, and Waves. Applications range from the ubiquitous panel discussions at conferences to presidential campaign debates and World Cup commentary. Dugan will outline his development process, explain the math, and demonstrate the performance of his popular algorithm.
Meeting Location:
The Art Institute of California – San Francisco 10UN Civic Center Plaza Room 410. San Francisco, CA. 94102
Check in with security and take the elevator to the 4th floor. Then go right until you reach the end of the hall.

Roger Linn - LinnStrument Demonstration
2014-05-27 19:30 - 22:00 | Cogswell Polytechnical College, 191 Baypointe Parkway, San Jose, CA, 95134, United States
Roger Linn will he is demonstrating his forthcoming LinnStrument, a new human interface for expressive music performance that captures the continuous pressure, X position and Y position of each touch, independently and polyphonically, thereby permitting each finger to simultaneously control a note’s loudness, pitch and timbre.
About the Speaker
Roger Linn is a creator of electronic music products, including the first sampled-sound drum machine, the 1979 LM-1 Drum Computer, as well as the LinnDrum drum machine, both used on countless hit recordings during the 1990s. He later designed the Akai MPC sampling drum machines, considered a major influence in hip hop music production, and the AdrenaLinn beat-synced filter effects processors for guitar.

Active Speakers: Design and Optimization Masterclass
2014-03-18 19:00 - 22:00 | Cogswell Polytechnical College, 191 Baypointe Parkway, San Jose, CA, 95134, United States
Prism Sound and Oxford Digital, in conjunction with Texas Instruments, CJS Labs and Audio EMC, invite you to join this audio engineering masterclass from the Cogswell Polytechnical College in Sunnyvale, CA.
It is a unique opportunity to hear from some of the most experienced engineers in the industry and to learn about their practical experiences in analogue and digital audio design. See the latest developments in technology, and profit from the many decades of collective experience of our panel of experts.
Join us in the room or via live or recorded web cast.
Speakers: Elliott Whyte, John Richards, Anthony Waldron, Christopher J. Struck, Lars Risbo
Agenda
Tues Mar 18, 2014 7-10pm (PST)
19:00 – 19:15
Elliott Whyte , Prism Sound
Audio measurement challenges – a summary and an example
19:25 – 19:55
Anthony Waldron, Audio EMC
EMC Considerations for Audio Products
20:00 – 20:30
Christopher J. Struck, CJS Labs
Electoacoustics and transducers
20:30 – 20:50
Networking & Refreshment Break
20:50 – 21:20
Lars Risbo, Texas Instruments
Developments in Amplifier technology
21:25 – 21:55
John Richards, Oxford Digital
Tuning the sound of consumer audio products

Sweet Blues: A Film About Michael Bloomfield
2014-02-25 19:30 - 22:00 | DreamWorks Theater, Redwood City, CA, United States
Speaker: Ted Leyhe, Cinematographer and Co-Producer of Sweet Blues will be present for a Q&A immediately following the film.
Refreshments and mixing at 7:00 PM in DreamWorks Cafeteria
No food or drink will be allowed in the theater.
RSVP Required: Password for Registration: mb214 RSVP >
About the Film:
The new documentary film Sweet Blues focuses on the musical career of legendary guitarist Michael Bloomfield. A musical prodigy, the Chicago native honed his unique guitar style by playing Southside clubs while in his teens, with B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and many others. Described by Bob Dylan as the, “Best guitar player I ever heard,” Bloomfield’s contributions to Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited launched Dylan’s transition from a folk music to electric rock and roll, and moved rock guitar to the forefront, influencing many of the best known guitar players today.
Bloomfield’s move to the bay area helped shape the late 60s San Francisco music scene. Included are interviews on Bloomfield from the guitaristís friends and fellow musicians, many who are local luminaries like Bill Graham, Carlos Santana, and Bob Weir. The film’s vintage concert footage and audio interviews of Bloomfield, are superbly mixed by Berkeley Sound Artists’ James LeBrecth, whose previous work includes Village Music: The Last of the Great Record Stores, which was shown at our December 2012 meeting.
The film was a 25 year project from director Bob Sarles, veteran of many rock documentaries, and premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival in October 2013. On dvd, it’s part of a new 4-disc Bloomfield box set, released by Sony in February 2014.
Running Time: 57 minutes

Issues around mastering: an open discussion
2014-02-04 19:30 - 21:30 | Coast Recorders, 1340 Mission St, San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
Refreshments at 7:00pm
RSVP: Required (space limited to a maximum of 25 people)
Tonight’s open discussion will concentrate on how the field of mastering has utilized existing analogue and evolving digital technologies. A short recap will show how the field of mastering developed from the age of the LP to the present. The facility as much outboard gear, both tube and solid-state; attendees can compare differences between unprocessed and processed audio.
In addition, we will touch on issues around high resolution recordings. First of all, what defines “high resolution”; secondly, evolving delivery formats; thirdly, how mastering those recordings differs from Red Book Audio format.
Michael Romanowski, Michael Romanowski Mastering
Michael Romanowski is a Grammy nominated Mastering engineer. He is the owner and chief mastering engineer at Michael Romanowski Mastering, based in San Francisco. The owner of the historic Coast Recorders and a founder and co-owner of The Tape Project — an audiophile label that only releases real time copies of original analog masters on 1/4″ and 1/2″ tape. Michael serves as President of the The Recording Academy San Francisco Chapter (NARAS), is chair of the Presidents Council and serves on the National Advisory Council to the Producers and Engineers Wing. He teaches at San Francisco State University, and is an active panelist at conferences such as TapeOp, AES, CES, SXSW, AES Mexico, VSAC and NAMM.
Michael also has begun a series called “Live at Coast” where artists record a live record in front of an audience in the studio. As a big supporter of the local music scene, he also has a podcast with KFOG DJ Renee Richardson called Renee and Romo, where they bring in local musicians to play and talk about their music. Michael has recorded live performances by Kenny Burrell, Branford Marsalis, Santana, Narada Michael Walden, Nels Cline, Todd Snider, Will Kimbrough, American Bach Soloist, The Oakland East Bay Symphony and many others. His extensive Mastering Credits include Third Eye Blind, Pat Monahan, Matt Nathanson, Too $hort, Dredge, The Dynamites, Alasdair Fraser, Jacqui Naylor and many others.
