Chicago - Wes Dooley at AES this Tuesday, June 21

[Archmart]

Hey Hey!

Serving as Vice Chair of the Chicago AES Chapter, I've booked Wes to give a bit of a talk this Tuesday, June 21. Here's the meeting notice. Hope to see you there...

- Archmart


AES Chicago Section Meeting Notice (June 21, 2011)

Please forward this notice to interested friends and colleagues. Members and nonmembers are welcome.

Not a member of the AES? For information about joining, go to http://www.aes.org/info/join.cfm.

The next meeting of the Chicago Section of the Audio Engineering Society will be held at 7:30pm on Tuesday, June 21st, 2011, at Shure Incorporated in Niles. Members and non-members are welcome.

TOPIC: Ribbon Microphones: Then and Now

PRESENTER: Wes Dooley

DATE: Tuesday, June, 21, 2011

TIME: 7:30pm; dinner (optional) at 6:30pm

LOCATION:

Shure Incorporated, 5800 W. Touhy Ave, Niles, IL 60714

DIRECTIONS:

When arriving by car, approach from the east by heading west on Touhy, then turn right into the parking lot just east of the Shure building, which is on the corner of Touhy and Lehigh. DO NOT turn left into parking lot from Touhy heading east, as this is illegal and you may get a traffic ticket. Enter at the employee entrance on the east side of the building and register at the guard desk. A valid driver's license must be presented at the guard desk when registering.

DINNER:

Dinner (optional but please RSVP) will begin at 6:30pm.

Dinner reservation required - contact Treasurer Teri Grossheim at tgrosshe@depaul.edu by Monday, June 20th.

Pizza will be provided, please let Teri know if you have a preference for no-cheese and/or vegetarian.

Price is $10 for non-members and $8 for members and students.

ABOUT THE PRESENTATION:

Gerlach and Schottky developed the first commercial ribbon microphone design for Siemens in the 1920s. It was an omni-directional design. GE and RCA's major breakthrough came in realizing the ribbon design as a native figure-eight microphone. It is hard to overstate what a game changer the 1932 RCA 44 was. It provided the audio engineer a tremendous step up in audio quality and positioning flexibility.

Ribbon mics became the dominant high performance mics in the 1930s. For live music, broadcast, cinema sound and disc recording, they were the gold standard. The best of them blended high reliability and performance and a well controlled polar pattern, and many of them are still in use today. Abbey Road Studios has a pair of ribbon mics built by Alan Downer Blumlein in 1935. They have their original ribbons and are in regular use recording orchestras in Studio A.

Why, in the age of magnetic tape recording, were they eclipsed by condenser mics?

Why are ribbon mics today enjoying a renaissance?

Why are companies such as Audio-Technica, Beyer, Rode and Shure developing new ribbon mic designs?

Come join us on Tuesday night as we explore ribbon microphones, then and now, with Wes Dooley from Audio Engineering Associates

ABOUT THIS MONTH?S SPEAKER:

Wes Dooley's longtime passion for audio has infused his company, Audio Engineering Associates (AEA), with a well balanced blend of creativity and technical expertise for forty years. At the core of AEA is a genuine interest in the art and science of audio.

From areas as diverse as forensic audio and microphone design, Wes's passion for audio has led him all over the world, from recording experiences in Europe, Africa, and New Zealand, to the courtrooms of Los Angeles as a forensic audio and video expert witness. Such experiences have led Wes to design products which help resolve problems commonly encountered by recording engineers. His portable recording tools including, multi-channel microphone arrays, MS stereo processors, stereo phase displays and very tall microphone stands, have all made on-site recording far more feasible.

Despite his contributions to on-location recording, Wes is best known for his pursuit of excellence in ribbon microphone technology. After two decades of representing and servicing the BBC 4038 in the United States, he began to experiment with his own ribbon microphones. During the last decade Wes became aware of the increasing scarcity of R44's and other ribbon microphones.

In 1998, responding to this need, Wes re-introduced the 44 much to the thrill of many in the recording industry. Les Paul told Wes that AEA's R44 is his favorite microphone and engineer/producers such as Bruce Swedien, Kevin Bacon, and Shawn Murphy routinely use AEA's R44. Even without such critical acclaim the numbers speak for themselves. Over half of the movies scored in Los Angeles have a 44 somewhere on the scoring stage.

Building off of his successful reintroduction of the R44, in 2002 Wes designed and began producing an original ribbon mic, the AEA R84. His groundbreaking work with ribbon microphones helped him to secure the Audio Engineering Society (AES) Silver Medal Award in the fall of 2003. This award, established by the AES in 1971, in honor of audio pioneers Alexander Graham Bell, Emile Berliner, and Thomas A. Edison, is given in recognition of outstanding development or achievement in the field of audio engineering.

Wes has also co-authored two AES Journal articles about stereo microphone techniques, chaired workshops on mic techniques and mixing strategies for compatible multiple releases for cinema, broadcast and home video, and has presented section meetings on stereo techniques and forensic audio. He is involved with AES standards work and currently serves on the SC-03-12 Working Group on Forensic Audio and SC-04-04 Working Group on Microphone Measurement and Characterization.

CHICAGO SECTION LinkedIn SITE:

A LinkedIn group has been created for the AES Chicago Section. If you are interested in joining this group, search groups on linkedin.com for ?Chicago AES?.