Events

Michael Eisenberg presents Touring Audio Systems: Design and Application

The discussion is about what is involved with system design and implementation for the national tour of musical theatre production Pippin, including building the system from the ground up, signal flow, microphone choice and placement, power distribution and grounding issues. There is a matinee and evening performance of Pippin that day if you would like to see and hear the sound system during the performance. (more…)

David Clark presents Perceptual Transfer Function (PTF) Measurement System

The goal of PTF is nothing less than a full set of objective measurements of an audio system that correlate with perceived performance. Rather than attempting to map conventional measurements to perception, PTF uses all-new stimulus, reception and analysis techniques. PTF is organized into test modules that are selected from a Virtual Instrument (VI) computer interface. Each module tests an aspect of audio performance that corresponds to human assessment: Tonal Balance, Imaging, Maximum Loudness and Distortion. Each stimulus signal is generated by the VI and converted to an electrical signal by the hardware. The signal is sent to the system under test and received by the PTF microphone array. (more…)

Noise-Induced Hearing Loss presented by Dr. Lidia Lee

Dr. Lidia Lee is an Associate professor at Eastern Michigan University. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education at Eastern Michigan University where she is involved in teaching and research. In addition to her academic duties Dr. Lee is also a clinical audiologist in the Speech and Hearing Clinic. Having accumulated experience in hearing aid fitting, evaluation, and research of over 15 years, she has tested many college students who failed a hearing screening and who were told about their hearing loss for the first time. Dr. Lee is a strong advocate for hearing conservation and has given lectures on hearing conservation to the community, the AES Detroit chapter and to many Ypsilanti Elementary first graders in the last four semesters – “preaching” about hearing conservation.

Besides teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in Audiology, her research interests are in the areas of psycho-acoustics and sound quality. Dr. Lee has done extensive research into issues of sound quality for hearing aids and audio systems.

Dr. Lee earned her doctorate degree at Indiana University – Bloomington, and her master degree at Purdue University – West Lafayette in Audiology, with an undergraduate background in Experimental Psychology.

Jeff Vautin: Summer Internship Experience with Shure

Jeff Vautin is currently a fourth-year student at the University of Michigan, studying Sound Engineering and Electrical Engineering. He recently completed an internship with Shure, Inc. working in their analog circuitry group.

In addition to hearing Jeff talk about his internship experience, representatives from Shure were here to speak with students about upcoming internships and jobs with Shure and answer questions about applying to and working for the company. Shure also hosted a pizza party after the talk.

Dave Greenspan: Field Recording

The University of Michigan’s own Audio Resource Coordinator David Greenspan was the guest lecturer at this month’s student section meeting. Dave’s focus was on the recording of live sound in different acoustical environments. Sound reinforcement was not covered, the focus being strictly on the recording process for live sound performances. Much of the discussion was on pre-production: site surveying, interfacing with the locations equipment, setting equipment lists (mics, cables, various connectors), and other necessary on-location gear that is needed. Dave could not stress enough the importance of compiling a complete equipment list and testing everything before leaving for a gig. (more…)

Nika Aldrich: Exploring Bit Depth

Following his talk in December on sample rate, Nika explores the other fundamental aspect of digital audio: Bit Depth. This talk will explore the myths and fallacies related to various aspects of bit depth in digital audio, including:

Whether 24 bits is enough for recording; whether we need greater than 16 bits for delivery; Floating point vs. Fixed point processing; When, why and how to apply dither; Noise-shaping; the correlation between bit depth and dynamic range; and alas, the benefits of DSD. (more…)

Todd Whitelock

In his talk, Todd Whitelock discussed selected projects he has worked on and include details about session set-up and organization. He played examples of his work and describe the recording, editing, and mixing process.

After completing a music degree at Berklee College of Music, Todd Whitelock started his career in music recording with an internship and eventual full-time position at Power Station Studio in New York City. After a few years he moved to Sony Classical Productions and is currently a Senior Recording Engineer at Sony Music Studios. He has worked with some of the finest musicians in the world including Yo-Yo Ma, Wynton Marsalis, the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, James Taylor, Allison Krauss, Bobby McFerrin, Mark O’Connor, and Edgar Meyer. Additionally he has also done a significant amount of remastering work and recording of music for films and TV. Mr. Whitelock is the recipient of two Grammy Awards: Best Engineered Album, Classical for Yo-Yo Ma’s Obrigado Brazil (2004) and Best Broadway Cast Album for Gypsy (2004).