 In
response to a request raised at the 8th AGM, a seminar was organized that
focused on the basics of engineering as it applies to audio professionals.
The attendance for the seminar, which included 3 speakers, was much larger than
expected. 49 AES members & guests gathered on a Tuesday night to
listen to Mr. Andrew D. Tierney, Mr. John V. Halse, and Mr.
Scott Wolf, discuss a list of topics that would cover many areas of
interest in engineering.
An 8-page technical handout was distributed to all of the
attendees as they shared refreshments in the reception area of 4MCA, the
largest independent television services supplier in SE Asia. Mr. Tierney and
Mr. Halse are senior engineers at 4MCA, handling the design and maintenance
of the facility, including transmission suites, tape-dubbing bays and
editing suites for both video and audio production.
Mr. Halse started the proceedings, covering
the critical areas of troubleshooting, proper connection procedures and
explained when it was appropriate to use word clock as reference and when it
was necessary to use video reference. Singapore is a regional hub for
satellite broadcasters such as MTV Asia, Discovery Channel, Disney Channel
and others, and opportunities for local production companies mean that
every studio in Singapore will at some point be delivering material for
television broadcast. Mr. Halse’s insight will prove invaluable for these
audio engineers.
Mr. Tierney spoke next and shared his experience in
systems design. Covering areas such as the Fletcher-Munson curve and what 0
VU translated into on different analog and digital formats, he spoke in a
manner that one AES member described as “highly technical, but very
understandable”. He concluded with his thoughts on console layouts and
shared a simple design trick to keep coffee cups from being left where they
might get knocked over and spill into sensitive
equipment. By including a gently sloping surface for the console
during the design phase, the likelihood of an expensive accident is
all but eliminated.
The final speaker for an evening conducted in a very informal environment was Mr. Wolf, a senior sound supervisor with Soundelux
in Los Angeles, USA; his many credits include films like Face/Off,
Replacement Killers and the recent Warner Bros film Eight Legged
Freaks. Mr. Wolf discussed the requirements of mixing for films and
television, including in-depth explanations of how Hollywood works when
producing soundtracks for worldwide release.
Questions from the floor were answered at length and the
friendly atmosphere created a open environment with questions that covered
all three areas discussed. The seminar concluded 3 hours after it started,
marking it as not only one of the best-attended evening seminars in the
Section's history, but also one of the longest.
The AES Singapore Section would like to thank 4MCA for use
of their studio as a venue for the seminar.
| Pictures |
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| Mr. Andrew Tierney
addresses the audience |
Mr. John Halse shares on
troubleshooting, word clock and other critical tenets of good
engineering |
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