The 137th International Audio Engineering Society (AES) Convention took place Oct 9-12 2014 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. AES returned to LA after nearly 12 years, and continued to bring together audio professionals from around the world.
The Keynote Address was from Alan Parsons, acclaimed musician, engineer, and record producer. Known widely for his contributions as an engineer on Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon,’ which won him his first (of many)GRAMMY® nomination, Alan continues to work as a producer and engineer in his own Santa Barbara studio.
I attended AES this year with only an Exhibition pass, so for the first time in my AES attendance history, I was not allowed to check out many of the lectures/presentations. The Exhibition Hall was full of excitement and several new products. There were even drop-in lectures at the ‘Knowledge Center’ which provided headphones for an attempt at a personal listening experience inside such a large hall. One of my favorite booths, as always, was Moog.
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the unveiling of the Moog modular synthesizer at the Audio Engineering Society’s (AES) New York convention, Moog recreated Keith Emerson’s Moog modular for AES Los Angeles 2014. “This new Emerson Moog Modular System (EMMS) utilizes original design material and parts to duplicate each facet of Mr. Emerson’s custom instrument down to the smallest detail. The modules in the EMMS are built exactly as the originals were in the Moog Factory in Trumansburg, NY in the 1960s: by hand-stuffing and hand-soldering components to circuit boards, and using traditional wiring methods.” Only five of these beautiful recreations will be built.
Since it only took a few hours to run through the Exhibitors, I had a lot of time to explore LA and all its historic audio wonders.
Dolby Theatre, the 180,000 square foot, 3,400 seat venue, was one of the many stops along the journey. Sadly, I was only able to gawk at the beauty from the outside. Another stop along the LA audio journey was the AES GRAMMY® Party at United Recording (previously known as Ocean Way Recording).
United Recording possesses one of ten Studio Consoles ever produced by Focusrite (only six of which remain in operation today). This custom, 72 input Focusrite console, located in Studio A, is notable for many famous recordings, including Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” Frank Sinatra’s “It Was A Very Good Year,” and Green Day’s “21st Century Breakdown.” As if Studio A wasn’t incredible enough, Studio B is home to a custom 68 input 8068/8088. Both studios used a pair of Genelec 1032A’s and a pair of the Yamaha NS-10’s for monitors.
A gallery of photos can be viewed and a full equipment list for all the legendary studio’s at OceanWay can be downloaded from their website.
