Up your Output | UP North! at University of York | AES Student weekend

 

Two weekends ago I attended Up Your Output!.

Two days of conferences dedicated to Audio Engineering Society student members organised at the University of York. It was such an amazing experience!
Meeting audio students from other cities and countries, talking about audio from so many different fields, assisting lectures, visiting sponsor rooms (such as SSL, PMC, Calrec), attending workshops from professionals and lecturers from other universities and participating to a mixing competition, the coolest thing on earth! It’s incredible how much we can all learn in two days by staying in a group of pro-active and enthusiast people.

Between lectures, where topics were “how to find a job”, “build an Analog Drum Kit with Pure Data” or “Video Verite, producing a music video using the recordings made while shooting it” have been presented. Two workshops, also, took place. One with mastering-guru Mandy Parnell who explained a what-to-not-do when preparing a mix and submitting it for mastering and her point of view of actual loudness levels. The other one from SAE lecturer Nikolay Georgiev, who explained why the acoustics of the room are so important and how they are part of the actual performance, and how to record and mix drums with two (or ONE mic) using multi-band routing, very exciting! A last minute room was set up for “Ambisonics Demo” where Matt Saunders played some Ambi recordings on an Ambisonics system, probably the most realistic way of listening to audio in surround (you can hear sounds coming from the top of your head!!).

A Mixing Competition was organised (YESSS!), the goal was to do a rough mix of a track in 5 minute using an SSL XL and some outboard gear. Imagine to be at the end of the recording session and you have to show to the band what you have recorded with them so far. Seeing different approaches to the mix was interesting and inspiring! Good thing is that I arrived 3rd and I brought back home the Ivory’s Acustica Audio plug in for free, YEYYY! And there were other prizes provided by iZotope, Acustica Audio, SSL, etc.

For the last day of the weekend we all went for a tour of the Calrec’s facilities, one of the most important manufacturers of broadcasting consoles today. Calrec has been developing audio devices for almost five decades. One of the most important products was the Sound Field microphone at the end of the 70s, the first single source surround mic based on Michael Gerzon’s Ambisonics research; as Ambisonics is part of my studies right now, listening to the story from the place where it has been developed was very exciting!

And I would say thanks to Simon Claudius and all the volunteers and lecturers that helped to make this event happens!

Up your Output! link