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This weekend was absolutely beautiful in San Francisco.
Saturday I ventured over to the Audio Engineering Society Exhibition in Moscone Center... the annual gathering of audio and recording engineers and the various equipment and software companies. This is one way to find out what's happening in the industry.
Everything from microphones, speakers, cables, and books, to computer systems, state-of-the-art studio mixing panels, and portable equipment.
Always a bit overwhelming. Rows of stuff. One more glitzy than the next. My first AES show was in New York City, at some midtown hotel (The New Yorker?) in the late 1950's. I was still in high school. Compared to today, the equipment was quite primitive. But that's where I heard Edgard Varese's Ioniziation (the original Columbia vinyl record) for the first time. It was used to demonstrate speakers and amps. And that was the time when "High Fidelity" was the rage.
I like looking at equipment. Trying to figure out what it's used for. And I love recording studios. When I got out of college what I really wanted to be was a recording engineer. But to stay out of the draft, I became a computer programmer instead.
Back then, everything was with tape. And tubes. Editing was done with a razor blade. First thing you notice at these shows today is that everything is digital. Hard drives and flash memory replace tape reels. And editing is done with software, a mouse, and a graphical display.
The studio mixing panels are all digital. Every knob turn and slider movement is recorded as data, and playing back the data moves the knobs the same way you turned them. You can display and edit everything on the computer screens. The possibilities seem endless.
I even met some old geezer friends, electronic music composers Alden Jenks and Tony Gnazzo, checking out the gear. We agreed we were all overwhelmed. If only we had this kind of equipment 20 years ago. Digital has made just about everything you can think of in the audio domain possible. Creativity is being cleverer than the next guy. Some of the equipment and software demos were pretty slick. Certainly this seems to be an exciting time to be in the business. Not being in the business, I eventually tired of the whole affair and left for lunch at the Museum Cafe around the corner. You hear very little classical or avant garde music at these shows. Clearly the focus is on pop music and film sound production. The avant garde has always gotten along fine with duct tape and beeswax. All this new equipment strives to make it all sound perfect. There's software to even remove the pops, scratches, and hum from old recordings. Saw a lot of new stuff. Didn't hear anything new, however.
