The 137th Audio Engineering Society Convention, held October 9 through October 12 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, was the place to be if you have anything to do with the audio industry. The exhibit floor, panels and technical sessions were packed all four days. With 15,403 registered attendees and 307 exhibitors/sponsors, AES137 far surpassed any AES Convention on the west coast in the last 10 years or more. At show close, the AES reported a 28-percent increase in registration since the last time the convention was on the West Coast (133rd AES Convention in San Francisco in 2012).
Convention Committee Co-Chairs Valerie Tyler and Michael MacDonald and their team created one of the most ambitious and comprehensive schedules of workshops, panels and technical programs in AES Convention history. The opening keynote address was delivered by engineer, musician and record producer Alan Parsons, and the Richard C. Heyser Memorial Lecture was presented by game audio director and composer Marty O’Donnell. In addition, there was a keynote by Neil Portnow, President/CEO, The Recording Academy, The Grammy Foundation and MusiCares; the popular Project Studio Expo and Live Sound Expo; the High Resolution Audio Program in association with DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group; the Grammy SoundTables event “Songs That Move The Needle: Producers on Producing,” moderated by Ed Cherney and featuring Alex da Kid, Don Was, Niko Bolas, No I.D. and Michael Brauer; “DTV Audio Group Forum: The Implications of Streamed Content Delivery on the Evolution of Television”; “Chicks in the Mix,” moderated by producer and mixer Chris Lord-Alge and bringing together well-known female industry professionals to discuss their personal experience; “Sound Is the Conduit to the Artist Heart,” presented by producer, engineer and technologist Jack Joseph Puig; and more.
“I cannot put into words how thrilled I am with the 137th AES Convention,” stated Bob Moses, Executive Director of the AES. “Our organizing committee really outdid themselves, with over 350 presentations from an astounding 731 leading researchers and practitioners in the field, many of them standing-room-only. We have some serious momentum built from recent conventions in New York and Berlin, and we are going to keep it going for the coming conventions in Warsaw in May and then back to New York next October. You could say that our conventions, and the AES organization, have a renewed energy, and we couldn’t be happier.”