Audio Engineering Society Latin America

A closing comment on “New Concepts in Audio”

By Francisco Miranda, Chair Mexico Section and Andrés Mayo, VP AES Latin America

Last April 27th, 28th and 29th we hosted the 2008 AES Latin American Conference “New Concepts in Audio” at the World Trade Center in Mexico City. The Conference proposed a unique technical program that opened with the eagerly awaited presentation “The 40th Anniversary of Sgt. Pepper” by Geoff Emerick and Peter Filleul. This presentation proved Latin America’s living passion for the music of The Beatles as we had a room full of audio and music enthusiasts that demonstrated their respect and thankfulness for Mr. Emerick’s work.

Following this special event, we had a total of 17 presentations by the following professionals, here mentioned in chronological order:

Chris Lyons and Gabriel Benitez: How Spectrum Changes Will Affect Wireless Microphones
Stephan Peus: The Basic Technique of a Digital Microphone. Future Direction of Analog and Digital Microphones
Andrés Mayo: The Growing Importance of Mastering in the Home Studio Era
Robert Scovill: Live Sound Automation
Ed Cherney: The Challenging Environment of Our Business Today
John McMahon: A New Approach to Venue Acoustics
Horacio Malvicino: The Project Studio
Salvador Castañeda: The Cancellation Universe: A Practical Approach
Enrique Pérez González: Digital Desks Automation
Glenn Lorbecki and the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences: Music is Free, Right?
Bobby Lombardi: Plug-Ins Design for Professional Audio
Craig Brock: The Myth of the Perfect Recording
John Storyk: An Acoustic Design Master Class
Maria Cristina García, Francisco Serrano and Mark Giancola: Auditorio Nacional, Mexico’s Great Stage
John Meyer: The Future of Cinema Sound
Moderatto: Production From Stage to Studio

And our closing conference was left to Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey with their presentation:
“My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles”.

Every conference was well attended and highly appreciated by the audience. We had simultaneous translation into Spanish for 200 people, courtesy of Sennheiser Mexico and also a full audio and video projection system courtesy of Erick Perafan’s company Servicios de Audio y Representación de Artistas “SARA”.

On-site registration was easy and well organized as we opened a pre-registration that helped us to prepare in advance the badges. AES members that attended at least 14 presentations were eligible to take part in a raffle that allowed them to take home very nice and valuable presents from Tascam, Shure, Sennheiser, Meyer Sound, Digidesign, Musitech, Beyer, Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (LARAS) and AES T-shirts and caps.
This Conference program could not have been possible without the invaluable help and support of the following companies, in alphabetical order: Digidesign, L´Acoustics, Meyer Sound, Sennheiser-Neumann, Shure, Tascam and Vari International.

We would like to extend a very special recognition to Jorge Urbano, CEO of Musi:Tech who invited us to be part of the Sound:Check Xpo 2008, giving us everything we needed, from physical space to free advertising and from his own time and dedication to his staff expertise in events organization.

The AES Mexico Section is most grateful for the opportunity given to host this magnificent event for the entire Latin American region. We give our most encouraging prospects and best wishes to the upcoming Latin American Conference, to be held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on May 17th through May 20th, 2009.

Best of lucks and we hope to see you there!