Events

New Sessions & Sponsors Announced For AES Audio Archiving, Preservation & Restoration Conference

Audio professionals will present their latest archiving technologies and techniques at the U.S. Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, VA beginning this coming June 1.
ProSoundWeb

Organizers of the upcoming AES 2023 Audio Archiving, Preservation and Restoration Conference (AAP&R), taking place this June 1 through 3 at the U.S. Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, VA, have released the full technical program.

This year’s conference offers new technological innovations along with updates in practice, procedure and archival philosophies since 2018’s sold-out event, also held in Culpeper. The program is providing more than 45 workshops, paper presentations, onsite facilities tours and a keynote by Leslie Ann Jones of Skywalker Sound as well as networking and social opportunities.

Supporting the development and promotion of best practice methods and standards for preserving the world’s audio heritage are Platinum Sponsor Iron Mountain Entertainment Services (IMES); Gold Sponsors 360 Reality Audio and Planet Venus Audio Technologies; Silver Sponsor the Recording Academy Producers & Engineers Wing; Bronze Sponsors Prism Sound, NOA and CEDAR Audio; and Break Sponsors Merging Technologies and Independent Audio.

The conference will begin on Thursday, June 1 with a tour of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center facility, with stops to interact with professionals in the areas of recorded sound and moving image, the nitrate film vault, recorded sound vault, the data center, and the audio, video and film preservation laboratories. The conference will then turn to the featured keynote by Leslie Ann Jones, also co-chair of the Recording Academy P&E Wing, titled “Why It Matters: Reflections on Creating, Preserving and Valuing Music.”

Over the following three days an international slate of practitioners and pioneers in the industry provide sessions addressing technological and practical questions, including “Preserving Loudness Parameters,” “Democratizing Audio Preservation When Under-Resourced,” “Written in Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos,” and local NPR radio station engineering Sspervisor Joyce Lieberman with the session “This is Fresh Air.” The panel, “What Amount of Audio Restoration is the Right Amount?” presents guests Bryan Hoffa (audio preservation specialist, Library of Congress), Jessica Thompson (mastering & restoration engineer, JTA), and Nadja Wallaszkovits (professor, State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart), with CEDAR Audio managing director Gordon Reid moderating.

An new archiving and preservation technology will be introduced in the workshop “Automated Media Image Capture System at Iron Mountain Entertainment Services,” with IMES’s Robert Koszela, Alex Tomlin and Meg Travis along with Nick Allen, Universal Music Group vice president of Asset & Archive Management.

A strong advocates for audio archiving, preservation and restoration – The Recording Academy Producers and Engineers Wing – will host a workshop looking into its latest deliverables and archival recommendations featuring engineers/producers Jeff Balding, George Massenburg, Michael Romanowski and Maureen Droney, vice president of the Recording Academy Producers & Engineers Wing. Preservation issues will be discussed further in sessions including “Why Are Standards Important for Archiving Multi-track and Multi-channel Audio?” and “Best Practices for the Creation and Archiving of Immersive Audio Recordings”.

Additional sessions and events will offer exclusive opportunities for attendees to hear some of the library’s rare and historic recordings, with analysis of its archiving, restoration and preservation lineage. Attendees can also register to take several guided Audio Lab tours covering areas of interest such as Disc Preservation, Cylinder Preservation, Open Reel/Workflow, Cassette Playback, Parallel Transfers, Multi-track and Immersive, IRENE and Optical Capture of Audio Discs, Historical Audio Equipment and the American Folklife Center Archive.

Rounding out the three-day program will be a buffet-style open-grill barbecue dinner where attendees can socialize and enjoy live music in the bucolic farm setting of the Mountain Run Winery, located just five minutes from downtown Culpeper.

Registration, including discounts for AES Members and Student Members, along with the complete program and session information is available here.

AES

Events Top Stories