Virtual Vienna AES Event (Audio Engineering Society)

The 148th International AES Congress is now “Virtual Vienna”. With this, the Audio Engineering Society has reacted quickly to the Corona crisis. This annual event usually takes place in the first half of the year all over Europe. Latterly for example in Dublin, Milan, Berlin, Paris, etc. In the second half of the year, the AES Convention traditionally moves to New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles.

Program of the virtual event

Planning is now underway to fill eight hours a day with streaming content. This will give Covid-19 a run for its money and allow sound engineers from around the world to continue to exchange ideas. The pro audio scene is colorful. So of course 3D audio and VR is a topic. Also audio formats and standardization, TV and broadcast and for example film mixing. There are always exciting innovations and audio demos where new productions or hardware is presented.

Presenters will have the opportunity to present online. To discuss the presentation in the form of an online dialogue and, depending on availability, to participate in a live Q&A session. Workshops and tutorials will be presented with pre-recorded video and audio presentations.

VRSounding will be there

After all, everything is a little different this year. That’s why it’s clear for me to directly take advantage of virtual platforms. Binaural demos are perfect for this. Normally, it is quite common at the AES Convention to be able to play several rooms with dozens of loudspeakers. This is how surround mixes or 3D music demos are presented to the audience. Corona puts a spanner in the works, but fortunately everyone has headphones at home. So immersive audio can still be distributed as a two-channel stereo stream. No matter if as livestream or classic video.

Be there too

Again, I’ll be posting about this on Instagram. So headphones ready