Hugh Robjohns
Welcome to the Sound On Sound People and Music Industry podcast channel. Hello there, I'm Hugh Robjohns, I'm the technical editor of Sound On Sound magazine, and I'm joined here today by Bruce Olsen, who is the AES president, who's going to talk to us a little bit about what the AES is for, what it does, what he does, and the fact that it's celebrating its 75th anniversary, I believe. Is that right, Bruce?

Bruce Olson
Yes. That's correct, Hugh. Thanks for inviting me to this podcast by Sound on Sound. I'm delighted to be here. I became AES president at the beginning of this year, and my term goes through the end of this year. And, uh, The AES is celebrating its 75th year. We started in 1948. It was a group of people led by LaBelle who sent out a notice to the audio engineering Magazine at the time that was not related to the audio engineering society, but there was an audio engineering magazine and he pulled its readers and said, wouldn't it be nice if we got together and created an entity to allow us to discuss these things and.

Get some training and collaborate and network with other people doing similar work across the country, across the United States. And then shortly it grew to be an international organization. So who's the Audio Engineering Society for, would you say, today? I like the definition of an audio engineer is someone who makes money that then allows himself to pay the mortgage, uh, put food on the table and something like that.

So as a result, we include the most obvious ones like engineers that record  Records, CDs, streaming, whatever, so they're working in recording studios that quickly moves to audio engineers who are doing the same thing for radio stations and TV stations, but then more importantly, it gets to where there's actually.

Quite a few more jobs, all of the people who are working in conference centers, hotels, uh, any place where, uh, the spoken word or music needs to be presented to an audience means that, uh, Um, all of the people, uh, working in hotel ballrooms and corporate boardrooms, um, all of those are audio engineering, um, members as well.

Sort of that, um, forgotten end of our industry. So I seem to remember when I applied, which was back in the 80s, I think, um, one of the entrance requirements was to be qualified to degree level. Is that still a recommendation then? It sounds like you're not so bothered about academic prowess these days. 

It's that's an interesting question because I land on the practical side of things. I have a bachelor's degree in music. I'm a active performing musician in a 17 piece jazz band, uh, and have been doing that particular band for 37 years. I come into this industry as a practical sort of guy that doesn't have a degree um, in engineering.

But due to my experience, and this is the important part, the Audio Engineering Society is one of those places where you can gain information, learn a lot of things from peers in the industry, from those people who may have advanced degrees or may not have advanced degrees. They, they are sort of schooled hard knocks, it's often referred to, and Our experience is just as important as that gained by people who take it as an engineering discipline in two or four years.

I've got 45 years, uh, behind me of doing this stuff and I think that I've got a pretty good handle on how engineering works. Sounds entirely plausible to me. What is your background? I think you're into, uh, acoustic work, aren't you? I am a member of the Acoustical Society as well. I've been a member of that group from starting in the 90s.

I've been a member of the Audio Engineering Society since 1981. And  I got into this industry primarily because I went to school back in the early 70s.  When I arrived on campus, there was an opening in the jazz band. Um, I was given an opportunity to, uh, join that band. And that started me on the path of creating sound systems for the various groups that I was a member of.

And, um, put me on the road to where I am today. Which is where? Where are you today? Well, today I have, um, two companies. One of them is a consulting firm that I've had since 1991. We design everything from recording studios to performing arts centers, churches, hotel ballrooms, meeting rooms, uh, boardrooms, um, both technical, uh, facilities as well as the acoustics.

And I have a partner, uh, with me that does that. And she joined me, uh, just Ten years ago this month, as a matter of fact, and then I also am associated with a software development firm in Berlin that does 3D modeling of acoustics and sound systems, and I'm the North American representative for them. And then I've been the.

Audio Engineering Society's Standards Chair since, um, 2011. I joined that Standards Committee back in the 90s, uh, shortly after, um, Neil Muncy had the most famous, the most downloaded, Publication of the audio engineering society talking about the pin one problem. At the time I was the chair of my local section and I was the first local section to bring Neil Muncy to our section for a one day seminar on how to do connections of audio equipment correctly.

That was back in 1996.  Yeah, and we're still arguing about it now. Still getting it wrong.  They're still getting it wrong. As a matter of fact, there, there was some traffic on our standards list just in the past few days where we had to remind them that we discussed this, uh, well over 25 years ago, almost 30 years ago, and we had already sorted it out and maybe they should go read those things and, and figure it out.

So Cool. Cool. Yeah, it seems like we're fighting the same old battles, um, year in, year out. Um, but it's again, the audio engineering society is a great place to do that because we can send people back to the original documents and say, have a look at this, here's how it actually works. Um, Another good friend of mine, Bill Whitlock, and I have done a whole series of presentations to AES conventions on the myths of connection of audio gear.

And it seems like every year that we do that, and we've done it for about 15 years, every year that we do that, we find some new people who have heard old wives tales and myths of how to connect audio gear. things and we blow them up. We destroy their belief in these myths and set them on the right path again. 

Excellent. Good work. I approve. It brings me on to an interesting or interesting to me, a question, which is the AES creates and publishes these standards documents. But it keeps them internal. They're available to members. External people have to pay money to access them. What's the thinking behind that?

From my point of view, it would make more sense that the standards are made publicly available everywhere. Um, and they're not. That's a really good question. So, it does cost a fair bit of money to develop standards. Uh, there are standards organizations like. I see an ISO with whom we have liaison relationships, but they are standards development organizations whose only purpose is to develop standards and sell them to the world at large, um, groups like the Audio Engineering Society and.

probably our closest partner in standards development, uh, SMPTE, a society for motion picture and television engineers, uh, with whom we collaborate a lot, um, our organizations that are for the benefit of their members. And so one of the key. Membership benefits of the Audio Engineering Society and SMPTE as well is that the members get the standards for free, and that includes our institutional members or our manufacturer members who are developing those kinds of products.

So we think that that is a clear reason to join AES, among many others, but it is one of those membership benefits. Now, admittedly, uh, going forward, there are an awful lot of, um, Open standards work, such as IETF, uh, the things that drives our connection to the internet and all of things networking upon which, um, our standard AES67 and AES70 are based, but those things are open standards and they are supported by companies that Uh, provide sponsorships for those standards.

So that's something that we're actively looking at. What is the new way that we might provide standards? And you're right. It would be nice if. Everybody could have a look at the standards to see how to do things correctly. So there's a little bit of a yin yang push and pull between having a clear benefit for our members as well as having, um, dissemination of it throughout the rest of the world.

So, We do that partially by partnerships with the IEC, with the ISO, with, um, even the WHO that we've got an active partnership working on hearing damage and, and keeping, um, listeners safe. And so the World Health Organization is working on developing some standards and we're partnering with them through our technical committees. 

So I think that that's a very valid question. It's something that we wrestle with all the time and try to find a good path for that.  Okay. Good answer. Thank you. That explains it very clearly.  So tell me about what the AAS also provide for its members. Then you said there are lots of good reasons for people joining the AAS.

We've got a number of committees. They're called standing committees of the society. Some of those committees, uh, are very much in the inner workings, but some of the ones that are more interesting for members to be part of are things like the historical committee, the standards committee, the technical council, and then we have a huge e library.

This electronic library is. All of our journals and all of the papers that have been presented at conferences and conventions in the entire history of the Audio Engineering Society is available online. It's over 20, 000 documents. And of course, uh, when we move to the digital revolution, uh, Uh, those original papers from Phillips and Sony describing this new thing called the compact disc back in the late seventies and early eighties, those were all described first in papers presented at conventions, then in standards that followed up on, on those papers and described, how are we going to create interoperability between multiple manufacturers for those things?

So. The historical committee documents what we've done over the years and has a great number of resources, including, uh, well over 100 videos of people who were at the beginning of the society at the beginning of audio engineering and recorded, um, um, their, uh, reminiscences. For all posterity and you can see that on our site as a member you have access to all of those videos We also have something that's a little bit more current that's called AES live and that is current members of the AES  either their presentations at conventions or conferences or just  A presentation, um, and a conversation about what it is that they're doing.

What are the latest and greatest things? Um, talking about these days, the buzzwords are of course, immersive audio and audio over IP. And those things are described in, in AES live videos that are available for members.  And then we have, uh, a series of events.  International conventions of which we hold two a year.

Currently one in Europe and one in the United States. And then there are a lot of regional conventions held by different sections. For instance, AES Mexico just had, uh, A event called Sound Expo, and I was down there and gave a keynote presentation, um, and it's those regional conventions, then that bring together, uh, regional participants, and then we have local events and conferences, such as the.

Archiving restoration conference that's going to be held at the Library of Congress, uh, here at in in late May and, um, then later on in the year, we'll have a conference on education and a conference on immersive audio. And next year, we'll have a conference, um. Related to sound reinforcement. So our conferences are topical.

They take a narrow slice of our industry and do a deep dive and give you everything you need to know about a specific topic. Whereas our regional conventions and international conventions are kind of a broad look at what is the industry and, and gives you an opportunity to see both. of the equipment and touch and feel it and talk to the engineers, uh, from the manufacturers about how it works, as well as, uh, see the papers and presentations about, um, the new upcoming things that are, that are topics of interest.

So how do you choose the topics for your conferences? So that is a part of a, yet another committee, um, the events coordination committee coordinates all of these things so that conferences aren't happening at the same time as conventions in other places, the world and so on. But we have a group of dedicated volunteers that, uh, receive proposals from members and others for a topical, uh, event.

It's a conference. Often our technical committees, uh, who are part of the technical council that I mentioned a little bit earlier, uh, come up with these ideas. They are, after all, the ones that are, uh, walking the walk, doing the talk, doing all of the things that are related to a specific topic, and they often come up and say, you know, it's been a while since we've taken a look at this.

Let's go ahead and do that. So, yeah. Uh, one of the ones I know that's coming up for next year that's not yet approved is a games conference. Those have been very popular, most often done in the UK, but also done in Japan and other places, and we will have a conference. I can't announce where it is because it's not approved yet, but we will have another conference on games.

And so these things are developed by those relevant technical committees, uh, or by other interested, uh, partners. Uh, who make a suggestion, and then we create a plan for that conference and work our way through who should be invited. What are the keynote speakers who are the most important people doing that?

And all we have to do is simply look at the membership of the audio engineering society. to find out who those experts are. So it's a rather straightforward process. Um, they know, even if they're not members, and we have presentations by non members all the time,  but our members know who is doing the important work in any of these topical areas.

Excellent. Makes a lot of sense. And all of this material, all of these papers that they're presenting, they're all made available? Yes. So, if you attend the conference, then you get immediate access to all of these papers. There's typically a  set of papers that are given to all of the conference attendees.

And then, uh, About a year or so later, um, because we want you to go and see it live, so, um, a little bit later, perhaps about a year, then they eventually become part of our e library. So then you can go find, um, those papers for previous conferences as part of that, that digital record that, that I talked about before.

Yeah, the e library, I have to say, it is amazing. I spend, well, many hours every month wading through it, finding all sorts of stuff that I never thought I'd be interested in, but end up being absolutely engrossed with. It's a great set of rabbit holes to go down. Um, you need to make sure that you take care and, and don't spend all 24 hours of the day uh, following through, uh, on, on the resources that are there, but, but Um, you can search it and you can for anything that you've got a question about, um, you're likely to find the answers there or the links to the answers there.

Yeah, it's absolutely amazing. So, one of the things I've always liked a lot when I've gone to the various conventions is there's always a notice board somewhere With companies offering opportunities, jobs, uh, internships, whatever it may be. And there's also quite a strong emphasis on training in general, which I always think is very good.

Yes. So two things about that. One, we've, we've had this AES job board. It is a member benefit for our corporate members, our sustaining members, uh, the manufacturers out there that have jobs, uh, that they need to fill and they know that. coming to the AES. They're going to get good qualified candidates to fill those positions.

So that's one part of it. But more recently, we've been focusing on doing more training things. And, uh, we've got a variety of different initiatives going on there. We are looking to expand that greatly. Um, uh, historically we've done a great job for new members, uh, students that are going to engineering schools and the like.

Um, and bringing them on board. But now we have in mind that we want to do things that are good for mid career professionals, late career professionals, early career professionals. So there is a lot of ongoing training. Um, we live in a very fast paced environment, um, that the environment for audio is continually changing and you need to learn new things every year about what's going on.

The audio engineering needs the same sort of attention to career path and constant learning that every other engineering organization needs. So I'm really excited that, that we've got staff to help us prepare these things. very much. And, uh, come up with new ideas of how we can bring this to our members.

Yes, excellent. I agree with you that, um, it's a very fast moving industry and you really do have to work hard to keep up with what's going on. And the AS is a really good, valuable source of information to help with that. That's right. From all of the things that I've mentioned, joining a technical committee.

Anybody can join a technical committee as part of our technical council. This is an opportunity for young members, early career members. So that's how it works. Get involved early. Um, we provide opportunities for doing that, but individual members need to step up and one of your great benefits is to not just come and absorb from other people, but join the conversation, become part of that conversation and share your views.

Everybody's views are valid. Perhaps we need to change your thinking about it, but the fact that you're asking questions, why does it work that way? This way, how should I do it better? These are all relevant questions and are important questions. And we give you the opportunity for a dialogue about that.

We've been doing it for a long time. We hope to be doing it for an equally long time in the future. Excellent. I salute the cause. It's a, it's a good thing with most things in life. You get at what you put in and the more you put into something like the AES, the more you, you find yourself soaking up on, on, on receiving from it.

So exactly right.  Good, but we've been talking a lot about the future of audio, and I think that the future of audio, um, revolves around a number of different things. Um, immersive audio, of course, is, uh, is one of the buzzwords. And, and that's, that's a really important part of it, but also high resolution audio is one of the other buzzwords that's out there.

I don't need to go into the details here. Um, your magazine, I'm sure explores it, uh, in, in depth from time to time. But, uh, as we move high res audio into mobile devices, headphone listening, and, and. All of that. Of course, we have a standard there again. AES 69 talks about how do we present MPEG multichannel audio through binaural headphones, but, um, the next topics that are related to that.

Are in the forensics area. Artificial intelligence. Another hot topic. Um, very pertinent to, uh, um, political, uh, campaigns everywhere. We now, um, AI creates the opportunity for. For presenting what are called deep fakes, both on the audio and the video side. Um, our forensics, uh, standards committee and technical committee, along with the technical committee on machine learning and artificial intelligence are all looking into what are the impacts of those kinds of things?

How can we mitigate those impacts? How can we, uh, give. Practitioners, new tools to help with those things. Uh, the artificial intelligence is not replacing the engineer, but it is giving him more tools to do more of the, um, repetitive tasks can be handled by artificial intelligence while they're focusing on the more creative, the more artistic, uh, big picture things that, uh, recording engineers should be focusing on.

So there's a wide range of things. Things, uh, in the future of audio, uh, the audio engineering society is participating in creating new, new, uh, ground there and, uh, looking at what's going on and, and offering solutions for that. So I think that audio is part of our name. We will always be involved with audio.

That's why we're the audio engineering, uh, society. And we're always going to be part of that conversation. Excellent. One last question. Um, our industry is. It's still very heavily dominated by men. What, what can the AAS do to support women coming into our side of the industry? We're doing a tremendous amount, both women as well as people of color, the, the whole, uh, diversity, equity and inclusion, which is what our committee, again, we have another committee, um, one of the founding members of that committee is our president elect, uh, Leslie Gaston Byrd.

And she, along with The two co chairs this year, um, uh, Cecilia Wu and, and, um, Mary Mazurek are doing great things for bringing in more people that don't look like me, um, to our society, and it is really welcome to have All of their diverse, um, backgrounds and strengths, uh, coming in. And we very pro actively are working with people like the, um, women in audio mission, the sound girls, um, all of the small, uh, small groups that are focusing on those things.

We are partnering with them on a continuous basis to reduce the, the dominant, um, male, um, Orientation that that we've been historically and and to recognize all of the barriers that are in the way and and bring in all of these new voices. Um, we have a ongoing equity series that talks about this. It's a webinar series that is produced, um, by those volunteers that are involved with our D.

E. And I, um, committee. And it's really, uh, important way for us to highlight what their capabilities are at the same time that we highlight what are the barriers and we talk about how do we break down these barriers that that are in the way for, for, uh, all of these folks. And, and I, I know that that will certainly be part of, uh, our president elects, uh, efforts next year.

She will. Uh, I'm sure, make sure that is front and center, um, and, and, uh, and that important, uh, movement happen in, in bringing in, uh, these new voices. Good. Excellent. Thank you. So, we've been chatting away for a while now. There's going to be people listening to this, hopefully, that think this sounds like something I should get involved in.

How does somebody join the AAS?  You go to our website, AES. org. Um, there is a how to join page there and you'll be able to become a member. So, becoming a member, there, we have, um, a number of different classes of membership, we call them. Um, student members, um, join at a reduced rate, and they do that typically through student, uh, sections at many universities.

That's another place that we have sections. Then we have associate members and, um, full members.  Difference between an associate member and a full member is twofold. One is, That as a full member, you get to vote and decide who is going to be the next president, who is going to be the next governor, who is going to be the next vice president.

An associate member doesn't get to do that. Associate members pay the same amount as full members. The second difference is that you need to find more people to recommend you as a full member as a. As compared to an associate member. So as an associate member, you don't need references. You just need to have an interest, but I urge anybody who has an interest to become a full member.

It's pretty easy join and then seek out the full members in your area or go to a convention or a conference. We are happy to sponsor you and then you've got the references that you need. I think it's five references that are needed to become a member. So, so it's, it's fairly straightforward, very easy.

Uh, first express an interest. You can become an associate member, uh, but more importantly, become a full member and become fully engaged. And his membership organized entirely through the AS headquarters in America, or is it done through local regions? Or how do people get to know where the local regions are?

Um, that's also on our website, and so you can go and, um, um, there's a link on, on the top of our website called Community, and that leads you to, uh, some of the important committees that I mentioned earlier, but it also leads you to the regions and the, the sections, and that gives you a way to find out if there's a section in your area.

If there isn't, then, um, uh, do it through our website. Um, and find other people like you, um, so that if there isn't a section, you can create a section in your area.  Good. That all sounds very straightforward. Thank you, Bruce. Thank you very much for spending the time talking to me today. Thanks very much for this, Hugh.

It's been a pleasure. Cheers. Bye bye.  Thank you for listening, and be sure to check out the show notes page for this episode, where you'll find further information, as Along with web links and details of all the other episodes. Oh, and just before you go, let me point you to the soundonsound. com forward slash podcasts website page where you can explore what's playing on our other channels.