ZOOM MEETING 6:00PM PDT (UTC -7)

Wednesday October 12, 2022

Presented by

Steve Sevanyu, a working production engineer with over fifty years experience in the audio/video industry.

and

The Pacific Northwest Section of the Audio Engineering Society

Our October meeting concerns a subject that all of us deal with at one time or another: The selection, placement, mounting, and mixing of microphones. Whether for a studio session, live event, broadcast, or location recording; we are challenged with bringing excellent and clear sound to our projects and facilities.

Perhaps we take for granted the physics of how a microphone actually functions. Which type will give me the result I want? How do I best isolate a single instrument in a concert setting? How do I accentuate incident and suppress reflective sound? How about stepping up the audio in a Live-Stream production? Nothing affects the psycho-acoustical perceived quality of a recording, video, film, or live event more than accurate and well-defined sound. And nothing affects that perceived quality and value more than effective microphone selection and placement.

With over 50 years in the audio industry (twenty-one of them working for Audio-Technica U.S., Inc. a well-known manufacturer of microphones, headphones, and other transducers), Mr. Savanyu has a penchant for clear and precise explanation of the most esoteric and technical aspects of transducer physics and technology. His experience as an adjunct Professor of “Audio for Video” at Kent State University gives him insight in understanding the learning experience and student needs.

This event is useful not only for aspiring novices to recording, live sound and broadcast, but also for seasoned audio professionals; as there is always something new to learn with new technology and products.

We hope to see you there.

About our Presenter:

Steve M. Savanyu is a working production engineer with over fifty years experience in the audio/video industry. Known for his distinctive rocker style, he currently operates Buford T. Hedgehog Productions, an Ohio based multimedia company. Steve brings a wealth of creative and technical knowledge along with experience-driven skills to produce high-quality audio and video projects ranging from musical sessions, concerts, location video and live-streamed events. Steve also has years of experience working in the audio industry as a director at Audio-Technica U.S. Inc, manager at Dukane Corporation and international systems design engineer for Kidde Automated Systems.

As a professional audio and video engineer/producer, he has been involved with major productions including U.S. presidential debates, inaugurations, festivals, sporting events, Papal visits, trade shows and conferences. An accomplished location recordist, Steve specializes in orchestral, big-band, jazz, and chamber music projects. Along with audio recording, Steve is well-versed in live sound production, video acquisition and audio/video post-production. Recently he entered the world of event live-streaming and has written articles on “stepping up the stream” to improve production quality.

Being in a technology driven industry, Steve keeps abreast of current technological trends, products and techniques that can enhance a production or project. He writes articles and reviews audio products for a major technology publication and has been featured in Crain’s Cleveland for Business along with interviews by NAMM and other industry organizations. Additionally, he is a college level instructor (audio and video production) and accomplished public speaker/presenter.

Steve has taught his “The Physics of Microphones” workshop at recording and broadcast schools and at AES (Audio Engineering Society), SBE (Society of Broadcast Engineers) and I.A.T.S.E. (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) local chapter events.

As a hands-on engineer, Steve is always ready to tackle new and different projects from putting wireless microphones on a jet engine test rig, to synchronizing hot air balloons to glow in time with a musical soundtrack.

This will be a Zoom meeting.

Tickets are free for this event, but there are also a couple of ticket categories that allow you to donate to support our events. All tickets are otherwise equal.

More information about the PNW Section of the AES

Go here to get on our emailing list.

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO ALL. AES MEMBERSHIP IS NOT REQUIRED.

FOR THOSE WHO WISH TO SUPPORT OUR ACTIVITIES, THERE ARE TICKETS FOR $5 AND $10 AS WELL AS THE FREE TICKETS. ALL TICKETS ARE OTHERWISE EQUAL .

PNW AES Zoom Meetings

We started holding our meetings via Zoom beginning with the April 2020 meeting. Zoom has dramatically increased our reach, well beyond our Section’s geographic area. Since doing this, we’ve regularly had attendees from:

-most Provinces in Canada;

– most countries in:

–Europe,

–Central and South America;

-Japan,

-India,

-Indonesia,

-Malaysia,

-Australia,

-and more. It’s been unbelievable how many cool audio people we’ve met.

Zoom gives the ability to record videos of our meetings, and those recordings are individually posted in our past meetings Archive. For now, the collected videos from our Zoom meetings can be found (mostly) at Dan Mortensen’s DansoundSeattle YouTube channel.

We use EventBrite to manage our free tickets to meetings. You are in the right place to RSVP for your ticket for this event.

The Zoom URL and physical meeting location (if this is a hybrid meeting) will be sent in three reminders: two days, the morning of, and two hours before the event starts.

When you register at EventBrite and when you enter the Zoom meeting, please use your real first and last names so we can get to know each other. You do NOT need to create an EventBrite account to register.

Please Note

In order to maintain decorum and avoid interruptions, even unintended ones, we have established a few ground rules for meeting attendees:

1. We want to see your full name on display in Zoom at the meeting.

2. The presenter(s) will determine if they can accept questions during the presentation, or wait until specific Q&A times, and that will be announced at the beginning of the meeting. (We often use the “chat” feature to allow attendees to ask questions when they think of them, with moderators passing them on to the presenter at the appropriate time.)

3. Please mute your microphone when not talking (a moderator may mute you if you haven’t muted yourself; if they do, Zoom won’t let you un-mute until a moderator clears you again.)

4. Based on our experience with no-shows, we reserve the right to issue more tickets than available slots. We don’t want to turn people away based on inaccurate estimates of attendance, but we do have budgetary limits to the number of slots we can make available. If we reach capacity before you log in, we regret that we may have no way to expand capacity at the last minute.

5. Some presenters are distracted when confronted by a sea of video faces or other images, so for some meetings we may ask that you turn your camera/images off during the presentation. If you forget, one of our moderators may do it for you, and you may or may not get a private chat note informing you.

6. During the meeting, there is the matter of your camera. We’re going to leave that up to the presenter; whether they want to see their audience while they present or not. If they want to see who they’re talking to, then you can leave your camera live or not, as you prefer, however if the presenter doesn’t want to see the audience, then we’ll ask you to turn your video off.

7. Moderators have the ability to globally turn everyone’s video off, however turning it back on is troublesome; we are forced to turn cameras back on manually, one by one. There is no way for you to override that. You’ll need your camera live later in the meeting for the self-introductions.

8. Best is that if we ask for cameras to be on or off, that you do this individually on your own.

9. It would be good if you watched the chat stream during the meeting. Not only is it a way to submit questions to the presenters, but it’s also a way for others to contact you personally. You have the option there to direct your comment to anyone who is part of the meeting as well as to one person in particular.

Finally, in the rare instance of behavior by an attendee that moderators believe is disruptive, we reserve the right to immediately eject such attendees.