PALA 2001 - AES Seminar
"Surround Sound Technologies and Microphone Technologies"
Thursday, 12 July 2001

reported by: Mr. Robert Soo Chairman (Term 2000/2001) click for Chairman PALA 2001 message

The 12th of July 2001 marks the first day of PALA (Pro Audio Light Asia) 2001 at Suntec City Singapore, deemed to be Asia’s largest and most established exhibition in entertainment technology. 

On the afternoon of this auspicious day itself, AES Singapore Section held a technical seminar entitled “Surround Sound Technologies & Microphone Technologies”. Although this is the 5th seminar that AES Singapore Section has organised in conjunction with the prestigious PALA event, this year marks the first time that a double-bill feature has been introduced into our seminar program. This year’s seminar was attended by a total of 58 participants, comprising of application and research engineers, sales and marketing professionals, as well as audio enthusiasts.

Boasting an international line-up of experts, our panel of presenters were:
Dr Rhonda Wilson, Research Engineering Manager at Meridian Audio, UK. Rhonda is also currently the AES Vice President for the International Region.
Mr David McMoyler, Supervisor Sound Editor at Soundelux, US
Dr Preston V Murphy, President of Lectret Precision Pte Ltd, Singapore.
Professor Gerhard M Sessler, lecturer at the Technical University Darmstadt, Germany. 

Robert Soo, the Chairman of the AES Singapore Section started off the session at 1.30pm by giving an opening address. In his address, Robert gave a brief history into the past 4 seminars that AES Singapore has organised in conjunction with PALA. He also noted that for the first 3 seminars, David Robinson, the past AES President who was in attendance that day, was highly instrumental in contributing to their success. Robert then went on to mention that such high quality seminars were organised as part of AES objectives to stimulate and facilitate advances in the constantly changing field of audio, by encouraging and disseminating new developments through such technical meetings. Thanking the speakers, co-organisers IIR Exhibitions and the other sponsors, Robert handed the time over to the first speaker.

The first presenter for the day was Dr Rhonda Wilson. Rhonda first started off by giving a keynote address as the AES Vice President for the International Region. Proceeding to present her paper on “The Design of Multi-Channel Playback Systems”, she began with the perceptual issues, covering areas such as Peripheral Auditory Functions, Localisation, as well as Binaural Processing. The ability to recognise and understand the cognitive elements in sound as well as the cognitive elements of music is highly essential towards designing a surround system. Rhonda then went on to talk about formats and playback issues, such as the number of channels needed and also on how many loudspeakers are required and its correct placement. As such, proper microphone techniques to capture these formats were discussed. Rhonda concluded her session by reporting on some of the current work in the field of Surround Sound as covered in the recent AES conferences.

The next speaker to take the platform was David McMoyler, who presented his talk entitled Surround Sound and Sound Effects in Hollywood. David began by speaking on the evolution of multi-channel speaker systems for film, right from 1940, where 35mm optical 3 channel format was used, to 1962, where 7 Track Analog Magnetic was the call of the day. Present technologies use to deliver surround sound include 70mm Magnetic, Dolby A/SR/5.1/EX, DTS and SDDS. David then went on by giving the impetus behind using surround sound in bringing movies to “life” and also why the role of a sound engineer is so important in this aspect. Being from Soundelux, he explained how the process works to create surround sound at both Soundelux and LiveWire Audio. David shared with the audience his vast experience in field recording techniques, preparation of material and the mixing process for the surround sound format, and later emphasised that there’s an immense impact on the viewer through the spatial relationship of sound and image. David ended off the session by treating the audience to movie clips from “The Perfect Storm” and “The Mask Of Zorro”, movies that David has worked on.

Moving on to the next segment of the seminar, which covers on “Microphone Technologies”, our next speaker, Dr Preston V Murphy, presented his topic on miniature condenser microphones. Beginning with the history and development of such devices, Murphy  then went on to expound on “newer” technologies, which includes the condenser, dynamic and ribbon dynamic microphones of today. A detailed look into the workings of dynamic and condenser microphones were explained. Moving on the main agenda, he proceeded to talk on the ins and outs of the Electret Condenser Microphone or ECM for short, beginning with its founders to the design and technical specifications. Other common microphone attributes such as directivity and frequency response were also discussed. Murphy ended of his session by sharing with the group on what might be the future of microphones and where the targeted applications and sales figures may be. Optical microphones, digital microphones or microphones with digital outputs are already being explored, and perhaps be common in the near future.

The last speaker for the evening was Professor Gerhard Sessler, who presented his topic on New Microphone Technologies. With the first section on Silicon Microphones, he began by showing how tiny silicon microphones can be. Proceeding with the various methods of micromachining, he went through in detail on Doping, Lithography, Deposition and Oxidation, and Etching. Moving on to Silicon Condenser microphones, Prof Sessler then explained on the various types and their individual acoustic properties and characteristics, such as frequency response and sensitivity. Optical and Piezoelectric microphones were next, and the structure and operational principle of these microphones were explained, particularly with reference to the Fabry-Perot Microphone. In conclusion, Prof Sessler expounded on the physical and electrical properties of Cellular Polymer-Electret Microphones and Hydrophones.

The seminar then transited to the next segment for a time of question and answer, where many of the participants brought up very interesting and insightful questions. Among them was one participant who asked about the issue of manufacturers producing imitations of popular microphone models and pass them off as the real thing, and asked on how the genuine microphone manufacturers are dealing with it. 

After the question and answer session, Robert presented gifts and mementoes to the various seminar speakers, as well as to the various key personnel from co-sponsors IIR Exhibitions, such as Mr Patrick Lawrence Tan, Ms Rosalind Ng-Seah and Ms Juliana Chin. 

After four and a half hours of solid teaching and learning, the seminar was then officially closed at 6pm. This closes yet another successful chapter in the AES Singapore Section

Pictures
A long queue  at the registration counter outside the auditorium - photograph by Dr. Roland K. C. Tan.	58 participants at the AES Audio Seminar on Thursday, 12th July 2001 in conjunction with PALA 2001 at Suntec City - photograph by Dr. Roland K. C. Tan.	Dr. Rhonda Wilson, Vice President AES International Region giving the Keynote Address - photograph by Dr. Roland K. C. Tan.
Mr. David McMoyler, Soundelux Entertainment Group (USA) speaking about surround sound effects - photograph by Dr. Roland K. C. Tan.	Dr. Preston Murphy, Lectret Precision (Singapore), describes about the technologies of microphone - photograph by Dr. Roland K. C. Tan.	Professor Gerhard Sessler, Technical University of Darmstadt (Germany), giving a presentation on new microphone technologies - photograph by Dr. Roland K. C. Tan.
Panel of speakers for the 1st Q&A session - photograph by Dr. Roland K. C. Tan.	Panel of speakers for the 2nd Q&A session - photograph by Dr. Roland K. C. Tan.	Mr. Robert Soo (left) presenting a speaker plaque to Mr. David McMoyler - photograph by Dr. Roland K. C. Tan.
Mr. Robert Soo (left) presenting a speaker plaque to Dr. Rhonda Wilson - photograph by Dr. Roland K. C. Tan.	Mr. Robert Soo (left) presenting a speaker plaque to Dr. Preston Murphy - photograph by Dr. Roland K. C. Tan.	Mr. Robert Soo (left) presenting a speaker plaque to Professor Gerhard Sessler - photograph by Dr. Roland K. C. Tan.
Mr. Robert Soo (left) presenting a token of appreciation to the co-sponsor, Mr. Patrick Lawrence Tan, MD of IIR Exhibitions Pte Ltd - photograph by Dr. Roland K. C. Tan.	Mr. Robert Soo (left) presenting a token of appreciation to Ms. Rosalind Ng-Seah, Deputy MD of IIR Exhibitions Pte Ltd - photograph by Dr. Roland K. C. Tan.	Mr. Robert Soo (left) presenting a token of appreciation to Ms. Juliana Chin, Marketing Manager of IIR Exhibitions Pte Ltd - photograph by Dr. Roland K. C. Tan.
A group photo of the speakers and sponsors (from left) Professor Gerhard Sessler, Mr. David McMoyler, Dr. Rhonda Wilson, Dr. Preston Murphy, Mr. Robert Soo, Mr. Patrick Lawrence Tan, Ms. Rosalind Ng-Seah, and Ms. Juliana Chin - photograph by Dr. Roland K. C. Tan.
The friendly AES Audio Seminar receptionists outside Seminar Room 209, Level 2 at the Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre (SICEC) - photograph by Dr. Roland K. C. Tan.