The Audio Engineering Society (AES) is a professional body for engineers, scientists, other individuals with an interest or involvement in the professional audio industry. The membership largely comprises engineers developing devices or products for audio, and persons working in audio content production. It also includes acousticians, audiologists, academics, and those in other disciplines related to audio. The AES is the only worldwide professional society devoted exclusively to audio technology. Established in 1948, the Society develops, reviews and publishes engineering standards for the audio and related media industries, and produces the AES Conventions, which are held twice a year alternating between Europe and the US. The AES and individual regional or national ''sections'' also hold ''AES Conferences'' on different topics during the year.

History

The idea of a society dedicated solely to audio engineering had been discussed for some time before the first meeting, but was first proposed in print in a letter by Frank E. Sherry, of Victoria, Texas, in the December 1947 issue of the magazine ''Audio Engineering''. A New York engineer and audio consultant, C.J. LeBel, then published a letter agreeing, and saying that a group of audio professionals had already been discussing such a thing, and that they were interested in holding an organizational meeting. He asked interested persons to contact him for details. The response was enthusiastic and encouraging. Fellow engineer

Norman C. Pickering Norman C. Pickering (July 9, 1916 – November 18, 2015) was an American engineer, musical instrument designer, inventor and co-founder of the Audio Engineering Society. His most famous inventions are the modern Pickering magnetic cartridge, a h ...

published the date for an organizational meeting, and announced the appointment of LeBel as acting chairman, and himself as acting secretary. The organizational meeting was held at the RCA Victor Studios in New York City on February 17, 1948. Acting chairman Mr. LeBel spoke first, emphasizing the professional, non-commercial, independent nature of the proposed organization. Acting Secretary Norman Pickering then discussed the need for a professional organization that could foster an exchange of knowledge in this quickly-growing field. The group agreed to form the Audio Engineering Society, and confirmed the acting executive committee, which consisted of John D. Colvin, C. J. LeBel, C. G. McProud, Norman C. Pickering and Chester O. Rackey. The first AES technical membership meeting followed on March 11, with about 3500 attendees. The guest speaker at the first meeting was

Harry F. Olson Harry Ferdinand Olson (December 28, 1901 – April 1, 1982) was a prominent engineer at RCA Victor and a pioneer in the field of 20th century acoustical engineering. Biography Harry F. Olson was born in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, to Swedish immigrant ...

, a prominent engineer and scientist at RCA and author of '' Acoustical Engineering'', who spoke on ''Problems of High-Fidelity Reproduction''.

Membership

has over 12,000 members. Members elect a Board of Governors and officers, who jointly set policies and procedures for the Society. The AES is a tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation headquartered in New York.

Journal

The AES publishes a peer-reviewed journal, the ''Journal of the Audio Engineering Society'' (''JAES'').

Conventions and conferences

The AES produces two conventions each year as well as a number of topic-specific conferences. The fall convention is in North America and the spring convention is in Europe. The first convention was in 1949.

Technical Council

23 Technical Committees advise the AES Technical Council on emerging trends and areas of interest in the audio engineering community. The Committee meetings, held at Conventions, are open to participation by members and non-members alike, and are the venue for planning workshops, seminars and conferences in specific technical areas.

Standards

The AES has been involved in setting technical standards for audio since 1977. The (AESSC), through a consensus system open to anyone materially affected by such standards, develops and publishes a number of standards on the subject of analog and digital audio recording, transmission, and/or reproduction. Notable standards include: * AES3 (also commonly known as AES/EBU) for digital audio interconnection * AES10 (also commonly known as MADI) for multichannel digital audio interconnection * AES11 for digital audio synchronization * AES31 file exchange format * AES42 for digitally interfaced microphones * AES47,

AES51 AES51 is a standard first published by the Audio Engineering Society in June 2006 that specifies a method of carrying Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) cells over Ethernet physical structure intended in particular for use with AES47 to carry AES3 di ...

and

AES53 AES47 is a standard which describes a method for transporting AES3 professional digital audio streams over Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks. The Audio Engineering Society (AES) published AES47 in 2002. The method described by AES47 is al ...

for sending AES3 digital audio data over Asynchronous Transfer Mode networks * AES48 on interconnections; grounding and EMC practices; and shields of connectors in audio equipment containing active circuitry * AES64 for coarse-groove mechanical audio recordings *

AES67 AES67 is a technical standard for audio over IP and audio over Ethernet (AoE) interoperability. The standard was developed by the Audio Engineering Society and first published in September 2013. It is a layer 3 protocol suite based on existing ...

for audio over IP interoperability AESSC also provides input to

IEC The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and r ...

for development and revision of international standards in audio engineering. AES does not charge for participation in the standards process, but does charge non-members for online copies of published standards. Printed copies are available for a charge to both members and non-members.

Gold Medal recipients

The AES Gold Medal is the Society's highest honor, and given in recognition of outstanding achievements, sustained over a period of years, in the field of Audio Engineering. The award was established in 1971; it was formerly known as the John H. Potts Memorial Award.

Awardees in chronological order

(1949) *

Howard A. Chinn Howard Allen Chinn was an American broadcasting engineer who pioneered techniques of analog audio recording as well as radio and television broadcasting practices. Chinn served as chief audio engineer at Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) beginn ...

(1950) *

Hermon Hosmer Scott Hermon Hosmer Scott (March 28, 1909 – April 13, 1975, aged 66) was a pioneer in the Hi-Fi industry and founder of H.H. Scott, Inc. Scott graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta frat ...

(1951) *Frank L. Capps (1952) *

Edward W. Kellogg Edward Washburn Kellogg (February 20, 1883 – May 29, 1960) was an American inventor who invented the moving coil loudspeaker in 1925 along with Chester W. Rice at General Electric Biography He was born in Washington (state), Washington in 1883 ...

(1953) *J.P. Maxfield (1954) *

Lee De Forest Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and a fundamentally important early pioneer in electronics. He invented the first electronic device for controlling current flow; the three-element "Audion" triode va ...

(1955) *

Sherman Fairchild Sherman Mills Fairchild (April 7, 1896 – March 28, 1971) was an American businessman and investor. He founded over 70 companies, including Fairchild Aircraft (Fairchild Aviation Corporation), Fairchild Industries, and Fairchild Camera and Inst ...

(1955) *O.B. Hanson (1956) *Edward C. Wente (1957) *Samuel B. Snow (1957) * Harvey Fletcher (1958) * Harold Stephen Black (1959) *

Semi Joseph Begun Semi Joseph Begun (December 2, 1905 in Germany – January 5, 1995), usually referred to as S. Joseph Begun, was a German-American engineer and inventor known for his contributions to magnetic recording, underwater acoustics, and telecommunicatio ...

(1960) * John Kenneth Hilliard (1961) *Arthur C. Davis (1962) *Benjamin B. Bauer (1963) * Vern Oliver Knudsen (1964) * Frederick Vinton Hunt (1965) *

John E. Volkmann John E. Volkmann (1905 in Chicago – July 9, 1980 in Princeton, New Jersey) was a sound engineer and architect. Volkmann received a BS degree in 1927 and an MS in 1928. He worked his entire professional career at RCA, working on acoustics, large ...

(1966) *Arnold P.G. Peterson (1968) *

William B. Snow William B. Snow (San Francisco, 16 May 1903 – 5 October 1968) was a sound engineer. He graduated from the Stanford University in 1923 with a B. S. degree in electrical engineering. He worked for Bell Labs, where he made major contributions to ...

(1968) * Marvin Camras (1969) *

Rudy Bozak Rudolph Thomas Bozak (1910–1982) was an audio electronics and acoustics designer and engineer in the field of sound reproduction. His parents were Bohemian Czech immigrants; Rudy was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Bozak studied at Milwaukee ...

(1970) * Leo Beranek (1971) *

Manfred R. Schroeder Manfred Robert Schroeder (12 July 1926 – 28 December 2009) was a German physicist, most known for his contributions to acoustics and computer graphics. He wrote three books and published over 150 articles in his field. Born in Ahlen, he stud ...

(1972) *

Henry E. Roys Henry Edward Roys ( Beaver Falls, 1902 – Green Valley, Dec. 6, 1988) was a sound engineer. He graduated from the University of Colorado in 1925 with a B. S. degree in electrical engineering. He worked for the most of his professional life for ...

(1973) *Floyd K. Harvey (1974) * Georg Neumann (1976) *

John G. Frayne John G. Frayne (July 8, 1894 in Ireland – October 31, 1990 in Pasadena, California) was a physicist and sound engineer. Career Frayne received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Minnesota while working at the Bell Laboratories. I ...

(1976) *

Daniel R. von Recklinghausen Daniel R. von Recklinghausen (January 22, 1925, New York City – August 22, 2011) was an electrical engineer. Obituaries, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society Vol 59, No 9, p688, 2011 Sep. He graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Techno ...

(1978) *

Hugh S. Knowles Hugh S. Knowles (September 23, 1904 in Hynes Iowa – April 22, 1988) was an American acoustical engineer, inventor, and manufacturer in the hearing aids field. He was the holder of more than 50 patents in acoustics and related fields. In 1946, ...

(1978) * Arthur C. Keller (1981) *

Duane H. Cooper Duane H. Cooper (August 21, 1923 in Gibson City, Illinois – April 4, 1995) was a physicist, who made early investigations regarding the intricate geometry of the phonograph stylus-groove interface. He earned a Bachelor of Science and Ph.D. d ...

(1982) *

Willi Studer Studer is a designer and manufacturer of professional audio equipment for recording studios and broadcasters. The company was founded in Zürich, Switzerland, in 1948 by Willi Studer. It initially became known in the 1950s for its professiona ...

(1982) *

Cyril M. Harris Cyril Manton Harris (June 20, 1917 – January 4, 2011) was Professor Emeritus of Architecture and Charles Batchelor Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University. He received his B.S. in mathematics and his M.S. in physics ...

(1984) * Stefan Kudelski (1984) *

Claude E. Shannon Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer known as a "father of information theory". As a 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts Institu ...

(1985) * Thomas Stockham (1987) *

Heitaro Nakajima was a Japanese digital audio pioneer, who led Sony's Compact Disc project in the 1970s. Born in Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture, Nakajima graduated from the Tokyo Institute of Technology with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1944, and ...

(1989) *

Eberhard Zwicker Karl Eberhard Zwicker (15 January 1924, in Öhringen, Germany – 22 November 1990, in Icking) was a German acoustics scientist and full professor at the Technical University of Munich. Zwicker studied physics and electrical engineering at the U ...

(1991) *

Michael Gerzon Michael Anthony Gerzon (4 December 1945 – 6 May 1996) is probably best known for his work on Ambisonics and for his work on digital audio. He also made a large number of recordings, many in the field of free improvisation in which he had a par ...

(1991) *

Ray M. Dolby Ray Milton Dolby (; January 18, 1933 – September 12, 2013) was an American engineer and inventor of the noise reduction system known as Dolby NR. He helped develop the video tape recorder while at Ampex and was the founder of Dolby Labor ...

(1992) *

Bart N. Locanthi Bartholomew Nicholas Locanthi II (White Plains, New York, 1919 – Glendale, California, January 9, 1994) was an audio engineer and leading expert in the US pro-audio industry in the 1970s and 1980s. Education Bart Locanthi graduated from Ca ...

(1996) *

Richard H. Small Richard H. Small (born 1935) is an American scientist, who has worked mainly in the field of electroacoustics. He is known for the commonly used Thiele/Small parameters for loudspeaker enclosure design, which are named after Small and his colleague ...

(1996) *

Kees A. Schouhamer Immink Kornelis Antonie "Kees" Schouhamer Immink (born 18 December 1946) is a Dutch scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur, who pioneered and advanced the era of digital audio, video, and data recording, including popular digital media such as Compact D ...

(1999) *

Fritz Sennheiser Fritz Sennheiser (9 May 1912 – 17 May 2010) was a German inventor and entrepreneur who founded and served as chairman of Sennheiser Electronic, a manufacturer of audio equipment. Biography Early life and education Born in Berlin on 9 ...

(2002) *

Gerhard Steinke Gerhard Steinke (born 12 August 1927 in Dresden) is a German sound engineer. He studied acoustics in Dresden and began his career at Radio Dresden in 1947. In 1953, he joined the Radio and Television Research Centre (German: ''Rundfunk- und Fernse ...

(2007) *

Jens Blauert Jens Peter Blauert (born 20 June 1938 in Hamburg) is a German scientist specializing in psychoacoustics and an emeritus professor at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, where he founded the Institute of Communication Acoustics. His major scientific field ...

(2008) *

George Massenburg George Y. Massenburg (born Baltimore, Maryland c. 1947) is a Grammy award-winning recording engineer and inventor. Working principally in Baltimore, Los Angeles, Nashville, and Macon, Georgia, Massenburg is widely known for submitting a paper to ...

(2008) * Rupert Neve (2011) *

Phil Ramone Philip Ramone (né Rabinowitz, January 5, 1934March 30, 2013) was a South African-born American recording engineer, record producer, violinist and composer, who in 1958 co-founded A & R Recording, Inc., a recording studio with business par ...

(2011) * Rudy Van Gelder (2013) *Floyd Toole (2013) *Floyd Toole (2014) *

Bob Ludwig Robert C. Ludwig (born c. 1945) is an American mastering engineer. He has mastered recordings on all the major recording formats for all the major record labels, and on projects by more than 1,300 artists including Led Zeppelin, Lou Reed, Qu ...

(2015) *

Diana Deutsch Diana Deutsch (born 15 February 1938) is a British-American psychologist from London, England. She's a Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego, and is a prominent researcher on the psychology of music. Deutsch is p ...

(2016) *

D. B. Keele Jr. D. Broadus Keele Jr., also known simply as Don Keele or D. B. Keele Jr., is an American audio engineer and inventor who has helped shape and influence the professional and consumer loudspeaker industries since the early seventies. He is one of the ...

(2016) *

Malcolm Omar Hawksford Malcolm, Malcom, Máel Coluim, or Maol Choluim may refer to: People * Malcolm (given name), includes a list of people and fictional characters * Clan Malcolm * Maol Choluim de Innerpeffray, 14th-century bishop-elect of Dunkeld Nobility * Máel C ...

(2017)

British section

The AES British Section, which is the largest outside the US, issues a monthly newsletter and holds regular lectures, usually in London, with occasional visits to studios and other places of interest. Lectures, which are often on topics of topical interest to audio enthusiasts are usually recorded, with past lectures available to all as free MP3 downloads, sometimes with accompanying slides in PDF format.

Connection with the VDT

Although there are several German sections of the AES and there is no formal connection to the Verband Deutscher Tonmeister, the goals and activities of both organizations are closely related and there are several instances of double memberships, e.g. in the persons of Benjamin Bernfeld, Gerhard Steinke and Günther Theile.hauptmikrofon.de
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References

External links

* * {{authority control Audio engineering Broadcast engineering Film and video technology Engineering societies based in the United States Organizations established in 1948 Companies based in New York City Music industry associations Trade fairs