Trends in Audio

Yesterday I came across a report by the AES Technical Council discussing the Technology Trends in Audio Engineering. By the way, for those of you who aren’t familiar with AES, it stands for Audio Engineering Society. The technical council tried to define standards for different audio uses and is made up of numerous committees specializing in these divisions. I advise anyone who is interested in audio to keep up with AES and check out their website. It has a lot of valuable information on the industry and gives you a chance to connect with an abundance of creative audio professionals. If you’re in the area when they’re hosting one, their conventions are one of the biggest in the industry to attend, which could prove to be a great way to network.


Anyway, what I like about this report is that not only do they talk about technological advancements, but they also break it down by the committee divisions I wrote of above.  Perhaps one of the more relative divisions to audio post-production is Spatial Audio. The report speaks about how the trend was to go from 5.1 surround sound to 7.1. The loudspeaker layout didn’t catch on as planned, but the Society projects 3-D layouts, including height speakers, in the future. They’re currently working on 9.1, 10.2, and 22.2 layouts.

Another trend is spatial audio techniques since the rise of 3-D films. The Society claims there haven’t been much advancement in this area, but see more of a focus coming in the future. For average home listeners, and more basic theaters, stereophonic sound is still prevalent. The next step is creating special audio for these mediums to keep up with the visual depth of the 3-D effects.

As I near graduation from an Entertainment Business Master’s program with a recording background, I feel prepared to excel in this area. I have had the opportunity to work on a few post production projects that allowed me to learn about spatial audio and surround sound mixing. I think that being a recent graduate shows I’m willing to learn more about the process. I hope that 3-D loudspeaker layouts do catch on. I would be very interested to experience it in a theater. I wonder if it would ever progress to a point where we would have smaller speakers in a dome-like setup in theaters. Imagine the hair drying domes with the holes in it at salons, where every hole would be like a speaker placement. It could be quite the audio adventure!