by Dot Cannon
Designing a loudspeaker in ninety minutes used to be a fantasy.
On Friday morning, it was just one of the innovative demos during Day 2 of Audio Engineering Society’ s 141st International Convention, at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
“I’m going to start off, and I’m just going to build a simple crossover,” said Paul Beckmann.
His audience watched his progress, projected on a screen in real time. In the next hour and a half, he had designed a loudspeaker on his laptop, during his demo on “Practical Loudspeaker Processing”.
Beckmann, who is the founder and CEO of DSP Concepts, Inc., was designing with Audio Weaver®, a program his company licenses. He added elements by clicking and dragging–and drew lines to connect them.
Later that afternoon, he would do another demo, “Modern Digital Processing of Microphone Signals”, in which he used the same program to correct audio levels.
And both sessions served as an intriguing prelude to Product Development Super Saturday, coming up tomorrow at AES.
This will be a first-time, day-long workshop where a team of product management experts start at Square One–and develop a virtual speaker, similar to the Amazon Echo, in one day.
If you’re attending AES this year, you’re invited to come and be a part of this special session, where the team works with the audience, discussing what works as the new product, called “Speak2Me”, takes shape.
And the new “Super Saturday Session” is just part of all that’s been happening at this year’s AES.
Friday’s product-development sessions started off with a presentation on “What Happens In a Patent Lawsuit”. Presenters Thomas Millikan (r), of Perkins Cole LLP, and Dr. John Strawn (l), of S Systems Inc., gave their audience an easy way to understand the concepts.
“A patent is fundamentally the right to stop someone else from making your product,” Millikan said. “If Dr. Strawn has patented a hamburger and I make a cheeseburger, he can stop me from selling it, because it contains a hamburger.”
“Just to be clear, we don’t know that he can sell his hamburger though,” one audience member commented, “because somebody might have a patent on a bun.”
“That’s right!” Millikan agreed as the audience laughed.
In between sessions, the convention floor was full of intriguing audio-related products.
One of our favorite innovations, from the 2016 exhibit floor? Tech startup Audio Fusion. Founder and CEO Sam Fisher has created a virtual-reality recording studio, with the opportunity to engineer for a band playing live! Sam, who graduated with a degree in audio engineering, developed his VR creation to help musicians and engineers keep their skills top-notch.
Can AES really be half over already? See you on Super Saturday!