More than 50 renowned sound engineers from across Europe joined the Sennheiser Sound Expert Seminar, in Düsseldorf, Germany. The two-day event at the end of April was packed with workshops, with a particular focus on professional digital wireless, including the new WMAS wideband technology. A dedicated “Experience Room” provided the engineers with an opportunity to listen in to WMAS prototypes and create their own in-ear mixes with this new technology.
Members of Sennheiser’s application engineering team were on site to run the wireless workshops, offering hands-on sessions with WMAS development prototypes. Using the bidirectional prototypes as IEMs only, engineers could experience the clarity of a low-latency digital IEM and do multitrack recordings of their own in-ear mixes on digital consoles to directly compare them with analogue IEMs.
Immersive audio and binaural audio samples were at the centre of Lasse Nipkow’s psychoacoustic workshop. Nipkow has been researching into applied psychoacoustics since 2010, and he has done both 3D recordings of classical music and dance music, as well as sound design for animated movies.
The roots of many national and international bands, in particular from the punk and electro scene, are in Düsseldorf. During a city tour (The Sound of Düsseldorf) participants learnt about “Die Toten Hosen”, “DAF” and “Kraftwerk”, and listened to audio samples by the bands.
Chris Kopp, project manager of the Sound Expert Seminar, said: “Offering a platform where engineers and producers can network, exchange ideas, and find out about the latest industry developments was a key ingredient of this seminar. However, what was decidedly more important was our guests, whose expertise and enthusiasm made the seminar into something very special.”
Richard Brooker, a British sound designer/engineer, commented: “The Sennheiser Sound Experts Seminar was excellent, this is exactly the kind of event that our industry needs. We are, essentially, a very small group of people in the professional audio world of Engineers and Designers. We should get together and talk, not only with manufacturers but with each other. I learned a lot both personally and professionally, a great experience. Bravo Sennheiser, leading the way. I cannot wait for the next one.”