人妻少妇专区

For a half hour Stephen Roessner shares with students the practical lessons he鈥檚 learned about how to properly arrange microphones鈥攊n this case, in and around the Steinway baby grand piano in a brand-new recording studio at the 人妻少妇专区.

The Grammy Award-winning recording engineer explains why the center rod of a microphone stand shouldn鈥檛 touch the floor. (It will pick up vibrations from the piano.) How microphones inside the piano can be placed farther from where the hammers hit the strings. (It creates a warmer tone.) How to set up microphones away from the piano and aim them. (So they capture just the right amount of 鈥渞oom sound.鈥�)

And now he gives his audio and music engineering students some of the most important advice of all for recording a solo piano performance.

鈥淗onestly, if you put your time into placing the microphones in the right spots, you really won鈥檛 have to do that much [adjusting] during the mixing,鈥� Roessner says. On the other hand, if you don鈥檛 put that effort into the recording part, he says, 鈥渄on鈥檛 think you can fix it later in the mix.鈥�

A rapidly changing field

The University鈥檚 $3 million investment in a new state-of-the-art recording studio, control room, mixing rooms, and sound design lab is a major milestone for Rochester鈥檚 audio and music engineering (AME) program, which is thriving in part because of the expertise that Roessner and other faculty members pass on to their students.

Launched six years ago, the program gives students the skills they need to enter鈥攁nd keep up with鈥攖he rapidly changing field of audio and sound engineering. Those skills are needed not only in the recording, film, podcasting, and broadcast industries, but by any company that incorporates music and sound effects in its product line鈥攆or example, producers of consumer electronics (e.g. cell phones and smart speakers), home entertainment, and video games; manufacturers of professional audio equipment and musical instruments; and computer and Internet companies like Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft.

鈥淭he program has grown more than we ever anticipated,鈥� says Mark Bocko, chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Eighty-three undergraduates are currently pursuing audio and music engineering as a major, with 22 expected to receive diplomas next spring. (Audio engineering concentrations are also pursued by master鈥檚 and PhD students in electrical and computer engineering.)

Another 43 undergraduates, from a range of majors including computer science, economics and business, mechanical engineering, music, and linguistics, have chosen audio and music engineering as a minor. And students from multiple disciplines pursue it as a cluster.

Why the success?

The program offers students a major that allows them to pursue their passion for music and become engineers at the same time. Sanaa Finley 鈥�23 was so excited at the prospect, she 鈥渃ouldn鈥檛 wait to call my mom and tell her鈥� that she was changing her major to AME. Courses blend the 鈥渇un stuff鈥濃�攔ecording and sound design鈥攚ith 鈥渉ighly technical and rigorous鈥� training in acoustics, electronics, digital signal processing, and software design: a combination that companies are looking for, Bocko says. Many of the program鈥檚 44 alumni are working at聽 companies like Apple, Bose, Dolby Laboratories, Harman and Microsoft, but also at startups like Magic Leap.聽The curriculum also puts an emphasis on hands-on projects that students can show to employers. Recent senior design projects, for example, have included a 鈥�novel electronic musical interface鈥�, a software program that digitally recreates the distortions of four-track cassette tape recorders for use as special effects, and a room that creates .

The theory and the practice

The seven faculty members who work most closely with the students are well equipped to give them both a theoretical foundation and practical skills.

Bocko and assistant professor Zhiyao Duan are the research faculty. Bocko, who plays bass on the side, studies spatial audio, alternative loudspeaker technologies, and musical acoustics. Duan, who sings tenor, received a prestigious NSF CAREER award earlier this year. He is an expert in computer audition, music information retrieval, multimedia, and AR/VR. Duan is teaching a course on computer audition this fall.

Ming-Lun Lee, an assistant professor (instructional track), has been with the program since it started. He has degrees in both electrical engineering and musicology/music theory, and is an expert in audio programming and spatial audio recording. Lee has recorded more than 40 concerts with 3D audio microphones and 3D/360 VR cameras at the . He is also a choral director and baritone. This fall he鈥檚 teaching courses on the evolution of sound recording and on audio software design.

Michael Heilemann and Sarah Rose Smith, who were both recently appointed assistant professors (instructional track), received their PhDs at Rochester. Heilemann, an expert in audio acoustics and signal processing, is teaching an audio digital signal processing portfolio class and a senior design class this fall. Smith, whose research explores the reverberation of audio signals as they are reflected and absorbed within spaces, is teaching an introduction to audio and music engineering course and an acoustics portfolio class.

The two senior lecturers鈥擱oessner, who is completing his PhD, and Rob LaVaque, a two-time NY Emmy award winning musician and audio engineer鈥攂ring a wealth of professional experience to the classes they teach on recording and audio production, and on sound design, audio for gaming, and audio for visual media, respectively.

Roessner has operated his own recording studio for nearly 20 years. He received his Grammy in 2010 as the recording engineer/mixer on Messiaen: Livre Du Saint-Sacrement. LaVaque, who runs his own company, Gravity Pool, created the audio and music for well-received 人妻少妇专区 Medical Center Super Bowl ads. Roessner and LaVaque are both accomplished musicians who have toured professionally.

In their classes they stress that sound design and recording are as much art as science. And they emphasize the best practices they鈥檝e learned as professionals鈥攂e it placement of a microphone or time management 鈥攖hat will serve their students well in the workplace.

鈥淚f you鈥檝e ever worked in audio before, you know exactly what he [Roessner] is saying, and then you can start relating to him, and at that point you really learn from him because you know you are on the same page with him,鈥� explained Alin Kenworthy 鈥�18 while taking Roessner鈥檚 class on the .

鈥淗e constantly gives anecdotes about how all of this is applied in a real studio.鈥�

Kenworthy is now an associate audio systems engineer at Magic Leap.

Other AME students go on to graduate school. Wells Award winner Yiting Zhang 鈥�19 says the AME major was a 鈥減erfect fit鈥� for her because of her interests in both engineering and music. She鈥檚 played piano since age 7 and enjoys singing.

In addition to her classwork, she spent a summer as a research fellow in Duan鈥檚 lab, working on a system that retrieves sounds in a sound library by using vocal imitation. She continued working on the project into her senior year.

She鈥檚 now pursuing a master鈥檚 of music technology degree at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

A 鈥榮ignature鈥� program

This all began because Bocko wanted to create a 鈥渟ignature program鈥� that would leverage Rochester鈥檚 strengths in music and engineering. In 1995, he participated in the University鈥檚 Bridging Fellowship program, which allows faculty members to spend a semester as a student in a different part of the University. Bocko chose the renowned Eastman School of Music, where he studied music theory with Professor Dave Headlam.

Over the years, the two became excited about the possibilities of offering digital audio and music engineering as that 鈥渟ignature program.鈥�

鈥淭he beautiful thing about audio and music engineering is that the students who show up to study it are passionate about the subject matter,鈥� Bocko says.聽 鈥淚鈥檝e been teaching electrical engineering for 35 years, and I鈥檝e never seen an electrical engineering student get as excited about an oscilloscope as an audio student does about a state-of-the-art mixing console.鈥�