Meeting Date: January 24, 2008

Place

Seijyo Club, Tokyo

Reporter

Hideki KENMOCHI (Center of Advanced Sound Technology, YAMAHA)

Subject

VOCALOID : Overview of the birth of `Hatsune Miku' from the vocal synthesis technology

Participants

29

Report

VOCALOID is a technology to synthesize singing voices based on the recorded real vocal sounds. One of the VOCALOID software series named `Hatsune Miku' was a great commercial success in Japanese market of desktop music in 2007. Its detailed technologies, backgrounds of success, problems, possible use in the professional music industry, and future developments were presented.

Meeting Date: February 22, 2008

Place

The head office of Mainich Broadcasting System, Osaka

Reporter

Hideo IRIMAJIRI (Chief Director of Broadcasting, Mainichi Broadcasting System Inc.)

Atsushi MARUI (Lecturer, Tokyo University of the Arts)

Subject

Reports on surround recording experiments conducted by the expert group of the AES Japan section

Participants

39

Report

Participants had a session of listening and comparing of the classical music recordings using various surround-microphone arrangements recorded by the expert group of the AES Japan section on September, 2006. Results of the official subjective listening test and the subjective distinctive features obtained from the microphone arrangements were also reported.

Meeting Date: March 19, 2008

Place

Seijyo Club, Tokyo

Reporter

Shinichiro ISHII (Ishii Audio Laboratory)

Subject

Theory and practice for designing rooms of listening

Participants

16

Report

The topic was how to design a listening room having good quality of reflections from the walls. A basic theory of designing the dimensions of a room was compared to the traditional theory of dimensions of a room. The theoretical and practical results were presented in terms of the frequency response at the listening point, particularly in the low frequency region where standing waves are remarkable.

Meeting Date: April 19, 2008

Place

Seijyo Club, Tokyo

Reporter

Hisao Ishii (Otaritec corporation)

Subject

Novel DSP Monitoring System by GENELEC

Participants

20

Report

GENELEC DSP SE monitoring system brings a new approach to provide a solution to acoustic issues in small room environment such as small studio or home listening room. The outline of the system, the difference from conventional systems, and system arrangement etc. were introduced, and how the monitoring environment in the new era should be was discussed.

Meeting Date: May 22, 2008

Place

National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Tokyo

Reporter

Michiaki KATSUMOTO (Senior Researcher, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology)

Subject

A proposal of ultra-realistic acoustics using loudspeakers of different directional radiation patterns

Participants

52

Report

Ultra-realistic acoustics using loudspeakers which reproduce radiation characteristics of a sound source as precise as possible was proposed. The loudspeakers were mounted on a sphere to reproduce all directional responses and the frequency responses of the sound source. Reproduction of a violin and a guitar was demonstrated. Discussion on the reproduction system and ultra-realistic system was very successful while the demonstration was reiterated.

Meeting Date: June 19, 2008

Place

Seijyo Club, Tokyo

Reporter

Kaoru ASHIHARA Ph.D. (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology)

Jun YAMAZAKI (Product Designer / Manager Tac System,Inc.)

Subject

Report on 124th AES Convention in Amsterdam

Participants

15

Report

The reports on 124th AES convention held in Amsterdam was made by two Reporters. Dr. Kaoru ASHIHARA who presented a poster (P20-3: Perception of Movements of a Focused Sound Generated with a Linear Loudspeaker Array System) in the convention reported on Papers, Posters, and Workshops. Mr. Jun YAMAZAKI lectured on Tutorials, Events, Demos, and Exhibition. He was also one of the exhibitors who released a new product (Virtual Monitor Controller Plug-in for ProTools) at CB Electronics booth in this convention.

Meeting Date: September 18, 2008

Place

Bay FM Inc., Chiba

Reporter

Yoshio, UENO (Technical Division, Bay FM Inc.)

Subject

Visiting tour of the broadcasting facilities of new studios in Bay FM

Participants

30

Report

Bay FM Inc. moved its head office and broadcasting studios to Makuhari from the central part of Chiba in December, 2006. Besides the beautiful view from the new studios at the 27th floor, innovative improvements on the sound quality and lower cost of running expenses were achieved by the full-digital audio networking from the input to the output for broadcasting. The facilities of the broadcasting station were discovered by a brief introductory and visiting tours.

Meeting Date: October 23, 2008

Place

Seijo Club, Tokyo

Reporter

Shinji Koyano (Pioneer Corporation)

Akira Nishimura (Tokyo University of Information Sciences)

Subject

Report on AES Japan Section Conference in Osaka 2008- Human Centric Audio Technology-.

Report on AES 34th Conference in Jeju Island, Korea, 2008 –New Trends in Audio for Mobile and Handheld Devices-.

Participants

14

Report

Two kinds of AES Conferences, AES Japan Section Conference in Osaka and AES 34th Conference in Jeju Island, Korea were reported. Mr. Shinji Koyano reported Japan Section Conference in Osaka, which was the second regional conference by the Japan section. The number of visitors became twice the previous Japan conference, and most of the programs attracted many visitors. Prof. Akira Nishimura reported the International Conference in Korea, which was the second international conference in Asia. The conference focused on audio technologies for mobile devices in the previous conference in Korea. The conference included paper presentations with a small number of exhibitions. Some paper presentations were made by Japanese researchers.

Meeting Date: November 13, 2008

Place

Seijo Club, Tokyo

Reporter

Shougo Kiryu (Professor, Musashi Institute of Technology)

Kazutsugu Uchimura (Sound Designer, NHK Media Technology Inc.)

Subject

Report on 125th AES Convention in San Francisco

Participants

14

Report

Prof. Shougo Kiryu reported his presentations and current research interest in the paper sessions. One of his presentations was P11-3: `A Psychoacoustic Measurement and ABR for the Sound Signals in the Frequency Range between 10 kHz and 24 kHz'. His current research interest is upper limit of the audible frequency in human listener. Although there are high-resolution audio formats in the market and so many recordings and reproduction devices that can support 96-kHz and higher sampling frequencies, we do not know much about auditory perception caused by high frequency tones.

Mr. Kazutsugu Uchimura mainly reported about workshops and exhibition of the convention. Effective, novel, and surprising presentations in several workshops made convention so attractive for sound engineers and sound designers. He also reported briefly on Mill Valley Film Festival held in north of San Francisco, which he went after the convention.

Meeting Date: December 18, 2008

Place

Seijyo Club, Tokyo

Reporter

Koichi KITAMURA (General Manager, Recording Industry Association of Japan)

Subject

Details of HiRAC (Historical Records Archive Conference) Project

Participants

23

Report

The SP original recordings carried an important role as the recording media that convey social conditions at the time. However, as time passes, their contents are in danger of disappearance or degradation.

The goal of HiRAC (Historical Records Archive Conference) is to contribute to development of Japanese culture and the musical industry by preserving sources of the original recording of historical and cultural importance and open them to the public. In this meeting, introduction of reading signals directly from a metal master using a special pickup was presented.

The presentation included portions presented in the Workshop Trends of Storage Technologies for Audio Recording and Mastering held in 124th AES Convention in Amsterdam, 2008.