Here in the UK the Institute of Professional Sound are having their annual residental training weekend at the Woodland Grange Hotel and Conference Centre, Old Milverton Lane, Leamington Spa, CV32 6RW on the weekend of 6th to 8th February 2015.
Building on their previous years successful mix of lecture, practical, Q&A and break-out rooms, they are offering an engaging and informative event for both location and post production professionals and sound professionals from live events and other disciplines. This weekend provides an ideal chance to meet friends and colleagues in the very convivial atmosphere of Woodland Grange Hotel and Conference Centre, with great networking opportunities, new introductions, and fantastic presentations from industry leaders of their fields. This is a phenomenal low cost for a full service event with all meals and all day refreshments, your own en-suite room, bar, leisure facilities, protected car parking, a central (heart of England) location.
Get All This For Just £200 exc VAT
The price for non members is just £200 exc vat and that includes your own en-suite accommodation for Friday and Saturday nights; Friday evening meal; Saturday breakfast, lunch & evening meal; Sunday breakfast & lunch; all day refreshments (tea, coffee, water, juice, biscuits); free WiFi on-site and in your room; use of the centre health facilities; all conference facilities, and the ‘event handbook’.
Planned Schedule of Events
Friday evening is a chance to arrive, check in, have dinner together and chat.
Saturday Session 1
Mark Yonge AES presents an introduction to networking and audio over IP answering questions like - How do your signals know where to go? Can those signals get lost? with Mark Yonge AES.
Saturday Session 2
Mark will continue the audio over IP theme by taking a look at audio distribution protocols, including AES50, A&H, Dante, Focusrite, Roland, Studer, etc. and attempt to ask the thorny question, will a device from manufacturer ‘A’ talk to a device from manufacturer ‘B’?
Saturday Session 3
Levels/Metering/Monitoring. The monitoring environment, signal path and reference levels are critical to the audio production process. Any weaknesses impact negatively not only on the overall quality of mixes, but also on the confidence and ability of the user to assess and process audio material efficiently and effectively. SOS Technical Editor and IPS member Hugh Robjohns will try to bring clarity to the often misunderstood concepts of reference levels and headroom margins, analogue and digital audio metering, and practical loudness normalisation. He will also describe simple control room acoustic treatments as well as practical loudspeaker level calibration, drawing on some real-world experiences gained from the“Studio SOS” series published in Sound On Sound magazine.
Saturday Session 4
Sara Putt, top agent and industry supporter will explain how to market yourself as a freelancer, or how you as a service company can make the best of promotional opportunities. The session will include CV writing and interview skills, how to get work in, dealing with Producers, Q&A, & lots more.
Sunday Session 1
Simon Bishop MIPS and Grant Bridgman MIPS will take a look at some new recorders with an investigation and reports, with a twist ~ taking 3 experienced production mixers out of their comfort zones! How will they cope? What will they report? Will you agree?
Sunday Session 2
The Sound of F1. Join Tim Davies MIPS as he takes us behind the scenes of the BBC’s Formula One team and illustrates just how glamorous it is to be part of the F1 Circus. He will describe how all the kit moves around the world, just what you have to take with you, how signals move around the paddock, the pits and ultimately get back to the UK. He will also talk you through what sort of kit they use, how big the crew is, and how to cope with jet lag.
Sunday Session 3
Plug-ins for Post, update. Last year Mike Thornton MIPS demonstrated a range of plug-ins and tools which he finds useful in a post production workflow. As with software, things move on and develop quickly and so Mike is going to give us an update on the developments in the plug-in world. New features in iZotope RX4 and Synchro Arts Revoice Pro will be amongst the tools that he will demonstrate in this session.
Sunday Session 4
What Production needs. Apresentation from a Line Producer, and a Production Manager about what they need from their sound department, how they budget, who decides, and a Q&A.
What are You Waiting For?
I cannot recommend this weekend highly enough, I always come away having learnt so much and having renewed friendships and made new friends. So if you work in professional audio or you are studying in pro audio then I commend this weekend to you.