AES Welcomes New President Dr. Sean Olive

Following closely on the heels of the 135th Audio Engineering Society (AES) Convention, held Thursday, October 17, through Sunday, October 20, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, the AES welcomes Dr. Sean Olive as its new president, taking over from outgoing president Frank Wells. Currently serving as director, Acoustic Research, Harman International, Olive is based in Northridge, California, placing him in an ideal location to guide the AES into the 137th Convention, which will take place in Los Angeles in the fall of 2014.   

Olive’s experience is wide-ranging; his education includes a B. Mus. from University of Toronto, a M. Mus. in sound recording from McGill University and a PhD in sound reproduction from McGill. He served as an audio research scientist for the National Research Council of Canada for several years, before joining the Harman team in 1993. He has stayed active in academia, teaching classes at UCLA on occasion, and has been involved in various aspects of the AES’s technical committees and research initiatives. He displays an unwavering passion for audio and the AES organization, and his unique perspective as a musician, educator, recording engineer/producer, audio researcher and consumer places him in an ideal position to guide the course of the society through the next year and help plot that course for coming years.  

One set of goals embraced by Olive is to continue diversifying the scope of the AES and its membership. As he points out, “The recording industry has been at times resistant to change, and we are still feeling the effects of the failure to fully embrace digital technology. The ways that consumers are experiencing music are evolving at a rapid rate, with audio as a mobile experience now being much more common than a living room with a hi-fi system. Headphone sales are through the roof, and the AES has a chance to help improve the consistency and quality of the mobile experience. As our membership continues to move toward this world, along with the worlds of film, sound contracting, live sound, automotive audio and gaming, we need to further explore these avenues in order to better serve our members. There is also huge room for AES member expansion into the so-called ‘BRIC’ countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – and we plan to increase our outreach in those regions. The AES has a tremendous leadership role and a strong membership base, and I look forward to leveraging these assets to assist in the ongoing transition to the AES of the 21st century.”  

For further information on the Audio Engineering Society and upcoming events, please visit http://www.aes.org/.