The San Francisco Bay area does not lack for targets of opportunity when it comes to tours that might be of interest to audio professionals.
Consider that Dolby and the Digidesign family along with a number of digital software boutiques as well call it home. Then there was that whole hippie/San Francisco Sound thing back late 1960s and early 1970s to add in historical gravitas. Maybe you heard about it…
A person with an interest in audio could spend a lot of time in San Francisco. And the Audio Engineering Society is thinking the same thing for its technical tours during the upcoming 129th convention in San Francisco, Nov. 4–7.
Convention Technical Tour Co-Chairs Jessica Livingston and Jeff McKnight have released their list of planned tours in the City by the Bay.
For some historical leavening, a visit to the Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse is scheduled. Nominally a coffeehouse, it is really a four-decade old front for traditional folk and “roots” music. Also on the menu are two larger facilities, the Berkeley Repertory Theater, Davies Symphony Hall, home of the San Francisco Symphony and Grace Cathedral, a musically active church.
San Francisco has become a hub for film and video production so tours of local post houses Crescendo, Polarity Post and Outpost Studios are on the docket. Outpost has an extensive Foley props collection.
A visit to Dolby Labs should keep the most technical-minded busy. The more academically-oriented might enjoy the trip to Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics.
Studios on the agenda include Tiny Telephone, Studio D and Studio 880.
The newly redesigned studios of the Women’s Audio Mission will also be looked into; it is a nonprofit “dedicated to the advancement of women in music production and the recording arts.”
Details are not yet all firmed up but a calendar is at www.aes.org/events/129/calendar/calendar.cfm. Note that tix for Technical Tours are sold only on site at the Moscone Center.
