As technological advancement continues to accelerate at an exponential rate, a key question persists: what about the human factor? Technology has enabled remarkable advances in audio – but what does this mean for listeners? At the 141st AES International Convention’s Thursday Opening Ceremonies keynote speech on September 29 (12:30 – 2:00 pm), keynote speaker and composer Ron Jones will explore these considerations in his talk, “Remember the Human Receptor on the Road to the Future.”
Composer Ron Jones
Jones, owner of Stanwood, WA’s SkyMuse Studios and Ron Jones Productions, is the GRAMMY- and Emmy-nominated composer for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Family Guy, Superman and more, with over 40,000 compositions to his credit. Jones has conducted his music with the London Philharmonic, is a member of the Pacific Northwest chapter of the AES and founded the non-profit Academy of Scoring Arts in Los Angeles.
Jones’ vision of audio’s future is clear: “I welcome the new directions where audio production is heading, but caution everyone in this rapidly changing time to not lose sight of what all this technology is for: to engage peoples’ emotions using the art and craft of music.”
Audio is processed very differently than visual stimuli by the human brain. Without a firm understanding of the “human receptor” – the listener – new technologies and inventions won’t achieve their desired effect with people, with content creators and manufacturers, and with the markets for these products.
But with quantum computing coming in the not-so-far future, the computing bandwidth of human brains will be left in the dust. “However, common sense and a solid regard for how the ‘human receptor’ works will serve as a compass and a wonderful guide to where the man-machine relationship is headed as the audio industry rockets forward,” Jones notes. In his work as a composer, his job is not to tell the story – that’s for the picture, the characters and the dialog. His job is to engage peoples’ emotions using music. “I know with a large degree of accuracy how to push emotional buttons in sync with the picture and the story.”
Additional information about the Thursday, September 29 141st AES opening ceremonies and keynote with Ron Jones is available online.
To view the AES 141st International Convention full schedule including dates and times for each event, visit the AES website or via the AES Events mobile app (iOS and Android), which also offers convention maps, scheduling, social media interaction, and other helpful guides to making the most of the convention.
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Find out more about the Audio Engineering Society at aes.org.
