AES PNW Section Chair Dan Mortensen began the meeting, and had all attendees briefly introduce themselves. This meeting was co-sponsored by the Seattle Chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) SIGGRAPH (graphics special interest group), for which Steve Hollasch spoke briefly. AES PNW Committee member and meeting facilitator Steve Turnidge introduced the books' co-editor Ken Greenebaum (co-edited with Ronen Barzel).

Ken said that he left Microsoft largely to work on these books, which he saw as filling a vacuum. The Audio Anecdotes books, published by A K Peters, are an ongoing project to share the fruits of diverse audio experts' experiences, including references, demos, and even computer code. Topic areas include:

• the physics of sound generation and propagation,
• synthesis,
• analysis,
• recording,
• reproduction,
• music theory,
• and the effect of sound on the mind and body.

The panel consisted of local contributors to Audio Anecdotes with a variety of experiences. Sumit Basu works for Microsoft Research; Dex Manley is a local voice and screen talent; Ivan Tashev works for Microsoft Research; and David Thiel used to work for Microsoft Research in audio/computer interfacing and now does similar work on his own. Each panelist was asked to describe their background, then each described their current work position, then each described their book article.

Sumit Basu described beat detection for DJ mixing. This is more difficult than one might imagine - If one wanted to segue a DJ dance recording to Mozart, the beat is often not so obvious to detect, especially by computer. And matching the beat in a changeover is paramount for a dance club DJ. The talk was illustrated with some funny "photos" of Mozart as a DJ mixer.

Dex Manley gave a whirlwind demo on making great voice recordings. He acted out the classic mistakes and techniques on his microphone.

Ivan Tashev described research on the advantages of using microphone arrays for computer sound capture, especially voice. Small arrays of 4 or 8 microphone elements in a USB box could be digitally processed to greatly enhance sound pickup for clarity, and eliminate the need for a headset and mic close to the mouth. He played examples of how clear the processed sound could be compared to an ordinary mic.

David Thiel showed his experiences with the evolution of video game sound, with demos of his work on classic arcade games such as Reactor and Q*Bert. Everyone was awed by how primitive the hardware and tools used to make sound for arcade games in the 1980s were, yet somehow, David managed to create worlds of sound effects and music, which he played. All this was contrasted to today's game sound environment.

After a refreshment break, our door prize drawing was held. Winners included:

• A copy of Audio Anecdotes Vol 1 went to Zach Martin
• a copy of Vol 2 went to Sumit Basu.
• DigiPen T-Shirts went to Matthew Carson, Jayney Wallick, Brandon Every, Steve Hollasch and David Thiel.

A lively question and answer session finished the meeting..p