Keynote: Warren Huart
From Cassette Decks to Platinum Discs
Thursday, October 23, 2025, 12:00pm – 1:00pm PDT
Join multi-platinum producer, mixer, and educator Warren Huart for his AES 2025 keynote, From Cassette Decks to Platinum Discs. In this deeply personal and inspiring talk, Warren shares his journey from a pink-walled bedroom in rural Hampshire to working with legendary artists like Aerosmith, James Blunt, The Fray, and Ace Frehley. With warmth, humour, and hard-earned wisdom, he reflects on the lessons that shaped his path, from DIY overdubs on battered cassette decks to founding the global educational platform Produce Like A Pro. This is a story of perseverance, creativity, and what it really takes to make a life in music.
About Warren Huart
Warren Huart is a Los Angeles-based British music producer, Grammy-nominated mixer, and TEC Award-winning educator who has played a fundamental role in the creation of platinum-selling and Billboard-topping albums. He is the founder of Produce Like A Pro, and through his educational platforms—including Pro Mix Academy, Lancaster Audio, and Rate My Mix—he empowers musicians, producers, and audio professionals to build lasting careers in music.
Warren’s credits span hundreds of albums with artists who’ve gone on to sell millions and earn billions of streams. He has worked professionally in the music industry since the age of 16, toured internationally, played major festivals like Reading and River Rave, and produced music for everyone from emerging talent to chart-topping acts. After relocating to Los Angeles, he became a staff producer on The X Factor USA, crafting weekly performances for national television and helping develop artists from the ground up.
With over 20 years of experience in record production, engineering, mixing, and songwriting, Warren is known for his strong work ethic, positive attitude, and deep respect for the artist’s vision. He has co-owned one of Hollywood’s first multi-purpose rehearsal and recording studios, consulted for leading audio brands, and built custom studio spaces from scratch. Many of his long-term collaborators have become close friends, and his work continues to shape how artists and engineers collaborate and thrive in the studio today.
Across YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, X, and Threads, Warren now reaches an audience of over 1.2 million creators, helping them turn passion into visibility and skill into success. Whether working with major labels or mentoring the next generation of producers, his mission remains the same: to make music that matters and to support those who create it.
Keynote: Andrew Watt
Creativity, Collaboration, and the Modern Producer’s Role
Moderator: Chad Smith, The Red Hot Chili Peppers
Friday, October 24, 2025, 12:00pm- 1:00pm PDT
Multi-GRAMMY® Award–winning, platinum-selling producer Andrew Watt will take the AES stage to reflect on his career at the forefront of modern music. As one of today’s most in-demand producers, Watt has shaped defining works for artists including Lady Gaga, Elton John, Brandi Carlile, Post Malone, Dua Lipa, Justin Bieber, Ozzy Osbourne and The Rolling Stones. In this keynote, he will share his perspective on the current state of the industry, exploring how he navigates genres from pop and rock to global hits, and how building trust and collaboration in the studio enables artists at every stage of their careers to create career-defining music. Moderating the conversation will be special guest, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Chad Smith, legendary drummer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
About Andrew Watt
The name Andrew Watt has become synonymous with one undeniable truth: he is the music industry’s not-so-secret weapon. Since 2015, the multi-GRAMMY-winning, platinum-selling music producer has collaborated with some of the past decade’s most groundbreaking artists, including The Rolling Stones, Lady Gaga, Brandi Carlile, Pearl Jam, Justin Bieber, Elton John, Cardi B, Post Malone, Dua Lipa, Metallica, Stevie Wonder, Miley Cyrus, Bruno Mars, Shawn Mendes, Lana Del Rey, Paul McCartney, Ozzy Osbourne, Smokey Robinson, and many more.
In 2021, Watt won his first GRAMMY Award for Producer of the Year at the 63rd Annual GRAMMY Awards, thanks to his work on Ozzy Osbourne’s Ordinary Man, Miley Cyrus’ Plastic Hearts, Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia, and Post Malone’s Hollywood’s Bleeding. The following year, Watt produced a string of widely praised projects, including the Elton John and Britney Spears collaboration Hold Me Closer, Eddie Vedder’s Earthling, and Ozzy Osbourne’s Patient Number 9, which earned him his second GRAMMY for Best Rock Album at the 65th Annual GRAMMY Awards.
2023 was another standout year, with releases like Iggy Pop’s Every Loser, The Kid LAROI’s “Forever and Again” from the Barbie movie soundtrack, and Jungkook’s “Seven,” which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Watt capped the year with Hackney Diamonds, The Rolling Stones’ first album of original music in 18 years, which he fully produced. The album’s lead single, “Angry,” earned Watt a GRAMMY nomination for Best Rock Song for his co-writing and production work, with the full album earning him a win for Best Rock Album in 2025.
In 2024, Watt produced Pearl Jam’s Dark Matter, Peso Pluma and Quavo’s “Pa No Pensar,” Lana Del Rey and Quavo’s “Tough,” and Quavo and Lenny Kravitz’s “Fly.” Most recently, Watt worked on the groundbreaking track “Die With a Smile” by Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and remained at the top for five weeks. The song also spent 18 weeks at #1 on the Billboard Global 100 chart, and has been #1 on Spotify’s Global Chart for 204 days, setting a new record for the longest-running number one in the platform’s history. He also executive produced Lady Gaga’s latest album Mayhem, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart, and the recently released collaboration album between Elton John and Brandi Carlile, Who Believes in Angels, which features the highly acclaimed track “Never Too Late.” The song, which was featured in the documentary Elton John: Never Too Late, earned Watt an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song in 2025.
Heyser Lecture: Sean Olive
Make Audio Great Always: Using Science for Consistent Quality
Friday, October 24, 2025, 6:00pm – 7:00pm PDT
Our scientific knowledge of what makes loudspeakers, headphones and small listening rooms sound great comes from well-controlled double-blind listening tests. Science has identified which products listeners prefer and the objective measurements that best predict their sound quality. This knowledge has led to improvements in the quality and consistency of audio products delivering enhanced listening experiences at lower prices.
However, much of the audio industry and related standards organizations ignore what the science has taught us and remain caught in audio’s “circle of confusion”. This talk will discuss the current best practices in subjective and objective measurements, where they fall short, and give examples of where they could be better applied to improve the quality and consistency of recorded and reproduced sound and make audio great always.
About Sean Olive
Sean Olive was born in Brockville, Ontario and received a music degree (University of Toronto) and master’s and Ph.D. degrees (McGill University) in sound recording. From 1985 to 1993 he was a research scientist in psychoacoustics at the National Research Council in Ottawa, Canada, working with Floyd Toole on research in the perception and measurement of microphones, loudspeakers and their interaction with room acoustics.
Sean joined Harman International in 1993 where he continued his sound quality research in loudspeakers, headphones, automotive audio and room acoustics reaching Harman’s highest technical level of Senior Fellow. Since May 2025, he has been an independent audio consultant. Sean is a Fellow and past President of the AES and has published over 55 research papers. He is a co-author in Floyd Toole’s 4th Edition of “Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers, Rooms and Headphones” to be released by Focal Press in November 2025.