About the Institute of Professional Sound

About Us

The Institute of Professional Sound is a limited company and a registered charity. It is run by an elected Executive Committee, members of which are Directors of the Institute and Trustees of the Charity, assisted by the Secretariat.

The IPS has become an important forum for all audio professionals, and is committed to providing training for its members in all aspects of audio operations.

The organisation was founded in 1977 as the Institute of Broadcast Sound (IBS) by sound balancers in radio and television, who felt a need for a better interchange of ideas between practitioners in the various areas of broadcast audio.

During the past few years, as the industry has undergone an enormous transformation, the profile of the membership has expanded to include the many freelance engineers working in all areas of professional audio, including computer games sound, forensic audio, theatre and live sound, music recording, internet and web audio, film sound and, of course, all aspects of broadcast radio and TV sound. The change of name from IBS to IPS, implemented on January 1st 2012, reflects this transformation.

Discussion between members in our increasingly fragmented industry is further enabled through our internet mailing list IPSNET, which provides an invaluable resource for keeping in touch wherever members are.

The IPS is also active in leading industry initiatives, such as the File Exchange Initiative, from which the iXML open standard was born and the negotiations with Ofcom over the allocation of radio frequency spectrum consequent upon digital switchover. IPS members are also playing key roles in other important industry initiatives such as the EBU P/Loud group working on the ITU-R BS.1770 audio loudness monitoring standard, and the BBC's TV Audibility Group (TVAG) which is investigating the issues affecting dialogue audibility in TV programmes.