Should audio professionals be called "engineers"

[Hard Truth]

Calling a studio or live sound mixer an engineer strikes me as pretentious considering the high standards for every other type of engineer. It definitely does not seem right for someone who has just 6 months of trade school training.

 

On the other hand I think it can be reasonable for the person who did all the planning and design for a concert, including flying speakers etc. That's an engineer. Its also appropriate for someone who designed their own studio, chose all the equipment, was involved in the acoustics and can repair some of it and troubleshoot all of it.

 

What qualifies an audio tech to be an engineer? Should there be official certification to call yourself an engineer?

[Lee Flier]

 

It's just a term that has been used to describe the trade for as long as it's been around. Nothing pretentious or deceptive is intended. It's just common usage, and it has never had anything to do with the amount of schooling or anything like that. If you look at album credits you're going to see "engineer" or "second engineer" used even if the second engineer is just an intern with no formal training. Yet this is the second or third time I've seen this come up on this board as if it were really something to complain about.

 

What would you propose to call an audio engineer instead? You used the term "studio or live sound mixer," which is not only long, but doesn't describe the whole job as there are tracking engineers, mastering engineers, people who do several or all of these things. You also used the word "audio tech" but that is generally used to describe someone who repairs audio equipment.

 

"Audio engineer" or "recording engineer" is the term that most people know - I don't see one good reason why not to keep using it.

[Gus Lozada]

I AM AN ENGINEER.

An Industrial Engineer.

And I am an audio professional, too.

 

So, you can call me "Engineer".

[onelife]

The people who wear the pinky ring can be called engineers.

 

The people who do audio work can be specified as audio engineers so the distinction is made and nobody's feathers get ruffled.

 

And what Lee said.

[blue2blue]

Not unless they drive a train.

 

 

Seriously, though, I often slip and call a recordist an engineer -- but in today's professional milieu, engineer typically means someone with an a proper degree and certification at some recognized form of engineering (mechanical, electrical, etc).

 

I'm a little uncomfortable with the term audio engineer -- since it can so easily be confused with acoustical engineer which is a "real" engineer.

 

I'm partial to fader-pusher.

 

 

 

But it's probably a little like the term professional.

 

Professionals like to maintain that the word should only be applied to those with advanced degrees who work in their field (professors, doctors, lawyers).

 

Me, I'll always think of that gal out on the corner in the pink hot pants as a professional...

[Jeff da Weasel]

I'm a phlequimborogotist. Prove that I'm not. I dare you.

[MikeRivers]

I worked for 40 years with the job title "Engineer." I have an EE degree, but nearly everything technical that I used in my various jobs were things that I learned by piddling around with wires and tubes when I was a kid, and from things I learned by being an amateur radio operator (ham) back when people build their own equipment.

 

I actually did use some of my audio experience in my day jobs, also computer experience, for neither of which I have any official credentials. Nobody cared as long as the job got done.

 

But today you can go to college, get a 4 year degree and study many aspects of the broad field that we call "audio engineering" when we're trying to be politically correct.

[MikeRivers]

 

I'm a phlequimborogotist. Prove that I'm not. I dare you.

 

Gee, and all of this time I thought you were a phlegmologist.

[Beck]

I'm a phlequimborogotist. Prove that I'm not. I dare you.

 

 

Well that's a mouthful.

 

I looked it up but there

[UstadKhanAli]

 

I'm a phlequimborogotist.

 

 

Y'know, Jeff, we've gone through this again and again. You're still considered a junior phlequimborogotist because you have still refused to have your forehead tattooed with the appropriate insignia.

[UstadKhanAli]

As for the OP, I am a humble audio monk trying to reach sonic nirvana, and I record music at Blueberry Buddha Recording Studios.

 

[Jeff da Weasel]

Y'know, Jeff, we've gone through this again and again.

 

Much funnier than this thread is the fact that we have an identical discussion every few months. SSS can be similar to the movie "Groundhog Day" in that regard.

[UstadKhanAli]

That's what happens. What's old is new again. But look, if the thread gains traction and has vicious debates over what is appropriate to call someone who slaps mics in front of people, twiddles knobs, pushes faders, and clicks a mouse, then I suppose it won't matter since people feel the need to sink their teeth into this subject once more.

[Jeff da Weasel]

 

That's what happens. What's old is new again.

 

 

 

But it's not old. We had a multi-multi-multi page discussion on it in like April or so. Maybe May. We had tremendous arguments on the topics of training, degrees, semantics, and much more. Lee rolled her eyes many times. It was like it was yesterday. Really, short-term memory in folks can't be that bad, can it? We might as well do this again tomorrow.

[UstadKhanAli]

"Old", in this case, my phlequimborogotist friend, means that it's not on Page One of SSS.

[Lee Flier]

But it's not old. We had a multi-multi-multi page discussion on it in like April or so. Maybe May. We had tremendous arguments on the topics of training, degrees, semantics, and much more. Lee rolled her eyes many times. It was like it was yesterday. Really, short-term memory in folks can't be that bad, can it? We might as well do this again tomorrow.

 

Yeah, exactly. If that happens again, I'm out. Somebody else roll their eyes for me.

[MikeRivers]

But it's not old. We had a multi-multi-multi page discussion on it in like April or so.

Yes, but this is almost August. Time flies on the Internet. New (again) is in cycles of months, not decades.

[js1]

Audio Engineer, um, OK.

 

Professional Engineer, no way. That's a professional designation assigned by the state/province based on strict requirements and carries heavy duty legal responsibilities.

 

I'd be OK with "amateur engineer". Or, professional audio engineers, that, if they misused an L2 limiter could be sued for professional misconduct.

 

js (PEng).

[the stranger]

I think the modern term for audio engineer is DJ.

[Beck]

We need some new terms (besides DJ).

 

I like Blendgineer for either mixing or master engineer.

 

Blinggineer for costumes engineer.

 

Blindgineer for chief spotlight operating engineer

[Gus Lozada]

There is a great joke my nephew did last year... unfortunately it's in Spanish.

 

He was interviewing me for a school homework.

So, he asked me:

 

- "Ocupaci

[Temple of Light]

Anybody who has put together a recording studio and or production system for the purpose of recording audio has the right to call himself an engineer, given they have actually succesfully produced listenable product from it. Degree or not, audio engineering is part science, part scholarship, part experimentation and part true artistry.

All of the above are required to produce anything relevant or meaningful in the modern context of music.

[Etienne Rambert]

 

Calling a studio or live sound mixer an engineer strikes me as pretentious considering the high standards for every other type of engineer. It definitely does not seem right for someone who has just 6 months of trade school training. On the other hand I think it can be reasonable for the person who did all the planning and design for a concert, including flying speakers etc. That's an engineer. Its also appropriate for someone who designed their own studio, chose all the equipment, was involved in the acoustics and can repair some of it and troubleshoot all of it. What qualifies an audio tech to be an engineer? Should there be official certification to call yourself an engineer?

 

 

Yes, I think they should be called 'engineers'.

 

They should also wear white lab coats. And if their shirts have pockets,

they should have plastic pocket protectors.

 

Metatarsal protection in their shoes is advisable.

Audio engineers sometimes have to lift heavy devices.

Their footwear should be rugged and sensible.

[blue2blue]

 

Anybody who has put together a recording studio and or production system for the purpose of recording audio has the right to call himself an engineer, given they have actually succesfully produced listenable product from it. Degree or not, audio engineering is part science, part scholarship, part experimentation and part true artistry. All of the above are required to produce anything relevant or meaningful in the modern context of music.

Dude, you haven't hung out at GearSlutz enough.

 

Seriously, while there are recordists who are engineers by any professional definition, and many who rise to the level you're suggesting, there are far, far more who simply do not have the intellectual approach to even begin calling themselves "engineer." They don't aspire to that intellectual approach; they don't respect it; in large part, they don't have the intellectual tools to support it.

 

Don't get me wrong, many of these people do have what it takes to help in the creation of hit records -- I'm not assaulting their claim to the credentials required for hitmaker... but those who cannot explain why they do things, whose decisions are often based on buzz, guesswork, and second hand opinion, and whose grasp on basic logic is so tenuous that they cannot follow simple logical reasoning, cannot seriously be said, seems to me, to have the most basic traits necessary to be described, straight-faced, as engineers.

[Hard Truth]

Sorry, if a similar thread happened recently I missed it. I don't even care much about this issue, I was try to get a conversation going. I do not support repeated abuse of deceased equines.