Audio engineer is an art or science?

[kongwee]

I will call it is art. Audio engineer in general term, record, mix and sell music/sound. You just part of the process.
Of course, your product is bound by tools defined by science.
What is you understanding of audio engineering?

I'm not asking for right or wrong, but your understanding.

 

[amirm]

It is some of both as they have to have knowledge of the hardware they are using. Pure art would be musician. But yes, a lot of their work is creative/art.

 

[DavidMcRoy]

I will call it is art. Audio engineer in general term, record, mix and sell music/sound. You just part of the process.
Of course, your product is bound by tools defined by science.
What is you understanding of audio engineering?

I'm not asking for right or wrong, but you understanding.

It's a combination of both. Generally speaking, the end product of sound recording, mixing and distribution is a form of commercial art, where scientific knowledge combined with practical experimentation is applied to create a sonic illusion.

 

[solderdude]

Both... but you don't need to have a science degree or electronics knowledge to create a good 'product'.
That said it can help if you understand the science behind recording techniques , the properties of the used equipment and know how to use it and above all know about sound/acoustics and experience. You would have to work and maybe understand the creative/art part.

The poll should allow for voting both options.

Edit:
I'd like to add that reproduction chain also has (some) art and science.
The 'artistic' part only being 'looks', the rest is science only.
Some designs look really beautiful which is the artistic part. All the rest is (or at least should) be science.

 

[Waxx]

Like said it's a combination of both. You need to have a deep understanding of music and understand the artistic choices of the musicians, but you need the scientific knowledge (acoustics, how your equipment interact with the sound, ...) do facilitate the artistic choices of the musicians and/or producer the right way. And there is also the psychologic part that is very important, because how you interact with the musicians can have a huge influence on the end result. And it surely also helps if you got a good understanding of electronic engineering to work with the equipment you have.

 

[Multicore]

I truly believe that all engineering is an art/craft that sometimes uses scientific methods, more or less, depending on the problems and the engineers. The rest of the time it uses prior art (i.e. tradition) and creative intuition to innovate on the prior art. Scientific measurement is sometimes used to measure the value of these innovations.

There's an interesting philosophical corollary here. As an engineer I can assert various propositions and make them seem acceptable as engineering statements. But if the difference between the purely scientific method and the engineering method is as I stated in the above paragraph, then the engineering statement is qualitatively different from the scientific one in the same way as the aesthetic statement. Hence if I can be right about anything in my work in engineering, I can be right in the same way about aesthetics.

 

[solderdude]

I truly believe that all engineering is an art/craft

I think education and (practical) experience as well as knowledge of materials is the foundation of all engineering. Craft (skill)... yes of course, art not so much.
Design and engineering are not the same thing though and designers can also be engineers (and vice versa).

 

[syn08]

IMO, Audio Engineering has very little to do with engineering. As much as train drivers are called Railroad Engineers.

 

[DVDdoug]

Most mixing/recording/mastering engineers don't have a regular engineering degree. They haven't taken the rigorous math & science that electronic or mechanical engineers take. And IF they take any "audio engineering" courses, those courses don't involve the same kind of applied math & science as "real" engineering.

I'd guess that most audio engineers are self-taught or learned on the job.

And, it's really not required. It seems like you mostly need to have some practical experience_(and maybe have taken some classes) and know the right people to break-into the industry. Just like you don't need a musical degree to be a successful musician, or a business degree to run a successful business.

I read Geoff Emerick's book. He was an engineer on most of The Beatles albums. He was hired as an assistant engineer (in charge of running the tape machine) when he was 15 years old! His first assignment was to work with and observe the existing assistant engineer on the 1st Beatles recording. He was a hobbyist with a home tape recorder and he had learned to splice tape, etc. He never went to college. He learned on the job and moved up ladder, first promoted to mastering engineer, then to balance (mixing) engineer.

There is quite a bit of nonsense & "mythology" in the pro audio world, but it's not as bad as the audiophile community. Audio pros don't obsess over expensive cables, etc.

Most design engineers that design audio equipment or programmers that write audio software do have technical degrees.

 

[Jim Shaw]

"Engineer" is a widely abused term. I have worked as an audio 'engineer' and the job title would more correctly be "audio mixing technician." It requires more of an ear, and more the understanding of the function of equipment than the internals of each gismo inserted into an audio chain. But this job is often confused with that of a recording "producer," who has the job of understanding what the recording is to sound like and communicating that to the audio mixer and talent.

People like very much to be called an "engineer," even though they don't have the vaguest clue as to what a real engineer is or does. The origin of the term comes from an oblique corner of the profession: the steam train (engineer) driver. Today, we have a "maintenance engineer" (janitor), and a "logistics engineer" (truck driver). But in the current vernacular, an "engineer" is one who takes what is known of science and uses that to create real, useful, safe, and affordable things.

Is an audio mixer operator an "engineer?" If you want him/her to be, yes, I estimate. If not, he's a "tech" with very specific skills.
An engineer designed the equipment he uses and the building he's in.

 

[fpitas]

"Engineer" is a widely abused term. I have worked as an audio 'engineer' and the job title would more correctly be "audio mixing technician." It requires more of an ear, and more the understanding of the function of equipment than the internals of each gismo inserted into an audio chain. But this job is often confused with that of a recording "producer," who has the job of understanding what the recording is to sound like (and to communicate that to the audio mixer and talent.

People like very much to be called an "engineer," even though they don't have the vaguest clue as to what a real engineer is or does. The origin of the term comes from an oblique corner of the profession: the steam train (engineer) driver. Today, we have a "maintenance engineer" (janitor), and a "logistics engineer" (truck driver). But in the current vernacular, an "engineer" is one who takes what is known of science and uses that to create real, useful, safe, and affordable things.

Is an audio mixer operator an "engineer?" If you want him/her to be, yes, I estimate. If not, he's a "tech" with very specific skills.
An engineer designed the equipment he uses and the building he's in.

My parents' friends thought I fixed TVs or wired houses. It became obvious I couldn't explain what I do for a living, so I just smiled and nodded a lot.

 

[Multicore]

I think education and (practical) experience as well as knowledge of materials is the foundation of all engineering. Craft (skill)... yes of course, art not so much.
Design and engineering are not the same thing though and designers can also be engineers (and vice versa).

I'm not saying the practices of creating art, aesthetic design, and engineering are the same. I'm saying that I don't see clear qualitative distinctions between them like I do between scientific methods and methods that aren't scientific.

Clearly in real social ways engineers and artists are different, e.g. in education, in the labor market, in social determinants of careers etc., in typical behaviors, maybe even in measurable personality differences. But an engineer is strictly different from a scientist in that the engineer is allowed to be guided by personal subjective judgement while a scientist is not, or is being unscientific when doing so.

Since this forum uses the word science a lot and its in the OP's title I brought up the idea. And I think there are interesting and for me liberating consequences to this line of thought.

 

[Dal1as]

Both.

Although with the varying production we get, which is quite sporadic, I wish the pendulum didn't swing all over the place; and leaned more towards engineer.

I get tired of using eq to make an album, instrument, or what not sound right to me.

Sometimes it even changes from song to song or during a performance and I'm like is the engineer schizophrenic?

 

[Jim Shaw]

My parents' friends thought I fixed TVs or wired houses. It became obvious I couldn't explain what I do for a living, so I just smiled and nodded a lot.

I hope you kept your steam train on schedule.

 

[fpitas]

Both.

Although with the varying production we get, which is quite sporadic, I wish the pendulum didn't swing all over the place; and leaned more towards engineer.

I get tired of using eq to make an album, instrument, or what not sound right to me.

Sometimes it even changes from song to song or during a performance and I'm like is the engineer schizophrenic?

Might be mic placement, among other things. That's an art in itself.

 

[Waxx]

Engineer (ingenieur in dutch) is seen here in Belgium as someone who practice applied science. We also have bio-engineers (people who breed new improved plant species), food engineers (who make new types of food), trade engineers (basicly bussiness managers), IT system engineers (network and server administrators), software engineers (programmers), ...

Sound engineers are also fitting in that definition, that is broader than what the english meaning of engineer is. You don't need a degree to use that word down here, altough official titles for some require a degree from the university or similar type of schools that we cal high schools (not the same as the US definition of it, a high school is more like a lower ranking university in the US).

So from our definition of engineer, the sound engineer title is not wrong actually. But i understand the confusion in english where the word has a more restricted meaning than in dutch.

 

[fredoamigo]

The introduction to the book AUDIO PRODUCTION AND CRITICAL LISTERING Technical Ear Training by JASON COREY( that I have never read completely). partially answers the topic of this thread and asks some good questions . ..

extract...
"""
The practice of audio engineering is both an art and a sci-
ence. For success in audio production, an engineer should
ideally possess both an understanding of theoretical con-
cepts and highly developed critical listening skills related
to sound recording and production. Each recording project
has its own set of requirements, and engineers cannot rely
on one set of recording procedures for every project. As
such, they must rely on a combination of technical knowl-
edge and listening skills to guide their work.
Although technical knowledge of analog electronics,
digital signal processing, audio signal analysis, and the
theoretical aspects of audio equipment is critical for a solid
understanding of the principles of audio engineering, many
of the decisions made during a recording project—such as
microphone choice and location, mix balance, fader levels,
and signal processing—are based solely on what is heard.
As such, it is often the ability to navigate the subjective
impressions of audio that allows engineers to successfully
improve on sound quality.
Every action taken by an engineer in relation to an audio
signal will have some effect on the sound that a listener
hears, however subtle it may be, and an engineer must
have an attentive ear tuned to the finest details of timbre
and sound quality. Most of these subjective decisions are
in response to the artistic goals of a project, and engineers
must determine, based on what they hear, if a technical
choice is contributing to or detracting from these goals.
Engineers need to know how the technical parameters of
audio hardware and software devices affect perceived sonic
attributes.
In addition to possessing technical and theoretical exper-
tise, successful audio engineers possess the capacity to dif-
ferentiate timbral, dynamic, and technical details of sound.
They can translate their aural impressions into appro-
priate technical judgments and alterations. Sometimes
referred to as “Golden Ears,” these highly experienced audio
professionals possess the extraordinary ability to focus their
auditory attention, resulting in the efficient and accurate
control of audio signals. They are expert listeners, individu-
als who possess highly developed critical listening skills and
who can identify fine details of sound and make consistent
judgments about what they hear (Stone, 1993). Such expe-
rienced engineers identify shortcomings to be solved and
features to be highlighted in an audio signal.
Critical listening skills in audio can be developed and
improved gradually over time by engineers as they work in
the field of audio, but there are systematic methods that can
shorten the time required to make significant progress in ear
training. As René Quesnel reported in his doctoral thesis,
sound recording students who completed systematic techni-
cal ear training outperformed experienced audio profession-
als on tasks such as identifying frequency and gain settings
of parametric equalization (Quesnel, 2001). Typically, the
development of listening skills for an audio engineer hap-
pens on the job. Although it was once common for begin-
ning engineers to work with more experienced engineers
and learn from them in the context of practical experience,
the audio industry has gone through drastic changes and the
apprentice model is gradually disappearing from the prac-
tice of audio engineering. Despite this evolution in the audio
industry, critical listening skills remain as important as ever,
especially as we see audio quality decline in many consumer
audio formats. This book presents some ideas for develop-
ing critical listening skills and potentially reducing the time
it takes to develop them.
A number of questions emerge as we begin to con-
sider critical listening skills related to sound recording and
production:
l What aural skills do experienced sound engineers, pro-
ducers, tonmeisters, and musicians possess that allow
them to make recordings, mix sound for film, or equalize
sound systems better than a novice engineer?
l What can the legendary engineers and producers, who
have extraordinary abilities to identify and manipulate
sonic timbres, hear that the average person cannot?
l How do audio professionals hear and consistently
identify extremely subtle features or changes in an audio
signal? """"

 

[Vacceo]

Art cannot exist without science. All artists need a degree of knowledge to fully grasp the techniques they use to create their art. Even if that knowledge is not sistematic or acquired with a degree, it is necessary.

 

[egellings]

If you deal only with audio content such as music, then I see audio as an art. If you deal with the equipment only, then it is a science.

 

[Krusty09]

It is some of both as they have to have knowledge of the hardware they are using. Pure art would be musician. But yes, a lot of their work is creative/art.

Doesn't a musician have to have a technical understanding of their instruments to make it sound they way they want to or to play in a band . I think once they understand that they then could do whatever they want. I think a little of both for them too.