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I know that some of you are really uptight about what music is and is not and well, I can safely assume that if you don't think Techno is music than you certainly don't believe that an Audio engineer is a musical artist.

So, this thread is here to challenge your misconceptions about the world of sound recording and the art of being a sound engineer.

Firstly, I ask you to both regard and forget the previous stereotype of the sound engineer: some deadbeat who puts microphones in front of instruments and then magically throws is onto a CD. Although there are still alot of people like that, modern degrees and institutions teach graduates how to use the physics of sound to mix music and create effects that not even regular mixing can create.

Secondly, I want to test how far you're willing to believe there is art in sund engineering... You do know that the position of instruments and microphones and the types of microphones all contribute to a certain sound that can be copyrighted to an audio engineer? It all adds up to the art of sound engineering.

Lastly, I'll plant the seed of though in your mind. You can't say there's no music or notes involved in it. If a sound engineer changes some of the sliders on his board, he will be tampering with frequencies that are infact note ranges within a piece of music.

So, what do you think? Sound engineering: art or rubbish?

Which it is!

I just don't think that many people believe there's art in it, which is very sad because the way a sound engineer consciously makes a decision to place a microphone in a specific place in a room makes it art.

In the same vein, do you not consider organ pipe construction, or construction of any particular instrument, an art? What about transcription, say, from a percussive instrument to something more continuous, where you may need to carefully place tabulated playing instructions [for example, bends and slides that aren't possible on most percussive instruments] ?

sound engineering is a fine tuning of timbre, [actually in some cases it can be much more drastic,] and so I feel that there is some art to it. That said, I'd rather hear a well performed but badly recorded piece over a badly performed but beautifully recorded piece.

I would label sound engineering done properly as an art, and certainly an important part of the musical process, as the quality of a recording can make a big difference on whether it's listenable or not, hold it back or help push it foward, and even help create a certain atmosphere depending on how it's done.

A recording studio is an instrument in itself. The fact that all the separate parts of it have characteristics that differ depending on placement and useage (eg, microphones will return different results if used at different angles) means that they can be manipulated in a manner that is much like how a musicians manipulated their tone with vibrato.

Therefore you agree that it's how an instrumentalist uses their instrument that makes them a musician. If a recording studio is an instrument and the recording engineer makes a fantastically produced record then they are artists.

You can't make a blanket statement that all engineers can never be artists.

Certainly, composition is the highest form of musical art, but performances of the same piece can differ very strongly when played by different musicians. bringing out the composers intentions while still adding a subjective element -be it due to location, atmosphere of the moment, or personal experiences- should definately be considered an art.

I happen to believe that some people who have certain opinions about what is art and what isn't art don't have enough experience in their preferred feild to actually be able to judge what is art and what isn't.

Composition is part of the art - music is worth more than the notes on the page. Performers give life to a piece of music in a way that no composer ever can. In turn, recording engineers give life to the recordings of the performer's work like nothing (not even someone's musical memory) can.

You can't say that the only art lies within the creation of music. To do that is like saying "Well, we designed this million dollar building. The builders finished it and it looks nice. Might as well knock it down now because the builders' work and the customers that will use this building mean nothing anymore."

It isn't right.