Welcome to my blog about recording and engineering. Starting this September I'll be embarking on a Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious Public Engagement Fellowship. The Ingenious funding scheme promotes public understanding and awareness of engineering and until Summer 2012 the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) will be supporting me as I attempt to answer the question "Is Recording Engineering?" This blog will record my progress, activities, thoughts throughout the project. But more than that it will be an opportunity for YOU - whoever you may be: sound recording professionals, record collectors, music enthusiasts, performers, DJs, music/audio/technology/engineering students, hifi buffs, anyone with an interest in music and how it is recorded - to get involved, contribute to the debate, attend events and have YOUR say.
Before setting out to answer the 'big' question at the top of this page, I think I should answer some smaller ones so that you know who I am, what I do and how this project came about.
Who am I?
I'm Jez Wells (Jeremy to my mum) and I've been lucky enough to spend the last twenty years studying, researching, doing and teaching music and audio technology. I fell in love with the sound of the Moog synthesizer at the age of five (thanks to my dad's record collection) and a fascination with sound production then grew to include sound recording. I studied Music and Sound Recording on the University of Surrey's Tonmeister course then, after some time spent in the audio industry and teaching, I returned to study at the University of York (where I now work as a lecturer) and obtained my Masters and PhD here, both of which were in music technology. In addition to the teaching and research I do in my lecturing role I also work as freelance recording engineer. I also DJ, play the piano and organ and sing with a local choir. I teach all sorts of subjects at undergraduate and postgraduate level, from audio processing techniques to psychoacoustics. One strand of my research looks at devising new methods for synthetically changing the microphone technique for a recording after it has been made. I'm also a trustee of the York-based charity Accessible Arts and Media.
Why this project?
The technology and techniques to capture sound and reproduce it in different places and at different times, are amongst the most important developments in the lives of human beings in the last century and a half. Sound recording has transformed communication, music, heritage and education and the act itself of capturing audio fascinates and inspires many. There are now a myriad of education providers producing thousands of graduates in audio and music technology per year. Universities, schools and colleges up and down the UK now have their own recording studios and the home recording studio has become increasingly cheaper yet more sophisticated, thanks to the advances in computing technology.
This all means that sound recording is no longer something which is heard by many, yet done by a tiny minority. It is now something which many will have the opportunity to engage with over the course of their lives – they can aspire to or become a ‘recording engineer’. In doing so they will hear an event, do something to capture it and then hear it reproduced. To do this they will have to engage with an understanding of physics and technology in order to create something. Using a combination of knowledge of the physical world in which we live and technology for performing certain tasks, in order to create, is something that many engineers feel that they do every day. Yet, the relationship between ‘recording engineering’ and ‘engineering’ does not seem to be clearly defined or understood.
The term recording engineer suggests an individual who records sound by applying engineering principles, but to what extent is this the case? Is ‘engineer’ (as used in many countries) the correct term or is ‘master of sound’ (Tonmeister, German) more appropriate? To what extent can the ‘recording engineer’, a role perceived by some as a glamorous one, illuminate the process and discipline of engineering? Can the recording engineer protect their often precarious and ad-hoc employment by a realisation of the extent to which they are an engineer (via their transferable skills, for example)? Or are they technicians, acousticians and/or musicians for whom the term ‘engineer’ is entirely inappropriate? To what extent should engineering feature in Music Technology syllabi? This project looks to illuminate such questions by understanding and challenging perceptions of the work of ‘recording engineers’ and by communicating these findings to a wide audience.
How is the project going to be carried out?
In the coming months, in collaboration with Dr Dave Beer who is a social scientist here at York, I'll be asking as many people as I can what they think the relationships between recording and engineering are. I'll be talking to professional bodies, both budding and experienced sound recordists and others. This will be happening at events in both the north and south of the country, at schools and universities and via online resources such as this blog. I'll also be getting myself out and about and explaining/talking to anyone who's interested, at whatever level, about what engineering is, what people do when they record sound and the overlaps between music, science and technology.
If you want to get involved in anyway then let me know, via the comments below or by emailing me at jez[dot]wells[at]york[dot]ac[dot]uk or jez[at]jezwells[dot]org. If you're interested and have something to say on this subject then hopefully I'll hear from you in person or online.
Once the project has started in September this blog will be regularly updated so let me have your thoughts and watch this space.
My 2c - if you're going to classify sound recording as engineering, you have to classify photography as engineering as well, because they're basically the same thing, but with a different medium.
ReplyDeleteI don't think either fit the classical definition of engineering though, because engineering, to me anyway, is about designing and manufacturing engines - not necessarily only physical, mechanical ones, but engines of process as well, engines that serve humanity by converting effort into an end product, or convert energy into another form of energy - systems that deal with 'work'.
In my eyes, sound recording and photography are primarily the application of scientific method to facilitate (or with the primary intention of) the production of art. obviously there are occasions when both disciplines are used for the production of something with more real-world use, in which case they could be serving an engineering purpose (e.g. recording an engine's sound to diagnose performance), but usually, it's for art.
I think it's fairly well accepted now that digital manipulation of any medium for aesthetic purposes is just as much art as (for example) painting is, so in that sense, sound recording is an art, just as much as photography is. but because it can cross over into more 'useful' activity as well, it would be too restricting to label it as art. is it art when used for aesthetic purposes, and engineering when it serves a more useful purpose?
Maybe we're actually missing an entire concept here, let alone a word. I can't think of anything that describes a process that is used to record and manipulate data for both artistic and useful purposes. art, to me, defines a process that results only in the production of an aesthetic product. photography & sound recording always result in a product with aesthetic qualities, but which could be intended only for non-aesthetic use.
Just thinking out loud though really... it's an interesting subject for sure, I hadn't ever really thought about it before. I guess it's a grey area thing - it's neither one nor the other, but sits somewhere in between.
-E
Yes, it certainly seems that much of what a recording engineer, or a photographer, does is art; but it might also be engineering. This is taken from the Royal Academy of Engineering's Strategic Plan for 2011-2015*:
ReplyDelete"Engineering ... is about the practical delivery of scientifically informed solutions to address the great challenges and opportunities. Engineers apply their knowledge and experience to improve the human condition while creating value and wealth."
Perhaps "grand challenge" is rather grandiose for many individual recordings but, put together, the skill, knowledge, technology and resources that come together for a large scale recording are impressive and knowledge of science can certainly be applied at many points of the process to improve the quality of the result.
Perhaps the acts of recording (or photography) need breaking down further: microphone selection and positioning, choices about processing, anticipation of final listening environment and how that will interact with the space being recorded and so on. Even these seem to combinations or art and science - grey areas for sure, but even a bridge or an aeroplane must have some aesthetic quality?
*http://www.raeng.org.uk/about/strategy/pdf/strategic_plan.pdf
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ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting topic that has implications for the majority of Universities that run such courses.
ReplyDeleteFrom my own experience, audio recording is approached in most universities initially from a subject stance with the School of Art running courses from one perspective and the School of Engineering taking a more technical, scientific angle.
The reality usually results in hybrid courses that approach the subject from the two perspectives.
This raises problems in the classification of such courses (BA or BSc) that then has a knock on effect for recruitment and the student profile attracted to them.
Obviously, technology and the leveling effect it has upon the skill level required to achieve results has a lot to do with this. Looking at the photography analogy, I have heard many professional photographers saying that an amateur with no concept of exposure, f-stops etc armed with a modern digital camera and unlimited shots will eventually get a good picture.
The question is though, does this good picture represent technical ability? Obviously not.
This problem worries me when recording is approached from a purely artistic stance. Can a student who has an art based background and aspirations, fully grasp the technical nuances of recording without an understanding and command of STEM principles?
The other thing that your project made me think about was when this hybrid skill set of art/science came to be?
In the sixties, the majority of major studios employed engineers for the technical process and producers to look after the art. Think of Geoff Emerick and George Martin.
Is technology purely responsible for a merging of the roles and skills?
The main question this raises for me is whether or not this is a good thing or do the roles still need to be treated as different but complementary skills?
In short, should we be looking at welcoming white lab coats back into the studio?
Sorry for all the questions.......
Looking forward to the outcome of the project.
PS. I like Elliott's suggestion that we may need a new word to describe the role of the future hybrid skill set.
Hi Colin
ReplyDelete>> In short, should we be looking at welcoming white lab coats back into the studio?
That's a good summary of one of the big questions surrounding this. When the composer Arnold Schoenberg wrote to the Chancellor in the University of Chicago of what he wanted in training of 'sound men' he stated his opinion that this would be a great advantage over the situation then "where engineers have no idea of music and musicians have no idea of the technique of mechanics". When he said this did he envisage someone doing the whole job of recording (the 'production' and the 'engineering') or did he want both producer and recordist to be separate people and for both to have engineering *and* musical skills. Of course, that was nearly 70 years ago and whatever he thought then the situation will have changed, but was that the start or the end of the specialised engineer for recording in a white lab coat?
Jez