An Engineer's Day

What do you need to be an audio engineer?

You'll need headphones, a computer, a microphone, a mixer, some talent or a degree, and the most important ingredient is that you'll need more patience then a doctor(pun not intended).

Being an engineer may appear to be a dream job to most, but, the truth is that it's just as frustrating as any other job. It has the same process that all businesses use. Which is that we have something that other people need(equipment and people that know how to use it), then comes clients who demand it(artists).  You deal with the same presonality groups as any other place. An engineer isn't always going to be making the music of tommarrow. Most of the time its going to be songs you won't like at all, but, they are paying clients and like any other job you will have to do thing you wont want to. You will also have difficult clients where you'll have to record the same parts of a song over and over, and it will get frustrating but you have to do your best to not loose your cool. Most sessions will run anywhere from 3 to 8 hours for one client.

After the recording process there is a matter of mixing and mastering a song, which is where the engineer must make sure all the volumes of the vocals to the intrumental are right. This is the process where the engineers talent comes in to place. They must add to vocals what makes them sound the best with the instumental; several distortions, reverb, and delays are the basics.

So overall it's not as glamerous as people might think. It's alot of hard work and people should appreciate the time and effort an engineer puts into a song.

-Ramon