Music
and Audio Engineering
............................................................................................
What exactly does an audio engineer do? If you have ever
been to a musical concert and if you have heard the quality
and clear sounds of it, it was all because of a very talented
audio engineer. An audio engineer plays an important role in
music and sound technology. Some audio engineering aspects
are producing sound by mixing, equalization, reproducing,
mastering, etc. An audio engineer works not only in the
music field but also where sound systems are used in public
situations like conferences and meetings for instance.
Audio engineering is a combination of many subjects such
as mathematics, physics, music, electronics, etc. Knowledge
of all these subjects is very important for a successful audio
engineer. They research and invent new technologies,
equipment and techniques to enhance the sound technology.
They design acoustic simulations of rooms and audio signal
processing algorithms for public address systems.
Basic tasks of an audio engineer can be classified into two
categories as live sound engineering and recording studio
works.
Live sound engineering needs more knowledge about
electricity. Live sound engineer manages audio equipment
according to the current situation. Levels of instruments, levels
of vocals, how the microphones are fixed to the instrument,
how much gain should be added to the microphone, and
where the public audio systems are placed are some of them.
All of the above are very important. If one goes wrong, it will
affect many and ultimately the end sound product will be
of poor quality. For an example, if the public audio systems
are not placed properly, phase problems can happen. So,
levels that are heard can vary from place to place and some
instruments cannot be heard from certain distances and
positions. As another example let us consider gain control. If
an engineer does not control gain properly, as a result of that,
lots of noise can be heard (due to higher gain) or sound can’t
be heard (due to lower gain). So it is clear that all aspects are
very important.
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University of Peradeniya GAUGE Magazine