¶ … Technical and Engineering Skills of Engineers and Producers The practices of producers and engineers are both an art and science where the success involves a high level of critical thinking skills, technical skills and understanding of theoretical concepts related to production and recording. Typically, an engineer must rely on a combination listening skills and technical knowledge to complete their works successfully. For example, an audio engineer must have a technical knowledge of digital signal processing, analog electronics, and audio equipment. Moreover, engineers must have a solid understanding of audio engineering principles to make decisions on recording project such as mix balance, microphone choice, fader levels, location and signal processing. Moreover, engineers need to have a theoretical expertise, possessing technical expertise and technical knowledge of sound.

The objective of this project is to examine the critical listening skills, professional skills and technical skills of two audio engineers or producers prior to 1990.

Two Audio Engineers or Producers prior to 1990

David Richardson is an audio engineer, and English music producer born in England. In 1968, David Richardson founded a Sky Studio that later became a leading Sound Recording Technology and facilities house. At the age of four, Richardson had a passion for sound recording, electronics and learned to play with piano when he was in a tender age. By the age of 16, Richardson had already assisted many Jazz artists to record their music. As a young producer, Richardson established the production contracts with major music companies such as Sony and EMI. After some years, Richardson recorded combination of music that include Rock, Pop and Jazz music. With few years, Richardson was able to master the Compact Disc recording technique, and his skills were based on his engineering skills in recording. Richardson was able to achieve success in his career based on his technical skills in signal processing, equalization, and dynamics processing, As an audio engineer, Richardson has developed a critical listening skills that allow him to identify distortion, noise, hum and buzz that can affect the quality of music production, and he had developed strategies to reduce or eliminate their presence.

The technical aspect of audio engineering involves the ability to operate or install sound recording equipment, sound broadcasting equipment and sound reinforcement equipment. Over the years, Richardson had acquired the ability to record different types of music as well as having practical and theoretical knowledge in different aspects of sounds. In the contemporary audio environment, audio engineers are required to employ their listening and technical skills to identify subtle problems, discern sounds and having ability hear hidden distortions, identify frequencies and reconcile conflicts in audio elements. The best audio engineers should be able to train their ears to identify problems and to distinguish between the quality and not quality sounds. In the Richardson audio engineering career, he is able to estimate the change's level of sound as well as estimating a frequency of sound limitation and distinguishing between male and female voices.
Andrew Johns is another audio engineer and American record producer in 1970s. Johns was born in 1950 in England, and his producing skills started as early as his teen ages where he played guitar with a popular band in the UK and learned a technique of recording with his elder brother Glyn, who had established his producing career with the Rolling Stones and Beatles. Johns started his career at Olympic Studios in 1967, and developed his audio engineering skills in 1970s where he learned to manipulate, and record using the electronic effects, equalization, reproduction, mixing and sound reinforcement. During John's career as an audio engineer and producer, he has the developed the strategy of using the technologies to develop quality music. Moreover, Johns has extensive knowledge in the techniques and principles of audio engineering. He also developed an understanding on the use of different instruments.

Historical Developments of Sound Capture and Playback Technology

Morton, (2004) argues that the development of sound technology starts from the Unite States and Europe in 1857, and the technology that led to a recording of sound was one of the greatest invention in the 19th century. Typically, sound recording has pervaded every face of the past…