Quote:
Originally Posted by narcoman  you are absolutely right on that technicality. Audio recordists are not engineers unless they have that qualification. However - it is a commonly accepted colloquialism. I'm an engineer fer real though .....  |
I use the term engineer in a similar way to professional - engineer drives the train (as the sound guy live or the recording guy in studio, I am the one who handles the controls and keeps us on track) and professional in that this is my full-time gig and I do it in a professional manner.
Engineer is more like a train driver and less like a college graduate to me. Colloquial it may be but live depend on the engineer driving the train! The wiki definition says " The term is derived from the Latin root "ingenium," meaning "cleverness"."
Years of school may be required for a degree like EE, but we who have spent years in training can use the term too, without the capital letters.
Then there was the term domestic engineer for housewife, but that is a bit too far off.
L
PS to Jeff - I send equipment to a technician for repairs, but do not consider myself that. There is just too much art to doing sound for it to be merely technical to me. In studios I have worked in, the engineers made recordings and the technicians fixed the gear. Producers did nothing but handle people and concepts. Without the hands-on they are not engineers, to me.
L