Album Credits - Differences between roles

[Dizzi45Z]

Everyone,

Okay, so this is kind of funny. I've done many albums at this point, but when it comes to credits in albums, I usually just have people put in the credits whether it was recorded, mixed or produced by me. However, I had a client ask me what "Engineered" means and I realized that I don't fully understand what that term refers to. What is the difference between somebody who engineers an album and somebody who records and mixes an album?

[Ryan Young]

Did you also do all of the mic placement? mic selection? placement of the instrument in the room? route and mix everyone's headphone mixes? record punches and overdubs? That, to me, is engineering.

[nst7]

From what I've seen on both album credits and magazine articles, "enginneered by" is the same thing as "recorded by", meaning whoever primarily did the recording, but not the mixing or producing. If you did everything you could say "produced, recorded, and mixed by".

Note that in some cases when someone has done everything, it can just say "produced by". In this case there's no other mixer or engineer, and people will assume the producer did all of that.

This was the case with earlier Max Martin songs, back in the Britney/Backstreet days. However, in recent years, other people have done the mixing, so it says "produced by Max Martin, mixed by so-and-so (usually Serban Ghenea)'.

[O.G. Killa]

there really is no rule.

To me though, "engineering" an album is more than just setting up mics and headphone mixes. It's being a huge contributor to the sound of the album.

When I engineer an album it's almost like playing billiards (at least in my mind). I am constantly thinking 3 to 5 steps ahead of where we are at now... how is this guitar part we are recording going to sound once we add that piano part on top tomorrow? I am always aware of the "big picture" and how all these little pieces need to fit into it. I am usually the one dialing in the guitar tones, tuning the drums and asking for different snares and cymbals, trying different synth and keyboard patches, etc, etc, etc... The band just plays the parts they play... as the "engineer" it's my job not only to capture that, but to fit the sounds together in a pleasing way. That's where knowledge of sound comes in. I know, based on the key of the song, where the synth part is going to sit... and so I will change the guitar tone to make a hole in the freq spectrum for the synth. THAT is engineering music to me...