Re: [mb-users] Balance engineer

Don’t get me wrong, I actually would like to see Balance Engineer as a
separate category rather than just lumped in with Engineer, given that it is
the terminology is used very extensively in classical music.

 

Brant Gibbard
Toronto, ON
http://bgibbard.ca <http://bgibbard.ca/>  

 

 

From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Frederic Da Vitoria
Sent: January-25-14 1:42 PM
To: MusicBrainz User Discussion
Subject: Re: [mb-users] Balance engineer

 

2014/1/25 Brant Gibbard <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> >

I don’t agree with your interpretation of the second source, www.grammy.com
<http://www.grammy.com> .

 

The actual definition they give for Balance Engineer is:

 

Balance Engineer (Classical)

This person is an engineer with all of the same re

sponsibilities as the engineering description. This 

term is most often used in classical music. 

 

In other words they consider Balance Engineer to be the same as an Engineer,
not as a Mixer. Further down the page they also define Tonmeister as being
the same as an Engineer or a Balance Engineer (but requiring specific
educational qualifications)

 

Also the documentation here:
http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Engineer_Relationship_Type (which appears to be
official as far as I can tell) states:

 

If the Engineer relationship type is either Balance Engineer or Tonmeister,
the generic Engineer relationship type should be used, and not one of the
more specific Engineer relationship types.

Brant Gibbard
Toronto, ON
http://bgibbard.ca <http://bgibbard.ca/>  

 

 

From: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
[mailto:[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> ] On Behalf Of
Frederic Da Vitoria
Sent: January-25-14 6:02 AM
To: MusicBrainz User Discussion
Subject: Re: [mb-users] Balance engineer

 

2014/1/25 Nicolás Tamargo de Eguren <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> >

On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 2:59 AM, Frederic Da Vitoria <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:

2014/1/24 Nicolás Tamargo de Eguren <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> >

Yeah, that passed an RFV 4 years ago at a weird point on the history of
style, and it never got implemented I don't think. I actually closed a 2010
ticket about it last week because nobody had mentioned it again since :D

If a few more people show interest, I'll get it added.

On 24 Jan 2014 22:48, "Frederic Da Vitoria" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:

Hello,

Balance engineer is explained here
http://musicbrainz.org//doc/Category:Engineer_Relationship_Class
<http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Category:Engineer_Relationship_Class>  but I
couldn't use it for an AR as it didn't appear in the list. It also appears
here http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/History:Balance_Engineer_Relationship_Type
, which could mean that it is deprecated, but nowhere could I find an
explanation of why it was deprecated nor of what we should do with balance
engineers.

 

I have no strong opinion about it (does it need a separate role or could it
be entered as a sound engineer or another close role?) But in any event, we
must manage to get a documentation consistent with what the UI allows :-)


 

Probably. Since class pages were always unnecessary and we're moving the
relationship docs themselves to the server (after which they'll just be
thankfully removed) we never actually checked to see if they matched
reality, heh. I have absolutely no idea what a balance engineer does, so I
can't really suggest any specific type (and I'd have gone with just
"engineer" myself.

 

According to
http://jimmyether.com/2011/11/08/record_production-natural_vs_alien/ and
http://www2.grammy.com/PDFs/Recording_Academy/Producers_And_Engineers/Engine
er_Definitions.pdf , balance engineer is the same as mix engineer. So I
suggest

- removing the Balance engineer from
http://musicbrainz.org//doc/Category:Engineer_Relationship_Class
<http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Category:Engineer_Relationship_Class> 

- adding Balance engineer into
https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Mix_Engineer_Relationship_Type . BTW, I'd like
to remove references to mixing console, 

 

Yes, Grammy's definition of engineer is different. OTOH, to my
not-native-English ears, "engineer" sounds like a general definition, and as
such could as well apply to the engineer who built the studio. Of course, MB
does not record those, especially not in a recording context, but still,
"engineer" 's non-specificity sounds precisely too general. The balance
engineer does not even have to enter the recording studio, and often steps
in once the recording is done. I don't know why Grammy used this definition.
Maybe they felt that the kind of mixing used in classical where usually all
source recordings were made at the same time and in the same place was not
as important as the work done by the mix engineer, who uses recordings most
often made at different times. I shouldn't have included that link, but this
one of the first Google brought back, so someone else was bound to find it.

 

In the MB Relationship tree, Engineer contains the more specific engineer
relationship classes (including mix, record, sound...), in other words, it
is there as a fall-back solution. Users pick "simple" engineer when no
specific engineer AR fits. So using "simple" engineers for Balance engineers
would be actually saying that their particular expertise is not worth a
separate category. I disagree. I believe that balancing the different sound
sources is an art, as much as putting the microphones in the correct places,
and that as such it deserves being recorded. I hate it when a balance
engineer gives me the feeling that a solo instrumentalist suddenly jumped in
my lap to play it's part. And I love when a balance engineer lets me forget
that I am listening to a recording.


-- 
Frederic Da Vitoria
(davitof)

Membre de l'April - « promouvoir et défendre le logiciel libre » -
http://www.april.org

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