Re: [mb-users] Balance engineer

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

> 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
>
>
>
>
>
> *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]>
>
> I don’t agree with your interpretation of the second source,
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* [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]>
>
> On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 2:59 AM, Frederic Da Vitoria <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> 2014/1/24 Nicolás Tamargo de Eguren <[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]> 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/Engineer_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.
>

Good :-)

IIUC adding the balance engineer would mean at least some modifications in
the code, right? If so, I see 2 solutions:
1 - "exact" solution, adding a new AR type for balance engineers, which
means waiting until it is done before starting to enter balance engineers.
Note that we have survived without it until now, so waiting could be the
best solution.
2 - approximative solution: use the mixing engineer AR for both roles.
There should be very few recordings using a balance engineer and a mixing
engineer, so this could be an acceptable solution. I already used this
once: http://musicbrainz.org/release/59ff1074-dc58-4b4e-ac35-7bd3c43e6581But
I'll gladly change my AR if solution 1 is chosen.

-- 
Frederic Da Vitoria
(davitof)

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

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