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Engineering the Performance

Recording Engineers, Tacit Knowledge and the Art of Controlling Sound

Susan Schmidt Horning

Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Institute of Art, ssh{at}gwis.com

At the dawn of sound recording, recordists were mechanical engineers whose only training was on the job. As the recording industry grew more sophisticated, so did the technology used to make records, yet the need for recording engineers to use craft skill and tacit knowledge in their work did not diminish. This paper explores the resistance to formalized training of recording engineers and the persistence of tacit knowledge as an indispensable part of the recording engineer’s work. In particular, the concept of ‘microphoning’ - the ability to choose and use microphones to best effect in the recording situation - is discussed as an example of tacit knowledge in action. The recording studio also becomes the site of collaboration between technologists and artists, and this collaboration is at its best a symbiotic working relationship, requiring skills above and beyond either technical or artistic, which could account for one level of ‘performance’ required of the recording engineer. Described by one studio manager as ‘a technician and a diplomat’, the recording engineer performs a number of roles - technical, artistic, socially mediating - that render the concept of formal training problematic, yet necessary for the operation of technically complex equipment

Key Words: audio engineering • aural thinking • ‘microphoning’ • sound recording • tacit knowledge

Social Studies of Science, Vol. 34, No. 5, 703-731 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0306312704047536
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