Audio engineering involves reproducing, recording, mixing and the general manipulation of sound by electronic means, usually through a digital or analog mixing console. It also entails setting up sound equipment in venues or studios.
Sound engineers are the backbone of all studio recording sessions and live events. Performers are only as good as the sound engineer running the show. Sound engineers can make or break a performance.
The mixer is the hub of studio recording and a live event sound. It is the piece of equipment that allows sound engineers to manipulate audio signals. The mixer combines live feed, directs audio to where it's suppose to go and determines the output.
Speakers allow people to hear electrical signals by converting the signals to audible sound. While speakers are tailored to audience members, enabling them to hear a performance, monitors are speakers that allow the performers to hear themselves. However, in live audio environments like concerts and theater performances, speakers alone are not enough to produce the level of sound that the venue calls for.
In these situations, amplifiers make sound louder. They do this by converting the audio from speakers.
Live sound engineering is implemented in theaters, concerts, performance-type church services and other live event settings. In situations like this, the audio engineer is responsible for the initial setup of equipment and mixing the show. Using a mixing console, microphones, speakers, amplifiers and other equipment the show might call for, the sound engineer manipulates the audio as the performance is happening. In the majority of these settings, the sound engineer sets up his console, or "booth," in an ideal location within the venue in an area where he can hear what the audience is hearing.
In many ways, studio sound engineering is similar to live sound. Both use a lot of the same equipment: microphones, mixing console, speakers. And both put the sound engineer at the helm of the process. However, in music production, the studio sound engineer is often the producer. He records, edits and manipulates the sound he is recording, while at the same time providing the band with feedback and direction.
While the live sound engineer often sets up in the midst of a production so he can hear the most accurate sound output, the studio engineer's place is fixed and situated in a room that is separate from where the source is producing the audio.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor at Statistics, sound engineers held 114,600 jobs in 2008, and employment is expected to grow at an average rate through 2018. The website also states that the "median annual wages of sound engineering technicians in May 2008 were $47,490. The middle 50 percent earned between $32,770 and $69,700. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $23,790, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $92,700."