What is the difference between a sound designer, sound editor, audio engineer, and mixing engineer?
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there are about a million terms used to describe different audio-related jobs, and each one has a million more terms that describe the specifics of *how* a particular person goes about doing their job. i wouldn’t worry too much – it’s good to have an understanding of each term, but everyone will use them differently. with that in mind, here are my definitions:
a sound designer is someone who designs/creates *new* sounds that don’t already exist. this can be done for tv/movies or for use within a piece of music. the sound design process can include combining real sounds and processing them to make something new, or using synthesisers to create brand new sounds.
a sound editor is someone who takes a piece of audio content (such as a podcast or the audio component of a movie) and edits it to fit what the director wants. this could include cutting out silence, removing background noise, adding sounds created by a sound designer, etc.
an audio engineer is kind of an umbrella term for things such as **recording** engineer, **mixing** engineer, and **mastering** engineer. these roles are part of the process of studio recording, and a smaller studio may have just one audio engineer to do all of these processes. **recording** is the process of setting up mics, amps, etc to prepare the band/artist for recording, and then recording them into separate tracks. **mixing** is the process of taking those tracks and adjusting the levels, possibly adding effects^((see below)) and making each instrument sit well together. **mastering** is the process of taking the overall song and adding final touches such as compression to ensure each song in an album will sit well together.
(see below): effects in this case referring to things such as reverb, delay, chorus, etc, rather than sound effects created by the sound designer.
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