What Makes a Good Engineer?

What makes a good engineer? There are many skills required, both technical and interpersonal. In this short episode I talk about some of those skills and how they apply to a recording session.

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Transcript

110                        What Makes a Good Engineer?               October 29, 2025

I’m Doug Fearn and this is My Take on Music Recording

 Much of the focus on recording comes down to the equipment used. And that good equipment, of course, is vital to achieving a good recording.

But it is a persistent myth that great equipment will always result in a great recording.

I have had people tell me that it is the wonderful equipment that results in superior recording. The implication is that if they only had that great gear, they, too, would make amazing recordings.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

It takes a great engineer to make an outstanding-sounding recording. Add top-of-the-line equipment and you have the formula for making records that astound us.

But give a good engineer a bunch of SM57s and a simple recorder, and they will probably still make an impressive-sounding recording.

So, what makes a good engineer?

I can think of many things, and here they are, in no particular order.

First, a good engineer relates well to every person they encounter. They understand the artistic mind of the musician. They know that the studio environment can be stressful for many artists and they make sure the performers are as comfortable and as relaxed as possible. Let’s face it, the studio can be an intimidating space, especially those will little experience. And the pressure of performing at their best puts a huge burden on many performers.

The session may have the potential to create a recording that could last for an unlimited amount of time. Or the artist may be putting excessive emphasis on the outcome of the day in the studio. They may think that their career may depend on getting their music performed and recorded properly.

That’s a lot of pressure, and few people do their best under those circumstances.

An engineer might think that that is not their problem, but it is. For one thing, the quality of the performance reflects on them. It can make an engineer’s career if he happens to be there for an extraordinary session. We don’t just position mics, set levels, push buttons or click a mouse. Anyone can be trained to do that. We need to bring that extra talent of dealing with people in a way that gets the most out of a musician’s abilities.

To a large extent, the talent to work well with people in a creative situation is something you either have or you do not. But even those born without that innate talent can learn to play that game. And even if you are already great at relating to people, there is always room for improvement.

This is a complex subject and I can only offer my own experience -- plus the observations I have made over the years with great and not-so-great engineers.

It takes a certain amount of empathy to feel what the performer is going through at any moment. You have to know when to say something and when to keep quiet. You have to know the words you will say, and those words have to be tailored to the individual you are speaking to. I can’t tell you how to do that, but I see that over and over in the most successful engineers and producers I know.

There are other, non-verbal, things an engineer can do to make a performer relax and focus on their music. If you are tense, nervous, impatient, or act like you don’t want to be there, the artist is likely to pick up on that. They won’t perform at their best level. An engineer should be the calm and competent presence in the studio. That will immediately ease some of the tension the singer or musician is feeling.

An engineer has to have the empathy to see what is stressing the artist. Sensing what is making them uncomfortable and fixing it is a skill you can develop. Ideally, you recognize the problem and fix it before the artist even realizes the problem. It might seem like magic, but it only takes careful observation of what is going on. It could be their chair, the position of the mic, the lighting, the headphone mix or volume, the studio temperature, or their ability to see others. The list is practically endless. A good engineer does not study the situation and analyze what is wrong. Well, maybe they do that early in their career while they are learning their craft. But good engineers have that intuition so they rarely have to think about the problem. They know what needs to be done.

Next, an engineer has to have a mastery of his tools. He knows the room where he is working, and how to get the most out of it. He knows the microphone collection and can make an educated guess about the best mic and mic placement for a given situation. He sees the studio environment holistically, not as many variables, but as one entity with multiple components. Again, it is experience and intuition that make an engineer comfortable in his environment.

He knows the tools he has available to him. He understands the control room equipment, its strengths and weaknesses, and how to match it to the other equipment, and the players, in an optimum way. The music is the central thing here, and a good engineer understands what works best for any genre.

A good engineer quickly recognizes problems in the sound and smoothly acts to correct them without anyone noticing. He works quickly, without drama, to get everything working properly, ideally without the performers even aware of what he is doing.

He rapidly sets levels and a headphone mix close to perfection, so it does not interrupt the flow of the session. If a major problem is revealed, he knows how to get around it, ideally before anyone notices.

All the while, he is keeping his mind tuned in on what is going on in the studio, anticipating what needs to be done, technically and for human comfort. He anticipates what is going to happen next and has a plan to make setup changes quickly, while staying out of the way of everyone in the studio.

A good engineer is someone a performer feels comfortable with, like you have known each other for years, right from the beginning.

In the old days, an engineer had to have a technical background. Tape machines were complex and required a lot of adjustment, repair, and routine maintenance. Today, the gear is much simpler, more reliable, and there is not much need for alignment, except maybe balancing levels with tone. Most engineers today have no technical background at all, and it’s wonderful that that is no longer required to do a decent job.

However, a basic understanding of signal flow, gain structure, and the implications of using equipment is still valuable knowledge that good engineers have. They know how to set up a chain of outboard gear, or a stack of plugins, that is going to do what they want without adding noise or unwanted distortion. They understand the implications of putting an equalizer before or after a compressor. They know how to set levels to minimize noise and maintain adequate headroom.

An engineer may have no idea how a piece of equipment, or its software equivalent works, but he still needs to understand how to set it up for the best results. He may never need to use any actual tools other than a screwdriver. But some background in simple tasks like soldering can save money and time, and allow them to repair something, or put together a simple electronic device when an unusual need arises. And most of all, a logical approach to finding a problem does not always require an oscilloscope or portable meter. But all those skills are still useful.

A motivated engineer will want to understand as much about the equipment he is using as his brain can absorb. He should have curiosity about these things. It will improve his recordings.

If you have a map of the signal flow in your head, then finding a problem is much easier and faster. Some engineers jump to conclusions about the source of a problem, and blame the wrong thing. I talked about that in the episode on Troubleshooting from April 2023.

Some engineers feel that ignorance of the technicalities of the equipment, and software, allows them to experiment and discover things that no one else has done. And I agree that it can sometimes work that way. But an aversion to understanding your tools is not the best attitude.

A good engineer understands his place in the studio environment in any situation. If there is a producer involved, the engineer’s main job may only be to fulfill the producer’s requests. But that approach often underutilizes the talents available to the producer.

Or there may be a situation where the engineer is the de facto producer. This happens often with inexperienced artists.

Regardless of the role the engineer is fulfilling on any given session, they have to be an active participant in the creative process of making a good recording. It may go beyond simple engineering. It all depends on the people involved. Sometimes an engineer has to take charge, if the performers are open to that. I’ve been in lots of sessions earlier in my career where it became obvious that no one was in charge and no one had a vision of the final product. I had to slowly introduce ideas that would result in a better outcome.

Sometimes you can’t tell people what they should be doing. They may have a strong vision of what they want, and the engineer may not initially understand that. A good engineer will constantly evaluate the situation and decide when to say something, or do something, and when not to. Often the egos are strong, especially with insecure performers. Your great ideas might be met with hostility.

One approach that I have often had to do was to simply do what is asked of you, even though you feel strongly that it is a bad idea. Once it becomes apparent that the artist’s or producer’s idea is not working, a good engineer will tactfully suggest an alternate approach. The engineer must wait until the time is right. That could be when everyone is frustrated, but ideally a change comes before it gets to that point.

It is amazing how this can elevate the mood in the studio in an instant.

And other times you cannot tell someone what will work better. You just have to slowly guide the session from the background so that eventually the artist of producer thinks that they discovered the solution. That can be frustrating to the engineer. After all, it was their idea that saved the day, but they get no credit for it. They can’t think about it that way. They solved a problem and the end result was better. They have the self-satisfaction of creating a better recording, even though no one may even realize or appreciate what they did.

A good engineer is also a teacher. He or she is always trying to help the people around them learn more about their craft. That might be obvious, like explaining how you do something and why to an assistant. Or it could be much more subtle, where you quietly demonstrate how to be competent, professional, and creative.

A great engineer is always learning, too. They take the good things that happen in a session and apply them to the next project where it might be a benefit. That could be a technical trick, or it could be a new way of looking at music and our role in it.

Most engineers are also musicians. That is helpful. They understand the mind of the musician. They may know a lot about the instrument being played. They appreciate the creative things that happen in the music, even if the ultimate listener doesn’t. Some of what we do is like inside information, maybe even a joke, that everyone involved appreciates and understands. That also helps the engineer bond with the performers.

A good basic music theory background will also benefit an engineer. Just knowing musical terminology and being conversant with the words can help build rapport.

Watching a great engineer do these things is amazing. I was reminded of this recently when my partners and I were mixing an album at Sweetwater Studios in Indiana. Chief Engineer Shawn Dealy and staff engineer Jason Peets are some of the finest engineers I have ever worked with. They display the skills I have outlined here, and even after many hours of working, they do everything with good nature.

The four days of mixing were relaxed and fun. It was a bunch of professionals working together. We appreciated the engineers’ talents and skills, and they appreciated our decades of experience. It only took an hour or so for them to understand our sonic goals, and after that, they knew exactly what to do to get what we wanted.

Often, they would recognize something that we were going to need to change, even before we realized it ourselves. Sometimes they would ask if it was a problem, and other times they just fixed it as the problem broke into our consciousness. It was remarkable.

To be good at anything in life, you have to have a wide skill set to be really successful. There is technical proficiency, creativity, logic, musical understanding, psychology, and intuition involved. We are all born with some of those things, and we can learn some of the others. If you really want to have a long and successful career in engineering, and production, you need to work on those things all your life.

Thanks for listening, subscribing, and commenting. I always appreciate your thought on the topics of these episodes. And it is also useful to learn what future topics you would like to hear more about. I can be reached at dwfearn@dwfearn.com

This is My Take on Music Recording. I’m Doug Fearn. See you next time.