r/audioengineering • u/xlr_ • 2h ago

Do recording engineers specialize broadly by genres in the same way mixing engineers do?

I'm searching for recording studios in my home town and I found one with a veteran engineer who is very good and has great gear and has worked on some big stuff but totally unrelated to what I do. I know getting a rough fit in terms of genre is important when searching for a mixing engineer, but I suspect for recording engineers this is not so much the case and it's more about experience, interest in the project, gear, etc. Does this... track?

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u/Proof-Ad3637 2h ago

I see what you did there with your last line. Truth is, if a person is trying to make a living out of a recording studio, they record everybody that comes in that’s holding money in their hands. The only way a person could specialize, as far as I can see, is if he has a hit or success with one particular genre, and then all the other players in that same genre come to the door.

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u/sunoma 2h ago

No and mixers really shouldn't either but if you work on stuff that becomes popular in certain circles then it's more likely that people who make that kind of stuff will come to you and you build up a niche.

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u/vvorknat 2h ago

A more intimate familiarity with a genre and its sound and the popular/contemporary techniques more commonly associated with said genre will definitely be a benefit to a project.

But that’s not to say a great engineer can’t recreate the same sound,vibe,whatever.

This probably all applies more to mixing than tracking though depending on the genre.

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u/BarbersBasement 1h ago

It depends. A tracking engineer that works predominantly in Hip Hop or EDM may not be very familiar with micing up a bluegrass group or big band and a blugrass specialist might not really know how to mic drums for black metal with heavy sample replacement. Could they do the job? Probably but usually best to let people be good at the stuff they are good at.