epimetheus
Well-Known Member
Guess my memory isn't what it used to be...
My Life Isn't Real
- Thread starterSpectre7
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An EE degree, to me, would be good in the sound or video world. It can be used in the lighting world but in the practical application area, it translates easier to sound or video. My brother in law is an design engineer for Westinghouse, holds a masters, but is worthless in the line voltage area. Software and 12 volt systems, he is incredable but calls me for electrical advice. I guess it depends on the concentration as far as where it fits in the entertainment world.
Very interesting comments as when I was in Engineering school, when I worked at a firm offering Electrical Engineering and with the EEs I work with now there was typically little or no relevance between EEs and audio or video. There might be more of a tendency for EEs to be interested in audio and video but for the people and firms I've worked the EEs efforts were primarily in power distribution and, ironically, lighting. In fact the one EE major with whom I shared some theatre classes in college was interested primarily in the lighting aspect of theatre.
I've run across a few Engineering firms that have in-house expertise in specialty lighting, audio, AV, video, etc. in addition to traditional Engineering disciplines, in fact my first employer out of college was one such firm, but those are usually large firms that run those as specialty practices and few of the related designers are EEs. In fact I'd feel pretty safe in saying that every set of construction documents I have sitting around here has the power distribution and basic lighting designed by the EE with any audio and AV designed by others (and not just by me, several are projects where I am the acoustician and there is a different AV designer).
When I first started at a large Engineering firm the audio and AV designs were handled by the EEs. However, they did not design anything, they got vendors to design it for them and then stuck that on their drawings. None of the EEs there, of which there were probably two dozen or more, had any idea how to design an audio or AV system. I'm also not sure that any of them had any experience in theatrical lighting either. I've seen the same approach and knowledge exhibited by numerous other Electrical Engineering firms.
An electronics degree may translate well to addressing audio and video equipment and circuits but does not necessarily address any of the system or functional aspects. They may be able to design a projector but have no idea of what projector is appropriate for an application or they might design a speaker driver but have no idea how to design a speaker system for a space or know anything about coverage, intelligibility, etc.
So an EE degree may be very useful or totally irrelevant to audio, AV and video, it seems very dependent upon the individual, the specifics of the degree program and what other education and experience they may have.
epimetheus
Well-Known Member
I'd agree with this. I know some EE's who can't change a residential light fixture. That said, I tailored my degree with the intention of getting into the AVL industry. While my degree focus was technically power systems, I took as many classes as I could in analog circuit design, fiber optics, etc. While that may not explicitly qualify me to design systems by itself, it certainly doesn't hurt. It just happens to be power systems that I do on a daily basis.
I have seen EEs that didn't have a clue about power distribution but tons about sound. It seems to be what the indivdual is interested in and how they apply their knowledge. I have a relative that is an EE that is tremendous with sound and computor systems but had to call me to walk him through how to install a sub panel in his house. There are others that could design a power plant but wouldn't have a clue what was what on a circuit board, lighting or sound.
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