Okay, before I offend anyone, I'm not even sure what ?crock? means. I say ?crock? because I've spent the past 5 years of my life obsessing about audio engineering. I've been consumed by guitar tone, bass tone, drum tone, etc. I've discovered that what I thought would be this secret chamber filled with gold and treasure that resembled something from an Indiana Jones movie was quite empty. This is actually an interesting metaphor because I didn't intend for ?treasure? to mean money. I meant for it to mean musical richness or some intangible higher level of musical existence. Either way, I found that engineering pays neither in cash or in some sort of Buddhist existence.

Successful Producers Provide More Value To Society

Of course, we all know that engineers don't make a damn thing compared to the producers who hire them. Why? It's simple. Engineers simply don't provide as much value to a record label as producers do. The list of people willing and able to make a pro recording of a drum kit for a low wage is very long. The list of people capable of providing the listener with inspiring and commercially appealing music is extremely small. This is why successful producers are paid much, much more typically.

Most Producers Can Engineer Quite Well

In the few situations I've witnessed, the producer was more than capable of engineering just fine on his own, but simply wanted an assistant to handle a bulk of the technical work that would distract the producer from his ultimate job of creating the best music possible. So even, in the highest levels of audio engineering, you are still just an assistant. This won't bother everyone, but some of us are more ambitious than that.