Ethics in sound
When discussing the present reality of the two fields of audio engineering with its practitioners Andrew and Mathew I addressed a few ethical considerations that might be relevant to people entering those fields.
AI
The first thing on my mind to ask was how artificial intelligence (AI) has influenced their fields and how they think this may change in the future.
Interestingly neither of them felt that AI already has a big influence on the field, and neither seemed to be particularly worried about that changing in the future.
Mathew responded that he has heard of a few clever AI driven EQ tools for Live Sound applications, but other than that he has not encountered it much.
Andrew similarly has encountered it only just now entering the field of spatial audio on the periphery and thinks that with the amount of data that will be needed to train the AI algorithms and it's technical difficulties that there will be at least 3-5 years before it enters the field of spatial audio in any significant way.
A look into the literature on the other hand points to quite a wide adoption of AI driven technologies already in big Live Sound productions.
Automated feed-back detection, automated adaptive gain leveling and noise detection including noise cancelation strategies using AI are already quiet widely applied from conferences to open air festivals. (Kok et al., 2023)(Echotone Music, 2025)
In spatial sound there seem to be many AI driven strategies that are already widely used as well. There are generative AI platforms like Soundverse.ai that already involve the use of spatialy sensitive prompt design. AI guided immersive soundscape design is being heavily researched.
(AYOUBI et al., 2024)
AI agents that make mixing suggestions for spatial sound placement also exist, just as AI driven stem separation features do. (Kim, 2026)
The big difference here seems to be that most examples in the case of spatial audio seem to be in the category of tools that would make the work of a spatial sound engineer easier and more flexible but not replace the engineer just yet, while in the case of Live Sound they seem to be already further developed and could already replace the Live Sound engineer in some edge cases with further development happening fast - ready to expand those edge cases ever more.
Proprietary vs. open source
An ethical consideration that I came across when talking with several people involved in spatial sound was a slight rejection of DolbyAtmos in favor of Ambisonics.
From my take away it was never about the technical aspects of each technology but about the fact that DolbyAtmos is a proprietary licensed technology while Ambisonics is open source technology that everyone can freely use.
After trying to understand the ins and outs of this argument, I came to the conclusion, that while open source is nice as a concept it often leads, because of its open nature, to a lack of investment by global players. (Presumably because they would find it harder to monetize a technology that everyone can do everything they want with for free)
On the flip side, the massive buy in and investment by aligned global players achieved something with DolbyAtmos that eluded all spatial sound formats in existence before: an ecosystem with widespread adoption of reproduction technologies: be they specialized easy to instal home speaker solutions, car cockpits (Dupre et al., 2021) or even simply headphones (Algazi & Duda, 2011); coupled with an efficient distribution network for spatial audio media of many types.
Working for free
The last issue I addressed with both interviewees was free work of fresh engineers in turn for on the job training and an "in" into the industry.
From my interview with Mathew I took that this practice is somewhat common in the Live sound field and it seems quite justified as well.
For one if you are really just starting out, leaving you as the only Live sound engineer for an event that is usually run by just one Live sound engineer could end in total disaster with you standing in a silent venue with lots of angry people on stage and in the audience and you having no idea what to do about it.
So if you can't fully take over a whole event yet, another more experienced engineer needs to be on location with you. That experienced engineer, that could as well run this event alone, wants his usual rate. So what value would your presence have to the event organizer? It's clear that being the second engineer at a one engineer event has mostly one beneficiary: you
But as Mathew pointed out, you need to be careful not to miss the point where that cost/benefit equation flips and you actually become worth your money. In the above spelled out scenario that would probably be the point where the organizers don't feel anymore that they need to hire a second engineer next to you at a single engineer event. (Carugo, 2018)
The situation in the (non live) spatial sound engineer case is quite a bit different though. Most spatial sound engineers work as freelancers on a contract to contract basis.
Contracts over deliverables are usually negotiated with clauses that allow the client to step back from the deal if the quality of the product is not sufficient, meaning there is at no time a risk for the client to pay for a product that doesn't fulfill the agreed upon quality. So even if the fresh out of Uni engineer fails to deliver what he promised, the client can just step back from the deal and contract for his money a different more capable engineer.
Freelance spatial sound engineers also mostly work by themselves for a client, so there is no senior engineer that is getting paid that a non paid beginner can shadow.
Which is probably why Andrew in the interview was so adamant that "no one should ever work for free"
But depending on the situation and circumstances there could still, even for spatial sound engineers, exist reasons for working for free.
Scenarios that come to mind are: a big studio with lots of experienced spatial sound engineers, the best speaker set-ups and audio equipment and lots of big contracts, could definitely provide the sort of on the job training that is worth more than money. (Björgvin Benediktsson, 2018) (Keyes, 2019)
Equally a rising young artist with a great artistic product but no money yet to spend on spatial sound, could possibly provide the opportunity to "get in on the ground floor" by providing a great mix that makes his product shine and thus helps the artist succeed.
Summarizing this last aspect of ethics in audio engineering, I would say that Andrew is right when he says "no one should ever work for free", but I would add that the payment doesn't always have to be money, sometimes an engineer just starting out is better served by payments in experience, early access, contacts and even, bear with me, on very rare occasions...exposure ;)