[LAU] What does "Engineered by" really mean in liner notes

[S. Massy]

On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 05:45:49PM -0700, "Bearcat M. Şandor" wrote:
> Folks,
> 
> I'm anal about my audio tagging and i like to enter the names of the
> people who worked on an album. If i see "engineered by" does that
> mean recording engineer, mixing engineer or mastering engineer? Or
> does that mean all three usually?
Short answer: it can mean anything. Long answer: there is a lot of
overlap, even more so today than ever before. Superproductions aside, it
used to be more or less that one crew took care of the recording and
mixing (probably what you're thinking of as "engineered by"), and then
the resulting material would be sent over to the mastering studio.
Nowadays, it's not unusual for even moderately well-known bands to
handle some or all of these steps in-house, or to split recording
sessions amongst a few locations and even get tracks mixed by various
engineers. I think modern technology and industry changes have seriously
blurred the boundaries between musician, arranger, producer, and
engineer (recording/mixing/mastering). 

Cheers,
S.M.