$158,160top of the range in Tennessee · middle $73,130 / yr
AI is transforming this role
Sound Designers in the United States earn a median of $73,130 a year. Pay starts near $37,570. Pay reaches $158,160 at the top of the range in Tennessee, the best-paying state for this work among those with at least 500 people in the job.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (Sound Engineering Technicians, SOC 27-4014). Last checked 9 September 2026.
Entry level
$37,570
Top of the range · Tennessee
$158,160
Education
Bachelor's degree in Audio or Film
Wages — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (Sound Engineering Technicians). Top of the range is the highest state-level figure among states with at least 500 people in the job. AI-impact rating is PayCrunch's editorial assessment. Updated September 2026.
🆕 New & Trending AI Tools for Sound DesignerReviewed September 2026
We track new AI-tool launches every week and refresh this list — here’s what’s gaining traction for Sound Designer work right now.
RunwayNEWFree tier / $12 mo
AI video generator and editor for short cinematic clips.
How a Sound Designer uses it: generate and edit video b-roll and effects without a full production
GammaNEWFree / $9 mo
Generates polished slide decks and one-pagers from a prompt.
How a Sound Designer uses it: turn an outline into a designed presentation instantly
NotebookLMNEWFree / $7.99 mo
Google tool that answers questions grounded only in the documents you give it — with citations.
How a Sound Designer uses it: load your own manuals, policies, or PDFs and ask questions that stay accurate to the source
Canva AIFree / $13 mo
Design platform with AI text-to-image, writing, and one-click layouts.
How a Sound Designer uses it: produce on-brand graphics, social posts, and decks without a designer
Adobe FireflyFree credits / paid
Adobe's commercially-safe AI image and video generation, built into Creative Cloud.
How a Sound Designer uses it: generate and edit images and video safe for commercial use
Midjourney$10+ mo
High-end AI image generator known for striking visuals.
How a Sound Designer uses it: create original concept art, mockups, and hero images from a prompt
DescriptFree / $16 mo
Edit video and podcasts by editing the transcript like a doc.
How a Sound Designer uses it: cut and polish video/audio by editing text, and remove filler words automatically
ElevenLabsFree / $5+ mo
AI voice generation with hundreds of natural voices.
How a Sound Designer uses it: produce voiceovers and narration in minutes
ChatGPTFree / $20 mo
The most-used AI assistant — writing, analysis, research, and images from a plain-language chat.
How a Sound Designer uses it: draft emails and documents, summarize long files, and get instant answers to on-the-job questions
A soundtrack that has to survive the picture
A sound designer builds the world a listener believes while the picture is still unfinished. In a commercial, that world may be a bottle cap, the room around a voice, and a music bed that has to duck under a legal line. In a game, it is footsteps that change with the floor, a creature that has to read as large before it appears, and interface sounds a player will hear over and over without fatigue. In a film, it is the bed of a city, a specific car, an argument happening off screen, and the quiet that makes the next hit land. The work is creative design. You choose what the audience hears, then you build those sounds so an editor, a mixer, or a game engine can use them.
People outside the craft often picture someone riding a console while a crowd watches. That picture belongs to a different job. A designer may never stand at a live desk. The day happens in a studio, a small bay, a game-audio office, or a remote session where the picture, the session, and a pile of recordings are the whole room. You decide, record, edit, and deliver. You also explain choices to a director, a creative director, or a game director who can hear that something is wrong and cannot yet name it. The skill is judgment you can play back.
From the temp track to the files you hand off
A day often starts with the picture in whatever state it has reached. Early on, someone has dropped in temporary sound, and your job is to replace it with material that belongs to this project. You walk the cut with the editor or the director and name the sounds that have to exist. A door needs a particular latch. A crowd should feel nearer. Music should stay out so a line can land. Then you go build. Building may be a field recording, a library search, a synthesized layer, or a performance you record in a booth. You edit in a workstation, stack textures, and hand off material a mix can use.
Games add another kind of finish. You attach sounds to events, set variations so repetition does not flatten the world, and check the result inside a build rather than only on a timeline. Spots move fast, because a media date does not care that the cut changed overnight. Film may let you live with one scene for a long stretch. The common thread is taste you can defend. Gear matters, and the reel matters more. A hiring manager can hear whether you designed a world or only assembled familiar effects. Label what you touched. A scene you fully designed teaches more than a montage of moods.
Design work, kept apart from the live desk
Live mixing is a performance. Someone balances voices and music while an audience is in the room and solves problems that exist for that night alone. Design for picture and games is authored. You can revise. You can audition three doors and keep one. You deliver files, sessions, or implemented events, and someone else may mix them later. Some careers include both jobs. This path is the design job: spots, games, and film, plus the series, podcasts, and trailers that use the same muscles. If you want the live desk, build a different reel and say so.
Read a posting twice when the title says designer and the duty list is a festival, a house of worship, or a touring act. That employer may want a live engineer and reached for a broader title. Ask whether the work product is a soundtrack, a game integration, or a show file that has to be ridden in front of people. Your samples should match the answer. A film scene will not prove you can mix a band. A board recording of a concert will not prove you can design a creature or a product world. Match the chair you actually want, and say which chair you are applying for in the first lines of your note.
No licence, and the reel that stands in its place
No state board issues a licence that permits you to design a film, a game, or a spot. That gap does not make the job casual. It moves the proof onto work a stranger can hear. A reel of scenes, a game someone can play, or a spot someone can watch is the credential. School can help you make that proof. So can an assistant seat in a studio that already has clients. People prepare in audio programs, film schools, game programs, and by assisting designers who will let them touch real picture. What those paths share is practice under a deadline: a workstation, clean recordings, notes a director can use, and delivery on the day the picture locks.
Software names change. The habit of finishing does not. Keep sessions organized, name tracks so a stranger can mix them, and keep a short reel that shows design rather than only the songs you like. Music supervision and sound design sit next to each other, and buyers confuse them. A reel of tracks you admire will not show the craft. Some film work runs through a union contract. That membership is a workplace rule on certain productions. It still is a labour agreement, not a licence to design. If a job requires it, the studio will say so. Do not imply you hold a credential you have not earned, and do not hide a credit that would explain your actual skill.
How a room decides to trust your ears
Post houses, game studios, brand teams, and production companies hire designers. The first paid seat is often an assistant or a junior editor who can cut effects cleanly and stay steady when the cut changes. Bring a few scenes, not every export you have ever made. Say what you did. If you only edited dialogue, say that. If you designed the world and someone else mixed, say that too. Credits that overclaim are easy to hear and easy to check. A supervisor who feels misled on the reel will not argue with you about taste. They will simply stop the meeting.
A useful meeting is a listening session. They play something, or they ask you to play something, and then you talk about choices. Say why a sound is there, what you tried that failed, and what you would change with one more day. You do not need a speech. You need a plain account of your own work. Early in a career, a scene you designed against picture you have the right to use, or a game jam someone can load, beats a promise about taste. Assistants get hired because they make a lead faster. Show that you can organize, conform, and take a note without defending the temporary track. Punctuality and file hygiene sound dull until a picture lock falls apart at the end of a week.
From runner to the person who owns the soundtrack
The early path is physical. You move media, set up record sessions, conform when the picture changes, and build libraries a lead can trust. Do that well and you begin to own small design tasks: a vehicle, a set of interface sounds, a scene the lead cannot reach. Those tasks become credits. Credits become a reel that is actually yours. From there, people move into a staff designer seat, a freelance rotation among a few houses, or a game team where a lead reviews implementation. Keep a simple list of what shipped, what you designed, and who will confirm it. That list does more work than a slogan on a resume.
Later careers split in public ways. Some designers stay hands-on and become the person a director requests by name. Some become supervisors who cast other designers, hold the schedule, and still design the scenes that carry the story. Some move into audio direction at a game studio, where the week mixes design, reviews of other people's implementation, and hiring. None of those steps depends on a licence. All of them depend on finished work and people who will say, without a script, that you delivered. Keep the reel current. A decade-old scene with no recent spot, game, or film makes a buyer wonder whether you still work this way. A short, recent, honest reel beats a long one that hides the gaps.
The technician survey, used once for this craft
These dollars come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. This is the one place to name the shared series, Sound Engineering Technicians. That title is wider than creative design for spots, games, and film. It also includes people who record and mix. Treat the figures as the published picture for that wider technician group, then apply them to a design career with that limit in view. The national middle sits at $73,130. The lower published figure is $37,570. The upper published bound is $158,160 in Tennessee. The step from the lower figure to the national middle is $35,560. The step from the national middle to that high end is $85,030. The step from the national middle to the highest state median is $14,380.
State medians are a different statistic from the high end of the range. Read them in this order: New York at $87,510, California at $78,150, Illinois at $73,130, Florida at $70,360, and Tennessee at $60,500. The highest median is New York at $87,510. The lowest median in the release is Texas at $54,370. The gap between those two medians is $33,140. Illinois matches the national middle. Florida sits a little under it. Tennessee's median sits well under the national middle, even though Tennessee is the place attached to the upper published bound. Keep that contrast in the sentence when you repeat the numbers to yourself.
A Tennessee high end and a New York median
The high end is Tennessee, at $158,160. The highest median is New York, at $87,510. Those are different statistics and different places. Tennessee also has its own median, $60,500, and that median is a different statistic from the Tennessee high end. Use $60,500 when you mean a typical wage in that place. Use $158,160 only for the top of the published range there. Use $87,510 when you mean the highest of these state medians.
An offer conversation that keeps the figures apart
An offer near $37,570 sits on the lower published figure. The national middle is $35,560 higher. Ask what the seat actually is. An assistant who conforms and builds libraries is closer to that lower figure than a designer who owns a game's footsteps or a film's world. Ask when pay is reviewed, and what a finished credit on this company's work would change. Leave $158,160 out of a junior reply. That number is the upper published bound in Tennessee, and it sits $85,030 above the national middle. Naming the distance keeps the top of the range from masquerading as a starting wage.
An offer near $73,130 matches the national middle of the wider survey. In New York, the median is $87,510, which is $14,380 above that national middle. California's median is $78,150. If the design job is in one of those places, say the state median out loud. It is still a median, still a typical figure for a broad technician group, and still not a promise about your reel. Florida's median is $70,360. Tennessee's median is $60,500. A recruiter who says Tennessee pays $158,160 has swapped the high end for a typical wage. Put $60,500 back in the sentence, then decide whether the project, the credit, and the city are worth the offer in front of you.
Bring $158,160 into the talk only when the role resembles the top of a range: a supervising designer, a lead with a long credit list, or a specialist whose sound is why a client returns. Even then, call it the upper published bound in Tennessee, and keep New York's $87,510 median as a separate fact about typical pay. The $33,140 gap between the New York median and the Texas median compares two medians. It helps if you are weighing typical pay in two places. It does not convert a Texas offer into a Tennessee high-end offer, and it does not convert Tennessee's $60,500 median into New York's median. Write the offer, $73,130, and the relevant state median on one page. Add $158,160 only if someone tried to use it as a typical wage, and correct it. A shipped credit is the evidence. The May 2025 figures are the map.
The top of Sound Designer pay — and how to get there with AI
$158,160what Sound Designer pay reaches in Tennessee
Highest state-level top-of-range annual wage for Sound Engineering Technicians, among states with at least 500 people in the job. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025.
And the role it leads to — Producers and Directors — reaches $306,850 in California.
$37,570entry$73,130middle$158,160top end
A sound designer in the middle of this range works with whatever is already in the room, while the one at the top of the range specifies it, the microphones, the console, the conversion and the delivery chain, because whoever decides what a facility runs on is not easily replaced.
Selecting and setting up microphones, testing and adjusting recording equipment before a session, and reporting equipment faults are all written into this job, and they sit beside a decision nobody formally owns: what should be bought next. Facilities usually settle that by habit or by whoever argues loudest. A designer who runs a genuine comparison, the same source captured through two chains and judged blind by the people who mix it, turns a matter of preference into a matter of evidence. The routine work has got quicker, with dialogue cleanup in Adobe Audition and conform against picture in Adobe Premiere Pro or Apple Final Cut Pro, which frees the hours that an evaluation needs.
Your playbook, by where you are now
Just startingLearn the chain end to end
Set up and test the recording equipment for every session you can, logging which microphone and placement produced the take that got used.
Capture one source through two different chains and listen back blind, so your preferences are tested rather than inherited.
Learn one editing package thoroughly, Adobe Audition being the usual choice, including the parts you currently avoid.
Keep session files and templates under Git so any project can be recovered exactly as it was delivered.
What proves it: A documented library of your own microphone and signal chain comparisons.
Realistic span: the first two years
A few years inRun the comparison the facility trusts
Take one purchase decision and do it properly: define what the room needs, trial the candidates on paid sessions, then write the result down.
Include running cost, maintenance, licences and the machines needed to host it on Apple macOS or Linux, not only the purchase price.
Track equipment faults and downtime in Microsoft Excel so replacement arguments rest on records rather than on complaints.
Ask Claude to summarise where two manufacturers' specifications differ, then settle what matters with your own ears.
Standardise how dialogue, music and effects get synchronised and equalised against picture, so anyone can pick a project up mid-flight.
What proves it: A written equipment evaluation the facility acted on.
Realistic span: years three through six
ExperiencedHold the specification
Own the technical specification for the rooms: signal flow, monitoring, delivery formats and what gets replaced when.
Set the delivery standards clients receive, so quality stops depending on which designer happened to take the job.
Train assistants and junior designers on the chain you specified, including the teardown discipline that keeps it working.
Take the equipment budget along with the decision, since a recommendation without money behind it stays advisory.
Note where this work concentrates, Tennessee paying sound engineering technicians best, and consider the producing route if you want the whole production.
What proves it: Named responsibility for the facility's technical specification and its equipment budget.
Realistic span: year seven onward
The next 90 days
Run one honest comparison in the next ninety days. Choose a piece of equipment your room argues about, a pair of microphones, two preamps, two conversion paths, and record the same performer through both in the same session with nothing else changed. Bounce matched files, strip the names off, and have the people who mix for a living pick blind. Then write a page: what you tested, how, what they chose, what it costs to buy and to keep running. Send it to whoever signs purchase orders. Facilities almost never receive a document like that, and the sound designer who supplies one becomes the person consulted before money is spent, which is a far more durable position than being fast on a console.
Wage figures: BLS OEWS, May 2025. The playbook is PayCrunch editorial guidance, not a guarantee of pay or placement.
Every figure is the national median from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (OEWS) shown on that role’s own page.
Never used AI before? Start here (2 minutes).
Open iZotope RX first — it's the tool that pays for itself on day one. Its AI-driven dialogue isolation, de-noise, de-reverb, and Dialogue De-noise turn unusable location recordings into clean tracks in minutes, work that used to eat whole afternoons. Learn the Repair Assistant and the Voice De-noise module on one real project and measure the hours you save.
Then get fluent in generative SFX for fast prototyping. ElevenLabs Sound Effects, Stable Audio, and Meta's AudioGen can spin up rough textures, whooshes, and ambiences from a text prompt so you can audition ideas in seconds and then craft the final asset. Keep your DAW (Reaper, Pro Tools) and a library manager like Soundly at the center — AI feeds the pipeline; your ears and edit decisions finish the work.
The one rule, forever: AI-generated audio carries rights and disclosure risk: don't ship voices that clone a real or union performer without consent (this is now an active labor and legal issue), and check each generative tool's license for commercial and broadcast use before a sound goes into a deliverable. Keep unreleased client media confidential — don't upload embargoed picture or scripts to tools that train on your inputs — and always confirm sync, loudness spec, and deliverable format by ear and by meter, because a generated asset that sounds fine in isolation can be wrong in the mix.
The plays — exact steps, exact prompts
Do these in order. Each one is copy-paste ready. You do not need to know anything about AI going in.
1
Prototype sound palettes with generative SFX, finish by hand
Why this pays: Speed of iteration is what wins directors and clients. Generating dozens of rough options in minutes lets you present sonic directions faster, land more projects, and spend your craft time only on the sounds that matter — the throughput behind top-tier day rates.
ElevenLabs Sound EffectsStable AudioSoundly
1
Use ElevenLabs Sound Effects or Stable Audio to rapidly audition ideas from text prompts, then layer, pitch, and process the keepers in your DAW into a finished, original asset.
2
Prompt generative tools like a sound designer, not a tourist — specify material, motion, and space.
Copy-paste this prompt
Generate a [heavy sci-fi blast door closing] sound effect: describe it as [large metal slab, hydraulic hiss on approach, deep mechanical thunk on impact, low sub tail, faint reverberant clank in a cavernous hangar]. Give me [8] variations with different weights and speeds so I can layer them. Dry, mono, no music.
Treat outputs as raw material to layer and shape, not finished deliverables. Check the tool's commercial license and keep the final sound distinctly your own build.
3
Catalog every keeper and its metadata in Soundly so your generated and recorded assets become a searchable, reusable personal library.
What you'll haveFaster palette exploration and client sign-off — more projects delivered at premium rates.
2
Rescue and sculpt dialogue with AI restoration
Why this pays: Clean dialogue is non-negotiable in film and TV post, and salvaging a bad location take is a high-value, deadline-critical skill. Doing it in minutes instead of hours is exactly what makes a supervising-editor workload sustainable at top pay.
iZotope RXAccentize dxReviveSupertone Clear
1
Run problem dialogue through iZotope RX's Repair Assistant, Voice De-noise, and De-reverb, and use Accentize dxRevive or Supertone Clear to restore muffled or distant recordings.
2
Build a repeatable dialogue-cleanup chain and QC it against spec.
Copy-paste this prompt
I'm cleaning up [boom-mic dialogue recorded in a noisy exterior with wind and traffic] for a [streaming drama] delivery. Lay out an iZotope RX processing order that avoids artifacts (wind, de-noise, de-reverb, mouth-click, spectral repair), explain why each step goes where it does, and list the tell-tale artifacts of over-processing I should listen for. Include a final loudness/true-peak check for a streaming deliverable.
Over-processed dialogue sounds worse than noisy dialogue. Trust your ears over the presets, and always verify against the platform's loudness and true-peak spec.
What you'll haveBroadcast-clean dialogue on impossible schedules — the reliability that earns supervising-level rates.
3
Own interactive and adaptive game audio
Why this pays: Implementation — building audio that reacts to gameplay in Wwise or FMOD — is the highest-leverage, least-automatable sound skill in games, and senior implementers are paid accordingly. AI speeds asset creation so you spend your time on the systems that only a designer can build.
Audiokinetic WwiseFMODElevenLabs Sound Effects
1
Use generative tools to mass-produce raw variations (footsteps, impacts, UI, ambience beds), then implement them as randomized, layered, parameter-driven events in Wwise or FMOD so they never sound repetitive in play.
2
Design the interactive system with AI as a technical sounding board.
Copy-paste this prompt
I'm designing the audio system for [a third-person action game's melee combat] in Wwise. Help me plan it: how to structure blend containers and RTPCs for weapon weight and hit intensity, how to avoid repetition with randomization and voice limiting, how to duck under important callouts, and the CPU/voice-count pitfalls to watch. Explain the Wwise concepts I need and the tradeoffs.
AI explains concepts and structure; it can't hear your game or set your mix. Test everything in-engine and let gameplay feel drive the final implementation.
3
Keep your naming, folder, and event conventions rigorous — clean implementation is what makes you rehireable on bigger titles.
What you'll haveAdaptive audio systems that feel alive in-game — the senior implementation skill that commands top game-audio pay.
4
Design creatures, voices, and worlds with AI as a sound source
Why this pays: Distinctive creature and world design is signature work that gets you hired by name for features, trailers, and AAA games. Generative voice and texture tools expand your raw-material palette, letting you invent sounds faster and take on marquee, high-fee projects.
Krotos Reformer ProElevenLabsMeta AudioGen
1
Use Krotos Reformer Pro to perform creature and vehicle sounds in real time from source recordings, and generative tools like AudioGen to spawn unusual textures you then process into something original.
2
Develop a coherent sonic identity for a character or world, not just isolated sounds.
Copy-paste this prompt
I'm designing the voice and sonic identity of [a subterranean insectoid creature] for a [feature film]. Help me build a design brief: the core sonic metaphors (what real-world sources evoke it), a layered structure (breath, vocalization, movement, texture), how the identity should shift across [calm, threatened, attacking] states, and processing ideas to make it feel organic and unsettling. Concept and technique only.
Never clone a real or union performer's voice without consent. Build creature identity from your own recordings and licensed generative sources.
What you'll haveSignature creature and world design produced faster — the reputation work behind marquee, high-fee gigs.
5
Speed spotting, asset management, and delivery
Why this pays: The unglamorous overhead — spotting notes, library search, versioning, deliverables — eats hours you can't bill at your craft rate. AI-assisted search and organization reclaim that time for creative work, letting you take on more concurrent projects.
SoundlyDescriptChatGPT
1
Use Soundly's similarity and text search to find the right library sound instantly instead of scrubbing folders, and keep a tagged personal library so nothing is ever remade from scratch.
2
Turn a spotting session or client notes into an organized, trackable cue list.
Copy-paste this prompt
Here are my raw spotting notes from a [30-minute episode] review: [paste notes with timecodes]. Turn them into a clean, sortable cue sheet: timecode, scene, sound type (Foley/SFX/ambience/design), priority, and a short description. Flag any note that's ambiguous and needs client clarification.
AI organizes your notes; it doesn't make creative calls. Confirm timecodes and intent against the picture yourself.
What you'll haveHours of overhead reclaimed for creative work — more projects delivered per month at your full rate.
Your 12-month sequence to the top of the range
How the plays above stack into a path from median pay toward the $158,160 tier.
Month 1
Master iZotope RX dialogue restoration on real material and build one repeatable cleanup chain. Measure the time saved per reel.
Months 2-3
Add generative SFX (ElevenLabs, Stable Audio) to your prototyping workflow and build a tagged Soundly library of keepers.
Months 3-6
Go deep on your highest-value lane — Wwise/FMOD implementation for games or creature/world design for film — using AI to feed raw assets.
Months 6-12
Streamline spotting, management, and delivery so you can run more concurrent projects, then pitch higher-end work at senior rates.
Gear for this job
As an Amazon Associate, PayCrunch earns from qualifying purchases. Links to books and tools are for the job on this page; we only recommend what we’d use in the work.
Same live Harry K. Wong Publications 5th already on elementary-teacher / high-school-teacher / kindergarten-teacher / middle-school-teacher / preschool-teacher / teacher-assistant / online-tutor / esl-teacher / art-teacher / foreign-language-teacher / reading-specialist / ged-instructor / montessori-teacher / tutor / dance-instructor / teacher-k-12 / professor / seminary-professor / educational-psychologist / debate-coach / instructional-coordinator / learning-disability-specialist / teaching-fellow / children-s-librarian / nanny / student-advisor / art-therapist / spa-manager / admissions-director / pharmaceutical-sales-rep / school-bus-coordinator / restaurant-general-manager / sommelier-consultant / shipping-clerk / telehealth-nurse / study-abroad-advisor / emergency-dispatcher / railroad-switchman / management-consultant / animator / hospice-nurse / front-desk-agent / concierge / storyboard-artist / maitre-d / customs-broker / bicycle-mechanic / court-reporter / motorcycle-mechanic / hostess / college-admissions-counselor / engraver / copy-editor / set-designer / small-engine-mechanic / stockbroker / auto-appraiser / delivery-driver / mover / ombudsman / producer / toxicology-technician / full-stack-engineer / steamship-agent / trust-officer (ASIN 0976423383). This leftover page is BLS Sound Engineering Technicians (SOC 27-4014); title is Decide What the Studio Buys; H1 is The sound designer who chooses the signal chain; just-starting track is Learn the chain end to end; few-years track is Run the comparison the facility trusts; experienced track is Hold the specification; the playbook centers owning the technical specification for the rooms, then training assistants and junior designers on the chain specified; start-here is Open iZotope RX first — it is the tool that pays for itself on day one; one-rule is Don't upload embargoed picture or scripts to tools that train on your inputs. This classroom-practice guide directly supports that authored-standard instructional delivery. Classroom-management staple for leftover new-hire / instructional-delivery work — not leftover Lemov as the lead (that is financial-examiner / orthopedic-surgeon / pain-management-specialist / pathologist / zoological-veterinarian) and not leftover Praxis as a dump. Confirm 0976423383. Live page HTTP 200, no PC_GEAR / amazon.com/dp / tag=paycrunch-20 at 2026-09-18 8:08:03 AM PT. Source page: preschool-teacher.
What Sound Designers earn by state
These are the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ own figures for Sound Engineering Technicians, state by state — not a cost-of-living adjustment applied to the national number. Only states employing at least 500 people in the occupation are shown, because a state median drawn from a handful of workers is noise rather than a signal.
New York
$87,510
highest of them · +20% vs the national median
Texas
$54,370
lowest of the 6 states that qualify · -26% vs the national median
The same job pays $33,140 more a year at the median in New York than in Texas — 61% higher. That gap is what the Bureau measured, before any question of what it costs to live in either place. The top-of-range figure quoted at the head of this page, $158,160, is a different statistic in a different place: it is the 90th-percentile wage in Tennessee. The state that pays the typical worker most and the state where the best-paid go highest are not always the same one.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, SOC 27-4014. 6 states clear the 500-employee reporting floor for this occupation; those below it are left out rather than shown with a wide error band.
Free data. Use any of it.
PayCrunch publishes verified, BLS-sourced salary + AI-playbook data on 1,000+ professions — free, no signup.
It's transforming the job, not erasing it. Generative tools can spit out rough SFX, but they can't design a coherent sonic world, cut to picture with dramatic intent, build an adaptive mix in a game engine, or take creative direction from a director. Those are the parts clients pay for. The honest read: designers who only pulled library sounds are exposed, while those who use AI to prototype fast and spend their time on taste and implementation are more valuable than ever.
Is AI-generated audio safe to use commercially?
Check the license every time. Tools differ on whether their output can be used commercially or broadcast, and some train on data with murky rights. Never clone a real or union performer's voice without explicit consent — that's an active legal and labor flashpoint. Treat generated audio as raw material you process into something original, and keep records of what came from where.
How does AI actually increase a sound designer's pay?
By buying back time and expanding what you can take on. Restoration and generative tools collapse the hours spent on dialogue cleanup, asset creation, and library search, so you can run more concurrent projects and hit tighter deadlines. That reclaimed time goes into the high-value, un-automatable work — implementation, creature design, final mix — that earns supervising and senior rates.
Should I put unreleased client media into these tools?
No embargoed picture, scripts, or audio into tools that train on your inputs. Film and game work is confidential and often under NDA. Use offline processing (iZotope RX runs locally), tools with training disabled, or generate from generic sources, and keep client material inside approved, private workflows.
Which tool should I learn first?
iZotope RX — its AI restoration saves the most time immediately and applies to nearly every dialogue and post job. Then get fluent in generative SFX for prototyping, and if you're in games, invest hard in Wwise or FMOD implementation, which is the least automatable and best-paid sound skill.
Methodology & sources
Salary (median, 10th, top of the range) — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS.
By state — the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ own state medians, limited to states employing at least 500 people in the occupation. No cost-of-living arithmetic is applied to a wage anywhere on this page.
The plays — PayCrunch's own step-by-step guidance using publicly available AI tools. Tool names/URLs are real and current as of August 2026; prompts written to work as-is. Verify any professional output before relying on it.