We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jim Stewart. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jim below.

Alright, Jim thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, folks often look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight – but that often obscures all the nitty, gritty details of everything that went into the growth phase of your business. We’d love to hear about your scaling story and how you scaled up?

I took the more traditional studio route early in my career by being an intern at a commercial facility and working my way up. Unfortunately, Cleveland is not a major music city so the larger studios that I interned and then worked at could not survive and ultimately closed down. This forced me to start small on my own, purchasing whatever equipment I could afford and working wherever possible. Basements, rehearsal spaces, the living room of my apartment. Anywhere my clients wanted to work.

After a few years of doing this I slowly grew out of being able to haul things to random spaces and built my first proper studio. This first space really helped me understand what I wanted to focus on and what my needs would be in the future. I’ve recently finished my latest studio, which is a scaled back and streamlined version of that first space, allowing me to focus on the parts of the job I like the most.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I’m a recording engineer, currently specializing in Mixing which is the process of taking all of the individual elements of a song and blending them together into a finished piece.

I have spent the last 15 years working in various studios doing anything related to audio I could. I’ve recorded rock bands, orchestras, voice overs for film, television, audio books, etc.
After many years bouncing around different spaces, I have a purpose built mixing room in Cleveland that allows me to focus on the part of the work I really enjoy the most, taking something people have worked hard and poured themselves into and helping reach the vision they had in their heads.

One of my favorite parts of this job is seeing an artist/band grow and have success from a project we’ve worked on together. To watch them go from playing small intimate shows to large venues and arenas full of fans singing along to each song is really incredible.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I got into the music industry at a very tricky time. It was a time when downloading music was becoming more common and income from record sales was changing as a result. Budgets became smaller and smaller for projects which meant studios that were used to charging high rates were getting less work and many closed down. During the first 5 years of my career, I was involved with 2 studios that shut down as these budgets changed and did not adapt to the new world.

Part of the reason I’ve been able to survive is by keeping overhead as low as I could while still being able to serve my clients at the same level, upgrading when necessary, or when it would make a noticeable improvement to the work I was doing. This meant working out of my living room for a few years after the second studio I worked at shut down, renting larger studios for a portion of a project and doing the rest in a less expensive space, even building equipment instead of purchasing to save cash.

This allowed me to do the work I needed to while building a reputation and saving money. When the time came to upgrade to a larger space, I was able to do so while continuing that mindset and keep things trim.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Much of my career has been spent learning ways to increase my audio skills, but I wish I had spent more time on the business side of things earlier than I did. I’ve always felt that I’m accidentally running a business. I just wanted to make records and have someone else deal with the business side of things but thats not the way things are these days. If I could go back to when I stared my career I would have spent more time focusing on how to run my business instead of expecting my work to be enough to consistently bring in clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jimstewartmixing.com
• Instagram: @Jimstewartrec

Image Credits
Christopher Brickman, Matt Miller