Meet Jesse Ray Ernster

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jesse Ray Ernster.

Jesse Ray, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I was born in the cold arctic-tundra of Winnipeg, and I was solemnly welcomed into an overtly-musical family; my father is a multi-instrumentalist/producer/mixer, and my mother is a singer/songwriter, so it wasn’t long before I was fully-embracing every musical instrument (and every piece of recording equipment) that our home had to offer.

We moved to Minneapolis when I was very young, and I played in rock bands throughout my school/young adult years. My initial experiences with recording took place while making demo recordings for my band(s) at home in my dad’s studio. I also played t several nights per week while touring the live club circuit in the 5-state midwest area, and I quickly realized that I highly-preferred the studio environment to the “sleep in a van” touring lifestyle.

After graduating from high school, I rented a lakefront cabin and converted it into a multi-room recording studio. I invited bands from all over to come out to the cabin, stay for a week, party, and make a record with me. The vibe of this location was so incredible, and I learned how profoundly-valuable it was to provide artists with kindness, vibe, and hospitality during the creative work process; I take these principles with me everywhere I go.

There, I chose to niche down on working with a lot of country bands and college acapella groups; Neither of these genres was particular favorites of mine, however, they challenged me to really dig in on learning the technical aspects of engineering a high-quality recording; I firmly-attribute the bulk of my compositional (and computational) understanding to those few years I spent cutting my teeth at the lake studio.

In 2016, I was invited to teach engineering and mixing courses at the Minneapolis Media Institute, a college of media arts that was located in the old Flyte Tyme studio (Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis’s historic recording studio where many of the biggest hits of the 90’s were made). This was a wonderful opportunity to share my passion for music with young aspiring artists and engineers. A short while later, the school eventually closed its doors, and my wife and I decided to make a move to LA.

In the spring of 2017, we arrived in Pasadena, and I hit the ground running. I fulfilled the usual “LA newbie” task list of scheduling 10,000 coffee meetings and attempting to meet everyone in town. I was fully prepared to start over as the new little fish in the big LA pond, so I applied to every recording studio in town, all to my ultimate dismay as I received no bites! I then realized that I had to get clever, so I LOADED up my car with several-dozen bright pink boxes of donuts, and taped my obnoxiously-colored resume to the top of each box. I proceeded to deliver these resume packages to every studio east of the 405; I knocked on doors, rang doorbells, dropped them off at reception, and was laughed at every step of the way until I got a “yes” from NRG in North Hollywood, the infamous rock studio owned by Jay Baumgardner.

In addition to both working for NRG and hustling on my own for mixing work, I worked multiple jobs: I sang/played guitar in wedding bands, musical-directed a gospel band, engineered hiphop sessions, and I taught music lessons at the Santa Clarita School of Rock; it was the ultimate hustle! I also scored music for indie film productions, and landed a gig scoring for Ripley’s Believe it or Not! (YouTube it; it’s a fun one!).

Fast forward to 2018, I had established myself and was staying busy mixing and engineering full-time, and one day, I received a call to go sub-in as the tracking engineer for a session with Tyga at Nightbird Studios. I had a lot on my plate, and almost didn’t take the gig, but I am glad that I did! I went in and we recorded for several hours, and suddenly, Kanye West showed up to hang out and play us his unreleased new record, Yandhi. “Only in LA”, I thought. I stayed quiet and focused on the job I was there to do, but I knew that it was now or never; I had to capitalize on the opportunity to get a gig working with him.

Finally, I mustered up the courage, and used a cleverly-timed bathroom break as an opportunity to corner him out in the hallway; I approached and simply told him that I’d love to work with him sometime. After a long (and nerve-wracking) pause, he happily rewarded my bold gesture by taking my information and connecting me to his team. They flew me out to Chicago the following day, and we got to work! We recorded there in Illinois for a while, and then travelled across the world to record in Uganda, and it was the most exciting chapter of my life up to that point.

Soon after, I seized the moment to secure management to leverage that opportunity into other fruitful opportunities. I hooked up Bad Habit, an amazing label/management entity/family, run by the best humans on the planet! Since 2018, I’ve pivoted exclusively into mixing and it has been incredible! I’ve been a part of some amazing records, including the Grammy-nominated “African Giant” from Burma Boy. I love what I’m doing, and most importantly, my schedule has been very conducive to spending time with my wife and baby girl.

Has it been a smooth road?
It’s been a smooth road, but never easy; My first two years in LA were immensely-disciplined: 5 am wake-ups, multiple jobs, countless meetings, and minimal sleep. Was I miserable? No way; I thrive on forward-progression, and every step was a step forward. A key component to achieving goals is resilience! I highly-attribute my accomplishments to my absolute lack of a backup plan. There was no other choice for me and my career path (literally… I have very few skills outside of music), so I was forced to make it happen!

We’d love to hear more about your work.
I’m a Mixer/Mixing Engineer! I’m essentially a “project finisher”. When producers and artists finish a song, they send it to me to do the final mixdown and formatting; this involves sorting through hundreds of layers of instrument tracks and vocal parts and then using a variety of tools to enhance the audio into its most-maximized state.

Essentially, it is my job to make the drums hit hard, make the bass slam, make the vocal audible and clear, and then I get all of the other components fitting nicely before we print it down into a two-track audio file and submit it to mastering. In the past, this job was considered to be sacred and rather secretive, with many of the mixing engineers preferring to work alone; I, however, encourage the artist and producers to join me in the studio while I’m mixing, because I really enjoy the camaraderie, and it makes the process of collaborating incredibly-efficient.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
This is one of the main media-driven cities in the country, and many of the opportunities happen to be here. It’s a very competitive market, so it’s integral that you have some of the initial technical and social skills necessary to fulfill jobs and bring value to the operation. There are great mentors and great work environments out here that cultivate and nurture young creatives and help them grow into strong forces in our field; seek them out, and avoid the toxic environments at all costs!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jesseraymix.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: instagram.com/jesseraymix

Image Credit:
John Lopez

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