Meet Spencer Rydholm

We recently connected with Spencer Rydholm and have shared our conversation below.

Spencer, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

I get my resiliency from my faith in God and the previous battles I’ve been through in life. I’ve struggled with my mental health since I was 16 years old and I also beat cancer in 2017. If I can beat those things, I can beat anything, and through those experiences I’ve also learned that God has helped me through them. I truly believe that I will be able to get through anything life throws at me. I’ve gained a lot of hope. Being in the entertainment industry can be incredibly difficult and my past experiences have helped me navigate it.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I am a recording engineer and mixer based in Los Angeles, CA. I grew up in the Chicago suburbs playing guitar and bass, but chose to pursue a career in audio engineering, starting at Columbia College Chicago. Through school and an internship at Chicago’s legendary Classick Studios, I fell in love with making records. 

After graduating and spending some time in the Chicago scene, I moved to Los Angeles to further my career. I have since joined the team at APG, a record and publishing group, lead by music mogul, Mike Caren. There I work as an in-house recording engineer. My notable credits include Flo Rida, Jimmie Allen, and Lay Bankz. I also recently earned my first Gold record for my work on Jason Derulo’s Nu King.

Outside of APG, I work as a freelance mix engineer and also do live sound work at Mosaic, a community of faith in Hollywood. I live in Santa Monica, with my wife Courtney.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Three skills or qualities that were helpful in my journey and I believe necessary to being a successful recording engineer are discipline, humility and a proficiency in Pro Tools.

First of all, I had to learn discipline. Taking recording sessions requires a lot of long hours of work, many of those hours being late into the night. I had to learn to manage my time well when I wasn’t at the studio to get good rest, eat well, and workout. This helped me to be in a place where I could hold up late into the night. Now, I work night shifts less often, but to get myself in the position I’m in now, I had to take a lot of them.

Secondly, I had to learn humility. Ultimately, as a recording engineer, your job is to serve the artist, producer or songwriter. Your job is to help them get their job done as quickly as possible. I had to learn to serve the artists vision, not mine.

Finally, I had to learn proficiency in Pro Tools, the Digital Audio Workstation of most recording studios. As an engineer, your Pro Tools skills need to be second nature, so you are able to work quickly and anticipate any future needs of the artist.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

I’m always looking for more people to work with! I love to mix and do a lot of mix work outside of my primary recording studio job. If there’s anyone out there that needs a mix engineer, I’d love to work with you on your project. You can find my credits and services as well as book me at engineears.com/spencerrydholm. EngineEars is an incredible platform, developed by Derek Ali, for artists to seamlessly find and book audio engineers to work with. I also travel back to Chicago often and am looking to do more work there.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://spencerrydholm.com
• Instagram: spencerrydholm
• Other: https://engineears.com/spencerrydholm

Image Credits

Austin St. John