Exploring Life & Business with Matt Huitt of Hilltop Studio

Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Huitt.

Hi Matt, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I started in audio mixing at my local church in Missouri when I was 16 (serving in that capacity at a local church comes in to play later). After graduating with a degree in music business I moved to Nashville from Missouri to do an internship at Emerald Entertainment in 2004. Shortly after that internship I got a job at Skaggs Family Records and worked there for three years. Working at an indie label was an amazing experience but my passion was always to be in the studio producing and mixing. Through a mutual friend on my church’s tech team, I was invited to a session at Hilltop Studio. While sitting in on that session I met John Nicholson, the manager and chief engineer here at Hilltop. At this point most of my experience was still in live audio, I was almost ready to throw in the towel for working in a studio and move back to Missouri but after speaking with John I came on board just sweeping the floors and taking out the trash while being able to watch and learn.

Eventually, I started taking on the secondary engineer role and then slowly began getting first engineer sessions, at first only vocal overdubs or guitar/vocal demos, but eventually taking on clients of my own and being able to produce and engineer sessions with amazing A list musicians.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Smooth road? That makes me chuckle a little. No, it has not been a smooth road. There were many times in my 20s I called home to say I was moving back to Missouri only to hear my parents say “just give it a little more time”. Many of the music business struggles are pretty universal, the rejections, juggling your passion with a daytime job so you can pay rent, etc. For me, as an engineer, when I moved to town I had a lot of catching up to do as far as tech knowledge. I had not seen, much less worked on, a Pro Tools rig until I moved here so I was competing with recent graduates from Belmont, MTSU and Fullsail, some of the best music business/engineering schools in the country. It did have a positive side though, working here at Hilltop I was able to learn directly from amazing engineers and producers

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Hilltop Studio?
Hilltop Studio is one of the premier studios of Nashville. Tracking through the incredible sounding SSL 9000J, we combine the best of both worlds with warm analog and digital, working with Nashville’s A-list musicians to produce, mix, and master anything from singles to EPs to full albums. What I love about what we do is whether we’re working with a grammy winning, chart topping superstar or a new artist who has never walked into a studio, the quality and effort put into the project is the same, always striving for perfection. I’m proud to work in a studio with such a history. Cash, Haggard, Dolly, Loretta, giants of the country music genre have all recorded here. I love to think about that aspiring new artist who walks through the door with a dream and a great song who will become one of those great artists that their music has an impact, and we had a small part to do with it.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.hilltopstudio.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hilltoprecordingstudio/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HilltopRecordingStudio