The Association of Music Producers’ (AMP) West Coast chapter has named Jimmy Hite of Margarita Mix de Santa Monica as the "Los Angeles Mixer of the Year 2000." AMP’s West Coast group envisions its audio mixer award as becoming an annual honor. The inaugural kudo was presented earlier this month (5/5), during an informal ceremony right after the AMP chapter’s first annual West Coast Golf Tournament at the Malibu Country Club.
Helping to organize the golf event and the audio mixer award was national AMP board member Elizabeth Myers, a composer/partner at Trivers/Myers Music, Manhattan Beach, Calif. "We wanted to recognize the audio post mixer, who turns out the end result of our hard work," explained Myers. "That is a part of the business that’s so integrally important, yet often overlooked."
Nominations for the honor were determined by AMP’s West Coast chapter members. The two finalists were Hite, and Jeff Payne of Santa Monica-based Eleven. According to Myers, extensive email and chat room dialogue helped narrow down the field to those two candidates, and then ultimately to the selection of Hite.
"A mixer has to balance such elements as voiceover, sound effects and music—and there’s the balance of being able to reinforce the power of the music while being sensitive to the direction that the ad agency wants to take," related Myers. By spotlighting the Los Angeles Mixer of the Year, "We’re calling attention to the important contributions of that artist and the overall craft," she reasoned, noting that the award added an extra dimension to the golf tournament, a social event which gathered artisans from the music, sound design, and ad agency creative communities.
The inscription on Hite’s trophy extends AMP’s "thanks for playing the music loud."
Hite is chief engineer/mixer at Margarita Mix de Santa Monica, part of the L.A. Studios Inc. family of audio post houses, which also consists of Margarita Mix de Hollywood; Zona Playa, Santa Monica; and L.A. Studios, Hollywood.
