Blaine Stewart has been mixing television and film sound since he first started in the industry as mixer’s assistant for The Donnie & Marie Show at the Osmond family’s studio in Orem, Utah, in 1978.
Currently, he uses a 5.1 system made up of five Genelec 8240 Smart Active Monitors (SAM) and a 7260 SAM subwoofer in his post-production facility named The Stewdio.
Back in 1986, he was in his native L.A. working at different audio post facilities as well as mixing production for shows such as Circus of the Stars and Alf.
In 2000, he opened his own post-production facility, Post Plus Sound (PPS), in Burbank, and in 2010 he moved PPS to the Salt Lake City area and renamed it The Stewdio.
And he had discovered something during his time in Hollywood that he took back to Utah: active monitoring from Genelec.
In just the last year, these monitors have helped Blaine earn two Daytime EMMY Award nominations, for “Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing – Live Action”, and two TELLY Award wins for Sound Design/Mixing, for The Aquabats! Super Show!, which aired on The Hub channel, and Kings of Crash, which airs on the Velocity Channel. Both show were mixed at The Stewdio.
“I’ve been using Genelecs since 1998, and the 5.1 system since 2008 or 2009, and since then I wouldn’t use anything else,” Stewart declares. He is a private pilot and falconer, and both of those pastimes demand a high degree of precision. He requires the same of his surround monitoring environment.
“With this system, I know that my speakers are precisely calibrated to the Dolby film and television audio standards,” he says.
“That brings an enormous sense of confidence, both to me and to my clients. When you watch those calibration indicators go from red to yellow to green, your sense of confidence in the mix process grows along with it. I know my room is perfectly calibrated and that my mixes will translate properly to any other environment, even when I move to a large mixing stage. There are simply no surprises.”
That also goes for the Genelec system’s sound quality. “The clarity, the accuracy and the transparency of the Genelecs are remarkable,” he says. “Nothing else comes close, and it makes every other speaker sound inferior.”
As Stewart begins mixes for this season’s episodes of the Velocity Channel’s Bitchin’ Rides show, the Genelec 8240’s and 7260 will be there with him. “They give me the sound I want and the precision I need,” he says. “It’s the best of everything.”
