Audio Production and Engineering
Steve is best known as the primary Mixing Engineer for “Flyte Tyme Productions,” the company of super-producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Steve was pivotal to the evolution of the Flyte Tyme sound. This partnership led to hits for a long list of artists: Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, Sting, Rod Stewart, Boys II Men, Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, TLC and on and on. Steve currently holds well over 100 Gold and Platinum records, and is also a Grammy Winner.
In the summer of 1969, Hodge got a job working construction on one of the dozens of new recording studios popping up in LA, working for MGM Records Director of Engineering Val Valentin. This led to work as a second engineer and working on landmark records like the Osmonds “Puppy Love”, Sammy Davis Jr’s. “Candy Man”, and Boston’s groundbreaking first record.
From second engineer to first engineer to staff engineer; he worked in many of LA’s top studios, from MGM Records, and The Record Plant, to the legendary West Lake Audio. Hodge left Los Angeles to work at Studio in the Country in Louisiana in the early 70s, where he did work as producer/engineer. There he worked on roots blues and unique musical genres with artists from Professor Longhair to the Wild Magnolias and Clifton Chenier.
A return to LA, finds Hodge working on a series of major projects as engineer and mixer, most notably for Solar Records, with their stable of artists: Shalamar, Lakeside, The Whispers, Dynasty and others.
In 1985, Hodge got a call from Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, asking him to fly from LA to help them with a very important album they were producing at their fledgling studio in Minneapolis.
The album was “Control,” which established Janet Jackson as a pop diva, and was instrumental in Jam and Lewis winning the Grammy as Producers of the Year in 1987. It created an international reputation for their Flyte Tyme Productions and began an eighteen-year relationship with Hodge at the console of one of the greatest hit-making machines in the history of the recording industry. From that point on, as Flyte Tymes mixing engineer, Hodge was pivotal to the evolution of the Flyte Tyme sound, a mix of unique hard-hitting rhythmic lines, lush multi-layered production and melodic vocals. This approach led to hits for an astonishing list of artists – Janet and Michael Jackson, Sting, Rod Stewart, Boys II Men, Mary J. Blige, Maria Carey, TLC and on and on.
Steve Hodge has close to 100 Gold and platinum records to his name. He refers to this as “A ridiculous amount by anyone’s standards”. To put it another way, he’s worked on well over a hundred million records in circulation. If that’s not a definition of achievement then we don’t know what is. In 2007 Steve was elected to The Board of Governors of the Chicago Chapter of The Recording Academy and served until 2009. Steve now spends the majority of his time serving the students of IPR as Program Chair and Instructor.