Mix (magazine)

• 1. Introduction

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  Mix magazine launched in 1977 not as the glossy professional publication it would become, but as a tabloid-style directory of recording services. The founders, David Schwartz, Penny Riker-Jacob, and Bill Laski, were operating out of San Francisco, trying to connect the scattered world of professional audio. Their early collaborator Hillel Resner served as the first ad sales representative and would eventually rise to publisher and produce the TEC Awards. What began as a trade listing would grow into something that claims the title of the world's leading magazine for professional recording and sound production technology. How did a scrappy San Francisco directory become a publication distributed across 94 countries? And what does the arc of its ownership tell us about the fate of trade media in the music industry?

• 2. From Tabloid to Trade Magazine

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  For the first few years, the publication ran under the full name "the Mix". Then in April 1980, the editors stripped the definite article and reformatted the title as "MiX". The change coincided with a physical transformation: the magazine skipped an issue, then returned in a slick color format. That relaunch marked the shift from a directory listing recording services to a proper trade magazine aimed at sound production professionals. The new format gave advertisers and readers a publication that looked as polished as the studios it covered.

• 3. Changing Hands

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  In January 1989, Mix Publications, which at that point included both Mix magazine and the publication Electronic Musician, was sold to Act II Publishing. That company was owned by Norman Lear, better known as a television producer than a media executive. The sale placed two of the most prominent audio trade publications under the same ownership umbrella. Five years later, in 1994, the portfolio moved again, this time to Cardinal Business Media, based in Philadelphia. The geography of ownership was shifting east, even as the magazine's editorial roots remained tied to the recording culture of the West Coast. During the 1990s, Mix kept its offices in the former Jelly Belly building on Hollis Street in Emeryville, California, a detail that speaks to the particular character of the Bay Area media scene at the time.

• 4. Consolidation Era

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  In 2007, Mix Korea launched as a Korean-language version of the magazine, marking the first time the brand had extended into a non-English market. Four years later, in 2011, NewBay Media purchased the title from Penton Media, the company that had held it in the intervening years. The acquisition placed Mix inside a portfolio focused on music and entertainment trade publishing. In 2018, the British media company Future acquired NewBay Media, bringing Mix under a large international publishing operation. Then in 2021, the music production publication Pro Sound News merged with Mix online, consolidating two trade voices into a single digital presence. By the time Mix settled in New York City, it had traveled through the hands of a television producer, multiple regional publishers, and a transatlantic media conglomerate.