Producer / sound engineer / musician Mighty Wyte is no stranger to the “Holiday Wishes” series — he has contributed to the production of all three albums and recorded a song for the first album in 2011.
For “Holiday Wishes 3,” he offered a new take on an old classic with “Sugar Plum Mighty,” based on “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker Suite.”
“It’s actually really dope,” said Wyte, whose given name is Matt Feher. “I tried to encapsulate the orchestral side of the composition, and incorporate it with hip-hop and updated drums. It’s an instrumental, but I made it so it can be rapped over.”
Wyte started playing guitar when he was 12, and played in bands all through high school. He went on to college, majoring in aerospace engineering, which severely hampered his musical time.
“It was really hard to go to school full-time, work a part-time job and find a group of guys to be in a band with,” Wyte said.
At the time, in the late 1990s, affordable recording software and equipment was difficult to come by. Wyte would record single drum tracks, then replay them and tape guitar parts over it. He said it was not the highest quality of recording, but it served a purpose.
“It was sort of my way of keeping my creative side alive,” he said.
Wyte later transferred to the University of Toledo, dropped the aerospace engineering major and tried to figure out what to move on to next. He took a music recording techniques class at UT, which lit a fire.
“That was the first time that I’ve ever seen real recording software,” he said. “I thought if I could learn [it], I wouldn’t have to have a band anymore.”
Wyte still wasn’t considering music as a career, but he ended up with a recording internship, and things took off from there. After working in radio, Wyte seized an opportunity to fully devote his time to sound engineering, and eventually his tracks made their way onto various television shows and film scores, including the 2009 Sandra Bullock movie “The Blind Side.”
“I got to quit my factory job and do music professionally, which is awesome, because I get to work out of my house, and I get to hang out with my dog all day,” Wyte said.
Wyte said he and his wife like to do volunteer work when possible, so donating a song for “Holiday Wishes 3” was an easy decision.
“It’s really a good way for me to contribute to Make-A-Wish,” he said. “Doing this is a really cool way to raise money for people who could actually use it.”
Toledo Free Press Editor in Chief Michael S. Miller, who produces the CD series, said Wyte is invaluable to the projects.
“I bring him four dozen tracks recorded from three dozen different sources, and he edits them, makes them sound uniform and protects the audio integrity of the artists’ visions,”
Miller said.
Wyte, who is a Toledo Free Press contributor, also offered some advice to those contemplating whether to buy the album.
“Thinking hurts. Just buy it. Who doesn’t like Christmas music? You can’t have too much.”
