Ryan Ulyate

Producer / Engineer / Artist

November 2024

Welcome to my Website

I've been recording, mixing and producing music professionally, ever since I got my foot in the door of a “real” 24 track studio 1978.  I’ve worked on more albums than I can remember! Luckily we have Discogs and All Music to keep track of it all (although Discogs lists some albums my father William and my uncle Lloyd played on, like Von Ryan’s Express and Grease ;-)

In October 2024 Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ Long After Dark Deluxe Edition was released. In addition to remastering the original 1982 album, we went through the tape library and “rediscovered” 12 additional tracks. It’s so gratifying to hear Tom’s voice on several songs that have never been released until now.  I’m excited about the 2 CD / Blu-Ray version that includes Hi-Res Audio and my Dolby Atmos mix. 

I  was also on the Life Of The Record Podcast with Adria Petty, Mike Campbell and Stan Lynch, doing a very deep dive into the album.  Dan Nordheim, the host, did a great job. There’s a lot of interesting stories here. 

In September 2024 I joined Candace Stewart at East West Studios for her Trade Secrets Podcast. Candace is a dear friend who interviewed me about my career and shared some great stories of her own. What a fun conversation with this "High Toned" host!

In August 2024 I was featured on the Dolby Creator Talks Podcast with Ben Givarz. We about my career, my work with Tom Petty, my solo album and how fun it is to mix and create music in Dolby Atmos!

In November 2023 My solo album “Act 3” was nominated for the 2024 Grammy for Best Immersive Audio Album. What an unexpected honor! ( I didn’t end up winning, but congratulations to my colleagues George Massenberg, Eric Shilling, Michael Romanowski and Ann Mincieli for their great work on The Diary Of Alicia Keys.) On the other hand, I did win Immersive Audio Album’s “Listeners’s Choice Award” in the Immersive Streaming category for Tom Petty & The Heartbreaker’s Greatest Hits! 

You can stream Act 3 in Dolby Atmos (and Hi-Res Stereo) on Apple Music and Amazon Music and Tidal. It’s also available as a Dolby Atmos True HD MKV download on ImmersiveAudioAlbum.com 

 If you have a 5.1 or greater home theater system You can download MKV or mp4 files, play them through an inexpensive media player (like this one) by connecting a HDMI cable into your AV receiver. It’s fairly geeky, but it really sounds great!  

For stereo purists, you can also purchase and download Act 3 in 24 bit 96K Hi-Res Stereo from Qobuz in FLAC, ALAC or wav format. These files sound great! Just click on “buy the album” button,  create an account (you don’t need to sign up for streaming) and buy and download the filetype of your choice. 

In March 2024 I was a speaker at the Mix Immersive Music Production event in Santa Monica at Universal ’s new 2115 Studios. The keynote was by Manny Marroquin and Jimmy Jam, and the other speakers are a “who’s who” of Immersive Audio. It was an honor to be invited and talk about Act 3!

In February 2024 I was on the Dolby Atmos 2024 Seminar with Marc Gallo. We did a deep dive into Dolby Atmos and how I made Act 3 specifically for it. You can learn a lot about Atmos from Marc’s seminars.Lots of detail here!

In January 2024 I did an interview with Mike Mettler for Sound And Vision about Act 3. I’ve known Mike for years. He’s a great writer and he’s always been focused on the cutting edge of Hi-Fi and Immersive Audio. 

In December 2023 I was featured on the Working Class Podcast with Matt Boudreau (#469). Matt has a great “down-to-earth” show, and on this one I talk about the making of Act 3 and how Immersive Audio gives creators a new way to conceptualize their music.

In November 2023 I did an interview with Jonathan Cornell of ImmersiveAudioAlbum.com about my album and my work with Tom Petty. As I said earlier, Jonathan’s website is a great way for Immersive Audio Artists to sell their music and give their fans the best quality sound. 

In October 2023 I did a video interview with Chris Berens from Audeze  

we ended up talking about about my early career, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Dolby Atmos  and some and great sounding headphones!

In March 2022 I was interviewed by Matt Boudreau for the Working Class Podcast (#378). 

I really enjoyed my conversation with Matt, which was more about the story of my career than I expected! Matt tends to focus more on the personal stories than the gear. His podcast is a great resource for those “in the biz” and those aspiring to get more involved. 

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In 2004 I started a long working relationship withTom Petty.

Working with Tom was It was an experience that I will be forever grateful for. He was my friend -a very talented and very cool guy. His music is timeless. His voice is one that will be heard for many years to come. 

In November 2022 Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Live at the Fillmore, 1997 was released.  

The deluxe version has over 4 hours of music picked form the last 6 shows of their 20 show run at the Fillmore in January and February of 1997. I mixed this in Stereo and Dolby Atmos. Here’s an interview by Chris Wilman for Variety, and another by Jeff Slate for Rock Cellar.

In October 2022 Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Greatest Hits was released in Dolby Atmos. 

I had a great time going back to the original multitracks to find all the right takes, match the stereo mix, make stems, and then go into Atmos mixing. Making sure you have everything that is on the original record accounted for before you start mixing in Atmos is very important.  Here’s an interview with Mike Mettler for Sound and Vision, and another one with Jonathan Cornell for Immersive Audio Album

In 2018 I did a Qobuz Video Interview about  Tom Petty and Hi Res Audio . 

A friend just sent me a link to this video I did in 2018 for the Hi-Res streaming service Qubuz. I’m on my usual soapbox about Hi Res. It was just after we lost Tom Petty, and I talk about what is like to work with his music after he’s gone.

In May 2021, Mick Fleetwood & Friends Celebrate the Music of Peter Green was released.

It was an honor and a pleasure to work with Mick Fleetwood and producer Glyn Johns in mixing this “all star” concert, celebrating the music of Fleetwood Mac founder, Peter Green. it was so gratifying to work with so many of my musical heros on this one. One of my favorite projects ever!

In October 2020, “Wildflowers & All The Rest” was released. 

This “deep dive” into one of Tom’s great albums was such a rewarding project. 245 reels of 2” tape were gone though, as well as numerous 8 track demos and live shows. The result is 5 CDs of material (or 9 LPs on the vinyl edition). Tom’s family, bandmates and I are so happy that this great music will be released to the fans on October 16th. Here’s a video of Tom set to his demo of “Wildflowers”. He told me that he wrote the song on that take! The album re-entered the Billboard Top Rock Albums chart at #1, 26 years after it was first released!

There is also a Dolby Atmos mix that I did for 25 tracks from the box set. I’ve always been a big fan of Immersive Audio, and Atmos really puts the listener “in the music”. it is an ACTIVE experience, and I love it!

Dolby, Avid, ATC, Amazon and Izotope really helped me a lot to get my studio up and running as an Atmos mix room, and I am very thankful for their support. Here is an interview I gave to Sound & Vision about mixing Wildflowers in Atmos. If you have the time, check out the Recording Magazine podcast where I also  speak with editor Paul Vnuk about mixing Wildflowers in Dolby Atmos. My bit starts at 26:18.

I don’t usually highlight reviews, but I am pretty proud of the fact that Variety named Wildflowers & All The Rest the Best Music Boxed Set of 2020. (And the competition wasn’t too shabby either ;-)

On August 27th 2020, my first radio show aired on Sirius XM’s Tom Petty Radio. 

“Behind The Glass with Ryan Ulyate” featured some great jams, covers and funny moments that I found when going through the tapes recorded during the Wildflowers sessions. Most of these tracks are still in rotation onTomPetty Radio. One of them, “Them JuJu Beads” is now a fan favorite ;-) I did a second show around the time Angel Dream came out in July 2021. I might do another one, but it has to be good…

In October 2019 I recorded and produced a very special song performed by one of Tom’s heroes, his former tour-mate and his proteges. 

Chris Hillman, Herb Pedersen and The Shelters performed the Byrds’ “Feel A Whole Lot Better” (the same song Tom covered on the “Full Moon Fever” album). It’s currently only available as an “exclusive” on Tom Petty Radio on Sirius XM. I really love how it turned out! 

I In June 2019 was on Sirius XM ‘s Tom Petty Radio

 I was talking about the 2009 album “Mojo”. I did one minute intros for each track on the album with memories of what it was like to be in the room with Tom and the Heartbreakers. It was a such a fun project for us all!

Tom Petty

If you want to get a sense of the guy I knew and loved, check out his interview he gave to Randy Lewis for the Los Angeles Times on September 27th 2017. Here’s a quote from Tom about how he felt about music and his band. "The thing about the Heartbreakers is, it's still holy to me," he said with no air of loftiness or pretense. "There's a holiness there. ... And to us, in the era we came up in, it was a religion in a way. It was more than commerce, it wasn't about that. It was about something much greater. "It was about moving people, and changing the world, and I really believed in rock 'n' roll — I still do," he said. "I believed in it in its purest sense, its purest form. ... It's unique to have a band that knows each other that long and that well.”