Please introduce yourself, what you do, why you do it, and what you want people to know about you.
I am a music producer, platinum mix and mastering engineer based in Los Angeles. I also am the founder and host of the popular Youtube channel “MixbusTv”, a channel dedicated to music production, mix and mastering.
I am a former professional musician, I used to be in a band with which I released two albums with Universal Records and Danse Macabre Records over a decade ago, but I’ve always loved the studio life more than the musician life. I started my channel out of frustration really, as there was so much misinformation on the web about mixing and mastering and I just wanted to help people not making the same mistakes I made.
At the beginning I didn’t know anything about Youtube and how it worked because I never thought the channel would become a thing, I was just making videos for my students because it was quicker and easier to show them things.
Then the channel gained popularity and recognition, companies in the pro audio world started to contact me and wanted to work with me and that quickly turned into something worth putting time and effort in.
I moved back to LA few years ago, I own my mix and mastering suite here and most likely we’ll be opening a second studio soon.
These days my focus is – aside from mix and mastering for clients and the channel – all on my upcoming artist Bella Kelly (www.bellakellyofficial.com), which also became my life partner and we are in fact engaged now. I met Bella the same week I moved back to LA, immediately I recognized her talent and the depth of her soul and lyrics. We started working together and after about 2 years we released the first single/video “Throat” which was extremely successful, beyond our expectations, and it sitting now after only 1 year at over 700K on Youtube and it was instrumental to get her name out there. Few weeks ago we released her sophomore single “Heartbreak Motel” which is doing even better, sitting at over 600K and that just after 4 weeks.
My focus is her and keep developing her career because she’s an absolutely amazing artist and I feel the music industry, now more than ever, needs real talent and someone who is an actual good role model, and she can be all of that.
What qualities make you different and unique from everyone else in the industry?
I think my past as a professional musician gives me both perspective, in front and behind the glass and the recording equipment. I “science” the heck out of things, I’m a forever student, so I know everything there is to know about every single process and processors you can possibly need or use in studio, that’s also why companies work with me, my competence.
I’m a hard worker and I don’t stop until we get the result we want. I’m a Virgo so my attention to details is extremely high and sometimes I’m described as “annoyingly right”. I also think I have good ears, you can call it taste, which is something you can’t teach. I never was after money or fame, I have a genuine passion for music and sound, and I like to challenge myself, this make it so that I always come up with new and different things every time I work on a track.
Describe THAT moment when you realized you wanted to do what you do now. Who did you tell first? What has it been like since that moment?
I’ve always been drawn to music, since I was a little kid, but if we talk about my career, the moment was probably when I decided to quit the band and leave the musician life behind.
That happened after many bad experiences with various labels (not paying), tour managers etc.. even tho’ I was already mixing and mastering while I was in the band, I wasn’t promoting myself as an engineer, because back then, it wasn’t as trendy as now to “do it yourself” you were looked at as if you were broke if you did, and people were used to see musicians also being engineers. But that was the moment, I quit the band and dedicated myself to the studio only.
Since then, it has been a long hard road to where I am now. The competition is really tough in this business but I am happy where I am now.
What has been the biggest challenge you’ve had to face and how did you overcome it?
The challenge in this business is always the same: trying to get to the top, but the problem is while you’re working towards it, you have to make ends meet, build a name, a reputation, a portfolio and get your name out there.
Get contacts, meet the right people and sometimes the money you make are not even close to fair compared to the amount of time and effort you put in, and all that is also a big risk because you could never make it, and if you don’t, you don’t have anything to fall back to so, that is the challenge.
How I overcome that? By grinding and keeping my head down, trying to deliver more than I was asked or expected to, having good work ethic, and many times sacrificing social life and staying in and work some more. I moved half way around the world too which is not easy and it comes with additional risks. So I guess I took my chances.
If you had to pick the TOP 3 people you’d want to meet that could take your career (or business) to the next level…who would those 3 people be?
Eh, meeting people is easy 😀 especially here in LA, but that doesn’t guarantee anything for your career.
Andy Wallace is my all time favorite engineer, and I’ve never had the chance to meet him, so that would be one, it would definitely be great to keep improving my skills because his methods were a big influence for me.
The other two, I honestly don’t know, probably a good publicist because nowadays perception is everything, and last I’d say probably whoever handles productions at Universal or Sony this month.
List the direct links/URL to your social media profiles so people can follow you:
www.youtube.com/mixbustv
www.facebook.com/mixbustv
www.instagram.com/mixbustv
www.instagram.com/bellakellyofficial
www.twitter.com/mixbustv
www.mixbustv.com
www.bellakellyofficial.com
www.davidgnozzimixing.com