Meet David Gnozzi | Music Producer, Mix and Mastering Engineer, Youtuber

We had the good fortune of connecting with David Gnozzi and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi David, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
Most definitely it was consistency and hard work. The music business, whether you are an artist (like I used to be a life ago) or behind the mixer it’s an extremely hard and competitive field. And while there is, undoubtedly, factors beyond your control, hard work and consistency were the two things that made the difference for me. Yes of course you have to have talent and skills, the first it’s God given, the second you can improve and with that, there has to be the willpower to keep doing the things you don’t necessarily like to do, even when no one is watching, even when you fail, even when you feel like you’re not gonna make it. Because if you want even just a chance at succeding, that’s what you have to do.

You can’t look for someone else to give you the drive or the will or do the work for you, you have to kick your own butt and do, take risks, and keep going.
At the same time you have to be able to tell the difference between keep grinding and when you lost the fight.

For a probably long time you’re gonna put a lot and get little to nothing in return in this field, you’re gonna get rejected you’re gonna fall and fail and then slowly, if you have the skills the talent and the dedication, then you’re gonna see things getting better and the light at the end of the tunnel. But also, if you pick an artistic career, all that grind is also the journey and you have to love that process as well for two reasons: one, you’re gonna value your successes and feel rewarded more, even small successes, and second, you’re still doing what you love to some extent.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Wow that’s a lot  Okay, let’s try I don’t think I should be the one saying what sets me apart from others really, but objectively I think my work ethic, discipline and my borderline obsessiveness with challenging myself made it so I was able to study a lot my field and really dedicate years in learning and training myself to get better and better at it. Even today, I constantly seek to improve myself and my skills and my methods and my results and I don’t think I’ll ever stop doing that because that’s just how I am.Besides that, talking a bit more specifically about my field and work, I think what sets me apart from other producers and engineers is the fact that I contaminate music genres a lot. I am objectively very versatile and I can work on death metal today, a reggae song tomorrow and hip hop and pop next week. The variety of my clientele and my credits confirm that.And so I think I was able to really to sort of positively derail from the restrictions of genres and bring elements of pop into industrial, rock into hip hop, and so on. At the same time, because of my channel and my work with so many pro audio companies I am considered one of the most technical engineers out there, I HAVE to know every single details about a new unit or a new software because I’m the one companies call to explain their new products and test them and show how to use them to the people. I enjoy doing that of course but that’s why I said I have to. That’s literally part of my job behind the scene of a video. So I think I combine art with science, I come from being an artist myself, signed at some point with a major label and with two full albums, so I know and consider myself an artist still, but I added my technical skills, my intense study, my scientific mind to it.

What I’m most proud and excited about at the moment is probably my artist Bella Kelly’s new single and video “Felony” that we’ll hopefully release in Q1 or Q2 2023. Excited about that, excited because I have a lot of new artists which I will work with in 2023, a lot of great new content on the channel with many new innovative audio products coming out which I can’t talk about because it’s all NDA but, I have a lot to be excited about.

How did I get here professionally, ufff, that would be a long answer! Encyclopedie long 
I started as a musician as I mentioned, but I loved the studio environment right from the beginning and later on discovered that my mind was much closer and more efficient behind the mixer than in front of a microphone, and definitely more talented at that! But let’s say after years and years of grind, I started working on big projects, opening my Youtube channel was also helpful because while teaching people how to mix and master music – I didn’t realize this at the time – I was at the same time showing my skills to the world at that point as opposed to just my neighbourhood 

From there I moved to Los Angeles, which was the hardest thing ever, the scariest thing ever and also the best decision I’ve ever made, I was able to skyrocket my business and work with amazing artist all over the world, make great connections and also find my soulmate and get engaged. But I want to drive this point: I already had a career and business going before moving to LA. I didn’t come here and just hoped for the best or thought “When Hollywood sees me I’m gonna be a star” ahah, absolutely not, LA is a great place and the possibilities are endless but at the same time, the absolute BEST of the world are here, so your competition is as hard as it gets and if you’re even one step behind, you ain’t gonna make it thru the door.

It was NOT easy, the music business is hard, is unfair, there’s nepotism, it’s absolutely brutal, you have to watch your back constantly, you have to have be able to stomach a lot. I overcame challenges because challenges is what I do. LIke I said before, I challenge myself when I don’t have to, I challenge myself constantly, if I train, I will always try to train harder, become stronger, if I can’t train harder, I will try to train without eating and see if I can still do it. I purposely made my life harder just to prove to myself, very important, to myself first and only, that I could do it.

One could think “why you do this to yourself” because strength comes from your mind first, and life taught me in my very early years that it wasn’t going to be easy or good all the time, so I immediately understood I better toughen up, get stronger and be ready to go in the challenges head first and win them all. Discipline is the KEY. And you have to discipline yourself. If you have discipline to both do the things you don’t like to do and NOT to do the things that you like but are bad for you, you will have an iron will. And you can’t beat someone who doesn’t stay down. That’s how. The hard way, the way too many people nowadays try to avoid at all cost and even if they get lucky and make it, they’re still weak and if they didn’t fight for what they got, you’re still gonna feel unfulfilled in those minutes before you fall asleep at night.

What I want the world to know about me or my brand… mh, I guess that I’m an extremely professional, reliable person, that I was able to teach very difficult things to teach to thousands of people by DOING those things and succeeding at them every day, not just by studying them. That my content has inspired thousands out there (some took the inspiration a bit too far) to get out and really try to make their dream happen and many of them are now working in the music industry and being successful.

And on a personal level I think I just wish the people I care about to know who I really am and maybe think that I’m not that bad  if the world gets to see that is okay but I’m not too concerned about that part.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I’m the wrong person to answer this question ahah. I have been living here for “only” 5 years and while I took time to go places and do a lot of fun things, both me and Bella are not exactly social butterflies, we keep for ourselves for the most part, besides official events and red carpets, so I probably miss a lot of great places to visit and things to do here. With that said, I’d say one of my favorite spots is free, I’d drive to Mulholland Drive and have my friends look at the city at night from there. I’d take them to TAO to eat the best baked crab roll in LA, to the Mystic Museum to see cool things and expose,
to the Zoo (hopefully there will be animals because we always go there too late and there’s only 1 elefant left out), to some of the amazing concerts that take place in this city.

To Malibu or Santa Monica to see the ocean and I guess to the gym because I will have to work out even if my friends are here 😀

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My fiancee and artist Bella Kelly. While we’re talking about success and work, she is the one most responsible for my “success”. I put quotes because everyone gives the word success a different meaning I feel, for some is money, for some is recognition, fame. For me success is first being able to do what you love for a living and being able to work to live and not live to work.
That today is a big luxury I feel and to have that, you have to have a balanced life. For the longest time I was that guy, the workaholic who never stopped to enjoy life and never took a break, and there is definitely a time for that, but that’s not only not sustainable but counterproductive at some point. Bella gave me real happiness and my life THE real meaning and that gave me a completely different perspective on life and time. It gave me also a much clearer mind and instead of being angry at the world, I was now sincerely happy and complete. That’s when I really understood that doesn’t matter how many cars you can buy or how many precious possessions you have or how much strangers look at to you or think you’re cool, real happiness is given to you by loving someone, the one. It’s achieved by caring more about someone else than you and being loved by that person.
Again, hard work is necessary, consistency is necessary but the reasons why you want to succeed, if wrong, could very well crash your chances of success because you’re too “in it” to see the mistakes you’re making.

Website: www.mixbustv.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mixbustv/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgnozzi/

Twitter: https://www.facebook.com/davidmixbustv

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidmixbustv/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/mixbustv

Other: www.davidgnozzimixing.com www.bellakellyofficial.com https://www.instagram.com/bellakellyofficial

Image Credits
Maury Phillips/Getty Paul Archuleta/Getty Anabel DFlux Mark Maryanovich