Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to David Gnozzi. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
David, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
I’m blessed to work in the music industry, music is art, music IS creativity and being a mixing engineer and a producer working for musicians and artists I get fed their creativity every day. That, in turns, sparks mine. Another side of it is, like most people working in music, this choice is almost a “call”. You use music to express yourself and bring your creativity to life so a lot of it comes form within. I think the day you lose creativity and passion for what you do is the day you should probably do something else. Even if I’m not a musician anymore, my clients give me so much freedom and trust when mixing or producing their music that I still have so many chances to be creative and bring something new to any project. I also think you have to experience life outside your job as much as possible. Life experience and different types of experiences open your mind and keep your creativity alive because you see new things, new people, new places and that’s essential otherwise you run the risk of becoming stale, both in your life and career.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
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 signed to Universal Records first and Danse Macabre Records later, that was a life ago before dedicating myself to producing and mixing.
I moved back to LA few years ago where I own my mix and mastering suite.
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). I met Bella the same week I moved back to LA, immediately I recognized her talent and the depth of her soul and lyrics and even tho’ there were no plans of going into artist development and trying to break a bran new artist to the market, her talent was so great that it felt like a “call” and the stars aligning. So much so that we are now partners in life too. 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, a year later the second single Heartbreak Motel sitting now at over 1 million views.
I gotta say I’m blessed because my life IS exciting, my job is exciting I get to work with amazing artists every day and help them bring their music to life.
With the channel, MixbusTv, I help hundreds of thousands people getting their music out, becoming better engineers, producers, getting their studios ready and much more.
Right now we are launching a new websiste www.mixbustv.com which is gonna be a focal point moving forward, with exclusive content, mixing courses, the opportuninty for people to connect with me, book lessons and build a community of like minded people. We are trying to “break free” from big social media platform like Youtube because we feel it’s a bit castrating to have to play the ranking games and fighting against the platform’s algorhythm changing all the time. Having your own website where hosting content and connect with your people is a much better way to bring all the exciting things we are working on to the people.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Discipline, talent, work ethic. I firmly believe the first one, discipline is the most important quality you have to have no matter what you do in life.
And many confuse discipline with motivation, they are two very different things. I don’t have motivation every day, but I have discipline every day. Motivation is drive, you want to do something, you’re excited about doing something or you are excited at the possible outcome of you doing something. Many times we don’t have motivation because, life happens. Discipline is doing the things you HAVE to do in order to progress and improve even when you don’t want to do them. Even when no one is watching, even when you feel down or sick or sad. And it comes from within. You can’t always expect someone else to push you, you have to kick your own but off the couch and do the things you have to do, no question, no excuses.
This mindset translates to everything you do, your career, your life, your relationships. Too many people nowadays give up as soon as it gets hard, everyone is looking for the shortcuts and forgot that hard work and consistency is most likely what will make you successful.
The second, talent, well, I don’t want to sound cocky but, especially in a field like mine, muisc production and engineering, you have to combine art with tech and that’s challenging. You have to have taste that other people think is good, and you have to put down the hours, weeks, months, years studying the technical side of things. Talent is necessary, especially at higher levels. Talent is also useless without a strong work ethic and discipline. Talent that doesn’t work will most likely be beaten by less talent that works hard but nobody is gonna beat talent that also work hard.
You need it all.
I think for me, my passion for strenght training – so random to link this to my job I know but, bare with me – taught me discipline. Nobody is gonna lift the weight for you and if you don’t, you won’t get results. Period. Is that simple. And also it teaches you that you WILL get results if you put the work in, and the results are also directly linked to how much work you put in. This programs your mind into this mindset and granted the music business is everything but meritocratic (and so is success on social media) but unless you win the lottery or you are born into the industry, your only chance to “make it” is to work hard.
We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
Definitely both. You have to be very aware of what are your strenghts and even more what are your weaknesses and shortcomings. Because you should always try to improve both. Don’t sit on what you know and what you’re good at, you’re already good at it, now become amazing at it. And work on your weaknesses because the more you know, the better you’re gonna be. Especially in today’s economy and market, is a good idea to diversify your sources of income, so the more skills you have, actually, I should say the more marketrable skills you have, the better.
Personally, I always work on my weaknesses first. I always face what’s hard first and try to overcome it.
This will sound silly again but my training also taught me that. You do your heaviest exercises first. Then the rest.
Get the things you don’t like to do out of the way first because, first of all, they will require all your energy and attention and concentration and second, once you overcome the hardest things, everything else will feel easy.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mixbustv.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mixbustv
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mixbustv
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgnozzi/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/mxibustv
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/mixbustv
Image Credits
Jpeg01 Anabel DFlux Maury Phillips
