Mick Guzauski

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Mick Guzauski (also "Mic Guzauski," and "Mick 'Mix Maestro' Guzauski") is a multi-platinum production sound mixer and sound engineer.

Guzauski's work spans a wide range of styles, including jazz, R&B, Latin, rock, pop, and easy listening. He won a 2002 Latin Grammy for Thalía's "Arrasando," four 2004 Latin Grammys for Alejandro Sanz's "No Es Lo Mismo" (including Best Engineered Album), and the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical for Eric Clapton's "Back Home." As of 2001, he had mixed 27 # 1 singles.[1]

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[edit] Early life

Guzauski grew up in Rochester, New York, where there were no commercial sound studios. In high school he put together his own studio in his parents' basement with equipment that he borrowed, built, repaired, and modified. He did pickup engineer work with Steve Gadd and Tony Levin, then students at the Eastman School of Music, and Lou Gramm, who soon hit it big with Foreigner.

[edit] Career

Around the same time, he met Chuck Mangione, an up-and-coming composer in Rochester, and engineered his recordings as well as mixed his live sound. When Mangione signed with A&M Records in 1975, he asked Guzauski to go to Los Angeles with him to engineer his new album, a recording with a 45-piece orchestra with a rhythm section and soloists at A&M studios. Guzauski engineered several albums for Mangione over the next few years.

[edit] 1980s

In the early 1980s, Guzauski worked with Maurice White and Earth, Wind and Fire at the Complex (then George Massenburg Studios). Conway Studios in L.A. became his home base in the mid 1980s, where he engineered and mixed projects for Burt Bacharach, Dionne Warwick, Mister Mister, Madonna, Talking Heads, Johnny Mathis, Henry Mancini, Patti LaBelle, Stanley Clarke, George Duke, Quincy Jones, Michael Bolton, Kenny G, and Cher.

[edit] 1990s, on

In 1991 Walter Afanasieff asked him to mix a Michael Bolton record he was working on. Guzauski still does work for both of them. Afanasieff then hired him to mix a Mariah Carey album in 1993. Tommy Mottola, then CEO of Sony, liked his mixes and asked him to relocate to New York and work for him at Sony Studios. Guzauski accepted Mottola's offer, and worked on albums with Mottola at Sony and at Mariah Carey's home studio, doing mostly female ballads. He also mixed projects for David Foster, Babyface, Boyz to Men, and All 4 One.

[edit] Current work

Guzauski now works from his 1,400-square-foot private studio, Barking Doctor Recording, located in the basement of his home (in Mount Kisco, New York, about 40 miles north of New York City). The studio has 2 control rooms, and a small tracking/overdub room. Studio A is built around a Sony OXF-R3 Oxford mixing console and Pro Tools HD Xcel 3 system with Accel cards with 96 channels. Studio B is built around a Yamaha DM-2000 console and standard mixing outboard that he prefers: Eventide SP-2016's (for sparkly, long reverb on vocals, and on ballads), Manley, and GML EQ's, AMS's, EMP Plates, and the Sony 3348HR).

At Barking Doctor he has mixed projects for Brian McKnight, Michael Jackson, Leann Rimes, Eric Clapton, The Corrs, BB King, Brandy, Marc Anthony, J Lo, Michael McDonald, and Mariah Carey. Guzauski is currently working on projects for Clapton, Lara Fabian, Jessica Simpson, Zucchero, Lee-Hom Wang and Michael Bolton.

[edit] Emmy Award nomination

Guzauski was nominated in 2005 for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Variety or Music Series or Special or Animation, for his mixing for Eric Clapton in: "Great Performances; Eric Clapton Crossroads Guitar Festival" (1972), along with Elliot Scheiner, Ed Cherney, and Neil Dorfsman.

[edit] Select Discography

(E = engineer; M = mixer)

[edit] Filmography

[edit] References

Mix Masters: Platinum Engineers Reveal Their Secrets for Success, Chapter 4: Mick Guzauski, Secrets from the Top of the Charts, 2003, by Maureen Droney

[edit] Links