BY ERICK
ANDERSON, JEFF
TOUZEAU
When you're young and picking a career, everyone always tells you to "do what you love." In the music industry however, sometimes such lofty platitudes aren't enough to pay the bills – even if one possesses all the necessary skills, passion, and drive. Producer/engineer Mark Hornsby built his career on a key piece of advice from his uncle, who is still working as an engineer in Nashville. This advice wasn't a meaningless platitude, but rather lucid advice for a budding engineer who was already doing what he loved, "If you want to stay busy, and have longevity, you've got to diversify." Hornsby took the advice to heart, and since then it has led him to work on a vast amount of projects – not only keeping him gainfully employed, but also leading him to work on a host of various projects from King Crimson, to George Strait, to Bootsy Collins. Hornsby recorded and mixed Beth Hart's Live at Royal Albert Hall album last year, as well as recording, producing, and mixing gospel artist Russ Taff's latest comeback album, Believe. Generally, Hornsby's philosophy on any project is to get the artist into a frame of mind where they can be comfortable and 'hit record' – while intuitively following the natural flow and technical demands of the song. As a mix engineer, Hornsby gained much of his critical listening skills early in his career while working as an assistant at Seventeen Grand Recording, one of the first 5.1 mix facilities in the country. Fast-forward roughly four decades and thousands of projects later, Hornsby is at the top of his game at Fort Wayne, Indiana-based Sweetwater Studios, the commercial studio arm of retailing operation Sweetwater Sound. Sweetwater is inspiring and reshaping a new culture in Fort Wayne – formerly a sleepy rust belt town built primarily on industrial manufacturing. Hornsby has been a key part of the studio's operations, looking after all of its recording projects and MasterClasses.
