Engineer and mixer Joe Zook (who has worked with artists as diverse as Weezer, One Direction, Pink, Katy Perry, and U2) and who has mixed and/or recorded albums with worldwide sales of over 80 million, has recently upgraded his studio and installed a 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos system with Focusrite Red 8Pre and RedNet R1 interfaces.
Zook’s career in music started in Boulder, Colorado, where he played guitar in bands while he was in school. He went on to do some touring, but he always gravitated toward engineering.
After working in Austin and then enrolling at the University of Miami, where he studied music theory, jazz, music business and digital audio, he decided that if he was really going to have a career in the business, he needed to move to L.A.
It was here that he got his real-world education, including working at Conway Studios, Sunset Sound and Sunset Sound Factory. While in Los Angeles he struck up a relationship with legendary producer/engineer Jack Joseph Puig.
“I was assistant engineer/Pro Tools engineer, as well as sharing engineering and recording duties for Jack, and over the course of a few years, I got to work with a wide variety of artists including Mick Jagger, Sheryl Crow, John Mayer, Vanessa Carlton, No Doubt, and dozens more,” he reflects.
“I learned so much, and then I just started tracking and working as an overdubbing engineer on my own. I slowly watched the percentage of my work going from 90% recording and 10% mixing, to those percentages just completely flipping, and over time I went to mixing 100%."