Sky van Hoff (born 1986) is a multi platinum German record producer, songwriter and musician. He works primarily with acts in the metal and rock genres, including Rammstein, Emigrate, Till Lindemann, Sleep Token, Kreator and Electric Callboy. As of now he's earned 14× platinum and 8× gold certified album productions. Before becoming a producer, van Hoff was a guitarist for metal band Machinemade God and toured extensively with the band until opening his own studio in 2008.
Career
In 2003, van Hoff joined metal band Machinemade God as a guitarist and signed his first record deal as a band member with Metal Blade Records in 2005.[1][2][3] His first album with the band, The Infinity Complex, was released the following year.[4] He wrote and produced the band's next album, Masked, released the following year.[5][6] After receiving requests to produce other German metal acts, van Hoff opened his own studio in 2008.[7][8] In the years that followed, he worked with Kreator, The Sorrow and Caliban.[9][10] In 2012, van Hoff appeared on the third season of the German version of The X Factor as a musical director for Sandra Nasić's team, where he supervised and produced the "Groups and Bands" category.[5][7] He was a producer for the folk duo Mrs. Greenbird, the winner of the season, and subsequently produced their self-titled debut album released the same year.[11][5]
In 2018, van Hoff contributed to Rammstein guitarist Richard Kruspe's solo project Emigrate and their third album, A Million Degrees, with production, recording and mixing.[12][13][14] He was later brought in by Kruspe to record and edit guitar parts for Rammstein's untitled studio album.[15][6] Following the album's release in 2019, van Hoff joined the band on their stadium tour as Kruspe's monitoring engineer.[16][6] In 2021, van Hoff produced and composed the music for Rammstein singer Till Lindemann's first solo single, "Ich Hasse Kinder", and was a producer on Emigrate's fourth studio album, The Persistence of Memory.[17] He received notable praise for his work on Lindemann's single from YouTube personality and music producer Rick Beato.[18] van Hoff rejoined Rammstein in the studio for their next studio album, Zeit, contributing guitar production, recording and editing.[17] After the album's release in 2022, van Hoff continued touring with the band as a monitoring engineer until the end of the tour the following year.[8] He again collaborated with Lindemann on the singer's debut solo album, Zunge, as a producer, songwriter and instrumentalist.[19]
