Sky van Hoff

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]