Who is…

Hi there,

I’m Markus, an independent musician, and i run the The Ground Noise Youtube-Channel.

I always feel a bit weird when i have to write a bio. First because i don’t feel special, and second because i don’t like living in the past. But here we go!

Short Version:

I make music for about 45 years, slowly transformed from “Drummer in a Band” into Composer, Producer and Content Creator on YouTube.

Long Version:

I felt connected to music at a very early age and received my first drum lessons in 1978, or was it ’77, i’m not sure 🙂

After all, I played the drums in Bands for like 25 years and started to write music in the 1980s (after “stealing” my sister’s concert guitar and learning all the campfire chords and basic finger picking within 2 weeks).

I wrote my first compositions down as Guitar Tabs that i had to drew myself, but unfortunately they got lost in the mist of time. Shit happens.

In the early 1990s I started recording my ideas using a Tascam 4-track Cassette Recorder and a “Yamaha QY10 Pocket Sequencer” that later got replaced by “Cubase Score” on a Windows 3.11 Notebook.

Throughout the ’90s i played in many Bands while i also recorded my own songs and sent them to record labels excessively: No Luck 😀

In 2004 i’ve had enough of playing in Bands, but also felt kind of unmotivated to make music seriously for the next 5 years or so. Today i self-ironically refer to that period as “The Dark Years”.

Finally, in 2009, i received an offer to write music for a local church band in which i had played as a teenager.

After that project was done, i just never stopped writing music again.

For the last 20 years I also worked as a drum teacher, telling kids, teenagers and adults all about double-stroke rolls, paradiddles and how to let music be a satisfying part of their life.

Between 2013 and 2019 i released 7 albums under my family name “Hoffmeister” (not related to Franz-Anton Hoffmeister). But in the year 2020 another shift happened when i decided to write music in a more light-hearted way (that’s the super simplified explanation).

In 2021 i introduced my projects Chillthruster and Exozont and in 2023 i released another Hoffmeister Album, “Nightliner”.

Nightliner is a metaphor (you leave one place to get to a new one) for another exciting journey. It was the last album i wanted to make before i would fully focus on…

With my Youtube-Channel “The Ground Noise” I started a new chapter in 2023. I not only wanted to challenge myself and add a new layer to my productivity. I also want to share my creative concepts and experiences with other musicians and creative people.

And maybe i can help somebody along the way.

And to be really honest, YouTube seems to be overcrowded with destructive drama content like Show-Off-Elitism, Fake Gurus and Wannabe-Producers. The amount of channels that want to turn their viewers into Gear-Whores, Loudness-Junkies and faithful sponsorship followers is absurd.

My long-term goal is to balance all this crap a little – by adding my own crap to it 😉

In case it’s important to you, my main equipment is “Cubase 14 Pro” on a “Windows 10 Pro” PC, my “Ibanez ‘Kiko’ Guitar” and “M-Audio Hammer88 Pro” Master-Keyboard.

My Audio-Interface is a “Behringer Xenyx 1204 USB” and the E-Drum Kit behind me is a “Fame DD 8000”.

I also own 3 Sonor Drum-Kits of the Series “Champion”, “Phonic Plus” and “Designer”. My Cymbals are from different brands, but mostly “Paiste”.

No need to mention that i’m not sponsored by any of these companies. In case you want to support me, here’s what you can do.

Thank you very much for reading this wall of text. I’m looking forward to create more music and content this year.

And I really hope you’ll be a part of it and you enjoy The Ground Noise.

Stay tuned.

Markus – The Ground Noise (January 2024)

Please use the comments section on YouTube or other social media to contact me.

Send messages that don’t belong in public to this mail address:

youtube (at) thegroundnoise (dot) com