Michael Wagener is a music producer, mixer, and engineer from Hamburg, Germany, best known for his work with many top hard rock and heavy metal bands in the late 1980s. Wagener's works have sold over ninetyfour million albums worldwide. Wagener was the original guitarist for the German band Accept. When he turned 18, he was drafted into the German army and was stationed 350 miles away from home. This made it difficult for him to practice with the rest of the band and hence he quit the band. After completing his military service, Wagener began working as an audio engineer in Hamburg in 1972. Through a friendship with singer Don Dokken, Wagener moved to Los Angeles. In 1981 he produced the first Dokken album, and would go on to produce such seminal albums as Skid Row's self-titled debut, which sold five million copies in the US alone, and Ozzy Osbourne's No More Tears, which sold seven million in the US. Wagener also mixed Metallica's 1986 classic Master of Puppets.

Wagener has produced or mixed platinum selling albums by Mötley Crüe, W.A.S.P., Overkill, Accept, Great White, Stryper, Poison, Keel, Alice Cooper, Extreme, Megadeth, Janet Jackson, Ozzy Osbourne, Dokken, Metallica, White Lion, and Skid Row.