Grammy Winner Mixer, Mastering

Q: Is there anyone on SoundBetter you know and would recommend to your clients?

A: Francisco Espinosa for Mastering. He is great!

Q: What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

A: How long will it take you to mix my song? Well, it depends on my schedule. Usually it doesn't take more than 2 to 3 days to work on pending projects. If I'm working on an album maybe it will take me a week to get your song ready. It all depends on the projects I'm working with. But, you can be 100% sure you will like what you'll hear.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: What's the genre of the song? How long is it? Which instruments does it have? Will you be needing stems of the mix? Do you need any editing or tuning?

Q: What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

A: First of all you must have a great song, that's the starting point. Check out all the mixing engineers you can and try to figure out which one fits your music. Be always aware that us, mixing engineers, depend on what you deliver to us. A good recording will end up being a good mix!.

Q: Which artist would you like to work with and why?

A: I love to work with anybody who is serious about their music.

Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?

A: It is a difficult question to answer. There are tons of great engineers and musicians out there and each one excels at their own thing.

Q: Tell us about a project you worked on you are especially proud of and why. What was your role?

A: Ruben Blades "Son de Panama". Recorded it, mixed ir and got a Grammy and a Latin Grammy for it.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: The best tip I could give to anybody is: listen to the kind of music you work with, analyze it, study it, take notes about it. Do it for breakfast, for lunch and for dinner!. Do not copy anybody, do not steal others ideas. Be completely sure that when you have a vast enough musical library, your own great ideas will come out to light.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: I would definitely say mixing. Its what I enjoy the most because you get to talk to the artist and try to envision what he or she wants for the song, where he or she is aiming with it. Once you unlock that DaVinci code, its time to get to work.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I can only describe it as energy. I like a song to move me in a physical way. I want it to make me tap the floor with my foot to it or start dancing on my chair to it. If my mix is not making me do that, its definitely not even close to being ready. I want my clients and my clients fans to feel that energy.

Q: Describe the most common type of work you do for your clients.

A: Im a metalhead by nature but being in a tropical country has enforced me to work with various types of music and get them all sounding right within their own specific genre parameters ranging from jazz to salsa to reggae to metal. So basically Im recording, editing, mixing and mastering all kinds of music everyday. Some days i'll have a metal mix in the morning and a salsa mix in the afternoon. Any of them are not really difficult to achieve if you work on a specific genre most of the time but changing styles in one day can throw most people off. I think I have found the way to switch my focus from metalhead nacho to nacho with some salsa on top.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: Today I had metal, tomorrow salsa, the day after is gonna be reggae and so on!

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Both. Some tools are better in analog and some are better in digital.

Q: What's your 'promise' to your clients?

A: You'll like what you hear!

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: Its fun, its never the same. Theres always a new challenge.

Q: What's the biggest misconception about what you do?

A: Engineering and producing is not the same. Start reading some of the history of the music business and you'll figure out that the engineers were the guys wearing lab clothes and the producer was the guy managing the budget of the recording. From that starting point, engineering and producing are very different roles in the making of a record. Now producers are also engineers and engineers are also producers but like I say, you cant do everything at the same time. One guy has to deal with the bands performance and the other guy has to deal with how to capture it!. Then another guy comes in and makes that performance sound even better than the guy who recorded it while the producer guides this other engineer talking to him and letting him know what he wants from the recording. This is the way I see it and probably its been the way the music business has seen it for long enough to make sure the formula works.

Q: If you were on a desert island and could take just 5 pieces of gear, what would they be?

A: 1. sm57 2. recorder 3. speakers 4. my left ear 5. my right ear

Q: What was your career path? How long have you been doing this?

A: I've been involved in music since I was 4 years old. I've been into audio since I was about 15 and professionally involved since I graduated from high school.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Relaxed!

Q: What type of music do you usually work on?

A: I work with a bunch of music styles because I live in a country where theres Reggae, Salsa, Rock, Metal, Electronic, Calypso, Reggae-ton, Folk, etc.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: I usually get to my studio not too early in the morning and make coffee!. I can't live without it. While my rig initiates, ill go through the schedule and check what I feel more comfortable working with that day. Like I said before, one day i'll have metal in the morning and salsa in the afternoon. That day I felt more metal in the morning and more salsa in the afternoon. It depends. Its also a matter of organising your time and always be on time with dead lines. One day i'll have reggae all day and i'll just get into my reggae mindset and get it on!.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: My studio setup is pretty much the same as everyone out there. Theres nothing really fancy in it, I mean, I don't have a 1/2 million dollar console sitting in it. My rig consists of Protools HD, analog summing, great converters, you know, the average out there. I think the way an engineer or a producer sees the music is what makes them special in their specific roles.