Award Winning Mastering

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

A: Yes indeed, I´ve been working for years with Felipe Arevalo, who is an excellent Producer/Engineer from a very big label in London, UK called Westone Music Group. We´ve done tons of albums with excellent results.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Neither, you have to build a chain with the best of both worlds. They both give different textures and work for different purposes.

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

A: That mastering is all about gear and that can be done by anyone in any place. The most important part of mastering is a very well pair of good trained ears, a good set of loudspeakers and an acoustic treated room. It doesn´t matter if it´s ITB or Analog mastering, it won´t work if you don´t have the above.

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

A: My Pair of Lipinskis, My Shure SRH1840 Headphones, My Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor, My AD-DA Crane Song HEDD Quantum and my Crane Song Avocet.

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

A: I´ve been involved in music since I remember. My father had a huge music collection and at age 5 I was listening to old rock vinyls all by myself. This led me into having a Rock/Metal band in the 90´s. Being in a rock band led mi into Sound Engineering because I was the one member always interested, not only in playing live, but in recording. Studios in the 90´s were very expensive so I build up a home Recording Studio with cassette 2-Tracks and 4-Tracks. The band broke up in the late 90´s but my passion for Sound Engineering grew strong enough to enroll in this career. Early in my career I started working in professional recording studios in Bogota and in 2004 I became owner of one of them. Between 2001 and 2005 I realized how much Bogota and Colombia needed a profesional Mastering Studio (there were none at the time). I had much respect for the job so I flew to Madrid, Spain and studied and worked with one of the most important Mastering Engineers of Europe. When I finished my internship in January 2007 I came back to Colombia with the firm conviction of funding the first Profesional Mastering Facility here in Bogota. And now here I am in C1 Mastering twelve years later stronger than ever.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: I´m always in search of finding the perfect way to present my clients to the world through their music. We are the bridge between the artist´s music and the fans. That´s what I´m about. Finding what´s the best possible way of entertaining a person. The way to get there is hard work, constant ear training and the best tools available.

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

A: There are so many! Every artist, every song and every album comes with a totally different challenge, that´s what I love about this! But if I had to choose maybe artists like The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Queen, Daft Punk, Sting, Donald Fagen who went further more in production and using studios as an additional instrument.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Trust your ears, not your eyes, music is about listening, not seeing.

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

A: It´s curious because i grew up listening to a lot of Pop/Rock/Meta coming from US and Europel and I consider an expert in this genres, but working in studios in Colombia for the last 20 years has made me an expert too in tropical/urtban/folk/vallenato/electro/electropop/fusion/caribbean/pacific and so many genres that come along in our geographic area.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: My very well trained ears combined with the best mastering tools working in an almost perfect room with one of the best Loudspeaker Systems in the market.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I´ve been an audiophile since forever. My father was one before me. I have the capablility of knowing exactly how a song should sound in order the exceed client and consumer expectations. I would make your song or album become the best possible entertaining experience.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: The most important part of mastering is what I call the Mix Doctor. This is a listening test of the Mix before mastering. Here I can see if the mix is ready for mastering or if it needs some mixing tweeks. This comes along with Music Production information I require from the artist/producer/engineers to really know what they´re expecting from mastering. As soon as the Mix is approved we launch the mastering process knowing that the mix is ready and what are the Mastering Goals to achieve. I always look to go further more the clients expectations trying to reach the best sounding results.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: My Setup is based on what I consider are the best tools on the market in order to guarantee my clients Class A Mastering Results. I have a proper acoustic designed room with Lipinski Loudspeakers. On the analog processing I have Crane Song, Shadow Hills, Elysia and Black Box Analog Design. On the Digital processing I work with Weiss, Izotope RX and Ozone, Waves and Steinberg with Wavelab Pro 9.5 as my DAW. We have the new Crane Song HEDD QUANTUM for A/D D/A conversion. The most important piece of gear are my very well trained ears. Without them nothing above will make any sense.

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

A: I´m inspired by Legend Mastering Engineers such as Bob Katz, Bob Ludwig, Brian "Big Bass" Gardner and Nick Litwin (with whom I studied and worked in Mastering Mansion Madrid.

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

A: Stereo Mastering for a lot of Genres.