Slide Guitar, Producer

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

A: That I'll create an interesting world for them based on their ideas and concepts.That I will bring additional light to their songs and that I will commit to help them in every step of the way. I'm not the kind of producer who delivers a Master and says good riddance. I want to see the record out, played and celebrated.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: My studio setup is very production based. I work on ProTools and use a diverse bank of VSTs mixed with live recordings to get a close and real feel to our pre-production. Real instruments include acoustic guitars, ronroco, electric guitars, basses, violin recorded with a Beyerdynamic M610, Warm Audio Wa-47, Shure sm7b.

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

A: Working with every artist I´ve produced or played for has been a joy. The opportunity of making a living and being able to give it all is an honor. I´ve learnt a lot working with Estela Stier with whom I created some of the songs I produced and her deliver and honesty when a microphone is put in front of her face. Her voice is absolutely terrific and the first time she sang on top of one of the songs we produced my heart almost stopped. That´s what I aim for in every project, for everyone who is listening.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: What do you listen to? What do you want your record to sound like? Who is your audience or potential audience? What do you want the music to make you feel?

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

A: Look for the provider that feels right. You are gonna work with this person, you will probably share some kind of intimacy if the provider is working on one of your songs. The person on the other side needs to understand what´s right for the song.

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

A: A Mic, A Guitar, A Macbook Pro an Interface and a slide

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

A: I´ve been producing records for 10 years. On the side I became an event organiser to help the artists I worked for. That eventually took me to become Gustavo Santaolalla´s road manager and personal assistant. Being a musician gave me a unique insight of how to sort out whatever challange I had in front of me.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Im a song oriented producer and musician. I play, write and produce for the song. My style is very broad since I was brought up in Argentina and was hit with all kinds of different music and eventually moved to San Francisco were I truly discoverd folk, country and americana music. My life has been a mix of both worlds both in music and in life.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Always work FOR the song. Get your ego out of the way and let the song guide the arrangements.

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

A: I started working on very acoustic folk albums when I first started. I have kept that but was able to explore and dive into Americana, country, pop, indie, rock, with tints of bolero, salsa and argentine folclore.

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

A: I’m a huge fan of George Martin, T Bone Burnett, Jeff Lynne, Jimmy Iovine, Tony Berg and Blake Mills style of production. All of them with a very different approach to production, but I’m a big study of techniques and styles

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

A: I produce records for artists that have a song based approach to music. I also play a variety of instruments that helps me create the right setting for a song.

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

A: Nacho de la Riega mixing and mastering engineer, Rodrigo Genni Gonzalez drummer.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: My ultimate mission is to make the finish song evoke an image, a memory, a landscape. I can’t think music as a listening experience only. I work hard to make sure my arrangements complement the song and help it become a sensorial experience. I bring to songs my 15 years of experience as a songwriter and my 12 years producing songs. I work for the song.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: The first step of my process is to meet, talk music and listen to the songs you’ve been working on. We’ll zoom and set a north to where you want the material to go and we might work on the structure, lyrics to prepare the songs to be arranged. I will want to make a couple of playlists to sense the spirit of the arrangements wanted and the overall sound of what we want the end product to sound like. We’ll meet once or twice a week for a couple of hours. The second step of my process is producing and arranging the songs. I’ll be sending weekly updates for you to listen and be able to imagine what the final record might sound like. Once we are set we take these arrangements to my go to amazing top session musicians from Buenos Aires and we record at Estudio Bulo. The arrangements get embellished by the quality of these musicians and the amazing rig and talent of my partner the engineer Nacho de la Riega. Next step, we edit, comp, and later mix and master. I will also add a small release manual with tips to help the release come out.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Having been born and raised in Argentina & US I have a unique approach and mixture of concepts and genre. I have worked with talented amazing musicians from all over the world in a project I founded called Open Folk where I have personally interacted with 7 thousand artists in a period of 6 years. Their music and their stories I carry inside means I consider it a very influential aspect of my production having known and worked with so many talented songwriters.