Ignacio Molino- Creating a Perfect Mix

GRAMMY award winning mixer, Ignacio Molino, shares his story and insight in the recording studio.

Follow and hire him here:
https://www.nachomolino.com/

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Hello everyone. My name is SarahHarrelson, and you are listening to the
Mind Your Music Business podcast. SoI'm very excited about the guests we have
on today. This mixing engineer andproducer has won three Grammys and five Latin
Grammy Awards and has worked with peoplesuch as CJ. Ramone from the Ramones,

(00:28):
Carlos Vives, Ruben Blades, andmany more. And he even mixed
my song Blackout Barbie that I releasedthis past year. So please welcome Ignacio
Nacho Milino. So thank you somuch for joining me today on the podcast.
How are you doing well? Thankyou very much for having me.

(00:49):
I'm doing great. How about you? I'm good. And you are in
New York as you mentioned earlier.Yeah, I'm on the western side of
New York, like twenty minutes awayfrom Rochester, which is close to Buffalo.
Okay. Do you go into NewYork City a lot? Not really,
not as much as I thought Idid. Used to live in Brooklyn

(01:11):
for about two years there. Didyou try into a lot of studios in
New York? Well, no,because I mean I landed well, not
landed like I got to Brooklyn likethe mid year in twenty nineteen and when
I finally got myself settled, itwas about ending of the year and then

(01:37):
you know what happened next year,right, So yeah, that was my
time in Brooklyn was most of itwas the whole pandemic craziness. Okay.
And where are you coming from anotherpart of New York to Brooklyn or from
somewhere else from Panama? From CentralAmerica where the Panama canallys Okay? Yeah,

(02:00):
my boyfriend's brother and his sister actuallylived in Panama for a couple of
years during COVID. They just movedto Europe because they were living in America
and then they just are at apoint where they wanted to live in different
places, so they they lived inPanama for a few years. Yeah.

(02:25):
Yeah, I mean I wasn't thereduring COVID, but as far as I
understand from like family and friends,it was pretty bad over there. Yeah.
They lived more in the mountains,but kind of in a community where
a lot of American expats live.Oh yeah, yeah, I know,

(02:45):
we're We're probably one of the places. Yeah, okay, yeah, but
they couldn't get out much during COVID, and I know there's a lot of
restrictions over there. Yeah, Iwas not like like here in the States
that you I mean do you wererecommended to stay at home but you can
actually go out and do whatever.Over there, I think they had carefeus

(03:06):
and everything, and like people wereyou know, like you could not go
out of your house period. Yeah, definitely extensive curfews. Okay, so
you're originally from Panama. So howdid you get into mixing and producing as
a career. Well, I meanit's pretty much the same story as everybody.

(03:30):
I was a musician. I meanI started playing piano when I was
very little. My dad put mein piano lessons when I was four,
and I played piano until I wastwelve. I every year we would do
the the tests in the conservatory inPanama. I almost almost quote unquote graduated

(04:00):
from the from the conservatory. Ididn't do the like the last two years
of it as as a piano player, And at some point when I was
twelve, I was like you knowwhat I'm you know, I'm bored.
I think I don't want to,you know, continue down the music path
or whatever, and then I kindof like left everything. Then three years

(04:27):
later I came to the state tovisit my aunt and my cousins in Tucson,
Arizona, and my cousin had anelectric guitar and Nirvana was around so
smells like teen Spirit was you know, pretty big at that point. My

(04:48):
cousin taught me how to play thatone on guitar and that was it.
I was just hooked up nice,like instantly hooked up to guitar. And
then yeah, I started playing inbands and so and so. And when
we had the like the first recordingexperience that I had, and I saw

(05:13):
this all this gear, you know, like it wasn't a studio like the
drummer's father bought a whole bunch ofrecording gear back in the day. That
was a Mackie mixer and ate atwhich was only eight channels. And we
had our first recording experience. Sothis was my first time, you know,
having like a microphone on my amplifierand like, you know, all

(05:38):
these studio related things that I hadnot seen before. And I was like,
oh my god, this looks sointeresting, you know. And then
that that kind of you know,woke all the interest in me for the
studio stuff. And even though wereally suck, I don't know, we

(06:02):
were like I don't know, fifteensixteen years old, okay, yeah,
so yeah, it's you know,you know, it was it was fine,
but it was you know that kindof you know, teenager band and
whatever. I really liked the wholething. And then I started getting very

(06:23):
interested in it, and I gota hold of a Jamaha four track,
one of those like actual cassette tapefor tracks. Yeah, and I started
recording myself basically at home. Butmy first professional microphone, which was the

(06:45):
Sinnheiser six O nine, which isa little square one. There's the nine
oh six now, which is thesquare one that has the E from Evolution
series on printed on the grill,but this one was the first one.
So that was my first pro microphone, which I used for the guitar.
And after that, a friend ofmine had like he showed me that you

(07:14):
could record in the computer using asound blaster sound card and I was like,
what, you can't record into thecomputer? What mean? Like so
those sound cards, the sound blasters, I remember it was like the series
were like audig or something like that. They were one of the only consumer

(07:34):
cards that could play audio and recordat the same time. Like you could
not do that with any other likewith any sound card that you bought at
the computer store. You couldn't dothat. Like it was not possible to
play and record at the same time. Yeah, amazing technology for the time.
Yeah, and I the funny thingis, like the the mic input

(07:59):
was one of those very small,like three millimeter plugs, so you could
basically just use the Goosenck microphone thatthe computer had to hook it up into
the thing. So there was like, Okay, I had this pro microphone
that I couldn't use because I couldn'tconnect it. Although later on I found

(08:22):
adapters and put one adapter after theother until I actually got the microphone hooked
up into the computer. But atfirst it was like, you know,
recording myself with the Gooseneck microphone andlike you know, experimenting stuff. And
you know, after I graduated school, I went into live sound, which

(08:50):
has been a part of my careerthis whole time. I've been most mostly
in the studio, but like I'venever stopped, like really stopped life sound.
And at that point, I waslike eighteen years old, just graduated,
graduated school, and uh went intothis company called son No Audio,

(09:15):
which was a one person company ohwow. This this guy basically gave me
the chance to work in the oneguy sound company. So I was the
second guy, and I was theone like like you know, loading,
loading the He didn't have a truck. He had one of those little bosses

(09:41):
or panels. I don't know howyou call it, uh here, but
it's one of those little bosses likewhere like it was like like a van
or yeah, it didn't have seats. It was made for ye. So
I was the one like loading atall, voting stuff from the van into

(10:03):
the into the clubs and backward andvice versa, and connecting stuff or whatever.
And yeah, I mean I thinklike three years later was the first
time I got a I got ajob at a studio. Okay, So
in this whole time frame before yougraduated school, did you already have like

(10:28):
experience in school with sound or livesound or is that something that you were
just kind of learning on your ownas you were playing out of venues and
in the studio recording with your band. Well, I mean before I finished
school, I did not have anystudio experience besides the recording that we did

(10:50):
with my with the drummer's father,and that was not in a studio that
was in the you know, inthe back of his house where we used
to rehearse. Yeah, so hehad the gear there. So that was
I mean, it was not likea proper, like a proper studio,

(11:11):
but you know, it was youknow, one of the it was a
home studio basically, right, andwe had we had a lot of fun
in that one. He made thisalbum which was a compilation of punk bands.
I can't remember how many songs therewere in or how many bands,
but the album actually sold pretty good. Yeah, So yeah, I didn't

(11:35):
I did not have any like realstudio experience until I had my first studio
job when I was twenty one.And that first studio job was with a
computer, which I was completely notfamiliar with because I when I did it

(11:56):
in the computer at my house,it was with you know, you could
only record one channel at a time, one track at a time, and
you know, it was not aproper studio, so like I didn't know
about like you know, that youcould use external pre amps or anything like
this. So when I came intothis studio, I just saw the computer

(12:20):
and a whole bunch of gear.There was no mixer whatsoever. So I
was like, how are they puttingthe sound in and out of the computer,
and like all these questions because itwas like the first time I saw
a for that time, non traditionalsetup, right, And was the studio
in the States or was it backin Panama? But it was back in

(12:41):
Panama, Ok. Yeah, Andthen they explained me that you know,
that audio went like it went tothe pre amps, which was like the
top row of knobs in the consoleusually, and then like that went into
the converters, which was like theone that converted the electricity into ones and
zero so that the computer could havetempered it, and then back out the

(13:05):
converters and then into the monitors.And I was like, wow, this
is crazy, Like I never thoughtlike you could send a whole bunch of
channels by one little small cable,you know. Yeah, especially with that
setup. Then it was so muchmore complex thinking, whereas with computers now

(13:26):
you don't even have to think,you know, when you're in pro tools
or logic, And back then youhad to have a lot of knowledge of
the science behind audio engineering to figureout the outboard gear and patching the channels
and the correct places and the electriccurrents. There was so much that went

(13:48):
into it. Yeah, and thenwhen it all started going into the computer
world, you also had to knowfairly a lot of computer stuff, right
because it wasn't as streamline streamlined asit is right now. Where you know,
the sound card would have this youknow, control panel and you could

(14:09):
just route things in the in thesound cards control panel, if I'm not
wrong, Everything had to be donefrom the DAW which communicated to the sound
card. And then it was youknow, weird because sometimes the daw wouldn't
communicate to the sound cards, soyou would open the software but there was
no sound coming out and then you'dhave to figure out why it was not

(14:31):
connecting one with the other. Butthere was no actual connection. It was
just the virtual connection in between twopieces of software that we're trying to communicate
and it didn't work. And yeah, it was It was crazy. And
then yeah, and this was Imean the studio that I was working at
that was Windows. The the OSwas Windows and as you know, like

(14:58):
Windows is more complex than Apple whenit comes to, you know, going
into the system settings of it.You have a lot more Windows that you
can go to set stuff up andwhatever. And yeah, that was it.

(15:22):
Was pretty crazy how much I hadto learn in order for me to
be able to actually run the studioand if I had some trouble then I
would be able to fix it myself. It took me a while. So
at that point when you were workingin your first studio job where you just
kind of tired of the musician lifeplaying out with the band, were you

(15:46):
more interested in just doing audio atthat point? Well, to be honest,
I never got tired of the musicianlife because I really liked playing in
bands and obviously playing live and everything, but I did like being in the
studio a lot more than being ina band. So and then at that

(16:10):
first studio, when I started workingthere, all my other friends and acquaintances
from other bands started recording with me. So there was a point where I
was very you know, busy,just recording bands as soon. That's how
you made your initial connections with whoyou were producing music for, mixing songs

(16:36):
for. I assume it was artistsand friends that you knew that were saying,
Hey, I want to come inand record in the studio. Is
that how your initial connections. Yeah, I mean the studio was working for
it already had a reputation of recordingyou know, independent bands usually you know,
rock bands and whatever. So whenI came in, I just you

(17:00):
know, told everybody I was workingat that studio and they were like,
oh cool, let's go record therebecause I mean also the studio had its
reputation, so it was not likeI was the one who brought all these
people. I mean I just happenedto get a job at that place,
right right, and uh yeah.So, I mean apparently people started liking

(17:25):
what I was doing because they justkept on coming in, coming in coming
in. And then I had aPanama is a very small country, like
a very very small country, soyou know, everybody. So I had
a friend who had a radio showlike every was it every Yeah, it
was every was it every day?At seven or something? I can't remember.

(17:47):
She had a radio show and atsome point all the local music that
was being played on her radio showwas recorded by me. Wow that was
that was yeah, that was crazy, and I was like wow because it
was just rock, like like mymy friend. She was cheap, cheap.
She passed away, unfortunately, butshe was one of the ones who

(18:15):
were actively promoting the rock scene inPanama City with her radio show, and
you know, organizing concerts and bringingartists from from other countries into Panama,
and like she was very active intothis movement, right, So yeah,

(18:37):
it just happened at all the Imean, actually that was one of the
only rock shows, rock radio showswhere you could take your music and they
would actually play it, okay,right she was, I mean she was
that open with everybody, Like youwould just go and like, hey,
we just recorded this whatever, andshe would play it and he would interview

(19:00):
you right on the air in theradio station, like she wouldn't mind like
who we were, were you recorded, if the recording was good or was
bad or whatever, she would playit. That's great. And obviously you
were having success with your music onthat station. So was there certain people

(19:21):
in the studio that you would creditto helping you learn how to mix and
how to produce music. Well,the studio at that point belonged to one
person, the owner, and Istepped in for the other engineer that was

(19:45):
working at the studio. So basicallythe owner just taught me how to work
with whatever was there, okay.And he was like, okay, this
is how much the hour it isis, and here is where you fill
up the report for the day,and I'll be talking to you basically,

(20:06):
So you pretty much took it fromthere and just kind of on your own
and whatever sounded nice to you.Yeah, I was, Yeah, I
mean, and I already had threethree years doing live sound, so I
knew, you know how to likemic things and which microphones to use on
what right, except for the mostexpensive ones of course, but you know,

(20:30):
you would know how to use afifty seven, which was you know,
guitar, snares and whatever. Iwas recording a lot of that,
so yeah, a lot of fiftyseven is being used. And then I
also had the I mean, Iwas also mixing for live sound, so

(20:51):
but I was doing it on aconsole and like an analog console, so
it was very different. Yeah,Like the way of getting things to work
in analog is very different than indigital. Even though people say like,
yeah, you know, blah blahblah blah, it's it is very different.
It's a different world. You definitelydo not mix the same way in

(21:14):
analog that you that you would mixin digital. So I kind of had
to translate one like what I wasdoing on the live sound with analog gear
with you know, analog console analogeques analog compression and external reverb units and
translate that into pure software. Right. I remember we were using QS one

(21:41):
point one. That's that's that.That was a long time, yeah,
like like literally one point one.And I remember trying the compressors in the
in the in the plug ins,and I was like, this doesn't work
like this, you know, likethis is weird, and I have to,

(22:02):
like, you know, think aboutlike how I wanted it to sound
and not think about the numbers becausethe numbers did not mean anything compared to
a real compressor or how like,because it's not like every like all the
compressors act the same when you dialthe same numbers. Right, The way

(22:27):
a compressor works in analog is kindof different from the digital sound and the
way they shape the transience and whateveris different. So the way that you
have to think about compression and digitalis very different from the way I have
to think of about compression in analog, And I like it was it is

(22:49):
a whole it's a different world.So well, and that's a good point
because as technology has evolved, youhave to kind of shift your way of
thinking for what technology you're using.For when you're amusing, when you're mixing
or producing a song. So Iassume now maybe you don't do a whole

(23:10):
lot of work and analog anymore socurrent day, with all of the software
available for mixing and producing, wouldyou say your mixing process has changed or
what is your mixing process look ona look like on a typical day?
Now? Well, right now I'mcompletely in the box. Not because I

(23:37):
wanted to, not by showing there'sa little commercial for my friends, said
Avid. Because my HDX cards chassisstop working, and I ordered a new
chassis. The chassis works, thecard works, the card doesn't want to
read the interface, so I can'tconnect any of my upwoar gear as hardware

(24:06):
desert's. I can't use my HDXsystem at all. And I've been with
Avid and their support for weeks andmore than a couple trying to figure out
what's happening. It's so crazy.My my HDX card like in its infocess

(24:26):
it was built in two thoy twentyseven. Wow, it was built in
the future. There's definitely a probablya software something when I updated a driver
or some sort of issue there thatit's not letting it You know work properly,
and I think I'm going to haveto just send it in and let

(24:48):
them figure it out. It's almostas if these companies want us to be
in the box and have no outboardgear at some point in time, because
I had the same issue as anolder and face with new Mac and with
the new updated software, it wouldnot recognize the interface, so I was
forced to get a newer interface.And I think that's slowly becoming the trend

(25:14):
where they want us to use theirsoftware and their plug ins to virtually do
the same thing that our outboard gearwould do. But it's just not a
good situation when there's you know,engineers like you who are used to using
you know, certain gear for theirmixing process, and what happens if that

(25:37):
can no longer be an option.Yeah, I mean, I mean,
to be honest, most of myprocessing is in the box. So this
happening has not been like a likeand like. It hasn't made me stop
working at all, and I havebeen able to just make it work.

(26:00):
But it is a shame because Imean, I have a lexicon reverb that
I cannot use and for some ofthe things that I work on, that
kind of reverb just works in alot of Latin music in that I work

(26:22):
a lot with you know, likeI mean, they're not analog, they're
digital reverbs also, but the hardwarereverbs just give you a sense of depth
that the plugins don't give you.So like, and it's very like that.
That reverb is very useful for mewhen mixing Latin music, and I

(26:45):
cannot use it now. It's beenvery difficult to find the reverb that that
can even come close to that.I mean, I haven't found it,
to be honest. I've had tocombine lots of reverbs in very small quantities
to get something that maybe kind ofgives you the sense of death depth that

(27:11):
one part what unit can do.And I don't I mean, I don't
understand why. I mean, I'mnot a computer guy or anything. If
somebody can tell me why, Iwould be really appreciative why this thing,
digital thing that was built in thenineties or eighties gives you more sense of

(27:37):
depth than a reverb that was builtand it's also digital in twenty twenty three.
I just want to know. Itis wild because you think the possibilities
are endless with the amount of softwareand plugins we have nowadays. So the

(27:59):
fact that you can can't find somethingthat emulates, you know, something you've
had for a while is pretty crazy. And it's there are that you're able
to find other different software to tryto combine them to get the kind of
reverb sound that you want. Soit's so crazy because it's not that it

(28:22):
sounds better, it sounds different,but it's just the sense of the depth
that you can get with those units. That's a lexicon. You can buy
a Jamaha XBX ninety, which islike ninety nine bucks on rever right now,
and you'll get more depth than youwould get with a plug in.
Yeah, and that I mean somepeople might agree with, some people might

(28:48):
not, but at least for me, that's how I feel it. And
I don't understand why. I mean, ques have gotten better, compress yourself,
gotten better saturation. We're still veryfar. But reverbs, I mean
they sound nicer. Yeah, Imean if you open a plug in a

(29:14):
rever plugin that was made fifteen yearsago and you open a rear plug that
was made last week, the onethat was made last week will sound nicer
and probably cleaner or more real orwhatever. But where's the sense of depth,
like, that's the whole thing aboutreverb. You know, we need

(29:37):
one who can create a new plugin using that outboard gear. Yeah,
and it's crazy because it's it's youknow even I mean, I don't know
if the hardware itself has to dohas something to do with it in the
sense of it is a dedicated Itis a dedicated computer for its own task,

(30:00):
even if it's not as powerful asthe computers that we have right now.
But maybe it is that everything isjust built or purpose built for this
thing to sound a certain way.And right now we're just making a computer
which is like well what we knowas computers, which is a general task

(30:23):
managing thing, and try to makeit sound like something that is not that
was not built for. I don'tknow, but it's still just you know,
makes me wonder like why hasn't thathasn't that been able to be reproduced?
That's why people are still buying recastisfor thousands of dollars. Yeah,

(30:48):
and they and they just have itthere and they won't use a plug in
to to go against the precasty.They just use the BASTI sorry. Yeah,
it seems like at this point somethinglike that would able would be able
to be reproduced at this point,and especially when you see software coming out

(31:11):
that is using AI for you know, your mixing and mastering needs. I
saw you you're a fan of isotopeOzone is some great mastering plugins that the
newer versions do use AI to smartlymaster songs based on the genre and the

(31:34):
sound and everything, which I thinkis a helpful tool. But how do
you feel about the new software that'sbeing developed that will soon use AI to
help people fully mix a song.Do you think that'll take away from what
you're doing or do you think it'sjust not going to be fully there?

(32:00):
I mean, at some point ithas to get there. Yeah, we
like it's not a matter of ifif it will get there. I think
it will get there. It's amatter of time. How long it will
take to get there, we don'tknow. But there's always something like computers
are exact, you know, likehow do you and we humans are not?

(32:28):
So how do you put into theequation all these human errors that we
make when we mix. When likelet's say we're mixing any song and we
want to make space for instruments.There's ways of making space. You could

(32:49):
use an eq and carve something fromone instrument to create space for the other
one. Or you could put reverbon one instrument or another in the other
one. Or you could just usethe volume fader or the panda knob or
a whole bunch of combinations that youknow, includes all of the all the
ones I mentioned and in different youknow percentages, and they will all create

(33:15):
space in between elements. Right,how do you like? How do you
train a computer to do that?Based on a set of influences? Right?
Because what I'm looking for is aresult of what I've listened to my

(33:38):
whole life, Like what I hearwhen I when I when I listen to
a new song that I have tomix, what I hear in my head
is a result of everything I've heardbefore that moment, and then I try
to take that song there, Right, how do you like? Okay?

(34:00):
Like? And then my my tastein music is very wide, actually,
I mean I used to listen toa lot of metal, but I've never
been like close minded to other musicgenres, So like, how can you

(34:22):
like like, how can you likeinput like Latin music, and then metal
music and then a little bit oflike jazz fusion, and then another like
reggaeton whatever into something and then yougive that something a Cumbia song and say

(34:47):
mix it right. And I thinkthat's the problem with trying to use AI
for mixing needs is that it willtry to be too you exact, and
whereas mastering that's more of a simplertask for AI, but for mixing,

(35:08):
there's so much going on, andI think it's so important to have the
human touch on a song, tohave actual, you know, feelings why
I'm mixing a song, so theycan feel where a song needs to go
and what space needs to be created, as opposed to just feeding something information

(35:34):
and seeing where it goes and itmight get too technical. Yeah, I
mean, I not to go againstmastering anything. I have to mastering in
ears that are my like two ofmy best friends, and I I deeply
respect their work and that those arethe guys who I used. I do

(36:00):
mastering too, at a let's saylower level because I don't have mastering gear
per se. I do it withplug ins. But definitely mastering is a
simple task if you like, ifif you try to simplify it to options

(36:22):
and they're there, it's right,Like if I do this this or this
can happen. And if I dothat, this or that can happen,
and mastering, those options are goingto be fewer than when you're dealing with
mixing, right, So yeah,I think it is. I mean,

(36:42):
it's not easier, it might beless complex, right, yeah, because
obviously like having like having a goodmaster requires a lot of skills, and
it's I mean it's not only thegear, it's the skills of the person.
And there's a lot of there's aton of mixes that get saved and

(37:07):
mastering. H we shouldn't be thatway, but it is. But yeah,
I understand why AI could be youknow, sort of you know,
closer to a mastering engineer than amixing engineer because you know, I mean,

(37:31):
yeah, I think it could bebeneficial to see maybe the direction of
how things should go and using itas a reference, but maybe not full
on as what you're trying to accomplish. Yeah, I mean, for example,
the fact that let's say in Ozone, you have a you have an

(37:54):
assistant which is AI. Yeah,and it gives you a chain and it
gets it gets you into a ballpark, right, And I find I find
that very useful, Like if you'reyou know, if you're completely like,
Okay, I'm burned out, butI have to deliver this thing. And

(38:16):
I mean I'm talking about it mypoint of view. When I'm mixing,
right and I just want to makethe song a little louder and you know,
sweeten it a little bit. Thenyou know, this mastering assistant can
be very useful, yeah, becauseit gets you into a ballpark and this

(38:37):
is not going to be the final, the end product. Right. If
I was mastering a song and ifI used this AI assistant, then I
would like I would go into eachof the processes that it's suggesting me and
try to try to find what it'sdoing. Can I do it better?

(38:59):
Can I modify something? Should Itake this thing off because it's actually making
more harm and good or stuff likethat? You know? Yeah, absolutely,
yeah, but yeah, to yourpoint, yeah, it's I think
it's it's it will be easier withmastering, way easier with mastering than with
mixing and mixing that there's just somany variable options. Yeah, a lot

(39:24):
of variables. Yeah. Unless Idon't know, unless you create a I
don't know, whatever, you cancreate a artificial intelligence that just knows how
to do every single I and butany like anyways, like it doesn't matter,

(39:44):
like tuning is going to change,Guitar tones change, drum tones are
going to change, Singers are goingto change. Yeah, too many variables.
Acoustics where the things were recorded willchange. And even if there are
virtual instruments, you know, guitarsor pianos in one virtual instrument don't sound

(40:05):
the same and the other one,so it's you know, it is very
difficult when with mastering, it's allalready working together, right, Yeah,
I agree. Yeah, So goingback to your own work, what would
you say is maybe one of yourfavorite favorite mixes that you've done, and

(40:27):
if you can think of any what'sbeen one of the most difficult songs you've
ever mixed? Ooh, that's adouble difficult question because I imagine you work
with a lot of Latin music,so there's so much percussion and sometimes horns

(40:52):
and strings. I imagine, especiallyif it's live, there would be so
many different instruments to mix. Yeah, I mean, I probably cannot tell
you the one I like the most, but I could tell you one of
the ones that I found i'd findthe most interesting, Yeah, which was

(41:13):
from Ruined Blades. There's an albumfrom him called Salsa Big Band. The
whole concept of the album is havinga salsa orchestra with the brass section of
a big band. Wow. Soit's actually thirteen people in the brass section.

(41:37):
So it's five sexes, fo trombonesand four trumpets. Wow. And
instead of having drums like in abig band, you have congas dim ballets
in bungo. Right. So thatwas very interesting to work in because the

(42:00):
the the arranger for for the album, which is Ruen's bass player, his
name is which he was also theproducer of the album. The way he
did the arrangement, it's like it'scompletely like big band on top of a
salsa percussion thing and it's Rubin justsinging salsa the way he has sang salsa

(42:25):
his whole life. And it's meanfor me, it's very interesting the way
it works. And uh, thein the the arrangements are so well done
that the mixing was very simple reallybecause that is interesting. You wouldn't think

(42:47):
it would be simple. It wasvery simple. I think I think the
original mixing session has doesn't have morethan ten plug ins. Wow. That's
impressive because I mean we try torecord it as better as the best we
could first of all, but alsolike the arrangements are so well done that

(43:10):
everything takes care of itself. Yeah, and that's so important, especially if
it's a live session. If youhave the right acoustics, the right arrangement,
then not there doesn't always have tobe a lot added to the mix
to make it what it needs tobe. Yeah, because I mean everything,

(43:35):
everything comes from the song first,and then the rest comes from what
people can't imagine with that song.You know, what arrangements come up in
your mind for that song, andhow well they actually support the song,

(43:57):
and how will they like, howwill the arrangement place with its own you
know, in the case of thisReuben record, we're talking about thirteen people
blowing instruments with well congas, gongosting ballets. That's three more people.

(44:17):
A piano player that's four, anda bass player that's five. Plus thirteen
it's eighteen people. Yeah, that'sa lot of truth. We're not talking
about we're not talking about the vocalyet, but I mean you've put the
vocal in, which is the mostimportant part of it. In every single
song, I think the vocals arethe most important. People might might think

(44:42):
differently. You have nineteen people ina band, right, but the arrangement
is so well done that the thirteenguys that are doing the brass section never
step on the vocal at any point, which is which is crazy. Right.

(45:08):
So that's how important the arrangement is. And then you don't have to
be going crazy on mixing trying tocarve stuff out and like to put this
thing here and to push that thingfurther away, and to move this thing
like it's in the arrangement. That'sgreat. Yeah, so not a whole

(45:29):
lot of automation or fixing. Uhyeah, automation. Automation would will be
to actually add excitement to it andnot to make something quieter because it's fighting
something else, right, which isactually taking excitement away, you know what
I mean. So it's it's this, you know, it's it's very important.

(45:52):
The arrangement is very important. Andthat's one of the most interesting,
well the interesting albums I've worked in, because it's a whole album that it's
like that, I think, exceptfor like two or three songs, but
there are more, you know,the traditional salta orchestra, but the way

(46:13):
the arrangements are done. It's it'sjust crazy because like if if you just
if you would put all the fadersdown and work out a balance out of
nothing, you can hear everything byitself, just with like a steady rough
mix because the arrangement actually works.So whatever you so whatever you do to

(46:37):
it is just to enhance it,not to correct it. And that's what
mixing should be. And that makesyour job easy too. And I find
it interesting when people listen listen backto their mix and they feel like something's
not right, but they can't theycan't pinpoint what it is in the mix

(46:57):
specifically that they don't like. Andusually that's because it's something in the arrangement
or even maybe they're vocals that needto be changed, not anything in the
mix. Yeah, And then forexample, I sometimes sometimes with some arrangements
that are way too complex, rightwhere you have less than thirteen guys on

(47:24):
the brass section, but everybody's likejust doing you know, different, like
you know, question response kind ofarrangement with the guy singing on top of
it, and then a whole bunchof backing vocals and a whole bunch of
stuff happening at the same time,which is like which is basically disaster because

(47:46):
there's no there's no main character inthe arrangement and and there's too much movement
right where everyone's trying to be themain character. Yeah, so you just
try to figure it out, Like, Okay, if you are with a

(48:07):
group of friends and you're and you'rejust hanging out, what like, let's
say you have eight friends. Whatif the eight of you just started speaking
at the same time, like whowould pay attention to who? Yeah?
Right, exactly. So that's thewhole that's the whole thing about the arrangement.
That there has to be a alead voice. Right. Voice could

(48:31):
be an instrument, but I meanwhen you when you talk about arrangement,
you talk about voices. Right,there have to be a lead voice and
the rest have to be supporting thatvoice, even though if they're making stuff
that moves, right, whatever ismoving should not be moving closer in register

(48:52):
to that main voice, or itwill take the brain's attention away from the
lead voice. Right. And that'ssomething that people People usually make that mistake
in having things that are moving toomuch and besides there being besides them moving
too much, they're moving too muchclose to the register of the main instrument

(49:16):
or main vocal and that Yeah,that's that I find every single time.
And sometimes people like ask me,like, hey, could I listen to
more of that thing? They're whatever, It's like, yeah, we can't.
I'll put it up for you,but it's probably going to fight the
vocal, right, That's why Iput it there, and you're like,

(49:38):
yeah, let's give it a try. And usually it's just like, yeah,
just bring it back down because yeah, conf yeah, because it's like,
yeah, can I can still hearthe vocal, but but now I
cannot like understand one hundred percent whathe's saying, because that's you have this
other, like this little mosquito besidesyour ear, just you know, distracting

(50:01):
you from the main thing. Yeah. So in the case of that album,
the arrangements were just genius and thewhole album just works like that,
Like it's so crazy. We mixedthat first song that we the first song
that we mixed that was the onethat has to like ten plugins on it,

(50:23):
and that was the template for therest of the record. So all
the songs have around like ten totwelve plug ins on it, including the
reverb. That's nice. So butit was just I mean this whole thing.
It's like in this record, allthe planets lined up and everything just

(50:45):
worked right, which is very unusual. Yeah, usually you you I mean,
not like it. It is notusual that I get to work with
very good arrangements. I do getchances where I do, and I really
appreciate it and feel lucky to beable to. But it's not all the

(51:08):
time that you get to work withthose kind of arrangements, and then that
brings you That brings me to theother side of the question. There is
something I also want to say,like which is like the song that I

(51:32):
probably least liked or that has takenme a lot of work to mix or
whatever. Because if it takes alot of work to mix, that doesn't
need to That doesn't mean that thesong is bad or that the arrangement is
bad. It's just that the songneeds more movement to put into it to
make it actually work. Which isa whole other subject, right, Because

(52:00):
there's only so much that you cancapture with a microphone, right, And
some songs change their their ambience dependingon the part that they are, so
you have to automate a lot more. So that makes the mixing more time
consuming, not complicated time consuming becauseyou have to automate more or you have

(52:23):
to divide things in several tracks thathave different effects depending on the part of
the song. So that does ifit takes you a long time to mix
the song, that doesn't mean thatthe arrangement was bad. It was probably
a song that needed more complex workfor it to actually get to its fullest
potential. But yeah, the thingright now, which is which is basically

(52:52):
my day to day, and I'mpretty sure it's the day to day of
most mixing engineers nowadays, is everybodyis recording at home, which is perfectly
fine, but not everybody knows howto properly arrange, and nobody knows how
to properly record. Yes, youcan put a microphone and record something,

(53:17):
it'll be recorded, and when youpress play, it'll make sound, right,
but how is that sound behaving againstthe other sounds that are previously recorded?
And that's exactly what I mean.So maybe if you're recording a guitar

(53:42):
and it seems like it's too bright, you don't have, you don't,
you don't like, you don't recordit, and then reach for an EQ
and make it less bright. Youmove the microphone to make it less bright
so that it fits the rest ofthe stuff without the EQ. Yeah,
and that's so important because the recordingprocess is equally as important, because I

(54:07):
think nowadays some people rely too muchon oh well, we'll just let them
mixer do something with this and fixthe EQ since the mic was kind of
off, and you know, peoplejust get kind of lazy with their recording
process now and especially as people arestarting to rely more on track building instead

(54:30):
of actual actually recording through a microphone, you know, just using software and
MIDI for their full recording, whichcan seem like it would be perfect for
the mixing process, but then sometimespeople do either too much or too little

(54:50):
with the tracks and there's still somesort of sound that's missing, or it
could also sound too artificial. Yeah, I mean, I can understand if
if you're having problems, if you'reyou know, if you're a beginner,
if you're learning, et cetera,et cetera. Like nobody just goes into
this knowing everything right, But whenyou're recording, you really have to take

(55:16):
an account that that first thing thatyou're recording, right, be it the
guitar, be it the drums,be it whatever it is, that's going
to be the bass and the foundationfor the rest of the sounds are going
to come after an overdub. Right, Because we're talking about home recording,

(55:37):
you're probably we're not recording a wholeband together. Right, So let's say
you record your guitar. Right,Let's let's say you're just doing a guitar
vocal and some you know, earcandy other guitars in the song. Right,
If you mike the guitar exactly thesame as the first one, it'll

(56:00):
have the same color, So itwill not be fun, it'll be boring.
Right. So even though if you'reusing the same microphone, you can
change the position of the microphone tomake the guitar sound a little bit different
than the first guitar, but youstill want it to be cohesive with the

(56:22):
other one. Not muddy and notconfusing, but cohesive, right, right,
Yeah, that's so important and sucha great tip. Yeah. So,
like that second guitar that you're recordingcannot be too boomy and cannot be
too bright or neither the two.It has to sound good with that first
guitar. It has to sound likethey belong to each other. Right,

(56:45):
And you do that by arranging itproperly, playing it properly, and micing
it properly. Yeah, And that'swhy I say, like people usually don't
know how to arrange, and peopledon't know how to record, so and
the recording is the whole thing,meaning the capture, the arrangement, the

(57:07):
whole planning of everything. People justput the microphone. Yeah it sounds like
guitar, let's do it, youknow, and they start stormming right,
absolutely, And I wish it wasthat simple, but it is not.
So when when when a song isproperly recorded right again, you will be

(57:30):
able to just make a simple faderbalance with a little bit of panning and
everything will be there right. No, I agree. That's that's so essential
that the recording is well thought outand well prepared so that it's this process

(57:51):
is seamless. Yeah, because itdoesn't matter if you're in your bedroom or
you are in a five million dollarstudio. You can still make that same
mistake of just putting the microphone thereand just pressing record and not checking if
that thing that you're overdubbing actually hasanything to do sound wise with the rest.
You know. Yeah, I've definitelyhad you know, recordings that turned

(58:14):
out shitty from studios as opposed toa home studio. So it's you know,
just as important your placement in therecording studio if you're not recording at
home. Yeah, yeah, it'syeah, that is place independent. Yeah,
it doesn't matter where you are.Even if you're recording everything in your

(58:35):
bathroom, there will be something thatwill make those two guitars that you're recording
in your bathroom to sound cohesive witheach other, and you'll have to you
have to search and find it,yeah, to make it work. Yeah,
even if it's in the bathroom.I'm not saying that it's going to
sound beautiful, but at least it'sgoing to sound like they belong to each
other, which is the important thing, which is actually we're depth is in

(59:00):
your reverb that you've maybe maybe that'sthe same thing that happens with hardware.
Just it just you know, thewhole machine is coherent with itself, you
know. So Yeah, I mean, I not long ago recorded a an
album that will not be released soonwith with a band that I work a

(59:24):
lot with. The Thing with thisband is that they just make songs every
single day, and they have awhole bunch of songs, right, and
we have, including this album,we have three albums that we've worked on.

(59:45):
First one is already out. Thesecond one they just put up one
single and they're gonna put out anothersingle in December, so there's there's still
a whole other album before this thirdalbum gets released. I haven't mixed it
anything, but they wanted to recordit and they were very excited about it.

(01:00:05):
The songs are really good and everything. And we went to I mean,
the first two albums that we did, we did during the pandemic in
their house. It turned out reallygood. To be a like a home
recording, it turned out really good. But this time we went to a
proper studio and like we really reallyreally sat down, like with you know,

(01:00:30):
checking that the drum tuning actually fitthe song. And I don't mean
like tuning the drums to the notesof the song. I really do not
believe in that. I just wantthe drums to fit in the song.
Yeah, you know, So wehad all you know, the reference tracks

(01:00:51):
recorded with old reference vocals, referenceguitars, that guitars were like you know,
a sims. They weren't real things. But all the whole song was
there, the whole basic arrangement ofthe song was there, so we could
start actually recording on top of theactual creation of it, so that we

(01:01:12):
could take care that every single thingthat we were going to put on top
of anything it would fit the actualsong. Yeah. So starting with the
drums, we made the drums fitinto this thing. Obviously, the drums
sounded way better because they were ina proper studio instead of being you know,

(01:01:34):
fake drums or whatever. But thetuning of the drums and the intention
of the drummer playing to the songjust gave us this huge foundation for the
rest the glue. Yeah. Sowe recorded this thing, and I did
I did quite a lot of processinggoing in because we had the gear.

(01:02:00):
When you're in a proper studio,you have a you know, have great
pre amplifiers, and you have greatoutboard accues and great outboard compressors. And
the thing with analog gear is thatif you don't know it's there, you
don't know it's there when you hearstuff. Yeah. Right, if you

(01:02:28):
have a good compressor, you canmake it basically make it on audible,
like you won't hear the action ofthe compression, right, you just hear
that the vocals are there, butyou won't hear it pumping or anything unless
you want it to pump, right. And this is compressor dependent because it's
not all compressors that do this,but you can you can achieve certain things

(01:02:52):
in in the outur domain that youcannot do in the digital domain yet.
So I basically recorded this whole albumso that the album sounds almost mixed.
Press play and the manager of theband hadn't her hadn't listened to the album

(01:03:15):
recording since we did it. Andthis was February or so, and I
recently played one song out of mycell phone and he was like, what
is this. I'm like, thisis the new album. He's like,
are these The guys like yeah,because I mean the singer hadn't started singing

(01:03:37):
yet, right, He's like,did you already mix it? No,
this is the raw recording. Theguy was like, what And that's exactly
what you like. That's exactly whatyou what you want from a recording,
yeah, not from a not froma mixed song, that's what you want.

(01:03:59):
I have a lot of work todo, yeah, because this is
like okay, now I have alot of stuff to make more exciting and
more interesting. Now I can workout of taste. Yeah, not out
of like I need to get thisthing right. It's already right. It's

(01:04:20):
already right. It's already sounding.I mean, it doesn't sound like a
finished record because it is not afinished record, don't get me wrong,
but it sounds almost mixed, right. You just have to put the cherry
on top. Yeah, I meanyou have to. Yeah, of course,
you know, the vocals don't havethe reverbs that they should have,
or you know, the lead guitarhas a little delay that we put in

(01:04:44):
the amplifier, but it'll have moredelay with you know, plugins and more
space and whatever. But you hearit, and then you hear the song,
You're like, you don't have toreally imagine anything else because everything is
there and you have the like thesong is transmitting the right energy from the
recording. You don't have to youdon't have to make it happen afterwards.

(01:05:05):
So that's that's one thing, Likepeople are waiting for for the for the
fixing in the mix to happen.Yeah. Absolutely, So you definitely have
a lot of a lot on yourplate right now with albums to mix an
artist, you're working with. Isthere some where people can find you for

(01:05:29):
any mixing needs if you're taking onmore work right now? Yeah, I'm
I usually answer pretty quickly on Instagram. Sorry. On Instagram, my user
name is natural Molino, and that'sbasically where you can find me the whole

(01:05:56):
day. I mean, it's notlike I'm on Instagram the whole day,
but every time I take a littlebreak, I'll go to Instagram and check
the feed, and you know,probably a friend has sent me a meme
or reel or something to just laughand just it's my way of you know,
relaxing in between in between songs orwhen I'm already you know, burned

(01:06:20):
out for mixing a song, youneed to take a rest, right,
Yeah, you need to, youknow, you need to step away for
a little bit and just you know, reset your brain, let your ears
breathe. Yeah. Yeah, sometimesyou've got to work in a lot of
things in one day. Yeah.Yeah, Okay, So people can find

(01:06:42):
you there and I will definitely putthat in the liner notes like your website
and Instagram of the podcast when itcomes out too. But thank you for
this conversation today, and I thinkit's just been a very insightful conversation on
mixing and great to get to knowyour work and your story behind how you

(01:07:06):
got to where you are now,