Showing posts with label alex mastering job. Show all posts

Historias de España

Raül Fernández Miró and Sílvia Pérez Cruz, two of Alex's long time clients from Spain released a great new album a little while ago, called Granada. Raül is undoubtedly one of Spain's most interesting and most sought after producers right now. He's constantly coming out with one mind blowing release after another.

Sílvia is on the other hand one of the stronger female voices of the country. She started off her musical career as the co-founder and lead singer of flamenco pop band Las Migas but is now going solo and often seen collaborating with Raül. It seems nothing can go wrong when these two multi-talented Catalan artists work together. The song in the video above has a very special effect, I think not only on myself. But there's no way I can listen to it without crying. It's like an internal button that hits each time it's played. In particular in the studio Alex works where sound is impeccable and it feels like Sílvia is whispering delicate words right into your ear.

Here's another fantastic piece of art, (Sílvia sings in six different languages on that particular album):
Check out Raül's Facebook here and Sílvias here. Their latest album Granada can be found on many places online but only on iTunes is also the first song I showed you, included.

Here you can find some info about Alex's music mastering affairs if you missed it last time.


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mastering and music

I have so much music to share with you, albums and artists I want to talk to you about. Many of them are Alex's mastering clients and he's been pretty fortunate to work on some real good productions this past year since we got back on land and he started working out of a studio again. 

A quick crash course in what exactly "mastering engineering" is for the ones of you who doesn't know what his profession actually means: It is the final step in a musical production. When the artist, producer and mixing engineer has done their part in recording and mixing, and the music is about to go out on the market, that is when the files are sent to a mastering engineer. 

Mastering pretty much means fine tuning music, it can mean removing distortion, adding dynamic and adding the particular sound that the artist or producer is looking for. It's about removing what's not meant to be there, about enhancing what's good. It's also about making the music translate its best in the same way regardless of the sound system it will be played on. Some projects are obviously more challenging than other, all depending on the production and how well done the mix is.

While certain producers reach their accepted level of sound by producing and mastering on their laptops, the truth is it is very hard to compare with the depth and 3D sound of a custom built mastering studio environment with top notch analog equipment in combination with the digital tools to perfect each step of a production.

It is mind-blowing what a difference a good master can do to music. Most people don't realize this step even exists as it is a very low key profession. But it is interesting to know that many artists and producers would have never sounded the way they do wouldn't it have been with the aid of their chosen ME.
Given the importance of this step in production, it's been not only rewarding for Alex to be back in the studio after a few years of sailing, but also for his old clients to have him back as they've had hard finding the specific sound they've been used to anywhere else since he sold his studio in Barcelona four years ago. It's a pretty personal thing after all, how your music sounds and how you wish for it to be received. What it is you are going to offer your audience. If you take your work seriously, you obviously want it to be as perfect as possible.

Alex's mastering trademark is his dynamic and loud sound (without being too aggressive which is a balancing act) and therefore does he have a lot of electronic (minimal, techno, tech house) clients that demand a massive bombastic club sound, as well as artists and music with a lot of heavy bass, such as reggae, dub and hip hop. I am also going to show you some absurdly good flamenco pop/ experimental that he's worked on.

But first these great reggae tunes by Rampalion, one being a dub version. Incredibly talented band all the way through and with the mastering work by Alex the sound is just impeccable. Seriously speaking. Make sure to listen with very good headphones or sound system please. Transports you back to a hot Caribbean beach...


Check out Alex's website here, and although not fully updated > here < you can find some of the music and artists he's worked with in the past few months. Feel free to like his new Facebook page too if you like.

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