improvisacion con guitarra y pedales, loopsampler.

"Shadow"

Old Me, New You (2)

Improvisación en guitarra Sampleo Ayn Rand(1959)

You Don't Understand

(Eng) 
"Paralysis" is the opening track of the debut EP of the same name by "los Ateos" (The Atheists in spanish). This was one of the very first albums I -Kind-of-"lead" the direction of the recording process, tho´, the band just asked me to join as a drummer. I choose this track because of the aesthetic we achieved, I wanted to expose the band as a very eclectic, but still dark and aggressive project being the most challenging part the guitar as the only harmonic instrument. We thid all the music live, at Testa Estudio. I recorded my drums in a fairly simple kit, but for the guitar we split the signal in two amplifiers, a Mesa Boogie rectifier combo and an Ampeg SVT4 into a 4x10 cab. The trick was to give very different character to each by using pedals for each chain, the ZVex "Whoolly Mammooth", on the "bass" side the main distortion and some drive for guitar(i can´t recall which one), also EXH "POG" was big part of the equation for the whole sound through the whole album. For vocals I put some tape delay, the Korg "Stage Echo", I did two separate takes of that so the vocal could have a "stereo" slap back. This process was used through the whole mix stage for the vocal, so it could sit better in the mix and achieve a dark and gritty tone which, by the way was done on the Series 600 SoundCraft mixer at Testa Estudio on another session. For the intro and the interlude ´till the very end of the song I used a very cool pedal named "Eterna" by Mr. Black, I doubled the guitar track in ProTools and sent it to the tape delay and then to the Eterna. The result was this shimmering synth-like pad sound. 
The album was released in february 2014(recorded december 2013) an had a fairly good reception.

(Esp)
"Paralysis" es la primer pista del EP debut del mismo nombre de "Los Ateos". Este fue uno de los primeros álbumes que -medio-"lidereé" la dirección del proceso de grabación, aunque, la banda solo me pidió que me uniera como baterista. Elegí esta pista por la estética que conseguimos, quería exponer a la banda como un proyecto muy ecléctico, pero aún oscuro y agresivo, siendo la parte más difícil  que la guitarra era el instrumento armónico. Grabamos toda la música en vivo, en Testa Estudio. Grabé mis baterías en un kit bastante simple, pero para la guitarra dividimos la señal en dos amplificadores, un combo Mesa Boogie Rectifier y un Ampeg SVT4 en una 4x10. El truco era dar un carácter muy diferente a cada uno usando pedales para cada cadena, el ZVex "Whoolly Mammooth", en el lado "bajo" como distorsión principal y alguna unidad para la guitarra (no puedo recordar cuál), también el "POG" de EXH fue gran parte de la ecuación para todo el sonido, durante todo el álbum. 
Para las voces puse un poco de delay de cinta, el Korg "Stage Echo", hice dos tomas separadas de eso para que la voz tuviera un "slap back" "estereofónico". Este proceso se utilizó a través de toda la etapa de mezcla para la voz, para que sentara mejor en la mezcla y lograr un tono oscuro y "sucio" que, por cierto se hizo en la consola Series 600 SoundCraft en Testa Estudio en otra sesión. Para la introducción, el interludio y el final utilicé un pedal muy chido llamado "Eterna" de Mr. Black, doblé la pista de guitarra en ProTools y la envié al "Stage Echo" y luego a la Eterna. El resultado fue un sonido muy interesante como el de un sintetizador.
El álbum fue lanzado en febrero de 2014 (grabado en diciembre de 2013) y tuvo una recepción bastante buena.

Los Ateos-"Paralysis" (Paralysis EP 2014)

(ENG) 
"Are You Mad?" its a track from the 2014 debut EP by the band Muuk.
I choose this theme because it was one of my favorites of the album and a head ache to mix, which leaded me to take a couple decisions that make me almost ask the band "ARE YOU MAD?!".
I believe this was the first time i got involved as a "producer". The preproduction was fairly quick, i sat with the guys at their rehearsal space and listen, then we did a lot of chopping and changed some sounds from the DJ´s beats and tracks. After that we headed to Testa Estudio for just a weekend. The band did a great job at tracking, I put them to play live with just a couple overdubs "here and there" through the whole record. 
Technically speaking the whole process was very simple, I just replaced some of their usual gear for "better" or with more character stuff for each song.  As much as I recall the only overdub in the track is for the guitar at the heavier parts, I threw some pedals and asked the guitar player to play what ever he felt was needed but with me performing with the pedals some random movements in a robotic like pattern being the Digitech "Whammy IV" the main and the ZVex Inventobox the gated fuzz for the part, my Fender JazzMaster was the guitar used, for the main guitar track we choose my Les Paul Custom, and for the bass my Gibson G3 through a Tech21 VT deluxe, drums were a mixture of Yamaha, Tama and Mapex Drums. for the synth parts a vintage Korg MS-10 was played through some pedals. The arpeggio towards the end and outro of the song was done with a digital to analog sequencer, which provides this incredibly simple but yet intricate melody.
The mix processes was done in other day. I premixed the session in ProTools and then on the 600 Series SoundCraft analogue mixer of Testa Studio, having the Korg "Stage Echo"(tape delay), and the Eventide "Space" and "Time Factor" as my aux effects. It was quite challenging because I had to did this mix session and "Los Ateos" album in the same night all by my self. Started by learning each move I had to do track by track and set the outboard effect parameters, fader levels, pans, EQ settings, rehearsing each move as a performance, it was very fun but i has a very short amount of time but thanks to the incredible engineering job by "KB", owner of the studio, was not a nightmare. When i got to mix this track I had a lot of problems towards the end of it, so i had to tell the band i had to chop a part of the DJ´s beats as the kick drum pattern was all over the place, doing syncopations and -to be honest what ever the fuck the guy wanted...- so they went very mad at me... I almost quit, but i was so committed to make the best record I could so i ignored them, because... lets be honest... in the end was my job making a real difference and sometimes a producer´s job has to be the "bad guy".
The album was released in 2014 and had a very nice reception by the independent media achieving some interesting numbers in various "Best of the Year" charts. 
You can listen the whole album an buy it at: https://muukband.bandcamp.com/
I played additional guitar and synths in various tracks.

Muuk

Muuk-"Are You Mad?"(2014)

"You Know What I Am" is a track of what would be the 3th album of a project I had called "A Secret System of Caves and Conduits". I still don´t know why but this tracks is still one of my favorites so far, i never imagined this particular song could end sounding like this, especially because in the writing and preproduction phase, which happen in a matter of days, was supposed to be recorded in a home studio environment but at the very last stage we headed to Testa Estudio as i had some free days in between sessions with other projects.
As the scenario was better I decided to incorporate a more acoustic and organic aesthetics to the song. 
The song is divided by two main parts, the intro and verse is leaded by the electric guitar which i tracked live with the singer who by the way is the author of the lyrics, my idea in the beginning was very simple but as soon i heard the lyrics i knew it had to be more dramatic and dark, I tried to achieve this by heavy using of reverb and shimmer provided by the Eventide "Space" and doing volume swells with my volume pedal the signal was recorded on two amps in stereo, a Fender BandMaster and a modded Sovtek Mig60 through 4x12 cabinets, both with a large diaphragm condenser and a ribbon microphones, i believe both had a vintage Sony C38B and maybe Coles 4038 for the ribbons. For the first time in my life i recorded acoustic guitar! I used a Fender acoustic(I don´t recall the model but was a nice big dreadnought)mic´ed with a LDC AudioTechnica, I doubled this performance with the exact same set up at the studio´s vocal booth. The vocal part was too divided in two performances, the part with lyrics was done in the smaller live room with a LDC Neumann and a Ribbon, I can´t remember what models because we had to change a lot to match the color of the singers performance. the second part of the song is more melodic, intricate and noisy which was done by a vocal performance through a Digitech Jamman looper connected to a Fender Blues Jr. guitar amp with a BeyerDynamic M160 Dynamic Microphone, and another electric guitar performance by me doing chords detuned by the tremolo bar of my Jazzmaster with a reverse delay on my Eventide "Time Factor" through the same Blues Jr. amp and microphone. My purpose was trying to melt this two performance sonically. The recording was done on the analog realm by the 2 inch tape machine Sony MCI, and mixed with the Neotek Series 2 analog console. 
I used the Korg "Stage Echo"´s short delay setting and its spring reverb to give the song a darker and more ambient vibe, with heavy use of the Mr. Black "Eterna" pedal on the vocal parts and some on electric guitars. The last part of the mix process was done on Ableton Live because I´m more familiar with that DAW and i wanted to have more control of the sounds doing crossfades, pans and some automatizations, I also did a copy of the main electric guitar part and focus on the bass so I could get a lot more of the bass notes from it and make it quite heavier and deeper. I did the mastering of the song with mostly Waves plugins on Ableton Live. This track and the album was never released but the album was almost done through september and november of 2015.

A Secret System of Caves and Conduits - "You Know What I Am"(2015)

"Sona" which means "Gold" in hindi is a track from the Tsmoto San Mi´s album "Aimai" ("Ambiguous" in japanese) I played bass and do some of the lead singing through the record though this is an almost instrumental track. I choose this track because firstly is the shorter one of the album but also because it was one of the last ones to wrote, with almost no preproduction, I love this record because we did all the music live, with no ovedubs at all, just for the vocal parts and i did the samples in the mix. This song is a mixture of two song ideas one provided by the ex bass player which is based on the intro´s chord progression, followed by this very intense verse like guitar lead parts, the other musical idea came from a forgotten Tsmoto song named "Virux" that contained the only vocal part of the song which i rather did with a vocorder, I used a EHX "Voice Box" singing the lyrics while the guitar part was played by the guitar player. The sound provided by the vocorder was recorder through a guitar amp as it was a guitar, actually all vocals on this album were done likewise. 
I wanted to give this album a very dark aesthetic but trying to keep the heavy tone and yet this "falling apart" sensation to the music, with this matter we use mostly vintage equipment, mostly cheap tiny amps for the guitars and bass but using another set of amps at the same time for each one to give this muscular heavy tone. For drums we gravitated in a similar fashion using a 1960´s Ludwig kit, with a 24" bass drum and a very deep snare. We recorded in one day and I mixed at my studio on Ableton Live. "Aimai" was recorded on september 2015 but released until december 2016 for various reasons. you can listen to the whole album here: https://tsmoto.bandcamp.com/

(ESP)
"Sona" significa "Oro" en hindi es un track del álbum "Aimai" ("Ambiguo" en japonés) de Tsmoto San Mi. Toco el bajo y hago parte de la voz principal en el disco, aunque esta es practicante un tema instrumental. Elijo esta canción porque en primer lugar es la más corta del álbum pero también porque fue una de las últimas en escribir, casi sin preproducción, me encanta este disco porque hicimos toda la música en vivo, sin ovedubs en absoluto, solo para las partes vocales e hice los sampleos y texturas en la mezcla. Esta canción es una mezcla de dos ideas, una proporcionada por el ex bajista que se basa en la progresión de acordes de la intro, seguida por este verso muy intenso con guitarra lea, la otra idea musical vino de una canción olvidada de Tsmoto llamada " Virux "que contenía la única parte vocal de la canción que más bien hice con un vocorder, usé un " Voice Box " de EHX cantando la letras mientras la parte de guitarra fue tocada por el guitarrista. El sonido proporcionado por el vocorder fue grabado a través de un amplificador de guitarra, como si fuera guitarra, de hecho todas las voces en este álbum se hicieron de la misma manera.
Quería dar a este álbum una estética muy oscura pero tratando de mantener el tono pesado y esta sensación sórdida, con este fin usamos principalmente equipo antiguos, en su mayoría pequeños amplificadores para las guitarras y el bajo, pero con otro set de amplificadores al mismo tiempo para cada uno y dar este tono pesado. Para la batería trabajamos de una manera similar con un kit Ludwig de los años 1960, con un bombo de 24" y una tarola muy profunda. Grabamos en un día y mezclé en mi estudio en Ableton Live "Aimai" fue grabado en septiembre 2015 pero lanzado hasta diciembre de 2016 por varias razones. Puedes escuchar el álbum entero aquí: https://tsmoto.bandcamp.com/

Tsmoto San Mi "Sona" (2016)

(ENG)
"Nothing Seems So Bright" from "Railrod 1 The Rise of The Hermit".
This song is one of my favorites ever recorded. I met this band doing some mixing for a demo, then the lead singer/guitar player asked me to record them but as they were not prepared enough I said "no" then he came back to ask for a full production, this time working with me as a duo, was pretty fun to do all instruments between two people. This tracks really caught my eye in the demo version, was like 12 minutes long, have like 9 solos and the drum arrangement was very unpleasant. We had a two month preproduction but time is never enough, but i was pretty confident of this particular track, so we finished the arrangements at the studio, this time after many time I din´t worked at my beloved Testa Estudio, we went somewhere else, with a very unprofessional junkie "engineer", who by the way was trying to "produce" the album... with any knowledge of the repertoire, aesthetics or even technical stuff as how to put a Royer 121 on an amp and how much db´s can handle... we did a mix at Testa but was pretty unsatisfying. After giving it a try we ended recording all guitars at Testa Estudio. I really love the mixture of textures in the guitars, from acoustic to crunchy electrics to full-on blast driven amps..! The main riff and intro of the song was recorded with a EDS-1275 Gibson guitar, is a 12 string and a 6 string double neck guitar witch I believe we recorded through a Supro S6420 Thunderbolt  1x15" Amp. we used an original 1970´s Marshall Plexi super Lead, for the lead part of the intro I left on the acoustic guitar microphone and tuned it to an open E minor chord, so it rang sympathetically with the performance of the lead take. its a pretty interesting "room" mic sound. There´s all kind of guitar tones in this record, I love it..!
I played bass, Drums and keyboards in this track and through the whole album, in this track you can hear the mellotron tones in the interlude reminiscing of Led Zeppelin and other bands from that era. 
the bass was recorded with a ´62 precision bass, through a sans amp and a CMP Electronica "OMG" brand that I proudly endorse. it´s a solid state amplifier head which can give a very punchy and dark tone but yet snappy, I love it; into a 4x10 Ampeg. For drums I used a mixture of my Gretsch kit and an amazing Ludwig 24" bass drum with no port hole in it. But in the end we used a fairly big amount of triggers at Testa, ironically trying to give the kit a more natural vintagy sound, we did our own samples at the studio so it was not that bad. We cheated but we did it in a cool way. 
I mixed and mastered the whole album at my studio, the album was released on 2016 having a very good reception with some media. 
Now i´m part of the band too and we´re preparing the next album. you can listen to the whole record here: https://play.spotify.com/album/0VVLKi3Y1GIXQLC1GLajWS

The Rise Of The Hermit

RailRod -"Nothing Seems So Bright"(2016)

(eng)
"Falling Apart" is the first single from the debut EP of "SadFields".
I met the band in a show at a very shitty venue at Mexico City. I got a demo from the drummer and I got caught right away with their sound.  They are pretty young(19-21)and they are great musicians and people.
We are currently working on the final touched of the entire album´s mix. We recorded at Testa Estudio, again, on analog tape, we had a month for preproduction at my studio, doing some arrangements and develop the sound. We choose two amps for guitar and two for bass. An Vox AC30 for guitar and a CMP Electronica OMG, both amps are very different which contributed for the overall sound. for the bass we used a Traynor bass amp through a Ampeg 1x15 and my Sunn Concert Bass head with a Sunn 2x15, both with some pedals to make more obvious whats going on in each amp. 
We did quite few overdubs, with heavy use of fuzz pedals as the ZVex fuzzfactory, inventobox, mastrotron, EHX BigMuff, and some other overdrives. Another prominent pedal was the Eventide Space. 
for tracking live and overdubs a Squier JazzMaster and my Fender JazzMaster were the guitars of choice. For bass we used almost a bass per song, I believe for this particular track a Aria Pro Ripper copy was the bass of choice. I did the mix and master on Ableton Live.
you can listen and Follow Sadfields here: 
https://sadfields.bandcamp.com/releases

(Esp)
"Falling Apart" es el primer single del EP debut de "SadFields".
Conocí a la banda en una tocada en un lugar muy mierda en la Ciudad de México.  El baterista de la banda me mando su demos y me atrapó enseguida con su sonido. Son muy jóvenes (19-21) y son grandes músicos y personas.
Actualmente estamos trabajando en el final de toda la mezcla del álbum. Grabamos en Testa Estudio, de nuevo, en cinta analógicamente, hicimos un mes de preproducción en mi estudio, haciendo algunos arreglos y desarrollando el sonido. Elegimos dos amplificadores para guitarra y dos para bajo ambos usados simultáneamente. Un Vox AC30 para guitarra y un CMP Electronica OMG, ambos amplificadores son muy diferentes y contribuyeron mucho para el sonido general. Para el bajo usamos un amplificador de bajo Traynor a través de un Ampeg 1x15 y mi Sunn Concert Bass con un Sunn 2x15, ambos con algunos pedales para hacer más obvio lo que está pasando en cada amplificador.
Hicimos bastantes overdubs, con el uso recurrente de pedales del fuzz como el fuzzfactory, inventobox, mastrotron de ZVex, EHX BigMuff y algunas otros overdrives. Otro pedal destacado fue el Space de Eventide. 
Para el tracking en vivo y overdubs usamos una Squier JazzMaster y mi Fender JazzMaster. Para el bajo usamos casi un bajo por canción, creo que para esta pista en particular un Ripper Aria Pro fue el bajo seleccionado. Hice la mezcla y master en Ableton Live.
puedes escuchar y seguir a Sadfields aquí: 
https://sadfields.bandcamp.com/releases

SadFields "Falling Apart"(2016)

(eng)
"Cementerio" (spanish for "graveyard") is one of my favorite tracks of this album, is the slowest and darkest of them all. This record has taken a lot of time to do actually we ended recording it again. This is a very guitar oriented album and has very interesting tones, with heavy use of fuzz pedals. Again, proudly recorded at Testa Estudio using two amps for guitar and bass for the live track. Mainly my Sovtek Mig 100B, which is a russian copy of a JCM 800 but taylored for bass. its a very dark and loud amp, but in conjunction with another amp makes this almost tri-dimensional effect, a Fender Band Master of a Orange TH30 were the secondary amps, depending on the take, song or guitar of choice, for the bass a Traynor combo and a SVT4 through an ampeg 4x10 did the job.
I did the drum tracking of the album, i remember using my 26" Gretsch bass drum, wich is an amazing drum for recording, has tons of low end and a very -in-your-face- attack. Ludwig 12" for racks tom and a tama 16 for floor tom and my brand new instanbul agop cymbals. we did guitar overdubs for all the songs, we tracked every rythm guitar twice, and some parts here and there, like guitar solos. vocals were recorded on various separate sessions and then we did a revisit for some guitar takes, trying to push a better performance and tone. The album was mixed and mastered at Testa Estudio by the amazing Kb, owner and main engineer at the studio. 
the album will be released this year, we are in the final steps of doing the art work, in the meantime you can follow the band here:
https://www.facebook.com/MalEquilibrista/

(Esp)
"Cementerio" es una de mis canciones favoritas de este álbum, es la más lenta y más oscura de todas. Este disco ha tomado mucho tiempo para realizarse, terminamos grabando dos veces. 
Es un álbum muy orientado a la guitarra y tiene tonos muy interesantes, con uso intenso de los pedales de fuzz. 
Nuevamente, grabado orgullosamente en Testa Estudio, usando dos amplificadores para guitarra y bajo para el traking en vivo. Principalmente mi Sovtek Mig 100B, que es una copia rusa de un JCM 800 pero enfocado para el bajo, es un amplificador muy oscuro y fuerte, pero en conjunción con otro amplificador hace este efecto casi tridimensional, un Fender BandMaster y un Orange TH30 fueron los amplia secundarios, dependiendo de la toma, la canción o la guitarra de elección. Para el bajo un combo Traynor y un SVT4 a través de un ampeg 4x10 hizo el trabajo.
Yo grabé las baterías del álbum, usé mi  bombo de 26 "Gretsch, es un tambor increíble para grabar, tiene toneladas de graves y un ataque muy agresivo, ese día estrené en el estudio mis set nuevo de platillos Istanbul Agop.
Hicimos overdubs de guitarra para todas las canciones, traqueamos cada guitarra rítmica dos veces, y algunas partes aquí y allá, como solos de guitarra. las voces fueron grabadas en varias sesiones separadas y luego hicimos una revisión para algunas tomas de guitarra, tratando de sacar una mejor interpretación y tono. 
El álbum fue mezclado y masterizado en Testa Estudio por el gran Kb, propietario e ingeniero principal del estudio.
El álbum será lanzado este año, estamos en los últimos pasos de hacer el trabajo de portada, mientras tanto puedes seguir a la banda aquí:
Https://www.facebook.com/MalEquilibrista/

MalEquilibrista "Cementerio" (2016)

(Eng)"Madre de Dios"(Mother of God) is my studio, where I work as a record producer and multi-instrumentalist, doing field recordings, stuff recorded here, at my studio or elsewhere when necessary. Feel free to listen and comment, this is a collection of tracks I´ve done with the artists, authors, engineers, and any implicated, helping me to evolve in this short career. 
So, join me in this trip and please shut the fuck off your socials in the meantime.
RodE.

(Esp)"Madre de Dios" es mi estudio, donde me realizo como productor y multi-instrumentista, haciendo grabaciones de campo, cosas grabadas en mi estudio, o en donde sea necesario.  Sientete libre de acompañarme, escuchar y opinar. Esta es una colección de varias producciones que junto a los artistas, autores, ingenieros y demás implicados he crecido al paso de los pocos años que llevo en esto.
RodE.

Madre De Dios Estudio

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