Ibiza Mix 2014 (Blanco y Negro Music)

After a long time without updating this blog, which serves as a compilation of samples of my work in the audiovisual, sound and musical field, today I show you the last of the megamixes I created with Josep González 'Crydamour' (under the pseudonym 'Cut'N'Paste') for the label Blanco y Negro Music. It is the 2014 edition of one of the great sagas of Spanish megamixes, which began in 1994, and which previously worked important creators of this guild as Toni Peret, Jose Maria Castells or Mike Platinas. Ibiza Mix contained, year after year, the coolest summer dance music, and this time it was no less.

Cut'N'Paste was in charge of mixing 2008, 2009, 2010 & 2011 editions, in addition to the one I present to you today, and a good number of editions of another important saga, Bolero Mix, which will be referred to later. Enjoy it!

Music for TV adaptation of RENT

Three years ago, a number of good classmates and me boarded a theoretical television adaptation of reputed musical RENT, within the framework of compulsory practical tasks of the Theory and Technique of Audiovisual Programming subject, belonging to Bachelor’s Degree in Audio-Visual Communication. Under the teaching direction of Dr. Sonia Blanco, we developed for a few months not only inherent in matter issues (such as its location on the program schedule and its justification, the choice of the national television broadcaster should release the product, according to target and other variables, or analysis of the program schedule for time bands), but also the production and filming of a 20-25 minutes pilot episode.

Each one of the colleagues involved several tasks, both in development as in production itself. One of the matters that concerned to me was the development of the soundtrack. Given the time constraints (there were many more tasks to develop, as well as other subjects of the degree to overcome), for incidental music I prepared a small compilation of royalty free music. However, it was necessary to work with special involvement two essential moments of this adaptation. On the one hand, the opening theme, and on the other, the musical performance through which was presented the character of Rober (called Roger in the original version) to viewers.

About the opening theme, I built the main melody of the most relevant song of the work, "No day but today", using Steinberg Cubase Elements 7. It was produced working with this software and Adobe Audition CS6. It is a short pop interpretation with some rock and electronic elements, trying to recall the eclectic air of popular music of the 80s (moment at which both the work and adaptation are framed), without forgetting the quality of sound and finishing that current technology provides.
 

As regards the second song, it is an acoustic performance of the song "One song glory", from the musical itself, created for the scene in which Rober plays a live performance on the stage of a bar. This work is more complicated than it seems, since I assembled six guitar tracks to try to find a professional finish, although in principle what is expected may be a single track to set the interpretation to reality. I also spent some time setting the proper delay effect to stick to the spatiality suggested by the original theme, in addition to providing a personal touch. As a final curiosity, as I could not find a professional vocalist on time, I had to interpret the song myself, even if singing is not among my best skills.
 

 I hope you enjoy them!

Ads and promotional spots samples bank

For this update I bring you a refreshing bank of ads and promotional spots that I speeched and produced while I worked on esRadio Axarquia and esRadio Malaga radio stations. They were edited and produced with Adobe Audition 3.0. I covered a wide range of characteristics and expressive possibilities with them. You can hear my youthful and powerful voice standing out in all of them. In the most of cases, I chose the songs and wrote the scripts as well.


There is the whole list of spots:

- Promo: Radio Axarquía (afternoons, Monday to Friday).

- Promo: Feria de San Miguel 2011 (Torremolinos, Málaga).
- Advertising spot: Spar (Melilla).
- Promo: esRadio Axarquía Promo (Saturdays).
- Advertising spot: El Arte del Perrito (Málaga).
- Advertising spot: Matisse (Melilla).
- Advertising spot: El Rincón del Gourmet (Torremolinos, Málaga).
- Promo: esRadio Axarquía (Sundays).
- Promo: X Costa del Sol Classics (Torre del Mar, Málaga).
- Advertising spot: Rattan (Melilla).
- Promo: Clínicas Rincón-Palencia Baloncesto basketball match.
- Advertising spot: Mesón Ramos (Torre del Mar, Málaga).
- Promo: esDeportes (esRadio Axarquía).
- Promo: Torre del Mar Town Hall Delegation.


As a bonus (at the bottom), I show you a morning madness that I made in esRadio Malaga in a boring day without work. As I hadn't musical instruments available to me, I used my own voice as a tool for create an alternative tune for "Entremedias" Saturday edition ("Entremedias" was a radio magazine presented by Rafael Calvo). Absolutely everything you can hear in this work is my voice, processed in a major or minor way.


That's all today. I hope you enjoy these works. If you like them and need me for working in your projects, just call me, I will listen to you ;)

Radio monographic report: the story of Jose Maria "El Tempranillo"

During my academic path, in order to get my Audio-Visual Communication Bachelor’s Degree in Malaga University, I had the opportunity of showing my skills on audio processing and radio several times. I could to link up both competencies in some of these opportunities, as in the case I show us today.

It was 2010/2011 academic year when I attended an elective subject called Modern and Contemporary Andalusian History. So, because of a mandatory task in this matter, I had the opportunity of present this audio that I am showing you today. My partners and me decided to approach the world of Andalusian banditry in the nineteenth century. However, while other students chose (very worthily, of course) to present an audio-visual production, usually as a documentary, we proposed to show an hardly ever used option in this degree: the radio monograph.
Thus, after an exhaustive investigation, my classmates and me offered a radio report in three parts, narrated by ourselves (in Spanish language), and including some musical tunes, most of them selected from composers who are framed in the Spanish musical nationalism of the late nineteenth century, as Falla and Granados.

What I am going to show us now is the third of these parts, in which I made the narration. It is, you might say, the most "dramatic" of the three parts, because it explains the life and events of one of the most famous and feared Andalusian bandits of those days: Jose Maria "El Tempranillo".

José María, "El Tempranillo".

As you will listen, I added to the mere information some theatrical character, inspired, as one would expect, in the figure of the famous, even if ill-fated, journalist Juan Antonio Cebrián, who delighted us every week with some 'Pasaje de la Historia (Passage of History)' from "La Rosa de los Vientos (The Wind Rose)" (magazine broadcasted by Onda Cero, Spanish radio station, and currently directed and presented by Bruno Cardeñosa) with this such a personal way that he had when told past events. I also took to develop one of my strengths: the sound atmosphere based on sound libraries, playing with perspectives, characters and spaces to imitate.
In closing, I must thank my friend Ruben Nuñez for providing some additional voices to the story. I hope you enjoy it. By the way, even if I don’t like to brag about it... this work was graded with an A qualification ;) See you next time!

Discards collection in commercial megamixes

This time I’m going to surprise my friends who are fans of megamixes, showing some examples of discarded segments of these discs that I have had the opportunity to participate being part of Cut’n’Paste team, for Blanco y Negro Music label. In the following tracklist you will find discarded extracts from Bolero Mix 25, Bolero Mix 26, Ibiza Mix 2009, and the latest so far, Bolero Mix 29.

Working in the music industry is far from easy, because a mass of interests converge, on which the author does not usually exert any influence. In the case of dance music compilations, the closest link is usually the A&R of the corporation, who is directly responsible for the project in the first place.

Of course, the views of executive producer, other A&R from the company, even the technician in charge of the mastering, usually affect the final result of the product, although this happens to a lesser extent. This makes the concept that the creator had initially planned ends more or less modified. The criteria of the responsible persons, as well as the changes in the tracklisting throughout the mixing process (some of that changes for last minute), or the inability to obtain fragmentation licenses in time are the variables that cause certain segments are discarded, and therefore, cause the megamix take one way or another at the end.

So I hope you've enjoyed these little oddities. I also promise to share with you in subsequent updates the links so you can hear my full megamixes, although these elements are easy to find in Youtube. Greetings to all!

P.S: I would like to thank earnestly Germán Ortiz (a.k.a. DJ GO) collaborations as "voice" in most contemporary Bolero Mix. Germán is a complete professional, and also has an enviable sense of humour. You can observe this in a couple of extracts which I have presented above (in the discarded endings of Bolero Mix 26 and Bolero Mix 29).

UPDATE: I have added a little foolishness that I prepared for Bolero Mix 28. This wasn’t included because it was done out of time.

"La espuma de Venus" (Heroes del Silencio cover)

To start giving a bit of life to this matter, today I choose to show you some music. This is a version of "La espuma de Venus (The foam of Venus)" (original theme of Heroes del Silencio, included in the album "Avalancha"), that I produced and performed about three years ago by myself.

This new performance was made in order to participate in the online contest "Hechizo 2.0", belonging to the promotion of tribute compilation "Hechizo" in which some artists performed several significant songs of the band, and its well-known lead vocalist, Enrique Bunbury. Finally no such luck, and the song was not selected, but I am especially proud of it, regardless of the judgment of the jury, so I want to share it with you all.

I want to thank, as I have done for many years, to the great guitarist Miguel Angel Leal, for bringing his brilliance playing guitars, not only in this version, but almost all tracks I compose or perform. Enjoy it.

Introduction

I welcome you to my Audio-Visual Blog. I will share in it my past, present and future adventures in the audio-visual, radio, sound and musical areas, which are not only my profession, but also my passion.

 

To release this space, you can see on the top right side of the blog my video-CV (in Spanish language), ready and newly edited. In it I present my skills, hoping to get a stable job soon, obviously related to my skills, where I can grow personally and professionally.

From here, I thank several people, without whom my video-CV would not have been possible: Miriam Moreno, Curro Amador (who was responsible for the camera and making direct sound and, by extension, thanks to Metroradio, www.metroradio.fm-), Pedro Terrero, Kike Ramirez, Sergi Elvira and Toni Peret (which can be heard in a very particular time starring the jingle of a megamix).

I hope you enjoy my media-musical adventures. Be happy!