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.