Biography

I was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela, on October 5, 1961. I’m a graduate from the Humboldt School in Caracas, and I come from a family where art was always present: my mother involved in fine arts and my father a music maniac like few. I took piano lessons between ages 8 and 12 and after finishing High School in 1979, I studied Electronic Engineering for a year at the Metropolitan University so I could specialize in sound. Soon I discovered it was going to be a long road. A short time later, I found a job as the assistant of the radio operator at the Emisora Cultural de Caracas (Caracas’ Cultural Radio Station), and it was there that I definitely discovered my passion. Sadly, there weren’t any audio schools in Caracas at that time, but with the help of the people at the station, I learned about schools in the United States.

I studied at the New York Institute of Audio Research between 1981 and 1982, and in the same period, I took an intensive four-month night course at the Recording Institute of America. Then I continued my studies at the Fanshawe College of Applied Arts in London, Ontario, where I got directly into the second year of the Engineering program at the Music Industry Arts Department. I graduated a year later and received the Best Engineering Award of 1983. This experience helped me understand the reality of the music business, because we had classes by day and practices at the recording studio by the afternoon until late at night.

Back in Caracas and until 1986 I worked for Etcetera Productora Cinematográfica, operating and mixing audio dub for Brazilian TV series and Venezuelan Movies. Meanwhile, I helped establishing the Le Garage Studio with my New York schoolmate José Gasso. I also began doing live recordings for the Cultural radio station, where I ended up working as a plant operator for two and a half years. In 1987, I moved to Arte Digital, where I stayed for two and a half years recording jingles, doing audio sweetening, demos, and record productions. At the same time, I was in charge of recording concerts for the Fundación Orquesta Sinfónica (Philharmonic Orchestra Foundation) and I found time to do album and demo recordings on my own too.

In 1990, I joined the staff of Sonográfica’s Telearte Studios, one of Venezuela’s most important record labels at the time. I stayed there until 1993 (the year the company changed owners) and moved to Le Garage Studio, where an interesting movement of jazz-oriented productions was happening. That’s how in 1995, José Gasso, Miguel González, Héctor Carcedo and I ended up creating “Avatar Records”, our own jazz record label, and developing “Producciones Apio”, a distribution mechanism for our catalog and other independent productions.

Since 2000, I’ve been working on recording and mixing albums. I’ve also worked in the advertising industry, mixing jingles in different recording studios (either commercial or personal), and providing quality engineering to producers and ad agencies. On the side, I still work as a sound operator for live jazz, pop and Latin music shows, providing the equipment required in case there’s any live recording involved.

Keeping up with today’s technology, since 2004 I work from my own surround studio where I edit, mix, master, evaluate products and help friends and clients with last minute emergencies. In my career I’ve worked with all kind of formats, from recording analog in Nagra stereo to a 24 track Dolby SR 2” machine, to digitally from a Beta HiFi to today’s 32 bit hard disk. My current studio is on a Mac platform with Nuendo 5, Cubase SX 3, Pro Tools and Digital Performer, using Motu and Pro Tools interfaces and monitoring through Hafler, Genelec and StudioLab. I have to say, Focusrite and TC Electronics preamplifiers are the best friends of my Neumann, Rode and Shure microphones.

If anyone, the best partners I’ve had in my career are my punctuality and sense of humor, and my main supporters are my wife Raquel and my kids, Lucia, Sofia and Andres, who motivate and refresh me in order to be ready and serve the music industry.