Raices picantes recording sessions

In this post I will talk about the recording sessions planned for the band Raices Picantes.

The Band

Latin American influences blend together to create a new musical experience. Raíces Picantes is a fusion band influenced by Afro-Latin American genres such as cumbia, salsa, Afrobeat, and funk, offering a fresh and exciting musical experience that will have your feet and hips moving from the very first minute.

I needed a band to record for my project, and when I saw them playing live in a local festival, I wanted deffinitely work with them! They have released a few tracks in Spotify, but they didn’t have recorded more complex tracks that they used to played live. They sound awesome live, so my challenge was to try to capture that vibe on the studio and take their sound to the next level.

Pre-production process

Our first met was on the room where they play regularly to arrange what sound they want to achieve, and start to plan the recording. Even when I’m required to finish one song, we agred to record as many songs as possible, so we have enough material for the postproduction phase.

Recording process

First session

Main room

We recorded drums, bass and guitar in the same room, the bass was recorded by DI and the guitar signal was sent to another room. General setup was like this:

Overheads

Neuman KM184 pair sound just great withouth processing, giving a good stereo image to play with later in the mix.

Sax room

Sax was recorded in another room:

I’ve doubled the signal to stereo using different takes, widening it a little bit:

Sax with just a bit of plate reverb

Guitar room

Guitar signal was sent to another room, so we can record the amp in an isolated way:

I’ve also doubled the guitar track to stereo to widen it a little bit:

Guitar

Control room

We recorded on the audient ASP 8024 console

Second session

In the second session we recorded percussion and choirs:

Raw Mix

For the mix I’ve worked in the studio 1 in cologne with the neve 88S console.

This is the raw mix of the song called semilla:

Conclusion

I was able to collect a large amount of material to produce an EP, which is still in progress and will hope to published it later this year.