Rafa Sardina is a legend among engineers and producers. The winner of five Grammy Awards and an incredible 14 Latin Grammy Awards, he moved from his native Spain to California in his teens and made history at Ocean Way Studios in LA, becoming part of its story, working with artists from Micheal Jackson to Frank Sinatra to The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
With a love of live recording and an ability to coax the best out of any performer, he became the go-to, super-versatile engineer/producer that’s top of every big name’s list when it comes to committing their best work to tape or DAW.
We caught up with Sardina at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios, just outside Bath, UK where he was busy recording Ruth Lorenzo, the Spanish singer, most famous in the UK for being part of The X Factor when the show was at its prime.
Also in attendance was co-founder of Audiomovers, Igor Maxymenko, a man whose software - enabling remote recording between studios all over the world - Sardina uses on every session and which practically saved the recording industry when Covid struck and music effectively shut down.
Audiomovers’ latest version of the digital patchbay, Omnibus 3.0, is out now.
So why are we in Real World’s Big Room right now?
“There are not that many places where you have these kinds of resources. Having a good sounding room for the band, for the drums, and everything else? Being able to have them all together. The one thing we wanted to separate was the vocal, just in case. But there are not that many studios that have actual, real good rooms. And then they can do analogue tape, too.”
What’s your setup like these days? Are you still travelling internationally much? Obviously you’re away from your studio right now…
“I bring my laptop with my basic setup. I have both Logic and Pro Tools as my two main systems. But other than that I just bring my tools. I have my hard drive with all of my software, you know. Also sounds that I use quite often when I'm working on projects.
“And I just brought a couple of microphones. I brought one that I truly love for the kick, for this kind of music. An Audio-Technica ATR 2500. I particularly like one of the two capsules that it has. I love what the condenser can do for this kind of music. It really has that kind of punch.
“And I bought a couple of very old [Audio-Technica C] 414s that I have. Very similar to the C12s. And I was going to bring my two C12s for the overheads for the drums like I always do, and then I was like, damn, I'm gonna go through Heathrow and they're gonna give me trouble… ‘You shouldn't be bringing this much stuff… This is too heavy…’! They always give you trouble. They always teach you a lesson! [laughs]”
There's no wrong way to record. Like people say this is a good mic and this is a bad mic. There is no such thing.
And of course you have your own studio, After Hours?
“Yes, in Los Angeles. I have an SSL console and lots of outboard gear. It's actually a proper studio with a proper control room and I have an isolation booth with a recording area so I can track drums.
“I’ve even done a small string section with eight players there, things like that, even complex arrangements. For example, the D'Angelo song [Ain’t That Easy], the song that opens the album [Black Messiah], that was actually in my tiny little room. There were eight players, then another five for the horns, and that's how we did it and it was great.”
And is that your chosen mix location, too?
“It is my chosen mixed location because of the dynamics of projects these days. You want to give artists that kind of flexibility of being able to accommodate changes to their schedule. It used to be that you would go to a studio like this and book it for 10 days; you mix the album and you’re out. But what if there are changes? You have to come back, set everything back up again, all the same way, and hopefully all of the gear is gonna be here. Then if you're unlucky the first two [Universal Audio] 1176s are being fixed somewhere…
“So having my own studio really allows me to be free of any of those worries. Because today, you mix an album and you finish something and then two months later they come back like, ‘Oh, we want to do a different version of this song. We're gonna replace the drums and we're gonna add this other element to it or something.’
“And many times it's not something that you can do with the sub-mixes of the music. You have to actually put everything back and rework the song.”
But you’re obviously happy to work in other studios too.
“I travel a lot. Actually, this year I have been out of the country like 50% of the time. So right now it's like 50/50 in my studio or LA. I work in other studios in town. Especially for tracking. If I want to do something like this project I need more resources, more rooms or bigger rooms.”
What's your relationship with analogue and digital? You’re recording analogue here today. Are you pro one and not the other?
“Oh, I'm pro both! I'll be honest with you. Those kinds of fights, where people have a nostalgic attitude… ‘It was 100 times better’… I don’t buy it. You use your ears to change everything the way you want it to be.
“In this session, for example, we have the luxury of being able to experiment with it. Some of the guys in the band were a little puzzled by it. Like they don’t remember the last time they did analogue so they were like. ‘Is it really worth it?’ but then I showed them the playback. A/B with Pro Tools? And they were like ‘Wow! It does sound really different!’
“But you have to know how to calibrate the machine and what you want and what you don’t. I wouldn’t recommend it to somebody who has never used it. They’ll distort half of the things and the other half is gonna be hissy and noisy as hell… They’ll get in frickin' trouble.”
How did you work through Covid? How did that affect your workflow?
“Oh my god… Obviously, it really affected productions. But I worked more than ever. I’m a mixer and I mix a lot. But live recording? People started trying to figure out how to work remotely. There were so many people who were not used to doing it themselves. They always were coached by somebody else, right? They were alone in their homes and they were like, ‘What now? I have to stop everything!’
“In a way, there was a good aspect to it - where people were forced to step it up and learn the basics. Like, damn. You don't even know how to authorise your plug-in? [laughs] So artists were forced to become a little bit like engineers. To know a tiny bit more. And what’s come out of that is that most of them have more respect now. For the trade. Most of them go like ‘Shit, now I know how hard it is to really make it good!’
“Like anybody can just ‘make it’ but to really make it good - to go through that rabbit hole of ‘Which microphone? This one? Or mix those two?’ Really learning techniques? That when they learn that it’s not just ‘setting up a microphone’. It's really using your ears and your heart.”
It must have been a crazy time for Audiomovers and the take-up of your software?
Igor Maxymenko: “You know, one of the things that helped over Covid is that people started looking for something like Audiomovers because, before that, people didn't imagine remote collaboration was possible. They’ve always had problems with latency but we solved that with our technology and our own servers.
“Think about clients in different countries with different time zones. So you bounce a file, you send them the file and you wait for them to listen. And you wait… You wait… And you have some ideas for something you want to try… But by the time that you receive responses you’ve forgotten all about it.
“And whenever you invite someone else to a new place, it may sound good, but they don't know the place and they don’t have any reference. So they’re not really sure… But when they do it in their space - where they know how it sounds - it's so much easier to get approval.
“Also, they can focus - there is another psychological aspect of being in your own space. It helps a lot to get to a better decision, maybe. Maybe it's this decision that makes them happier. You know?”
And are you using Audiomovers on this project?
Rafa Sardina: “We always do. Prior to this session. It’s one of those things that has just become a staple of mine. We use it for everything. And now, with the Omnibus, we use it for routing anything to anything. It's just crazy what you can do with it. And we’re here with the genius behind it!
“It’s revolutionised the way that we work. I don’t think that there’s any session where we don’t use it. And not just for evaluating what you are doing, but also for third parties to be able to be part of the session.”
Working internationally it must be a lifesaver being able to have everybody able to work together remotely.
“There are many things out there that are just the icing on the cake - they complement something that you do. And then there are things that are really more of a game changer. Something that comes out of necessity, right? Something that you truly need - a solution. Audiomovers is that.
“Imagine that I'm working here and I have an arranger somewhere, finishing an arrangement but you want them to be part of the loop and you want them to be able to know what's going on. Just for the awareness, to be able to work faster. You just send them a feed and that's it, you're set. Anywhere.
Just to take things back to the start. How did you get started out? Did you come to recording or music first?
“I came from a musical point of view. I wanted to be an artist. I'm a guitar player, so I was really dedicated to it. Even when I was eight years old, I told my mom I'm gonna be an artist.”
So when did you decide that the guitar playing wasn't working out?
“I was 16 years old and I attended my first full album recording session with this band - it was my cousin's band really - and we recorded a full album. I was like, mesmerised… I was like… What?… We didn't know what we were getting into.
“There was a tape machine - a cheap one, an Otari MTR-90 - and a board and I was the technical one. I was into the guitars and the pedals, that kind of thing so naturally I paid attention and it really opened my mind about production. The different layers, the creativity. And from that point on I really got the bug.
“I became obsessed with the world of production. So I would read every magazine trying to get information. And I'd even take notes. I still have thousands of notes! ‘George Massenburg uses this kick and he places it like 16 inches away from the other microphone’… I'd take notes of what every single producer or engineer did.
“I was becoming an encyclopaedia of techniques without having a chance to use them because I didn't have the gear, but I had the desire to become proficient.”
What was your first big break?
“My first break was while I was working for this promoter who owned a live sound sound company. I was just doing little jobs for them as an assistant and then he started giving me bigger responsibilities. Then I was the tour manager. Or the stage manager. And little by little but very quickly, he put me in charge of the whole live company. And I was super young - a teenager still.
And he was my first mentor and he gave me the confidence to think - wow - I can really do this, so that was very, very important for me. He allowed me to have that ‘trial and error’ period of my life, which is so important.”
I'm intrigued by the time that you spent at Ocean Way.
“That’s when I first came to America. I interviewed with three studios - Record Plant, West Lake Studios, but the one I really wanted to get into was Ocean Way. And that was my last interview.
“Actually, they had given me a ‘yes’ at Record Plant. I did the interview and they had a Synclavier system lying against the wall. And I was like ‘Oh, great, you have a Synclavier’ and they were like ‘What do you know about the Synclavier?!’ And I was an expert on it. I studied hard to really be able to program it and do things and, and they were like, ‘What? You're in!’
“But I really wanted to be at Ocean Way because it was a completely different world. The history, all of those albums… Sinatra… Pet Sounds, The Mamas and the Papas… Those studios were everything. Studio Two; that, to me, is the best sounding tracking room in the US. Period. It’s not a huge room, but that room is just magic. Even Studio Three, where [The Beach Boys] Pet Sounds was recorded… And Studio One - the huge one - where we’d do the orchestras? Every room over there - and the building across the street where it used to be United Recording - is great.”
It’s great that it’s still there. You’d think that today people might say ‘We don’t need that anymore’…
“We DO need that any more. We need that very special type of quality to do what we do. And it's not just the sound. It's a combination of the sound and the ambience that you create for the musicians and for the artist. There is a reason why those places became the preferred choices for artists. It's not just the sound. It's the combination of everything together.
“And they stay relevant to this day because, as humans, we relate to it the same way that we related to it 50 years ago. It’s how it makes you feel. The room. The place.”
What was a memorable early session?
“Oh, the first session I ever did - not even as a second engineer, but the third, like an assistant assistant - was the Oscars. So we did the orchestra recording session for the Oscars with every artist because back then it was the first year everything got pre-recorded just in case. And it was in the big room in studio one - what’s now East West Studios. We did that session with Bill Conti conducting, with his arrangements and it was amazing.”
And how long before you won your first Grammy?
“I was lucky. I won the first one in my twenties. I was very lucky. It was for a Latin artist called Luis Miguel. It felt unreal. I was like ‘who submitted the album?’ Because I wasn't even a member, I couldn't even vote for me! I didn't even know that that existed.”
So, did you start producing while you were still at Ocean Way?
“At Ocean Way I was mainly engineering, but I started producing my own stuff. Things that were actually close to my heart. The kind of music that I wasn't able to do or to choose. I love all kinds of music and I started doing a lot of folk music and a lot of work with international bands. While I was touring, I worked with Pentangle, I worked with The Chieftains. The Pogues. I used to take care of him.”
So you were coaxing a performance out of Shane McGowan?
“I mean, he was a super-nice guy. But he had his ways of living life and doing things. [laughs”]
Is there anyone you’ve particularly enjoyed working with?
“There are so many people. I wish I could work with Barbra Streisand again. I was talking with my good friend Peter Asher, you know from the ‘60s band Peter and Gordon? He’s producing her new album. He became a big producer in LA. He discovered James Taylor. And produced most of Linda Ronstadt. And dated Paul McCartney’s sister.”
Who was the first big major major star that you worked with? Who really blew you away?
“Well, from the very beginning I was working with Michael Jackson. So that was pretty big… I mean, I was like, ‘wow’, and it was new… And then it became like a normal kind of thing. Or the first time I worked with Stevie Wonder or The Chili Peppers. At the end of the day, people need to record an album… And they'd rather call you than call somebody else.
“I remember one track - Are You Still Mad - with Alanis Morissette. We were recording the orchestral arrangement and it was like, wow, I felt like this is gonna be huge. The arranger and conductor was David Campbell, who’s Beck’s father. When we're recording it, it was like, damn, this is gonna go places!”
You mentioned earlier about having lots of techniques committed to memory. So there’s a right and a wrong way to record something?
“No, there's no wrong way to record. Like, people say, ‘oh, this is a good mic and this is a bad mic.’ There is no such thing. Instead, I think there is a match. I'm always thinking about matching things. So this microphone sounds great distorted? Obviously, I wouldn't record it to record something pure like a violin, but you can always find a great use for it. There is no such thing as ‘wrong’.|
How do you find today's artists versus artists from maybe 20, 30 years ago? Are they more technically aware? As dedicated and hard working?
“There are all kinds of people in this world. [laughs] But there is a new breed of artist that has become a tiny bit more technical because they want to guarantee things are done their way. Being able to correct everything, being able to edit everything. There are even some artists that do their own editing.
“The first one I ever worked with that really astonished me was Mariah Carey. We were recording in Right Track studios in New York and we used to have an analogue box called a comper and you could put six tracks in and it had two rows of switches. So you could select which take you wanted. You’d play back the tape and punch in a different track and start comping, right? And you could even create a crossface with a slider between the two takes like a DJ. And she was amazingly good with it. She was doing her own comps… I was actually better but she didn’t trust me! But I let her do her own thing and she was good. And this was back when people weren’t technical at all.
“The type of artist I work with, for the most part, they want to prove themselves - to be as good as it can possibly get. There is a level of obsession with it. A lot of artists are obsessive people but that's part of their nature as creators. They are always looking for something and sometimes it's something unreachable. An idea they have in their heads but maybe doesn't exist or it's impossible to get there.
“They might get somewhere else. But in that search, you get to places you didn’t expect. ‘Oh wow. Check this out!’ And that’s part of the process! And it takes time. And that's the aspect we're forgetting: good things take time. We live in a world now where everything has to be immediate, right? And that goes very much against creative processes because sometimes creative processes can be long or very difficult to estimate. How long is it gonna take for you to get to a magical place?
If you don't risk it you’re always gonna do the same thing in the same way and it's all gonna be the same.
“You have to be open to failure. You have to be open to suck! Like really to try something and say ‘Wow, that's the most terrible thing ever!’ [laughs] But in that process, you might actually find that magic place. And if you don't risk it you’re always gonna do the same thing in the same way and it's all gonna be the same.
Have you ever sent a band home? Told them it’s not working today?
Absolutely. And that's part of producing - not doing anything! You’re stopping them from failing in a bad way - failing and abusing their psyche, you know what I mean? And sometimes, you know that you are not gonna get anything good, but you have to continue just to take care of the artist’s psyche and let them wind down and be ok…”
And tailor your personality and the mood of the session to suit the artist?
“Yeah, definitely. Sometimes you have to be a cheerleader. And other times you have to be just the opposite.”
But most of the artists you work with must be on their A game.
“But I work a lot with new artists. I work with new artists and I love it. Love it!
“I love it because new artists come with the craziest concepts and ideas. Things that have not been done before. And sometimes that’s because they don't know anything! So they don't have any preconceptions. They don't have a method and sometimes it's beautiful because you learn so much.”
What would you say that people come to you for? What do you bring to a session?
“People come for different things. They don't just come for one thing. They come for your ear for music - to spot good things. I think that's the main thing. It's not about, ‘oh, his low end is so tight’. No, they come more for the musicality of things. They have heard things that you have done before and go like, ‘wow, ok’. I think there is some level of magic they get attracted to and then obviously you have to really either create a relationship or not.
“Obviously, as a producer, even as an engineer or mixer, you have to be adaptable, psychologically speaking. You have to be adaptable to people and to circumstances and the methodology of work, as people work very, very differently.”
And is there anything that you listen back to and you regard as your best work?
“The D’Angelo track that we did, Really Love from the album Black Messiah. I love it. He was so creative. You know, when I was listening to the system here [in Real World Studios’ Big Room], to get used to the studio, I listened to the Elvis Costello And The Roots project I worked on and all of those orchestral arrangements. All of that is like, wow! And that was Brent Fischer, the son of the famous arranger [Clare Fischer]. He did every single Prince album.
“Just that level of creativity, thinking out outside the box, but it fits so well with the music. And the music was so raw, with Questlove playing the drums. To me it’s those kinds of projects that have edges, that are the best you know?”
Is there a genre that you particularly like working in?
“I have a special love for live instrumentation, but I like electronic music too. That's why I worked on the Alok project, right? He's a DJ and I'm doing another one. But I like both really. I love rock music, for example, and right now I'm working with Alice Cooper and I love those kinds of projects because that's how I started - wanting to be a rock artist. So I'm very connected to that! [laughs]”
Is there anything of yours that we should listen out for?
“I was listening to another project that just got released, Ana Tijoux. I love some of the stuff that we accomplished with her. It's also very spontaneous and very raw and very old school. Even reminiscent of hip-hop from the eighties and, you know, it’s a mix.
“And the last Monsieur Periné album was pretty good. They’re a Colombian band - super eclectic and amazing musicians but very… unhinged. They go from jazz to electro to whatever. They will try anything and everything. And not because they want to fit any kind of market. It’s just the opposite. Marketing-wise because they are all over the place. But I love it. I love their search for new creative ways of doing things.”
And what have you got coming up next?
“I'm actually gonna continue working with John Boylan on a new Linda Ronstadt project that we started two years ago during the pandemic. And I have another project with the London Symphony Orchestra that we are finishing. And so it's all over the place - from classical to electronic to jazz to who knows!”
