METRIC HALO USED ON OZOMATLIS GRAMMY-NOMINATED DON'T MESS WITH THE DRAGON
MALIBU, CALIFORNIA: It was a long, hot, busy summer for Aurafonic Records, the label established by multi-award-winning Latin music producer/composer KC Porter and production/composing partner Sebastian Jacome, with many major album projects completed and others scheduled for the upcoming months.
Jacome, a graduate from the Berklee School of Music, and KC Porter worked
together on Ozomatli's Grammy-nominated, "Don't Mess With The Dragon." Says
Jacome, "KC was one of the engineers and producers of that album. I
programmed the beats, played some guitars and arranged some strings - a
little bit of everything" Porter, alongside Robert Carranza, Serbhan Ghenea
and John Hanes, was recently nominated for a 2007 Grammy Award in the Best
Engineered Album, Non-Classical category for the recording.
Many of the projects at Aurafonic Records span several types of music, but
regardless of the genre, Jacome relied heavily on Metric Halo's ChannelStrip
equalization and dynamics plug-in. "Everything starts when I insert
ChannelStrip in the track just to listen to it. I don't listen to a track
unless there's an instance in it. I really like how ChannelStrip evens out
the dynamics. Even when the compression is set to the minimum it makes
everything smoother," reports Jacome.
In fact, the Metric Halo plug-in is Jacome's go-to compressor on every
single project. "I use every plug-in made, but ChannelStrip is my compressor
of choice. I'll use ChannelStrip, then maybe go out to the Summit, then the
Manley or the dbx or whatever," he explains. "We have a Digidesign D-Control
and an SSL summing amp and a nice set of outboard gear at KC's studio, but
ChannelStrip is always the first step when compressing - and sometimes it's
the only one."
According to Jacome, one reason that he uses ChannelStrip so much is that it
is very CPU friendly, allowing multiple instances to be inserted
simultaneously. For example, he explains, when he was mixing a recent album
project for Nashville-based jazz singer Rachel Price, for which Porter had
tracked a large string section, "I had ChannelStrip on every single
microphone input - something like 48 instances. But it worked perfectly and
never had a hiccup."
He also enjoys ChannelStrip's sound quality: "It's very musical. I
especially like the high range - above maybe 10kHz. It has a lot of air."
The ability to save personal favorite settings has proved useful, he
continues. "I have developed my own banks that I use for drums. I have maybe
six or seven presets for kicks, four or five presets for snare, and a couple
of presets for overheads and room microphones. Plus, I have maybe four or
five presets for vocals."
Jacome is currently working with a true Latin music legend, Lucho Gatica."He's the Latin Sinatra. He's 80 years old this year and he's sold over 40
million records." Gatica, who is the uncle of multi-Grammy Award-winning
engineer Humberto Gatica, is a major worldwide star and has been awarded the
highest civilian honors in Chile, his birthplace, and Mexico, where he made
his home for many years.
On November 7, Lucho received a lifetime achievement award from the Latin
Grammys and in 2008 he will receive a star on the famous Hollywood
Boulevard. Jacome and Porter are producing a duets album for Gatica that
will feature some of the biggest names in Latin music.
Based in New York's Hudson Valley, Metric Halo provides the world with
high-resolution metering, analysis, recording and processing solutions with
award-winning software and hardware.
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