Darío Peñaloza on winning Latin Grammys and embracing AI & digital studio technology

Sound engineer Darío Peñaloza, a two time Latin Grammy award winner who now teaches in most of the professional audio schools in Mexico, on going digital over analogue, embracing AI, and engineering C4 Trio’s Latin Grammy award winning De Repente in the box.

You’ve worked with nearly every format during your career, from analogue to digital. What’s been the biggest technological leap in your opinion, and how has it impacted your work?

It’s a double edged sword, because technology allows you to have a ‘console’ and all the equipment you need to mix an album on a laptop in your home. But then again, you have to know where things come from and how the technology relates to it in order to try to get the sound of ‘before’. I'm not the kind of person that says that the sound of analogue is better than digital. 

They're different, and we have to adapt ourselves to understand that. It’s like what happens with kitchen equipment. For example, you have the air fryer and the microwave oven. These are new technologies that changed the way people cook. The same happened with audio.

Are you of the opinion that digital is better than analogue?

We now have digital workstations that sound a lot better than analogue. I have no regrets in saying that. In terms of being portable, I can mix in my home studio or go to my daughter's house and I can mix there and give classes. 

Technology allows us to have portability, but then again, anybody can have a ‘mixing console’ and mix music, and they can do a lot of damage with that. A lot of people think, ‘Well, I have a digital program I can use to mix with, so I'm now a mixing engineer or a recording engineer’, and it takes a bit more than that.

With the easy availability of all this technology at people’s fingertips these days and considering you are a lover of digital studio technology, what do you think of the rise in bedroom producers?

There are a lot of people that are self taught that are great engineers, producers or mixers, and they develop and they deliver good sound quality. For me, what is more important is the human side, and that respect for music and the respect for other people's work. 

When you mix a song, there are a lot of hours that go into making that song – you're mixing hours of composition, rehearsing, recording, tuning, and editing, and it gets into you when you mix. Some people might think that someone made this in two or three days, and it's not that simple.

With the plethora of options available now to tweak music using digital production technology, do you find you are less decisive in the studio compared to when you used analogue technology at the start of your career?

Just the fact that you have so many options is a lot of work, so I keep my choices minimal. A lot of people say that I'm minimalistic in the way that I work. It's not minimalistic – it's respectful. There are a lot of plugin companies, and I know they have to be there and they have to sell products and keep updating. But people believe that they can just get one knob and to resolve everything; that ‘one knob’ will maybe do a lot of damage to the music. 

I consider myself not a musician, but a guy who works in the music business, and my instrument is my mouse. We have to understand that we have to defend music, because music cannot defend itself from egos, from misuse or abuse of technology – it's art at the end of the day.

A lot of people think that if they don't have this program or this hardware, they cannot do this. Everybody can do it nowadays. They just need time to dedicate to the music, to defend the music and allow the music to be the protagonist, not themselves. People tend to put technology ahead of art, and that is wrong. From my point of view, the artists have to always be the protagonist, not the technology.

What are your thoughts on the rise of AI music production technology? Is it a threat, or a helpful tool for sound engineers?

AI is an instrument. It's like MIDI 40 years ago: it's there. It's going to stay, and you have to use it with commitment and responsibility. It will help us a lot in doing the job. But at the end of the day, music gets made by human beings and listened to by human beings. We as humans have to change the things that AI can’t. For example, the history of a song, and what inspired the song. 

We have to use AI as an instrument to help us work a little bit quicker, but use that time saved well. For example, a DeEsser is an AI. A spell corrector is AI. You can use that time saved by using AI to dedicate to the music and to automation. Otherwise the AI will go over you and take your job.

You won a Latin Grammy award for your work on C4 Trio’s De Repente. Tell us about the making of this award-winning record.

It was immense to receive a latin Grammy in engineering – especially because it was Venezuelan music and uses the cuatro as a leading instrument. I think it was one of the first albums that received a technical award outside of the Miami area, because mainstream Latin music was mainly done in Florida.

I mixed 85% of the album – eight and a half songs – and it was the quickest album I ever did because as soon as they started recording, one of the main newspaper companies said that they wanted to buy 20,000 albums by a certain date. We had to rush and record in different studios in order to get everything done by that time. 

I was receiving the music in little parts, like the instruments and then the vocals, so I had to mix the instruments first before I got the vocals. I related to a lot of the songs because it was music from Latin America, but rhythmically, it was Venezuelan.

I was already working with C4 Trio – this was my fifth album with them. So it was a nice accomplishment, and it was teamwork. There were about eight or nine engineers, and it was a dream come true. I did it all on my laptop and mixed it in my house – all in the box. When I jumped into digital, I jumped completely in the box.

I think it was quite an accomplishment, especially considering it was Venezuela music – it's not like Latin American music. It was not mainstream music. A lot of comments said it sounded like three cuatros, a banjo, a bass player and a singer. I think the academy liked the fact that it sounds unprocessed and natural, and that is what it is.

I show my students those sessions and they freak out because they say, ‘But there are not many plugins’. There's no need to use a lot of plugins. A cuatro is a cuatro, and it sounds like a cuatro. Three guys with three different cuatros sounds like three guys with three different cuatros. You are not the one to change the sound of those cuatros, we need to respect it.

You make a point of keeping up with current studio technology. What is an essential piece of studio kit in your home studio?

When my partner moved to Florida and we closed the studio, I started working in digital. I had an accident with my leg and I had to work from home. I asked a distributor in Venezuela if I could rent some Genelec 1029As. After the first month I said, ‘Send me the bill, because they're not leaving my home; they're staying here’. So I kept those 1029As. 

In other studios that I have worked in, I was always fascinated by the sound of the 1030As which, for me, were the best speakers at the time. In 2020 upgraded to the 8331A SAM studio monitors, which are here with me right now in Mexico. 

They're perfect for me, because I can make some arrangements in the room, but the fact that I can make them sound exactly the same as in my room in Venezuela is amazing. They use the SAM system to align them and it's perfect. And I can work here many hours and not disturb anybody, and they're great. For me, it's a relationship. It's part of my sound.