As a mixing engineer, Maria Elisa Ayerbe has been involved in a number of Grammy and Latin Grammy-nominated albums, working with the likes of Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony, J. Lo, Natti Natasha, Il Divo, and many more. Here she tells Headliner about her independent music label, what she’s been up to recently, and why she uses Leapwing Audio plugins on every one of her mix projects.
As well as having her own studio in Hialeah, Miami-Dade County, Ayerbe has since 2015 worked out of Art House Studios, founded by multi-awarded producer Julio Reyes Copello.
“Being a mixing engineer keeps me away from people naturally, and I’ve been receiving lots of projects, so it’s actually been a really busy year,” she reflects. “There’s a lot of music being made at the moment, and I think we’re currently seeing some sort of a creative awakening.”
Ayerbe sources most of her work through soundbetter.com, and has been asked to work on projects as far away as Egypt or Japan. In fact, she currently finds herself working on music by a Japanese punk band.
Our conversation quickly moves onto Ayerbe’s workflow, and in particular the plugins she finds herself using daily as a mixing engineer:
“There’s not a single mix that I don’t use Leapwing Audio on to be honest,” she reveals. “The four of them are always there at different stages. When I started using DynOne [the first plugin that the company released] I immediately fell in love with it.