Alberto Perez is the owner of Sol de Sants, one of the best music recording studios in Spain, located in the heart of Barcelona. Sol de Sants offers a live recording room of 70 m2 and a few smaller production studios. It is equipped with state-of-the-art recording technology, including the only Wunderbar analog console in Spain, the Dolby Atmos system, and a tape recording machine.
Alberto Perez is an engineer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and composer passionate about art. He has worked with such artists as Morcheeba, C. Tangana, Miles Kane, Avishai Cohen, Big Sean, Snarky Puppy, Rodrigo Amarante, Vinicio Capossela, Max Gazze, Chano Dominguez, Daniele Silvestri, KRS One, and KaseO.
AV Tech Magazine: When did you become interested in sound engineering, and what motivated you to open your own recording studio?
Alberto Perez: My fascination with sound and technology began during my early childhood. I was fortunate to have a father working in the IT industry. In an era when computers were not yet common, I had access to computers that operated using tapes at my parents’ place. I had the opportunity to work with the earliest sequencers, and back in the day, the latency was like 1,5 s. You had to code to make things work but it was a great learning experience. I started recording myself and experimenting with technology, and that’s essentially how my passion and interest were born. Later on, I established my first atelier in Madrid, where I was realizing creative projects. This is where I set up my first recording studio. During that period, I recorded local bands from the neighborhood. I had a humble setup with an 8-track Fostex digital recorder, but for that moment, it was an amazing thing.
At the age of 21, I traveled to Italy after receiving a scholarship to pursue studies in the fine arts. In addition to my passion for music and my music studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid, I have always been into the visual arts. I spent several years in Italy before continuing my education in the Netherlands. In Holland, I engaged in audio production work and had the privilege of learning from professionals. This experience greatly inspired me from both technical and artistic perspectives. Amsterdam draws people from across the globe who come to the Netherlands to master their musical knowledge and skills. I had the opportunity to assist at the SAE Institute and share insights with the great people in the industry. Once I moved back to Spain, I gathered all the experiences that I had and decided to start my own studio, Sol de Sants.
Wow, that’s an impressive journey! Today, we find ourselves in your studio in Barcelona. What kinds of projects do you undertake at Sol de Sants?
Our primary focus is on music. Coming from an artistic background, I view music as a means of expression above all else. To me, music is an art form, so I don’t perceive styles or genres as limitations. Every musical style has its marvelous elements. Personally, I find it impossible to say, “I don’t like rap, trap, or baroque music.” I believe there’s beauty in every form of art, and that’s what I seek every single day.
Within our studio space, certain areas are better suited for specific types of music. For instance, Studio A is our largest and most versatile room. It has great and very controllable acoustics that can be adapted to different needs. The ceiling varies in height, reaching 4 meters in some spots and 5.5 meters in others, and this allows me to create accurate reverberation for each of the projects. It’s really satisfying to be able to create the perfect environment for each artist. This space (studio A) has been used for recordings since the 1980s, and I knew its acoustics before I even started Sol de Sants. I found it to be the best space for our needs. We can record the vocals here or the big ensembles. We were hosting here a variety of artists, among them, for example, Snarky Puppy, Nathy Peluso, Avishai Cohen, The Strokes or Rosalia. We also have smaller studios B and C that can be a great fit for vocals and music production.
I guess this is why you became so good at the art of sound. You don’t only look at the last part of the chain, like mixing or producing, but you think of every element of the chain, starting from recording, through acoustics, and ending with the choice of microphones and mixing techniques.
For me, everything is important, but what I find most crucial is the music itself and the message (the composition or the song). Then the people interpreting it—the artists and their voice or instrument— Next, the microphones and the mic techniques, the preamps, and all the other equipment involved in the recording process Every part of that chain needs to be of good quality to have great final results.
True! If we are talking about the equipment already, let’s take a look at what you have here.
Sure. Right now we are in a studio A (a live room). As I am a multi instrumentalist, I am quite obsessed about collecting a great number of keyboards, pianos, drums, guitars, cymbals etc. Besides having a selection of microphones and preamps, I go to the root and I try to have a great choice of instruments that allow me to create all the sounds I can imagine. Of course nowadays many sounds can be done with the use of plugins but in many cases I prefer to record natural sounds of the instruments. You usually get also better results in the mix using the real instruments. The backline is very useful for our clients as well.
We have several Steinway grand pianos. One of them is the iconic Steinway & Sons D 274 maybe the greatest of all pianos, but then we also have classic synths like the DX7, Moogs or vintage keyboards such as Rhodes or Hammond B3, each offering distinct sonic qualities. Nowadays there are not so many people who can actually play original instruments like Hammond. It requires some practice and knowledge, you need to control the volume and the speed with rotation Leslie speaker. I think a lot of musicians appreciate that in Sol de Sants they can work with original instruments. We have also a wide selection of guitars, drum sets and amplifiers that I was collecting over the years.
Apart from that, we have two smaller rooms. Studio C is dedicated to music production and studio B has a vocal booth and it is connected with studio A, so we can use it during really big sessions.
We have a wide microphone selection, including holy grails and classics like Neuman/Telefunken U47, U87, Royers, vintage ribbon wonders…
We also like to test the products of newly founded companies that are doing great stuff. Recently, we were testing the Muro AC-7 microphone; it’s a small company from California. I love to see people passionate about their work who are enabling us to have tools to make our art sound different or innovative.
I am also an endorser of a few companies that are committed with excellence, for example Ollo headphones, a new Slovenian company making great gear or Warm Audio that are making clones of classic icons and some of their stuff is really great. Also in Spain, I have friends producing amazing stuff, like a company Tierra Audio from Madrid producing great preamps, compressors and microphones. There are new people developing great products that are not necessarily crazy expensive.
The heart of our control room is a Wunderbar mixing console. It was a long process to find the perfect console. I went to several places to check the sound and workflow of different mixers. Eventually, an associate I collaborated with to maintain my previous Neve console informed me that the only Wunderbar console available in Spain was in Madrid. At that moment, I didn’t even know the brand, but I decided to check it out. Once I touched it and heard it, I knew from the very first moment that it was the one. It is 100% analog; it doesn’t get outdated, and I am amazed by its sound.
I also see some amazing vintage gear, how did you find it?
Yeah. We have quite some amazing vintage stuff for example the tape echo machines like the Stage Echo from Korg or the classic Space Echo from Roland.
We also enjoy an amazing 24 track tape machine. The Tascam ATR 80. This was the best thing made by Tascam to compete the Studer or Otari classics. This particular tape machine was used just one year to record Jazz Festival in Victoria and a year after it was bought, they switched to Pro Tools and put into a flightcase for years until I’ve found it so it was an almost new old stock discovery. Really nice machine. I use tape plug-ins sometimes but for me the control I have using the real gear is incomparable. I can really drive the heads combining it with Wunderbar mixer in a very unique way.
How can the recording process look like?
Sometimes the computer is even switched off, and we are recording everything directly to tape from the live room. We mix it on the Wunderbar console and print it on the tape, enjoying the old-style 100% analog process. In this case, no later corrections are possible, so it applies to very specific projects, like jazz or certain kinds of rock.
Other times, we use hybrid solutions that allow us to be a little bit more practical yet get the ‘flavors’ of the tape. In that case, we can, for example, record and edit on the computer. Once we have the perfect take, we record it on tape, taking into consideration the dynamic of the song. Knowing in advance the song dynamics allows us to set all the levels of each track and get the color we want on every channel. Once we have the track on the tape, we can mix it from the tape or bring it back to the computer. Once it’s on the computer, we mix it using the software or on our Wunderbar console.
What monitoring system are you using?
The main monitors are Genelec 1032, together with a 7350 A subwoofer. I use this setup for day-by-day tracking and mixing. As a second system, we have Yamaha NS10 monitors, which we use especially to check mid- and high-frequency levels and also to verify the mixes at a very low volume. There are many producers that love to work with NS10s; for example, when Gordon Raphael from The Strokes was here, he used them all the time. Recently, we installed one of our favorites, the Genelecs 1237, as mid-farfield speakers as we were setting up a Dobly Atmos mixing system.
I was very lucky because representatives of Dolby approached us and are helping us prepare the Atmos setup. We are among the first ones in Spain to work together with Dolby, so it’s a great honor. Thanks to it, we are up to date with the new features, and we are learning directly from Dolby about all the new functionalities.
Before, we were using JBL 4430s as mid-field monitors. Those classics from the early ‘80s sounded wonderful with their 15-inch woofer and tweeter. And the revolutionary biradial/Dolly Parton horns made the sweet spot extra wide. Right now these classic monitors are used as nice PA in the live room.
In 2021, the album El Madrileño by C. Tangana won a Latin Grammy for best engineered album. You were one of the engineers involved in the process. How did the recording and production process look?
I was involved mainly in the creation of one of the songs called Un Veneno which was actually the very first song created on this album. We recorded it as a single first, and the response of the audience was so amazing that the whole record came out right after it. It was a very good experience.
I remember that Paco (Niño de Elche – flamenco singer) contacted me and said they were going to come with Pucho (C. Tangana) to the studio to record something new. We got all together, joined by Victor. Paco started to play the guitar; he had this bolero motive, and we just started to play music and improvise. I was trying to record it as best as I could; actually, I am also playing a double bass part on that song. We were experimenting with different motives and recording a lot of material, trying to find the purest form of beauty. Some weeks later, it was a huge hit!
Really interesting insight! Thank you so much for hosting me and showing me your amazing space.
Thank you.
