Eblis Álvarez: A System of Economy

Bogotá, Colombia’s Meridian Brothers are one of my favorite active bands these days. While I’ve been fortunate to see their touring lineup in New York a few times in the last year, I first discovered the band through recordings of 11 unique and amazing albums. The combination of classic salsa and cumbia with psychedelic, indie, and African guitar influences resembles nothing else, and they continue to evolve in creative and surprising directions. All of the music on Meridian Brothers’ recordings is created by Eblis Álvarez, who also mixes and masters other bands, writes chamber compositions, and contributes electronics, guitar, and cello to other artists’ albums. I enjoyed talking to Eblis on a Zoom call when he got a break from the group’s incessant tour schedule, where I got to learn about his influences, mindset, and approach.

What was your first instrument?

Percussion. I began playing drums, but then I changed to guitar and kept playing the drums.

I learned recently that you also play cello.

I do play cello. Everything is amateur. I’m not someone who bought a cello and began to play. I have 25 years playing the cello, but still, I’m not a professional. I need to practice more.

Have you been recording yourself or did you use studios?

I have always recorded in my home studio. I’ve been working with DAW technology all this time, just changing pieces, new equipment, and new processes. Right now, it’s a hybrid: DAW, analog, and different options I find on the way.

Do you now have a console, or do you still mix inside the computer?

I have a hybrid set of gear. I have a summator, and a console for masters. I add distortion and parallel effects in a console, but I have to say it’s very weird. It’s not standard.

Did you teach yourself and figure it out?

No. My main studies are in composition and classical guitar, but then I had a post-graduate course in production and electro-acoustic music. I took several courses in signal processing, computer music, and the basics.

Did you study in Denmark or in Bogotá?

I did that in Denmark. I learned with a good teacher at a conservatory in the city of Aarhus in Denmark. He was patient. He was a teacher who knew a lot of interesting theory.

When you first started mixing, you probably did not have the console or what you call the summator?

No, it was totally in the box. The summator was added six or seven years ago. I found it practical, because when I work for other people it’s good to have the session as I had it inside the computer. I was about to buy a console, but then I [decided not] to because the summator is much better. It has fixed levels in all channels. Even to my own mixes; when I want to make changes, it’s easier because it’s in the computer.

Do you do the EQ and compression in the computer?

Per channel, yeah. But on the master, no. The master bus is analog processes, after the summator. I have a Rupert Neve Designs Portico as a bus compressor. I use an Elektron distortion unit – I forgot the name – that’s parallel to the master bus. Then I use several effects in parallel. Main effects, such as small distortions and small delays, go parallel to the master bus. This is not very standard, but it works for me.

It gives your mixes a recognizable quality. They sound great!

Oh, thank you. At first, I thought my mixes sounded bad, but with time I began to like them.

Is your studio setup in your home?

It’s at my place, in a wooden attic. It happened to sound perfect. It’s okay in size for one person. I’m not a person who is on the professional standards. I don’t know why – maybe it’s because I’m lazy.

I doubt it.

I just buy gear and try it; and the final result for me, the sound, is the key. But I just learned – maybe five or six years ago – that phase is the most important thing to make your music sound good on every equipment. That was a problem until 2014 or 2015. I loved the mixes in my studio, but then when I'd go to other places, like bars, I found that they didn’t sound that good. It was the key mystery – for years and years, I was experimenting. Then, when I found out that the phase is an important thing, now I consider that the mixes are at the standard level of production.

Did you treat your room or get new monitors?

Mainly the ear, of course. I read a lot. But I don’t have a good memory for models, so I guide myself with the ear – it sounds good, or it sounds bad – and I use a lot of record references. This is my other side, collecting records. I'll want to sound precisely like a record, and I'll try to emulate it as much as possible. I’m fond of the Colombian sound, mostly in the studios in Barranquilla and in Medellín. I’m fond of the sound of Nigerian music, like Afrobeat and highlife, and the way that they recorded it. Mostly guitar music. I’m bad at names, but fortunately I’m here beside my record collection! Kabaka International Guitar Band from Nigeria is one of my models. Also, palm-wine guitar music from Benin. These records from the ‘70s are my models. Everyone likes it. Producers are going to the ‘70s to pick up their sound. There must be something there, in terms of energy. In Colombia, the golden recordings were between ‘70 and ‘85.

Some people who obsess over old recordings try to emulate all the gear. That’s obviously not your approach.

No, exactly.

How do you emulate the sound of 50 year old recordings with totally different equipment?

Mastering

Recently, I've done a lot of mastering. It involves my last master bus chain – this is my mastering. I master through the mixing. For me, everything is tied up. When I compose, I mix, and then when I mix, I master. I have learned that way because I think about finished sound, even when composing. I know that it is advised not to do that in a lot of magazines. "Don’t master your own mixes. Leave that to the engineers, to a second pair of ears." I have read that, but, in a way, maybe I have a definitive sound in my head that sometimes I don’t achieve. Sometimes I achieve it 70 or 80 percent of the time. For my previous records I had another mastering engineer. But recent records, I mastered them myself. The digital master is the most "destroyed" one, in terms of dynamics. For me, the digital master totally destroys the sound, so I try to destroy it as little as possible. I fight to get those transients going. With pop music, it’s easier; it just has the snare and the bass drum. But with salsa and cumbia music, it’s different. Cumbia is easier, but salsa is the most difficult. For example, the master of El Grupo Renacimiento had to sound quieter than other pop albums. I couldn’t make it louder, because if I did it louder it would lose all the details of the cascara, the beat of the conga and the bass. I couldn’t make it louder. This is the classic sound of salsa. It doesn’t require that much loudness.

What I did is I divided everything up. It’s not physical – it’s mental. I divided the recording in several dimensions, as I call it, which are physical dimensions. There are five parameters. Panning and mixing with volume are the most basic. Then I go into spectra and distortion, which is spectral and dynamic in a way. It’s a hybrid dimension. Dynamics, spectra, distortion. What I do is, mentally, with the ear, I have learned how to recognize which one of these parameters are ringing in my ear. If I feel distortion, I go after distortion. It could be a guitar pedal, and I try to emulate this distortion in the way I can. I do everything by ear – to be sincere – but it’s because I’m lazy. I have to blame myself. I’m not the one who’s going after equipment on eBay. It’s not because I don’t have money, but I’m not rich either. Some people say, "No, this is expensive!" Of course, I cannot buy a Neve console. But in the past there was some affordable equipment that I could’ve purchased, but I didn’t because I’m lazy.

I enjoy that you describe yourself that way. When playing on other peoples’ records, do you go to studios for that?

Yeah, of course. Sometimes they send me parts and it’s better for me, because I can edit it. I consider myself a good guitarist. I’ve been to the schools. Sometimes I’m lacking this daily practice. I’m always missing something that I complete with technology.

Do you approach your work similarly when mixing your own music versus mixing other people’s music?

When I mix my own music, I get more experimental. I try to do something different that no one will like. I test it myself in the recordings, because clients are much pickier. It’s their record. They have hired a professional. Over the years I got good at the tropical sound. So, when someone hires me to get this tropical sound, I go after the details of the sound, and I know how to emulate them with my own gear. This is the way. In my own recordings, it sometimes turns experimental. With other people, I try to emulate what they want, in terms of tropical sound.

When I think of classic tropical sound, it's bands playing music together, which is how your live concerts are presented. But your albums create the tropical sound with just you playing everything.

Yeah.

It also seems to be how you write and create your pieces?

Yeah, my way of thinking about music is more mental than physical, in a way that I cannot describe. Sometimes I get new ideas in my mind with the inspiration of these old sounds. Adding up the laziness and the mental way of thinking, I have enough gear that I need. I feel comfortable with what I have, and I feel like I can emulate a good part of tropical sounds from Peru or from Colombia.

I perceive the Meridian Brothers albums as having more of a tropical influence over the years. Is that something you also would say?

Exactly. From 10 or 15 years ago, I didn’t know where to go. I have an abstract approach. From these parameters I was telling you about, it lacked one. It was the space, which is actually the [most] important. There are five dimensions for me: Panning, mixing, EQ'ing, dynamics, and space. And the hybrid point is distortion, because distortion also affects the dynamics. I have learned mentally how to emulate or extract these particular parts from a recording. When I began to mix, I didn’t know exactly where to go. I wanted dry mixes. These mixes with an artificial space [resemble] metal recordings from the beginning of the ‘90s, and I liked that.

Can you give an example of the ‘90s recording you have in mind?

The mainstream ones, like the Metallica album [aka The Black Album ]. This is a key album, at least in my universe, because it changed from something that was known in recording. It changed from a room to a micro room. After that, mostly ‘90s and toward the 2000s, these micro rooms were made possible because of headphones and the new ways of processing the delays, the micro delays. It was popular in hip-hop and in indie rock. Now, it’s used all over the place in R&B, this micro, intimate space between the sound and the listener. I was, in the 2000s, interested in that. If it wasn’t for tropical music, my career would be stopped, because I didn’t have anything else to do. Then I found Peru, as well as the huge universe of Colombian tropical music, and the studio sounds. I got obsessed with that. Still.

Is that around the time of songs like “Salsa Caliente” and “U. F. O”?

Yeah, exactly. That’s when I began to emulate it. I didn’t know how, but I began this journey.

That seems to be both in your writing and the mixing. Do they go together?

Exactly. That’s another particular thing; my writing and my mixing. That’s originally because I never went into studios. If I go into a studio, it wouldn’t be good because the mixing is tied totally with the writing. I produce, and in the process I’m also writing. It’s totally tied.

Then you go from there to figuring out which songs can be arranged for the live band, and how to recreate that?

Exactly. When the music is recorded and the record is done, then I think, "Okay. Let’s see what to do with the live band." Live music is very different to recorded music. There are so many more possibilities in the recording than with a live band. There are so many more possibilities within a 3D space. The idea is to recreate the spirit of the album, but with a whole interactive audience and band. The process is begun again. How to put it out live without sounding like someone who puts in a CD and sings on top of that. I need this 3D, in terms of the live music experience. So, how to do that? We play with a lot of samples, mostly because of the economy. We need a lot of sequences because we are five pieces, and we need to recreate this whole big ensemble sometimes. How to do it without adding these experiences of playing live? This is another process of trying to find again these five parameters, producing the show.

You did go to a studio with your other band, Los Pirañas, right?

Yeah. This is different with Los Pirañas, because we are more of a live band, and we are improvising into the studio. Then I mixed the record.

How did you decide to record Infame Golpazo en el Keroxen in the Canary Islands, [Spain]?

A good friend of ours has a cool house in Tenerife. He invited us to make this project. He has a big venue, like a huge oil tank [El Tanque]. There is a studio there, and we recorded there. The problem was the reverb – it’s a huge reverb. I’m not fearing anymore the reverb. In my early years, I feared the reverb. Still, a little bit.

Yeah, those early records are dry, now that you say it.

Yeah. I’m going toward the reverb, but I’m still cautious about reverb.

The comment about reverb made me think about how you approach effects on your voice. Reverb is such a classic vocal effect, and you’ve gone in so many other directions with vocal effects.

In general, I really fear reverb. I don’t know why. I still don’t know how to use reverb, maybe. I’m learning. When you hear classic records, the reverb is so fantastic, but when you use it digitally – even with hardware effects – something happens. I’m still ignorant about reverb. I studied the devices a lot. I have plug-ins and I have a spring reverb tank, but I still don’t know how to use it mentally, so I have feared a lot of reverb. Instead of going toward the vocal [reverb], I replace it with a non-feedback delay. The non-feedback delay is, for me, a whole universe again. I can fit anything on the time of the delay without feedback, so I control everything and still give the psychological impression of having reverb.

When you say non-feedback, there’s just one delay of the voice and you use the time as a big factor?

Exactly. The time is the locator in the space. Sometimes I work a lot and think a lot about illusions. Illusions are always a part of the audio developing. You can make something sound fat even though it’s not fat at all. Or you can create spaces, even though there are no spaces in it. My work lies on the idea of illusion. This works with reverbs. I mostly work with delays, because the delays are the ones that can create the illusion of reverb; but they are not reverb, because reverb has this tail of decay toward the white noise. This, for me, makes the recording dirty. I know on the old records it doesn’t happen, but I will figure that out. Before I die, I will make a very reverberant record. This is real. I’m going toward reverb. The records I’m planning to do, one of those records will be reverberant, and it will sound good, I hope.

Do you play all your percussion by hand or work with samples?

No, I play the percussion – I prefer to play it. Sometimes for small sounds I'll sample it, but I play the instruments.

You record them in your attic?

Yeah. The conga, the timbales. I’m an amateur percussionist, but knowing how to edit, I could sound a bit like a professional. But I’m an amateur!

I feel like some salsa albums are so much about the technique and virtuosity. Your albums don’t have that quality, yet they create so much movement, rhythm, and dance.

Oh yeah. My inspiration in general in music is more the amateur. I’ve been an amateur my whole life. I don’t consider myself to have reached the professional standard level in anything, because sometimes I just quit. I wanted to be a classical music composer at university. For some reason I didn’t get the job. Never.

You have a chamber piece that got released that I found!

Yeah, I have some pieces of classical music. I wanted to be a sound engineer but never quite reached that degree. Now people are hiring me, maybe because of the sound of the albums. They get happy because of the result, but maybe because of that. For example, in salsa, I’m fond of these other bands than the Fania Records, such as these amateur teenager bands, and I want to recreate that sound instead of the more generic and professional sounds.

In your records, some sounds start with a microphone recording a sound in the air, so your voice starts that way. But the keyboards seem mostly to be direct.

Yeah, they’re direct.

How do you think about the balance of recording a mic versus direct sounds, like with guitars?

I do have an amp.

Sometimes you record a guitar with a microphone?

Yeah, amp and mics. But talking about guitar, let’s be a bit more specific. Peruvian and Amazonian music had the guitar plugged directly into the mixer. I’ve tried that too. In that way it could be that I emulate the techniques of the old music. What defines the plugged-in instruments and mic’d instruments is not technique. It’s mostly the format. When I decide a format and a sound, then I get fixed on that. That will sound "Peruvian," and I will be going towards it. That’s the reason I don’t exactly work with a band, because the band has a fixed format.

Do your records have a narrative in your head when you start on them? Does that record have a narrative, or do the songs tell you the story?

Which one? The last one?

The last one, Meridian Brothers & El Grupo Renacimiento , has a narrative and a fictional band. It seems like on your records the songs tie together in a way, where each of the last few records has had a very different character. Are you aware of that?

Definitely. I’m totally aware of that. There are a lot of reasons for that. The main reason, to be sincere, is the economy of the ideas. In my previous albums, mostly the first ones, I used to think about song after song and put everything I know in each song. When I realized that I could dry up totally on the second record, I said, "Actually, I don’t have anything more to do." I was 29 years old. "Oh shit, man. I’m dried up." When I realized that I could think about the song and then make a whole album with this idea of the song, then I thought, "No, with this system I could have 50 or 60 albums." One might compose 50, 60, 100 songs in a lifespan. I’m at about 500, and I still have ideas because of this system of economy.

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