The Art of Mastering with Oscar Zambrano - Music Production Podcast #405

podcast
Written By Brian Funk

Oscar Zambrano is a mastering engineer and the founder of Zampol Productions, a New York City studio known for mastering an impressive range of records—from Spotify Singles to avant-garde jazz to Broadway cast albums. With 20 years in the industry, Oscar has become a go-to name for artists who want their music treated with care, precision, and a deep understanding of both the technical and artistic sides of mastering.

In this episode, Oscar and I explore the art and philosophy of mastering—from quality control and loudness wars to the vinyl revival and the evolving role of mastering in the digital age. We talk about Oscar’s unique path through the music world, the importance of saying yes to opportunities (even when you’re terrified), and why a mastering engineer’s job is often more about understanding intent than making things louder.

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Episode Transcript:

Brian Funk (00:00.782)

All right, good to have you Oscar. Welcome aboard. Yeah, your place looks great. You guys have done lots of really great records and mastering the stuff, making it sound nice and pretty for the finished product.

Oscar Zambrano (00:02.526)

Thanks for having me, Brian. Thanks.

Oscar Zambrano (00:15.235)

Yeah, we've been lucky. It's been fun. We've been very lucky. Really, really good project.

Brian Funk (00:22.892)

Yeah, so you're involved with like the Spotify singles and that run of...

Oscar Zambrano (00:28.119)

Yeah, we're involved with, I would say 80 % of the Spotify singles, 90%. I'm not really sure how much stuff they do, but I would say most of the stuff we're fortunate to master. That started a couple of years ago. yeah, it's a nice diverse types of music, different types of artists. So it's been super nice. Yeah.

Brian Funk (00:51.49)

Yeah, I was telling you beforehand, I had William Garrett on and he was talking about recording a lot of those sessions and just the fun it was for artists to come in kind of fast paced, work on things, be a little experimental, play around with the songs that they already had and also I think a cover as well.

Oscar Zambrano (01:11.063)

Yes, it's changed a little bit, I think. Again, I'm not that involved because I'm an outside party, but the original one I was working with William was two songs, one's a cover and one's a song from the artist. So it was really fun to see what they chose as a cover and their version. And like you said, from what I understand, it was super fun in the studio, pretty relaxed ambience and just have fun and record. I think it was super fun. And you can tell with the music, you

Brian Funk (01:38.766)

Hmm.

Oscar Zambrano (01:39.373)

I would get the mixes and it's like, this sounds great. It doesn't sound contrived or anything, so it was super fun.

Brian Funk (01:46.604)

Yeah, there's something about those types of sessions. It's not a track that you can raise the fader on, but there's something tangible in the recording when people are having fun.

Oscar Zambrano (01:55.873)

Yes. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was great. Yeah, it's super fun to hear interpretation of the artists. You would expect something from a certain artist because that's what they do in their albums. And then they have some creative freedom or something that came up at the studio and they came up with a cover that's just out of left field that you're like, man, this is great. So yeah, it's super fun. Yeah. Plus to have it.

recorded and mixed by great engineers like William, it's almost a breeze to master. It's just a pleasure. It masters itself almost.

Brian Funk (02:30.028)

Yeah. Nice. Yeah. As I was saying to you before we hit record, I'd love for you to maybe just define mastering. Cause I think probably for a lot of people listening, this is something they hear they're supposed to do to their music and it's kind of its own art in its own, world. Yeah. Yes.

Oscar Zambrano (02:53.027)

Yeah, the dark art, right? Is what people call it. The black magic. Yeah, so I like to describe mastering in like two stages or two, not two stages, but two parts. I think both as important, but I would say one is more important than the other, which is probably one of the main reasons of why you should master, which is a technical side of things. The technical side is a viable master for whatever medium you're going to. So if you're to go to vinyl, file that works for vinyl.

Either the cutting engineer or sides and knowing what that means. If you're going to CDs, streaming, if it's just going to be played off MP3s, what's the headroom there? The loves, if there is limitation to loves or not, the delivery is something that is constantly changing. And so that's part of the mastering side of things where the mastering engineer should know the day-to-day deliverables for that.

And then the other side of it is the artistic side, is, you know, that last little magic dust that we put on. Hopefully it's just that little, you know, 10 % and we're not actually massaging stuff too much, but sometimes we do have to. I would say both as important, but it doesn't matter how good your master sounds if you can't create a viable master. So that and QC, the quality control, just to make sure.

Everything is correct. No clicks, no pops, right formats. Nothing's out of phase. No, you know, dropouts, especially nowadays people are just offline bouncing. They're tired of the song. Let's just get it out there. And then there's a plugin that was the low end was soloed. And so it's, you know, something was weird there. So I would say that's, that's why you should master. And that's sort of explains a little bit of what mastering is as well as

the last stage before duplication. It's changed a little bit throughout history, but that's where it sits right now.

Brian Funk (04:57.293)

Yeah, I guess that quality control too is a part of it, the extra set of ears even.

Oscar Zambrano (05:04.384)

Yes, mean, the question of why should you send it to master is a couple of reasons why. One is you don't have to worry about what you need to deliver, but more importantly is you want a second set of ears in a different room. Ideally you want a nicely tuned room, full range speakers, but a lot of times you don't have that. But just having a second set of ears in a different room that will expose any problems or not expose any problems, but just know what's happening is, I think, important. And...

a fresh set of ears right before it goes out that's, you know, first time listen like, you know, no, the low end is fine. You're over stressing or the snare sounds great. You're just been working on it for three months and focusing on something that sounds great already. So I think that's, that's important. Yeah.

Brian Funk (05:53.026)

How much control do you have over any kind of problems in the mix or if there's some issues? Do you have to sort of send it back if there's some issues in something like the balance or just some technical errors or do you have some control?

Oscar Zambrano (06:08.844)

Technical errors are easier to send back and a technical error would probably be easier to find. Whether it's dropouts or maybe we hear a little of crunchiness when something's hitting. Maybe they're hitting the master bus a little bit too much. We can just double check. Sending MP3s to master, we can always say you have something higher or 16 bits or something like that. If it's a little bit more balanced, it's a little tricky because

We don't know if it's part of the production or not. We don't know really what happened for the recording side to the mixing side. We don't know what the mixing engineer had to work with. So it could be that they got pretty bad tracks to mix and so they did the best they could. So it's really tricky to just say, you know, after months of work or weeks of work that one engineer says, Hey, you know what? think the vocal is really loud and distorted or whatever it is that I think the piano is overtaking the

know, horn arrangement, it's a little tricky. And this is just the way I work. Pretty sure other engineers have a different perspective. But the way I think of it is I'm not producing it, I'm just the engineer. And so what I try to get is a little bit more of a backstory of, all right, please tell me what the song is about, what were your intentions, you know, try to catch me up what happened in the past few months. Because I have, you know,

It's one song, probably an hour or two, and that's it, right? And you've been working on it for really long time, so...

But if there is something, for example, that the vocal is very loud and I hear it, you know, this might be a little bit too loud. I wouldn't really say, hey, can you give me a vocal down? I would more say, hey, I hear the vocal a little bit on the loud side. Is it something you want me to keep or is it something to address? Is this intentional or not? More like ask the question of tell me what the production idea was. And if they're not sure, then they're like, oh, we were having some problems with it. We weren't really sure.

Oscar Zambrano (08:13.556)

I'll just say send me a vocal down and we'll figure something out. know, half a dB or a dB, a little bit more old school where before recalls were done in plugins and consoles that would give you six or seven mixes in mastering. It'll be like your main mix and then vocal up half a dB, vocal up 1 dB, vocal down half a dB, vocal down 1 dB and maybe something different that they had a question of like with or without fader and then you would choose in mastering. So,

Sometimes I'll request that and maybe it just works. can slide in and out the vocal up and the verses and then the chorus is fine. So I can play around with that. So I think it's more of trying to gauge what's happening in the production before making a judgment call. And if there is something that we need to fix, there is quite a bit that we can do, which is really nice, but also pretty dangerous because it's causing effect, unfortunately.

And the basic side of things using EQs, for example, or a little bit of compression, can address a little bit of vocal ups or vocal down, you know, just bring it up a little bit. Same thing for low end. There is some tools that have come up a little bit with AI and not so much like separating things and then remixing it and then doing it. It's more of internal plugins that are able to sort of separate things internally and we can, you know, target.

specific instrumentation or vocals. Again, there's some artifacts if you push it too much, but it's nice to say, I just want to, you know, de-ess the vocal on this one part. You can probably do that a little bit easier now, but again, it's just the left and right two channels.

I guess, use caution.

Brian Funk (10:02.343)

Yeah, right. Let's get more more surprising what you can do. I used to tell people, you know, once you have the mix, it's like you bake the cake. I can't take your raw egg out of it anymore. But now you can kind of get in there. getting close.

Oscar Zambrano (10:12.105)

Yeah. Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (10:19.037)

We're getting close, but then I feel like it's the same thing as when you're tracking. I feel like if you spent the extra two or three takes to get it right as opposed to 10 hours, then editing everything, it's going to sound better. It's going to be cheaper in the end probably. And you're not fixing things right off the bat. So if you record something and you're like, I'll fix it later. And now you spent 10 hours fixing something or however long it takes and

from the beginning instead of just, let's just mix it and see what happens. You're already fixing something, so you're playing catch up. So if you're always playing catch up, then I feel like you're kind of making the song or record not as great as it could be technically, right? Cause a good song doesn't matter how, in my opinion, how it sounds. There's some songs that are amazing songs that just sound terrible and nobody notices, including Ingenious cause it's such a great track. So, but technically wise, I think

Brian Funk (10:54.656)

Right.

Oscar Zambrano (11:17.087)

I think playing catch up is not ideal. So I think sort of future proofing things of like, know what, we'll spend the extra hour in the studio to do it or yes, it's going to cost us more than the mix, but then the mastering engineer is not like, you know, massaging stuff. And then, you know, we want more vocal or we want more snare. So we can definitely do that, but then the vocal will come up, maybe some stuff in the guitars will come up. So now we're doing half and half as opposed to just

give me a little bit more snare in the mix would have been half an hour. So, but yeah, it's impressive what we can do. know, a lot of times the mix engineer can't do it or there's a time constraint and there's not much we can do then yes, those tools really come in and it's been extremely helpful. Yeah. With fast turnarounds especially.

Brian Funk (12:05.578)

Yeah, so we want to get it right in the early stages as much as possible. Yeah. Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (12:11.105)

So I think it's more enjoyable for everybody. mean, then there's not stress. I mean, it's amazing when people come in really confident. They have the time to do their mixes and the recording. very happy and it's just everything sounds great already. It's just adding that extra little percentage of something and mastering. Sometimes it's just two EQ bands and maybe a dB louder just because we need it a little bit. And sometimes we have to bring the mix down, you know, 2 dB to fit.

the other tracks because the ballad sounded too loud and it's just two or three little moves and that was it and sounded great as opposed to a million different moves and the chorus needs to be one setting and then the verses a different setting, the bridge a different setting and then trying to address different things now you're kind of in a battle there I feel.

Brian Funk (13:03.008)

Yeah, I think when I first heard of mastering ever, probably still a teenager with going with my band to record an album, then it was like, have to get a master. What is that? And our understanding was mostly like, it'll make it louder. So it sounds the same volume as your other CDs in your, you know, six dicks CD changer.

Oscar Zambrano (13:25.043)

Right. Right.

Brian Funk (13:28.374)

But I think that's maybe some of the thinking that got us into a little bit of trouble, some of the trends in mastering, right?

Oscar Zambrano (13:37.441)

I mean, I think the art of mastering has never been really understood. And if you, if we go back to a little bit of the history of it is, you know, mastering has always been the last stage, but mastering was started out more as if you want to think of as transfer engineers. So if you think like back in the day, right now we would go into the studio and, oh, I want to just get my rough mixes from a recording, get an MP3 and that's it. Like then you have to like cut a vinyl.

and then play it. Right? And same for your rough mixes or mixes, you need to cut a vinyl. So the mastering engineers would be the one that would always cut the refs. There's always somebody at a label or a big studio cutting the vinyl, at least for refs, because that's the only way to hear the stuff outside the studio. And you would start as a mastering engineer and work your way up to recording and mixing. So the idea was you would get the experience of the, you know, fine tune your ear because what you wanted was

I want the mixes or the rough tracks or whatever it is to sound like it is coming from tape onto the vinyl. So if there's any adjustments that we need to make, you you would find Tune Uri that way. I think that was a theory. That slowly evolved into really its own little genre now of like its own little niche of engineering. And I do feel like a lot of people just recorded mix, but the mastering is very, very separate still.

and I think that came into play a lot with.

I when mediums changed a little bit, like cassettes and stuff, it's definitely CDs. CDs was a big change. The moment we went into, you know, that we can use, or even like digital computers, even if it went to vinyl, but you were using something digital to process things like back in the day with Sonic Solutions. think that started to create more what the mastering engineer is these days. And CDs, I think, made the big change because CDs were the first ones, I think. Somebody can then comment that I'm wrong, but...

Oscar Zambrano (15:42.913)

CD is the first one that really there's no physical limitation to the headroom we can use and it's dead silent. So that started to make things really loud because now there's, you know, the moment there's a brick limiter that's invented and you can basically cut it, so to speak, really loud without the vinyl punching through now, it makes it louder, right? So that's one part. The other part is

I mean, the loudness wars started a little bit before that, even though it wasn't loudness wars because of physical limitations, I feel like, but they realized you have a little bit of a noise floor that you need to deal with. So you cut it louder to cover that noise floor. And then they realized, oh, it's louder. It's going to, you know, people react more to that loudness on the radio. So they started to cut it louder, but there is a limitation to it. Then CDs come and it's like, your limitation is basically minus 0.1 now. Have fun. So.

Brian Funk (16:40.811)

Thank

Oscar Zambrano (16:42.377)

I think that's where it started. now with Brickwall limiters, TruePeak limiters, it's just, you know, basically as loud as you can go. It is changing a little bit. think people are realizing louder is not better. There's a lot of misinformation out there about having to hit minus 14 loves or minus 16 loves because of streaming services. There's no real standard.

That's what they level it out to if you have soundcheck on, but if you don't have it on, then it won't do it. And they could change it at any point. So, so people are realizing I'm not having that much of a discussion with the clients of can you make it louder just for the sake of making it louder? so it is, I think it's getting a little bit better. I hope. I yeah, I feel confident. I don't think the loudness words.

Brian Funk (17:32.587)

Hmm.

Oscar Zambrano (17:37.217)

I think it's getting better than like the last few years. mean, what is getting loudest of mixes, the mixes we receive are getting extremely loud. We used to have a little bit more headroom and now it's like pretty, it's pretty slammed. Yeah, I feel like things aren't getting as slammed in mastering as they used to for no reason.

Brian Funk (17:59.244)

Yeah, but I guess when you were able to shuffle through different songs from different records, it was obvious when certain things were really loud and you didn't want yours to come out all wimpy. So we got a little out of hand for a few years there.

Oscar Zambrano (18:18.56)

A little bit, and still out of hand, it's, it's, I don't know, I feel like it's getting better, which is why I know the utmost thing is a little controversial for a lot of people, but a lot of people do say, oh, I don't really hear the spatial side of things, but I like how open it is. And I think they hear it open because that does have a spec and it's almost 10 dB lower around, you know, on average than a stereo mix. So we're not slamming it as much because we can't.

Brian Funk (18:22.667)

Hmm.

Oscar Zambrano (18:45.012)

So people are like, it sounds way more open. I hear the drums more. It's like, yeah, it's not as compressed, not even close to being as compressed. So, you know, it's part of the fun, I would say.

Brian Funk (18:57.353)

Yeah, right. Yeah, it's so much stuff now, think, especially so subjective. There's a stylistic choices like what you were saying about like the vocals seem a little loud. That might be intentional. And it sounds like you've developed some bedside manner in addressing that.

Oscar Zambrano (19:10.409)

Exactly. Yeah.

I think it's 90 % of it is bedside manner and also understanding the genre, right? mean, if it's a punk record and they're like, we want it really loud, I will make it loud because it should be in your face. Like the whole point is I want to make people uncomfortable or whatever it is. Or if even if it's, you know, an avant-garde piece that like we want people to uncomfortable in your face, you know, we want them to feel like this is not nice and cover my ears or that because that's the art piece.

Let's do it. I don't mind doing that at all. I think that's great. But I think making it loud because my friends is loud or because this other artist has it louder isn't... That's when I sort of have a little bit of pushback. I mean, it's their name in the end that's in the cover, but I do have a little bit of pushback there. But it's definitely genre specific. know, classical piece will not be...

as loud as a punk record for example and I don't think I would make it that loud, it just doesn't sound good but yeah, you have to understand I think the genre as well and where everything sits, so.

Brian Funk (20:20.875)

I think I read that on your site somewhere, louder isn't better or something along those lines.

Oscar Zambrano (20:24.416)

Oh, that was a little thing we had. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a little thing I had and I just added this little logo there and people reached out like, is this an initiative? I was like, not really. It's a little thing of, it's not always better. Sometimes it is, but it's not always better.

Brian Funk (20:33.291)

Yeah, right.

Yeah, yeah, bit of a choice, I guess. And so I guess there is a lot of conversation before you actually start the work just to get a sense of what people are looking for.

Oscar Zambrano (20:51.432)

I try to. Sometimes you just don't get the chance or it's just via email. But I always try to at least understand what's happening. And if I do have any questions, I might hold off on mastering and just sort of wait for an email, see if I can do a quick call with them just to understand what's happening. Especially if it's an album. Because even sequencing, I spend a lot of time with the spacings between tracks. I want to understand what is it something that they thought about or they didn't.

So I try and that's why I also encourage for the artists or producers or somebody in the project to come attend the session. So they can come at the beginning, in the middle, at the end, but it's, you know, for a couple of reasons. One is I get to meet them. Two is I will spend a little bit of time sort of discussing the project and sort of understanding the whole idea that they had behind it.

And three is the first time they get to hear the finished product in a nice sounding room. So it's kind of like going a little bit to the movie theater to see your final product. And I don't think they'll ever get to hear that again. And it's the first time you hear it finished. So I think it's really nice. So even if they come at the end, just to hear the before and after, but it's just, it's a really nice feeling. So I encourage it for me, just so could meet them and then for them, so they can actually hear what's happening and it's part of process.

Brian Funk (22:18.056)

I think it's a fun part of the process. My band and I had our last record mastered and we took the road trip out and we had it mastered to tape and then back in. yeah, it was like that. was, you know, we're never going to hear it this good again. You know, this is, this is kind of the celebration too. And as to like the one that recorded it too, it was nice to

Oscar Zambrano (22:30.238)

Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (22:36.018)

Exactly. Yeah.

Brian Funk (22:46.652)

talk to our engineer and say, know, what do you need to do? Where did I go wrong? What do you think needs fixing here? And that feedback was valuable and kind of gave me a sense like, yeah, I tend to do that. I'm aware. Okay. that's, you know, helps you just calibrate yourself.

Oscar Zambrano (23:05.619)

Yeah. And I think you bring up exactly. think you bring up a really good point here of like, okay, what needs to be fixed? And I think that's important for people to know is you don't send stuff to mastering to be fixed. You send it cause it's the last stage, kind of like you need to send it to be mixed. It's part of the last stage. the whole thing of even if you're starting out to master, don't have the mentality of, okay, let me listen to see what I can fix. It's

We're not really fixing it, hopefully. We're just maybe enhancing things. And then if things need to be addressed or fixed, that's, you know, all right, let's try to address it. But I feel like a lot of people are sending things to Mastering so they can fix their problems. Because I always get that comment is, OK, what do you think needs to be fixed? And I'm like, well, nothing. I'm like, what do mean, nothing? Like, yeah, it sounds great. What would you change? I wouldn't change anything. I love my mix. I was like, well, I agree with you.

Brian Funk (24:01.098)

Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (24:03.389)

So we're just going add a little bit of top-end, and we're just going to take out 400 hertz by like 0.5 dB just to open it up a little bit more, and that's it. And they're like, that's great. No, yeah, I really like it. OK. So I think they're expecting sometimes a big change when it's not needed. So I think it's important note to make, because hopefully you're not fixing things. You're enhancing it, even though we can. So just.

Brian Funk (24:29.512)

Right.

Oscar Zambrano (24:29.521)

You know, throw that out there. People are expecting sometimes a night and day change when... Sometimes it's not.

Brian Funk (24:36.082)

Yeah, well that would probably be shocking really if it came back. Whoa, whoa, Because the...

Oscar Zambrano (24:42.111)

Sometimes that's what they're expecting. I sometimes we do it is a big change and other times they were expecting a night and day change and then it's okay. What were you expecting? Because I didn't hear it that way. Maybe you're hearing it different. So I think, yeah, I think there's a rule within mastering engineers. The rule number one is do no harm. So kind of approach it that way first and then figure out what's happening. Yeah.

Brian Funk (25:04.106)

Thank

Brian Funk (25:11.56)

And you mentioned like sequencing tracks and spaces between. So that's another part that I think people forget sometimes too, is everything has to be consistent in an album or an EP. don't want, this is the loud song, this is the quiet one and this one's...

Oscar Zambrano (25:28.863)

Right, yeah, I didn't touch on that point, but it's important. mean, it's sequencing and that if it's an album that it does sound cohesive. So, and by cohesive is a little bit sonically, but I think level wise is the big one. So the ballad should be sounding quieter than the loud track and, you know, rocking track. So that's important. And also spacing, spacing is important. A lot of people don't pay attention to spacings, but...

There's a certain flow to an album, so even if you didn't pay attention to it, I will do some spacings. know, I go by feel, there's no real standard, so I'll play the last minute of the track, and then I know what's coming up next, I close my eyes, make a marker, slide it in, play it again, be like, okay, yes, that feels right. And sometimes, that's the only recalls I get is, everything sounds great, but can we add half a second between track four and five and shave a second?

between seven and eight or whatever it is. And that's all part of it. Or where does the track start when you press play? That's another important part. So if it's, you know, big pop track, press play and usually it's play and then almost right away kicks in as opposed to, you know, ballad play, extra breath, and then it comes in. Or if it's classical music, play.

And then it comes in, you know, all that's important. So all that's sort of encoded and part of the technical side of things in mastering that we do. And again, that sometimes in classical music, especially that's a lot of the recalls is can we add more time before the track comes in when you press play, for example, right? So all that's all that's part of it. It's all baked into the file. If we're doing CDs, you can do pause markers.

you know, all that good stuff. that's the technical side of things that you shouldn't have to worry about it unless you're a mastering engineer so you can focus on other things.

Brian Funk (27:32.047)

What is a pause marker on a CD?

Oscar Zambrano (27:35.081)

So it depends on the program you're using. I use Sequoia so they use it as pause markers. forget what Stonic used to call it, but it's essentially like an end ID of a track. So if we leave it with the terminology of a pause marker, if you have, let's just say a live album is the easiest to explain and you have track one and track two and it's a continuous album essentially because it's live.

And the artist is crazy and says, want two minutes of applause between each track. Cause I want people to know how much they love me. Right? So let's go to the extreme example. So the track ends and then you have two minutes of applause. And then the next track comes in, right? In a pause mark. And this really only works with CDs. You can't really do this on.

on digital platforms. only for CDs. The pause marker is only for CDs. When the track ends, you would add a pause marker that marks the end of the track. And then between the pause marker and the start ID of track two, it's kind of like no man's land. The only way to listen to that is if you listen straight through. But if you have it in shuffle mode, it stops here and then it goes to the next track.

So if you pop in a CD, I don't know if you've seen the minus five, minus four, minus three. That's the, now it's counting down the pause marker or a lot of the time it's, that's where we put hidden tracks. So the only way to listen to that track is if you listen continuous, but if you have it in shuffle mode, you'll never listen to that hidden track. It's between the markers. Unfortunately, that's gone away with streaming, but that's one of the cool things in CDs. So that's what a pause marker is. Yeah.

Brian Funk (29:03.879)

Yeah, negative numbers, yeah.

Brian Funk (29:29.041)

Yeah, I can remember a couple albums that would have almost these little intros or something to like the next song and it being negative counting up to zero.

Oscar Zambrano (29:35.848)

Right.

Exactly. Right. And so now if you listen to that album on Apple Music or Tidal or Spotify, that intro is probably attached to the previous track. Because what happens is the pause marker is taken away and the pause marker is now the start of the track as well. So that start track becomes the end track as well. So that spacing gets attached to the previous track. Yeah.

Brian Funk (30:03.217)

Right. One of those little things we lost with CDs. Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (30:08.126)

Yeah, it's a little sadder. I used to remember like trying to encode, break the code a little bit to like create a CD master that had a hidden track before track one. cause it's illegal technically to have something before so you would be able to hack it so that either on repeat, I forget if it's on repeat, you would hear it or you have to like press play and then rewind and then you would hear it. Yeah.

Brian Funk (30:16.713)

huh. Cool.

Brian Funk (30:27.859)

Like rewind,

Yeah, yeah, that's fun. You know, I was lamenting another thing that we lost with CDs was just the art on the CD. I was flipping through one of those photo album books that I have of my old CDs and memory lane, I remember them. I remember my friend's books look like all their albums and some of that art. I'm like, oh man, like, yeah, that's, we don't have that anymore. Discard.

Oscar Zambrano (30:34.238)

Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (30:44.059)

Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (30:54.777)

We don't. Which is why, part of the reason I think vinyl is coming back. I think there was a study, and I forget the numbers, but a lot of people, a lot of the young listeners don't have vinyl players, but they still buy the vinyl. And I think it's because something tangible to hold, and you get the artwork and the credits and everything. So, that's part of the reason why I think, I would say 50 or 60 % of the stuff I master goes to vinyl. It's quite a bit.

Brian Funk (31:13.906)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (31:20.221)

Hmm. You get that immersive experience of looking in. I remember that was like sometimes all you ever had of the band or the artists that you were listening to. didn't have the internet to go and search them up or anything or their Instagram. And you would just comb over these things and try to make out what these abstract pictures were.

Oscar Zambrano (31:25.288)

Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (31:38.226)

Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (31:43.825)

Exactly. Yeah. But I think it's nice now that they have the vinyl plus the Instagram plus the internet. So you can really think it has more access to the artists now to see what they were really thinking and cool projects and stuff. you have now the artwork plus another insight track. So I think it's, pretty fun right now where we're at. Yeah.

Brian Funk (31:53.864)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (32:00.316)

you

Yeah, you get a lot of insight into the behind the scenes, things like that. Yeah, there's a lot of opportunity for that. It's a great way to think about it, I guess, too, because I know a lot of people that make music are like, I got to be a social media person. I got to be this. And it's like, well, it's part of the art if you look at it that way. Have fun with it.

Oscar Zambrano (32:22.718)

I feel like we will always gonna complain about something. was talking to somebody about it and you know before I used to have a band way back when and our complaint was always, oh we can't get distribution, we can't get into tower records, how are we gonna do? We just made a thousand CDs that cost us an arm and a leg and we had to do the hardware and it really expensive to do it. not like Disc Makers wasn't around none of that stuff. It was a big deal.

funny fact is it never got mastered because we didn't know. So now I'm a mastering engineer, but that went out just with mixes on its own. that's a little funny, fun fact there. so that was our complaint is, oh, we don't have distribution. Nobody knows about us because if somebody knew about us, we would make it. And now anybody has worldwide distribution. So now, you know, it's, but the social media was like, yeah, but I'm pretty sure like we always were complaining that we wanted to be seen and

Brian Funk (32:54.553)

Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (33:20.478)

to have access to our fans and get out there. And now you can have access to all these people listening to in Europe and Asia, wherever you want and have it play there because it's worldwide with just a click of a button. And I think it's, I forget how much it is, like $80 or something. It's pretty inexpensive and now it's worldwide distribution. And then we're still complaining about it. So I feel like you have to sort of, you know, take a step back and

Brian Funk (33:28.477)

Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (33:49.682)

They're okay, I think it's good to complain because we always want more, but it's also realize what you have is, think people take for granted world distribution.

Brian Funk (33:59.426)

yeah? mean, you used to have to go to the people, get the album in their hands, they'd have to go put it on.

Oscar Zambrano (34:03.964)

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And then send the records, if you got lucky, to the record store on consignment and then they would send it back, but they would put it in the back of the store and then nobody would see it. And they promised you they would put it up front. And now you're just up there. Yes, we want it to be on playlist, but you have it in the same platform that everybody else has. It's just promoting it. So I think, you know, it's...

Brian Funk (34:13.031)

Yeah, right.

Oscar Zambrano (34:31.454)

kind of try to look at it in positive way and sort of take it, you know, I think it's in a good place. It's just now it's flooded with everybody, which is part of the problem.

Brian Funk (34:31.945)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (34:39.865)

Yeah, now there's so much noise.

Oscar Zambrano (34:43.522)

But it's, you know, that's when your friends saying, did you hear this or did you hear that? Listen to this. think it really helps because now everybody can hear as opposed to taking the cassette, duplicating the cassette and then borrow your CD. Then you lose the CD and it's, you know, it's fun, but I think this is also a better way for the artist to like get it out there. So yeah.

Brian Funk (34:45.417)

.

Brian Funk (35:09.373)

Yeah, I have some nostalgia for those days, but I don't want to go back either. was some fun moments. got some fun, like, burnt CDs and my tapes that are like people's albums, but it is a lot easier now.

Oscar Zambrano (35:15.614)

I mean.

Oscar Zambrano (35:19.334)

Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (35:22.727)

Exactly.

It's a little easy. The one thing I do miss of back then is standing in line at the record store for like the new album coming out or just going once over to the record store and seeing what's coming out and they're just spending two hours listening to what they had on their players. then just maybe come out with one CD, right? One CD or no CDs or cassettes or whatever it is, but it was a nice way to sort of focus on, all right, I want to see what's coming out. And now I feel, at least personally,

Brian Funk (35:28.499)

Okay.

Brian Funk (35:34.557)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (35:42.137)

Mm-hmm. Right. The communal players.

Oscar Zambrano (35:56.158)

I don't spend the time doing it and I'll just like kind of look real fast and be like, oh, this came out okay. And then I listened to one track and it's very easy for me to skip around as opposed to I bought the CD for $12. Now I'm committed to listen to it because it was my money, you know? So that I miss.

Brian Funk (36:09.512)

Yeah. Well, how much of my favorite music had to grow on me at that time too? Where I don't know that I give things that chance anymore. I just move on to the next infinite collection of songs.

Oscar Zambrano (36:17.339)

Yeah, exactly.

Oscar Zambrano (36:25.053)

I know, I know it's just, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I try, I think of these things and I try to be like, okay, if this was back in the day, I would actually give it a chance and sit down and all right, let's just try to scroll through what's happening these days and sort of pick and choose and come up with a playlist for that week and I will try to listen to it on my walk to work and just be like, okay, this was good.

Brian Funk (36:52.668)

Yeah, we're in a good time. We really are. we have access to so much. Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (36:56.117)

I think so. I unlimited access to so much, that's the thing. As a listener, it's amazing. Yes, there's a lot of issues for the artists, but again, the part of world distribution is something I keep on remembering.

Brian Funk (37:11.27)

Well, I mean, if it was back in those days as well, mean, I'm not getting into the studio very often because it costs an arm and a leg. And now you can do that sitting in your bed. You can be composing tracks and...

Oscar Zambrano (37:25.301)

Yeah, exactly. Which as it's good and it's bad, but it gives a chance to a lot of people that didn't have the chance before and maybe, you know, so yeah, I just, I just think it takes a, takes one speed or speed bump out two speed bumps out. yeah, but send it to be mastered.

Brian Funk (37:32.562)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (37:39.995)

Mm-hmm. Do you mind... Yes. Do you mind talking a little bit about the different ways, the different mediums, guess? Like there's streaming, there's mastering for vinyl, know especially, it makes a big difference.

Oscar Zambrano (37:57.502)

Um, it's changed a little bit. think the max, yes. I would say we still do CDs for some reason, but CDs are still a thing. So I would say CDs, digital distribution for streaming and vinyl, I think were the main ones. It used to also, it used to be also master for iTunes or Apple digital music, that's they call it.

digital masters, I felt digital masters what to call it now. That was a separate format as well. But I would say the three main ones right now are digital distribution, which means high res 24 bits at this point, think 80 % of 90 % of the aggregators, Districated, Tuned Core, Orchard, all those will take a high res at least up to 96K.

I think some of them might take up to one to two, but at least 96K 24 bit. CDs would be a DDP 4416. So you make a DDP, which then they would go into Glass Master and then vinyl. And the vinyl is a little tricky because it depends on what the artist is doing. I handle it a little bit differently than maybe some engineers do, but I ask.

you know, why they doing the final and if they want to spend the money, do it right or not? And the answers are always valid. It's just, need to know the intentions and it's mostly a financial thing for them. So if they are saying, it's just a product to put out, we care how it sounds, but...

We care how it sounds, but...

Oscar Zambrano (39:55.774)

But we don't have financial resources to really do it right, right? So everybody else is doing it and we can, you know, make some money back from it. It's like, okay, that's a valid point, right? And the whole point is you can send it out to a duplication plan. They'll probably cut the master for, don't know, give you a random number here, but like two or $300 as opposed to having a cutting engineer do it. Maybe you go to the extreme and reference cuts and all that, that probably adds $1,500.

to their duplication, but it's gonna sound amazing on vinyl. So all valid points, it's just if it's not going to be an actual cutting engineer that I'm gonna be speaking to, then I will make some adjustments, not crazy adjustments, because I feel to make crazy adjustments, you would have to do a cutting test and then see how it comes out. Sometimes you don't need to do too much.

But if it is going to vinyl and I know it's going to vinyl and it's a loud record, I want it pretty loud. I'll set my gain staging in a way where I can print two masters at the same time. And so one is right before like a couple of my limiters or compression. So it has way more headroom and it's not as slammed. And then that one, I might make some adjustments, double check it to see if there's a lot of S's or the hi-hats. I might address that a little bit.

And this again is if they're not going to a cutting engineer, if they're just going to the duplication plant or if it's electronic music or something is happening where the low, low end is stereo or out of phase. Maybe I have to bring it in a little bit so that the needle doesn't pop in and out. And also taking into consideration how long the sides are. If it's 12 minute sides or 15 minute sides, I might cut it little bit louder, but if it's 20 minute sides, it's a rock album. We have to really bring the volume down.

so.

Brian Funk (41:51.56)

It's just not physical space, right? Just in the grooves.

Oscar Zambrano (41:54.709)

Correct. Correct. Yeah. So the louder you want it, the more space it takes to a certain degree. So, also like very out of phase, if you want to call it low end doesn't cut well or won't cut because the needle goes out. So a lot of people, the default is I'm going to make a hundred Hertz and below mono, put a de-esser on and drop it 60B. A lot of times if you don't do a test cut, maybe you don't have to make

Brian Funk (42:01.415)

Okay.

Oscar Zambrano (42:24.444)

the 100Hz mono, maybe it might cut well. So that's the thing that I like to, I use two three cutting engineers that I work with a lot. And if there's always an issue that can come back to me and say like, hey, can you do this? You know, I can't do too much on my end, but at this point I know enough to sort of give it the best chance for the medium.

Brian Funk (42:45.767)

You said yes, Is that what you said back there?

Oscar Zambrano (42:49.82)

Yeah, the de-esser is important. Most, I would say, I'm not a cutting engineer per se, but most of the time there's a de-esser when cutting. The lathes have a de-esser because too much high frequency burns through, it will break the vinyl. So, sometimes that's why you hear loud records, there's a little bit of like a crunch, like a little bit of a compression happening on S's, it's probably the de-esser hitting because it doesn't cut well, so.

I'll make sure that if there's something very sibilant.

The cutting engineer doesn't have too much of an issue. But again, I like to be in touch with them. Yeah, sometimes I'll go to the cutting session and cut with them.

Brian Funk (43:34.011)

Right. That's it for doing it the right way. Investing the money. Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (43:38.042)

I mean, it's just, if you're concerned, if you're doing vinyl, cause you love how it sounds, then do it the right way. If you need the product, like 100 % understand you need the product, then we try to make it sound as best as possible. But you know, they won't spend the time making the, the, the test cuts and then making small adjustments.

Brian Funk (43:50.695)

Hmm.

Oscar Zambrano (43:59.037)

It's going to sound 80%, right? It's going to sound fine. It's going to sound at 80%, but it won't sound 100 % of the meaning, but it's going to sound fine. Um, so yeah.

Brian Funk (43:59.1)

Well, here's another reason. Yeah.

Brian Funk (44:07.835)

Yeah. Yeah, and I was just going to say this is another thing to be thankful for that we have. The digital medium is a little bit easier to work with and you have to, yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (44:17.21)

Yeah, no noise.

Brian Funk (44:19.995)

Yeah, which is funny because I'm constantly injecting noise into recordings now just to bring back all the problems I used to fight against. Whether it was, yeah, whether things were too sloppy. I can't play drums right now. Everything's too quantized. Re-injecting all that humanity to what I do. Vinyl crackle in the mix.

Oscar Zambrano (44:24.859)

Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (44:28.602)

I know, we miss it now.

Oscar Zambrano (44:36.975)

Yeah, I agree.

Oscar Zambrano (44:41.54)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, it's funny with the vinyl crackle. There's an album I just did that had vinyl crackle effects throughout. And I requested them a separate mix without the vinyl crackle because I was going to vinyl and I like, we can't add vinyl crackle to the vinyl. This is not going to bode well. yeah. Yeah.

Brian Funk (44:56.761)

Right. Yeah, yeah. It's going to come out all weird. That's pretty funny. But it's, yeah, it's amazing just how far that's come and that we can do it. think even like now records, you get away with a lot more than you used to as far as like bass and stuff like that. We're vinyl, yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (45:06.65)

Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (45:22.268)

for the vinyl? I think so. Again, I'm not a cutting engineer, so I'm not an expert that much. I know enough to get myself into trouble, I would say. But I mean, yes, you can probably now get away with it a little bit more, but there is a physical limitation. So the big thing is probably level. It's going to be cut lower in volume, which now brings up the noise floor.

There's some great sounding loud records and it sounds great.

Oscar Zambrano (45:57.253)

Yeah, I mean that's as much as I know. Again, I get myself more into trouble than not. So that's why I rely on the cutting engineers.

Brian Funk (46:03.173)

Yeah. I'm guessing you're using like a mix of hardware and software stuff when you master.

Oscar Zambrano (46:13.34)

Yeah, my setup is a hybrid. I would say changes per project, maybe per song, but I would say 75 % of the time I'm in hybrid mode. So I'll use some plugins and then the plugins I use are mostly more for like cleanup, a little bit of sound. And then the hardware is more of a coloring thing, more of the broad strokes. And then I bring it back in.

print from that is usually and then if I feel like going through the converters or it's gonna be too much color with the hardware I have won't really add anything to the mixes and it'll be detrimental then I'll just stay in the box. We have amazing plugins now it's not like 10 years ago where there was an excuse that

Oh, it's not hardware. Slug-ins are fantastic now and I feel like they're just... I want the same par, but almost on par. I think you would choose to go out of the box versus in the box because it's a different sound as opposed to quality. The same thing of why you would choose this mic over this other mic. I think it's the same thing. That's where we're at right now. So, yeah.

Brian Funk (47:29.327)

Right.

Brian Funk (47:35.527)

Hmm.

Oscar Zambrano (47:37.422)

I might get to a final sound faster because I like to tweak the knobs in another rig well enough, but I think everything in the box right now is, we're in a really good place right now, plugin wise.

Brian Funk (47:50.631)

Do you have any go-tos, any favorites, plug-in-wise?

Oscar Zambrano (47:54.992)

Depends on the month, I usually discover some things, but right now, so for plugins, I use a lot of the, the iSetup Ozone stuff. 10 and 11 are great. The Maximizer, I really like, I like the Maximizer. I think I'm mostly also used to the sound it does with the different variations. so I know what it does. So it's very easy for me to achieve something using the Maximizer. Plugins are nice. it's really nice that you can switch the order.

in no zone, the signal chain, the exciter is great because have multi-band exciter with like amount and mix. And then FabFilter, the Q4 that came out recently is game changer for me. Michelangelo from projects, I think it is. Grady Q. I like the...

Pro L2 I think it is from FoutFilter, the limiter, it's great. I use the Oxford Inflator sometimes, just a little bit of, I don't know, character to things, as well as the black box. I'm think what other plugins.

Oscar Zambrano (49:14.927)

Off the top of my head, I think. There's probably like one or two other EQs I'm forgetting right now. Yeah.

Brian Funk (49:19.942)

Those are your main players though.

Oscar Zambrano (49:22.917)

I would say I jump to that and then I'll figure out if I need something else. As far as de-essers go, the Weiss plugin de-esser is great. The FabFilter de-esser is great. It also has a sidechain so you can sidechain things to it if needed to just trigger the essers. And then the other thing, 100 % of the stuff goes through is RX. We QC in RX, we de-click, we de-pop in RX.

If there's one S in the entire track that's messing us up, we'll probably attenuate using spectral repairs. It's easier than a DSR and less intrusive. So, RX is just as important as Sequoia for us, or Pro Tools.

Brian Funk (50:06.298)

Yeah. Hmm. Wow. Yeah, that's a wild piece of software. Rx.

Oscar Zambrano (50:15.119)

Yes, it's important. We do all our conversion, our sample rate and dither of Rx because we can tweak every little thing we can tweak. So we've made experiments and come up with certain steepness to the curve and pre-ringing that we like and all that. So yes, everything gets converted via Rx and has a nice batch convert. So that's the other big one that we use in the computer is software wise, at least it's Rx.

Brian Funk (50:20.998)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (50:42.022)

Nice. Can you tell me a little bit about, it's pronounced Zampole Productions, right?

Oscar Zambrano (50:48.983)

Yeah, Zample Productions. Yeah, Zample Productions. It's my studio in the city. Started 20 years ago. Yeah, started 20 years ago, New York City. We just celebrated our 20 years. Thanks. Started in my bedroom. Slowly moved up to like renting a place with somebody else and then moved places. And now we've been in this current facility, which is inside.

Brian Funk (50:54.608)

New York City, yeah.

Brian Funk (50:58.948)

Yeah, hey, nice. Congrats. It's awesome.

Oscar Zambrano (51:17.723)

second story down the lower side. And we've been here 10 years. And yeah, we started it out. I mean, I started out with a good friend of mine from college just because I was working in New York as a general assistant cleaning bathrooms at the studio called Sound on Sound and my visa got denied. And so I had to go back to Mexico and I know.

wasn't ready to go back yet. So I went back to Mexico for a few months and then I came back and I applied for a, I think we call it an artist visa. then to prove I was doing something, we started like this little company on paper and I had enough freelance gigs to sort of pay rent sometimes. And just started just to do something and

Somehow 20 years later, we're still here with like a bigger facility and doing lots of records. So yeah, that's how it started. it's productions because back then, if the phone rang, we said yes. So, oh, do you do sound effects for films? Yes. Do you do, you know, do you produce sound? Yes. was a yes. I need any gig possible, but mastering was always like something that I was doing. So.

I'm 90 % mastering now, 85 % mastering, quite a bit of utmost so we'll throw that utmost in but we don't do that much post-production anymore, that's just more of that but that's why it's example productions as opposed to example mastering is we started as on the website yes to everything. We do it all just because we needed the gigs.

Brian Funk (52:55.994)

Yeah. I hear that a lot from people. Yeah. yeah. We do that. No, how do we do that? That's when you figure it out.

Oscar Zambrano (53:00.291)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was lot of say yes and then figure it out later in situations. But yeah, unfortunately it's worked out and mastering has always been part of it.

Brian Funk (53:08.133)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (53:14.822)

There's something about that when you're under the fire and it's like you've got the job and you've got to make it work.

Oscar Zambrano (53:22.971)

You gotta make it work and you gotta make them happy because it's a very small world. So people will talk, so you better not mess it up. So it's definitely, it's good. It's good learning curve and stuff. So yeah. So that's a little bit of a bad sample.

Brian Funk (53:30.896)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (53:37.094)

Yeah, that's cool. I read you did the Weezer live performance for Spotify, which I've seen and I love Weezer, one of my favorites. That sounds incredible.

Oscar Zambrano (53:44.121)

Yes. Yes. Yeah, it's so great with Jack. Jack Mason, the engineer there. Yeah. It was so fun. That was almost a dream. That was a dream come true. I it's that album of Weezer was, I grew up with that album. so now, yeah. Yeah. And so now to be working on it, I thought, I I know it's biased because I worked on it, but I thought it sounded great. So I was very proud of that.

Brian Funk (53:59.93)

Yeah. yeah, that was a defining record for me. Yeah.

Brian Funk (54:10.539)

It does. It sounds incredible. Yeah. Now, were you on site doing that as they were performing? Okay. You kinda, yeah, right.

Oscar Zambrano (54:11.992)

Yeah, I was very proud of that.

I was not on site. That's the bummer in mastering. We were never on site. They call us after a fact. But I was in touch quite a bit with engineer Jack. then, fortunately, have no recalls in the mastering. Everybody loved it. it was great, but also almost no interaction. Because I sent it to be mastered, sent it back to him. It like, And I was like, that's great.

Brian Funk (54:39.267)

Right.

Oscar Zambrano (54:44.634)

a little bit more like, hey, it's good. no, it was super, super cool to do. yeah, yeah. was no stress. So it was super cool to do. And like I said, I was just very happy with the way it sounded because it was a little nerve wracking. Such a classic record with these guys and be like, what did they do? So yeah, it was good. Yeah.

Brian Funk (54:45.893)

hoping like rivers would call you up and be like, Hey, listen. That's the best compliment, I guess, right? When you don't hear back.

Brian Funk (55:12.355)

Yeah, yeah, I'm like that about it too. think if it was played around with too much, you know, it's just so imprinted in my musical DNA, that stuff. So, but it came out great and it's really cool to hear some of the talking in between and a little bit of the storytelling.

Oscar Zambrano (55:19.535)

Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (55:24.141)

Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (55:29.1)

Exactly. Yeah, Yeah, Which is super fun. Plus, I can't believe so much time had passed. I was like, my God. I can't believe it. How?

Brian Funk (55:37.977)

Yeah, right? Yeah. Yeah, I was like just becoming a teenager at that point.

Oscar Zambrano (55:43.642)

I know. I was like, where did the time go? I know. Yeah. So, but yeah, that was, that was a cool project to work on.

Brian Funk (55:50.724)

Yeah, I mean, you've got the list of people and artists you've worked with is pretty wild. mean, it's almost like a who's who of a...

Oscar Zambrano (55:59.265)

Thanks. Yeah, again, we've been super lucky. It's been fun. You know, I like to say it's better than having a real job. So, you know, it's good. Yeah, we've been lucky. I really like that it's been a span of genres. know, we'll do some Cornus Quartet with Steve Reich to like Broadway shows to, you know, mariachi music with the big Alejandro Fernandez, who just got a Grammy to Weezer. It's just

Brian Funk (56:05.945)

Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (56:27.988)

It's great jazz records, did this bronze of Spalding, some stuff for Samara Joy, so it's just, it's been really nice to sort of have it so all over the place in a good way. Yeah.

Brian Funk (56:40.709)

Well, you said a real job, not having a real job or better than a real job, but I will point out to everybody. It's 6 PM now and you said you started at 7 AM this morning. yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (56:46.818)

It's a job, it's definitely a job and it's long.

Oscar Zambrano (56:52.696)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's a real job, but I mean, it's, hard to, I was telling somebody it's hard to call it a real job when you get paid to listen to music, you know, it's long stressful hours, but it's, I don't know. It's just, it's listening to music and great speakers, unfortunately, good music. it's, it's, it's good. It's, it's, it's hard work. It's long hours, but it's Yeah.

Brian Funk (57:02.116)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (57:15.097)

Yeah. Was there a particular assignment or job that you got maybe going back a little bit where you're like, my God, like this is pretty wild. We're working on this record for whoever. Anything stick out for you like that?

Oscar Zambrano (57:28.794)

There's a couple, think it's more, I mean, it happens.

Brian Funk (57:35.407)

Like maybe in the early days when it's like, holy crap, how did we do it?

Oscar Zambrano (57:35.459)

I mean, I've...

Yeah, I mean, I'm one of those that still I'll buy most, not most, but like if I see the CD or vinyl that I worked on, I'll buy it because I still get super excited and giddy to see my name on there. And I'll I'll text it to my mom and my mom's like, yes, Oscar. We know like it's great. Congrats. And I was like, it's so exciting. You my name's on the cover, you or on the back of the lighter notes. It's that's still gets me very excited. But I guess a big one was a big one is

Brian Funk (57:51.151)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (57:56.677)

You

Brian Funk (58:03.397)

Yeah, that's badass.

Oscar Zambrano (58:07.724)

Starting out, it's like three or four months into general GA-ing at Sound and Sound, there was this album by Mark Anthony, which became huge. it's a salsa album, Valió La Pena. And the engineer that was coming in wanted to Spanish speaking.

Now you have to keep in mind that the hierarchy was, it sounds like there's maybe one engineer, but it's assistants and then general assistants. And the general assistants essentially cleaned the bathrooms and got coffee and make sure everything ran right. The assistants were the assistants in the session. And if it was a big session or the GAs were done with their job, they could maybe sit in in the background to watch sessions. So you can slowly move up the ladder and it would take six months or three years.

depending on somebody needed to leave for the whole thing to shift. So three months in or four months in, very early on, it was still very long, know, bottom of the totem pole. They said, okay, I need somebody to speak Spanish, Oscar, you're up. And they told me it was a mixing gig. And I was extremely stressed out because I didn't know the JSSLJ console computer that well. I knew it well, but not enough for mixing.

Back then we would mix everything automation in the SSL without, it wasn't mixing Pro Tools essentially. It was like all console, all upboard gear. I forget if it was up to two inch or it wasn't Pro Tools, but Pro Tools was essentially like a two inch machine playback. So I asked the chief tech to see if I could take home that night the manual to read the SSL, say console computer, because of, you know.

I needed to know all the information well. Took it home, read it, sort of understood what was happening. Went back and an hour before we were supposed to start mixing they said, and here's a setup sheet for recording. And I said, what do mean recording? They said it was a mixing. Like, oh no, the full band's coming. It's like, what do mean the full band's coming?

Brian Funk (01:00:19.146)

Oscar Zambrano (01:00:21.817)

And they have to keep in mind, I'm like 22 years old, three months into the job. And they said, no, a full band's coming. Here's a setup. And it's a full salsa band. It was Grupo Nietzsche, which is like the biggest salsa band. And so I had like an hour to set up all the mics. And then for four days, they tracked this amazing salsa record. And I got to be pretty involved with it because, you know, Papa trusted me enough to engineer and we...

did a lot of stuff together and that was the moment where I'm like with this amazing salsa band and Mark Anthony for four days. know, that for me was like, wow, this is great. And then that was my first credit. They put me in the credits. So that I think was a big moment of, all right, this is, can't believe it. So, yeah. Yeah, I will never forget the panic of like, what do mean? Yeah, and it's a

Brian Funk (01:01:07.01)

Yeah, I know it is amazing, especially the surprise of it. Like, no, no, no, no, no, the whole band.

Oscar Zambrano (01:01:15.491)

full band. It's like, I forget, three different percussionists, horns, piano, rough vocals, I think we cut. It was a thing and I had an hour to set up and I never set anything up on my own because I was starting out so it was a nerve-wracking but we did it and nobody complained.

Brian Funk (01:01:35.352)

Yeah, I guess they probably sound so good too right offbeat.

Oscar Zambrano (01:01:40.076)

I mean, yeah, you can put a, I mean, not to degrade the engineering side of that engineer, because he was a great engineer, but it's definitely, put a BZM in the ceiling and it probably sounds amazing. but it was great. The producer was great. It was just three or four days of just good fun. And they really included me part of like the gang and we would go out for lunch together and then dinner.

Brian Funk (01:01:49.228)

Yeah. Yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (01:02:02.713)

Then I had to go back and do backups and all that. So think I slept in the studio for four or five days because they would start at 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. But everything needed to be, you know, turned on and warmed up two hours before. So it was just super fun. was like, yeah, this is why we're doing it. It was great.

Brian Funk (01:02:19.342)

Yeah, a little trial by fire for you. Yeah, that's awesome.

Oscar Zambrano (01:02:22.477)

A little bit. It was fun. Yeah, Yeah. So I would say that was like one of the big ones that I remember. There's been a couple more, but that was one of the big ones that, yeah.

Brian Funk (01:02:34.414)

So I'm guessing if you were to give somebody advice, you'd say, know, say yes, go for it and just do your best. Work hard.

Oscar Zambrano (01:02:42.359)

I would say yes. Yeah, say yes, go for it. And no matter what happens, you've said yes to the gig and finish it. No matter what happens. I mean, no matter what happens, but just finish it. You said yes. You know, there's limitations, but the world is very, the audio world is small. So it could be that you feel that something didn't go right. that the other person doesn't know and they might recommend you to somebody. So I would say

Try it out the bird bridges, say yes, do it right. Um, and I do think it's 90 % luck, 10 % technique or talent, I would say. But I do feel that you can create as many chances as you can to be lucky. So if you say yes, you open up the opportunities to be lucky and then it's up to you to, you know, keep the game or move on forward. But the important thing is

you've committed to it, then do it right. And then that should definitely help you.

Brian Funk (01:03:45.698)

Yeah, I think they say luck is where opportunity and preparation come together. So be ready and go for it.

Oscar Zambrano (01:03:52.442)

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, 100%, yeah. It's definitely luck, but right place, right time, but you can create as many opportunities of that as possible, Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:03:59.822)

Pretty cool.

Brian Funk (01:04:05.38)

It's an awesome story.

Oscar Zambrano (01:04:09.113)

Yeah, super fun.

Brian Funk (01:04:10.786)

I we're kind of near our time, so I don't want to keep you too much longer, but we can send people to like zampolproductions.com.

Oscar Zambrano (01:04:15.149)

No, no worries. Yeah, yeah.

Oscar Zambrano (01:04:20.301)

Yeah, Xampproductions.com, if you're in New York, hit me up. Let's hang. I'm always up for hanging.

Brian Funk (01:04:24.674)

Hmm. Yeah, I might have to drop by one day and see what's going on over there. I'm not too far from you.

Oscar Zambrano (01:04:30.295)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a nice place. We have a nice live room and we're doing a lot of Atmos. We have a nice Atmos setup, so both mixing and mastering. yeah, it's a cool little place. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:04:40.278)

awesome.

Well, I wish you continued success and thanks so much for taking the time to talk.

Oscar Zambrano (01:04:47.693)

Thanks. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, for sure. Thanks for this. This was super fun.

Brian Funk (01:04:53.624)

Yeah, absolutely. And thank you, listeners. We appreciate you being here.

Oscar Zambrano (01:04:54.958)

Yeah.

Yeah, thanks. Thanks everybody.

Brian Funk
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