Today was the first day of mixing. We moved into Studio A with the huge SSL and Neve boards. Greg was there as well as studio owner Tim Stroh so we could get started on the preliminary mix.

First off, I sat down and decided the order of the songs. I decided to stagger the songs that had more lush instrumentation between songs that were more straight forward. So, here's the final order:

1. Amor Eterno
2. Noche de Ronda
3. Dicen Que Los Hombres
4. Sombras
5. La Llorona
6. Tu Solo Tu
7. Besame Mucho
8. La Historia De Un Amor
9. Tierra de Adobe y de Sol
10. Desden
11. Solamente Una Vez
12. Y Volvere

It was interesting to me that songs that I would have considered being more "involved" ie, songs that had more parts would take more time in mixing. Actually, one of the most simple songs, Tu Solo Tu... was the most difficult. This being because there is a lot of vocal dynamics that needed to be equalized.

In the studio we laughed and had a blast. Topics of discussion ranged from Easter parties to the Taos hum...oh, and yeah...we did mix, and mix, and mix...We started at noon, and around 4ish Tim left to get some sleep and left us with a bottle of Cognac. Greg, my Dad, Jeff, and I continued till 10pm.

The SSL board is a beautiful piece of machinery. It is equipt so you can do the mixing computerized. We would run through a song and do a preliminary mix, then the computer would remember what was done where, and the next pass it would implement the mix. We could then add and delete effects as we wanted, and the computer would remember. The board was piped into a Macintosh running a musical editing program that we ended up using on Sunday for the final mixing.

On a few of the songs, we played with panning either vocals or instrumentals totally to one speaker. This worked out beautifully for Historia de Un Amor. This song the main vocal is focused on the right speaker, and the harmony is on the left...then the both coming together in the center. Pretty cool listening stuff! For most of the songs, we used little reverb effect. The one we used the most was "Small Wood Hall"...this gave a full sound without sounding fake. It was weird on Hombres no Deben Llorar, we were doing the preliminary listen and mix. We had been messing around with the effects and I thought Greg had put the reverb on heavy because it almost sounded like two people singing rather than one. Well, he said he hadn't so we tried to figure out where that other voice was coming from. He methodologically checked each track...nothing...that voice was still there....it ended up being a second voice that I had recorded, and was recorded on a track that was controlled by the other set of controls on the other side of the board! hehe! Spooky!