Recording - February 2016 - 14

Interview by Beto Hale / Photos by Olga Carrillo

A top L.A. producer/engineer reveals his secrets to capturing a vocal for the ages
Pablo Munguía started his musical journey playing drums and piano with local
bands in Mexico City, where he and three college buddies formed a band, landing
a record deal. Pablo then left Mexico for the US, where he obtained a bachelor's
degree from MIT, a Master's Degree from the University of Texas at Austin, and a
professional degree in music production and engineering from Berklee.
After graduating from Berklee, Pablo moved to Los Angeles and joined the staff
of Westlake Audio. He assisted top engineers and producers, recording the likes
of Sting, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Carole King, and Ricky Martin.
Some of the producers he worked with were Quincy Jones, Jimmy Jam &
Terry Lewis, Glen Ballard, David Foster, and Randy Jackson, among others.
Some of the great engineers he learned from include Dave Rideau, Tommy
Vicari, Matt Forger, Eric Zobler, Ray Bardani, Jess Suttcliffe, Charles Dye, Mark
Howard, and Humberto Gatica.
As an engineer, Pablo has recorded vocals for Beyoncé, Gladys Knight, Justin
Timberlake, Lionel Richie, Jeffrey Osborne, Mary J. Blige, Michael Bublé, Paula
Cole, and Natasha Bedingfield, and has produced vocals for Seal, Alicia Keys,
Britney Spears, Jason Mraz, Nicole Scherzinger, and Jessica Simpson, among
many others. He has continued to work with great producers, such as Danny
Kortchmar, Mark Taylor, Walter Afanasieff, Paul Moessl, and film composer
Thomas Newman.
In 2005, Tommy Vicari invited Pablo to help him engineer the orchestra for the
live broadcast of a television show: The Academy Awards. The experience
opened a whole new field of opportunities that have resulted in six Primetime
Emmy Awards. Pablo has since joined the audio teams responsible for the music
and sound of The Academy Awards, The Grammy Awards, The halftime show of
the Super Bowl, The American Music Awards, MTV's Video Music Awards, The
Billboard Awards and the BET Awards. For this month's vocal-centric issue, we sat
down with Pablo to learn a bit about how he sets up vocal recordings.-BH
14

RECORDING February 2016

Let's start with signal flow; what are the
most important elements for capturing a
good vocal performance (mics, preamps,
etc.)? Can you talk about specific models?
How about the room and other more
"external" elements?
Pablo Munguía: The most important element to capturing a great vocal performance
is the person standing in front of the mic.
That is 95% of the work right there. Of the
remaining 5%, I would say the mic is most
important. Now, of course, we all love the
sound of hand-made vintage microphones
built in the '50s and '60s, but there are many
great-sounding mics built in recent years. I
think the first thing is to let go of the idea that
one single microphone will work on all
singers. Each vocalist produces unique timbre
and color, and so the microphone that complements it best will not always be the same.
I personally am a big fan of four grand old
microphones: the Telefunken ELA M 251, the
Neumann U 67 and its older cousin the
Neumann U 47, and finally the AKG C12.
These are all large condenser, variable pattern, tube microphones, each with a distinct
signature. The general guidelines go like this:
The 251 is the darkest and smoothest of the
four, a fabulous mic to capture nuance and



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - February 2016

Contents
Recording - February 2016 - Cover1
Recording - February 2016 - Cover2
Recording - February 2016 - 1
Recording - February 2016 - 2
Recording - February 2016 - 3
Recording - February 2016 - 4
Recording - February 2016 - 5
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Recording - February 2016 - Contents
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Recording - February 2016 - Cover3
Recording - February 2016 - Cover4
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