Hello Steemit!

Today, with all the world´s happiness, I have the pleasure to share with you the release of Rifu, the first track of Gomera's ep, a jazz, soul and rock trio that without a doubt was, is and will be one of my favorite musical projects. One of those musical projects that really represents me as an artist.
This is the first of 5 tracks we recorded in March last year at Acuentagotas studio by Manuel Mendez, here in Buenos Aires Argentina.

In this post I will show you a before and after of the mixing and mastering process. These are often a very long and complex process. To get a good result you need a good "chemistry" and understanding between the engineer and the musicians, but this is an atypical case, especially for me that I am usually the nightmare of the mixing engineers hahaha.
This is the first time in my life that I fall in love with a mix on the first try, and I owe that to my great friend Federico Bueno, who knew how to synthesize our demands with the needs of Gomera, something very difficult to do on the first try.

Here's the first version, unmixed:

As you can see in this instance, the theme feels opaque and undefined, not bad, but we have the feeling that something is missing and we are going to get that with a good mixing process.
In the projects of fusion music it is also necessary to make a fusion of styles at the time of mixing, because if you approach the mix from a single style such as rock, pop, jazz or soul, we would be missing many elements to get the right point. Nobody wants a pop drum sound or a metal guitar sound into a jazz song, right? hahaha.

In order to obtain a mix that we like and that respects the original sound and interpretation of the musicians, it is essential to give good references to clarify the musical and sonorous influences of the group. In the case of Gomera, our influences go from jazz musicians like Esbjorn Svensson trio, Avishai Cohen, Brad Mehldau and Eric Harland to more rock and fusion musicians like Luis Alberto Spinetta, Sigur Ros, Sting and Snarky Puppy. (A mix of artists not easy to synthesize, is it?)

To record this track , we use the following instruments:
Ludwig birch drums (12 and 14 inch toms), 22 inch DW badd drum collector and my snare drum handmade by Marcelo Vignolo 14x4.
Cymbals: hi hat zildjian k 14´, crash istanbul mehmet black bell 20´, ride zildjian avedis from the 70s 20´.
Fender Telecaster custom + Vox ac 15 50th anniversary.
Fender Precision 89´.

Here is the track after being mixed and mastered.

Now the instruments are more balanced and we get that brightness that we needed so much without losing the fidelity of the original audio, something that is very normal in the mixing process.
We wanted to get a mix that sounded like a live show, we wanted a simple mix, that was always our goal, a trio that sounds like a trio, powerful and simple.
Personally, it's something I always try to get from this process, I like to be realistic.

Gomera Musicians:
Leandro Casot (Guitar)
Franco Di Meglio (bass)
Julian Piterman (Drums)

I hope you found this post interesting and that Rifu made you dance a little hahahaha.
When it comes to independent artists like us, it takes a lot of work and time to make these processes. It's important you have a group of friends willing to help us, a working group. That is the case of Gomera, behind this theme is a family of friends helping each other....cooperative art.
That's why I want to thank @pechichemena for helping us with the editing process, Federico Bueno for making this mix that I like so much and Yani Mufato for the graphics.

More music coming soon!

Sincerely @piterman .