Today we’d like to introduce you to Alberto De Icaza.
Hi Alberto, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I started working in a recording studio when I was 15 in Mexico City, where I grew up. This studio was doing sound design for movies and the engineers had a couple of music projects. At the time, I wanted to be a touring musician and they introduced me to studio work. I absolutely loved the mix of computers and music, I got my first interface and started recording myself and some friends. I moved to the US to go to college when I was 19. There I truly got a passion for music production and I wanted to do an internship to learn from the people I looked up to. I got my favorite records and went through all the liner notes and did my homework on the producers behind my favorite bands. I quickly learned that the producer Machine was about 15 minutes down the road from where I was studying. This was in Belleville, NJ. His engineer at the time was Will Putney, who is also an incredible producer. I found his email online and after a chat he invited me over for an interview. I got the gig of intern, which was a mind-blowing experience. I got to see and quickly start working on professional records. Machine really took me under his wing and at that time, the studio was a big name in the metal scene and I am so grateful I got to experience it.
I became an engineer there around 2011. Worked on records for Clutch, Four Year Strong, Miss May I, Upon A Burning Body, We Came As Romans, etc. I like to think these years were my formative time. I got to meet a lot of people in the industry and that studio was a breeding place for talent. After I attended SXSW in 2012 and fell in love with the city, the music scene was vibrant and I liked there was music everywhere, in 2014 Machine and I decided to move to Austin, and we built a barn studio in Dripping Springs. A couple of years later, a friend of mine was starting a record label and I was burn out on studio work. I decided to give this a shot and jumped in. I learned a lot of the other side of the industry and got to travel and do a couple of records in fantastic studios like Brighton Electric and Arlyn Studios.
At that time, I started a mix room in a spare bedroom at my apartment, I saw how much work was moving to home studios and thought about just doing mixing for self-produced bands. I worked remotely with bands from Europe, Australia, Japan, Canada and the US. In 2016, I ended up buying a house and building a mixing room in there. Most of my work required me to master my own records due to budget constrains, which in turn made me good at it. One day, the manager of a band I worked with hit me up and asked me if I was interested in mastering a soundtrack for a show that was being produced by Lionsgate and Youtube Originals. They sent me a track to master and then they casually mentioned the producer was Timbaland. The pressure was on, they liked what I did and from there on, I started working on a lot of soundtracks for TV Shows and Movies.
I’m still working with bands doing records, one of my favorite projects as of lately was working with Crobot on their Rat Child EP. It had features by musicians I grew up listening to like Howard Jones (Light the Torch, Killswitch Engage), Frank Bello (Anthrax)] so I absolutely loved it! Crobot is one of the funniest band to work with. They are so genuinely talented and good people.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Because I am an immigrant, proving to Uncle Sam that I was doing production at a professional level and that I should be granted a work visa was an insanely difficult and expensive process. Shoutout to my parents, Machine and Will Putney for sticking for me in those dark and uncertain times.
Working in a studio is very demanding of your time. I didn’t have much of a social life outside of the studio. My close friends were the bands I was working with. Also once I got married, trying to balance home and work, I burnt out.
Starting my own studio meant a lot of challenges as well, nobody tells you, you have to learn the business side of it. It’s not all rock n roll when you are paying the bills!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a mixing and mastering engineer. What that means is bands record their albums and they send me their tracks to make them sound good. When I master, my job is to make sure their mixes sound great if they are played in an iPhone speaker or an arena. It has to be consistent across the board. I also like to make the tracks exciting, they have to connect with the listener. That is the most important thing about my job. I want the listener to have an experience when they hear a song, it’s not just sound we are dealing with, it’s emotions.
I’m most proud that I’ve been able to work in so many genres with incredibly talented people. Trusting other people with your art is a hard thing to do, I don’t take it for granted and truly appreciate everyone I work with. When the pandemic started, I began mastering soundtracks for TV shows and movies. I love doing that kind of work because I never know what I am going to get. It’s refreshing to be able to jump into a new genre and finish a killer record. Some of the soundtracks I did are Run (Hulu), Chaos Walking (Lionsgate), Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist (NBC), Love Life (HBO Max). Dear White People (Netflix, S03), P-Valley, Run The World (Starz). I’m particularly fond of the one that got me started in the world of soundtracks, Step Up: High Water (S02, Youtube Originals) that was produced by Timbaland and had songs by Ne-Yo Naya Rivera, Terrence Green, and Todrick Hall.
Also, I learned from my mentors to always serve the song and the artist, make the best version of themselves. I’m not trying to fit the music I work in into a mold, I try to find what makes the song or band special and showcase it. It should sound different than every other band. It should have its own sonic identity! Something that always stuck with me was “The band has to leave the studio being a better band than when they came in”. That wisdom nugget has helped make my favorite records.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I moved from Mexico to the US to pursue a music career. I didn’t have any family or friends where I was going but I was hungry to make it! I will be forever grateful to my parents, Machine and Will Putney for helping me start a career.
I’m not a crazy risk taker, I tend to calculate my moves and then life happens, so I roll with the punches! But I always put everything I have into whatever decisions I take. I view as it is a bigger risk to not do this and then sit for years wondering what would have happened.
Contact Info:
- Email: alberto@albertomixes.com
- Website: www.albertomixes.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/albertomixes/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/adeicaza/
Image Credits
Images: Alberto_DTC_120mm0005 Alberto_DTC_120mm0002 Credit: Julian Smith
