INTERVIEW
Quintero: Yeah, in our studio back in
Mexico, we like to keep our playing strictly
to acoustic guitars. We find that a lot of
natural elements and sounds come out that
way. The idea was to properly translate
those sounds in the studio to a big PA
setup, to take those acoustic sounds and
move them to a rock-band volume level. My
requirements for the Yamaha engineers were
that the guitars had to avoid feedback, keep
the clarity of my percussion parts, and have
big bass frequencies. So they put a lot of
piezo pickups in the tops of the guitars to
pick up the percussion. My guitar has seven
spread out across the top of the guitar, so
no matter where I hit, it will sound out loud
through the PA. They’re always coming
up with something new for us, because
sometimes we come up with different parts
and it ends up being a problem for the
sound guy. Then everybody cries and it’s a
mess! [laughs] They’ll send one guitar after
another, just because they keep developing
new things.
My guitar has seven [piezos]
spread out across the top of the
guitar, so no matter where I hit,
it will sound out loud through
the PA. —Gabriela Quintero
Did you use the new Yamahas to record
11: 11?
Sanchez: Some parts of the album were
recorded with them, and some parts were
actually recorded with the old Irish acoustic
guitars—because some of the parts needed
more acoustic-sounding tones. The new
Yamahas are great, but they’re better for live
situations, for big PAs and all that.
What kind of strings and picks do you use?
Sanchez: We use medium-gauge D’Addario
nylon strings—we’ve used them for years. My
picks are the small Dunlop Jazz III picks.
What were your favorite moments from the
11: 11 sessions?
Sanchez: I think the best thing was working
with Colin Richardson. We were mixing the
record in the studio with my engineer—
sometimes for 17 hours a day—over the
course of five months. It was great, we were
using Skype with Colin, and he was sending
us the mixes that he was working on. We’d
send a pre-mix to him, so he’d get an idea
of what we wanted, in terms of panning and
all that. We’d finish a song every week or 10
days, fully recorded and mixed to our liking.
Then we’d send it to Colin in England and
he’d work the track over and send it back
with different alternatives and different
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