"This was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life" - in conversation with Abel Mendoza

Abel, thank you for taking the time to sit down with us! Starting out our interviews, I always like to ask my conversation partners about their musical origins.

At the age of 12 after finishing elementary school, - being an indigenous kid from Oaxaca, Southern Mexico, from a very low to no income family, - we didn’t have the means for me to continue school so I started working but at the same time I knew that there had to be more to life than just working.

Fortunately we had an acoustic guitar that some missionaries brought us for church use, my dad taught me the 6 chords that he knew and 3 months later he put me to play at church, at this point I knew that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

 

That is really a heart-warming story! What happened after you came to this realization? What were the next steps on the road?

I started working to save up and buy a keyboard, but I couldn’t save enough.

When I turned 18, I moved to the US to pursue my music dream. My first job in the US was being a dishwasher/cook, which I did for many years.

I bought a lot of my studio gear and plugins I still use today with my dishwashing money! It took me 17 long years doing multiple jobs until I could do music for a living.

What are the genres you like to work on in the studio?

I believe there’s always gonna be good music and music that you don’t enjoy as much regardless of the genre, but I’ve had the opportunity to work on acoustic, pop/rock and worship music more than any other genres.

 

Was there some sort of intention in that, or it just turned out this way? Is there any musical style that you never tried working on, but would like to in the future?

A little bit of both, I’ve always been a church musician and when I started recording for friends it was always worship/acoustic music.

Probably Jazz or Funk, I’ve never had the chance to work on those genres but I think it’d be fun to learn new techniques.

I always wanted to know a little bit more about worship music, as here in Europe it's not such a big industry as in the States if I may say it like that. Could you tell us a little more about that segment?

Simplifying it, worship music is basically pop/rock music with faith based lyrics.

 

Which projects you're most proud of?

Hard to pick just one, let me just put it this way, if you’ve heard any “worship songs” that have been released in the last decade it’s more likely that you’ve heard my sounds.

 

That really does speak volumes! So your biggest prides are in this genre?

Yeah, mostly because back in the day I was one of the only 3 people offering resources for worship music.

 

What is your Buso desk of choice?

In 2016 when I was ready to upgrade to a proper desk, I had 3 things in consideration, a desk that didn’t cost me a leg and arm, it had to be comfortable, and most importantly it had to be aesthetically pleasing - for the 'gram, - and I found that in the Producer XL, I absolutely love it that I've bought it twice.

 

Twice?! How's that?

I bought my first Producer XL desk in 2016 when I lived in the States but then I moved to Mexico in 2019 and I wanted the exact desk here so I bought another one.

 

 

Who influenced your work?

Oh man, this is hard but I’d say U2, Coldplay, you can tell I’m a big fan of Brian Eno, M83, Nils Frahm, Ólafur Arnalds, just to name a few.

 

Indeed it is always a tough question, but it's great to see, that you draw inspiration from such a wide palette. These artists have also changed a lot during their decades. Did your taste change with them, or you prefer their certain periods? For instance to me, the very first Coldplay album is groundbreaking, but the rest never lived up to that.

Yeah, they’ve definitely evolved over time but I think they will always have a place in my heart but yeah Coldplay’s first album is something I will always come back to.

 

And who influenced you from the audio engineer point of view?

Michael Brauer, Bob Clearmountain, Mike Dean, and CLA, I just love their personalities and approach to audio.

 

What’s the takeaway from their approach in your opinion?

I love that CLA is not afraid of big cuts and boosts, a lot of times we tend to mix with our eyes rather using our ears.

Michael Brauer’s use of compression by not leaving everything for the master bus compression but rather distributing the compression in sub-groups.

 

What are your main weapons for mixing?

For sound design my go to synth is Omnisphere 2, been using it for over 15 years.

My go-to on vocals are Pro-Q 4, UAD LA-2A (Gray) and Brainworx SSL 4000 E, SoundToys EchoBoy Jr and LiquidSonics Seventh Heaven, on my stereo bus I love the SSL Fusion Stereo Imager and Pulsar Massive.

What about your workflow?

The reason I went with the Producer XL is because it gives me enough room for what I do, in the rack space I have my interface, a few preamps for the different colors and my monitor controller and I still have room on the desk surface to put any synth and pedals for experimentation and plants! Gotta have them!

 

Well pedals are one thing I've never seen on the Producer XL, but it's nice to hear that you're bringing out the desk’s full potential!

Yeah as a keyboard player and for the genre I get to work with them, but also when it comes to designing a sample pack, I like to explore different textures.

 

I always like to ask our guests for their opinion on the analog vs. digital debate. What's your stance?

Ha!

I remember when I first got into making music, people would fight passionately over this topic.

I’ll put it this way, I’m grateful that technology is advancing real fast to the point where you can’t really tell the difference between analog and digital in the context of a mix!

But the only way you can really tell if an emulation is good, is once you’ve heard and felt a real and well-maintained piece of analog gear.

Sometimes using either one will spark inspirations in a completely different direction, so you just have to choose what works for you.

Nowadays I love using a combination of both, I use analog as much as I can when tracking and when it comes to mixing or polishing a sample, it’s all done in-the-box.

 

Abel, thank you very much for sitting down with us! And now it is my honor to ask you to contribute a song for our playlist!

Let’s go with 'Safe' from Regina Reznick, this one that was released last month, here I engineered the vocal recording.