PEDRO CANAAN
AUDIO ENGINEER • PRODUCER • MUSICIAN
MUSIC
POP
Credits: producer, recording engineer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer, bass, electric guitar, background vocals
Lips Like Chardonnay was the single for the album "Xeno" by Zeno Camera & The Groovy Motherfunkers. This track - as well as the whole album - was produced, recorded, mixed and mastered by myself, in a quite unorthodox environment: a dorm room. Zeno is a very charismatic singer who was very popular at the college scene in Chicago at that time, so I believe that room ended up being the perfect place to capture the vibe of his performance. Several DIY adaptations were made to fix acoustical problems, and all instruments and vocals were overdubbed.
Credits: producer, recording engineer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer, bass, electric guitar, beatmaking
My personal favorite track off the album 'Xeno'; Pangs is a pop track that mixes several different influences from everybody involved in the production of this record. Intricate lyricism, unusual structure, and a fun rap verse over a baião (traditional swing from north-east of Brazil) rhythm - all in one!
ROCK
Credits: producer, recording engineer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer, electric guitar, keyboard
Ghost was the debut single of singer-songwriter Samira Jasmine, and was recorded partially in Chicago and in my studio in São Paulo - Brazil. Probably one of the most musically complex tracks in my portfolio
Credits: producer, recording engineer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer
Ode à Liberdade (Estou Vivo) is a single by the Brazilian trio The Volts. When the band reached out to me, they said they wanted someone who could add a modern touch to their songs. I totally embraced the project, and had the opportunity to work with them in several songs after that. While keeping their 80’s rock influences, I worked on getting more contemporary tones out of their instruments and layering a lot of guitars and vocals. This song is a great portrait of our work together.
Credits: producer, recording engineer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer
This was my first song recording directly to a 24-track tape machine and mastering to a 1/4” 2-track reel, with no use of digital converters at any point in the process. Quite tricky tune for a first time, but luckily Saint Romanov’s band was very patient and well rehearsed :)
INDIE / ALTERNATIVE
Credits: producer, recording engineer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer, bass, electric guitar, pan
Described as "grungy pop" by Drea herself, In The Kitchen was the main single off her debut album 'Sol Azul'. For this song, she recorded her vocals by herself in Los Angeles while I did all the instrumental parts at my studio in Brazil. This was one of the richest songs in her album in terms of arrangement, and it was a lot of fun to do: even pans and pots were recorded for percussion, as well as some samples of my own kitchen's sink. Obviously, the shakers were a half-empty dispenser of coarse salt. We were literally in the kitchen cooking this song!
Credits: producer, recording engineer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer, bass, electric guitar
That's a fun one! I don't remember exactly what inspired us to go into this flamenco-psychedelic-rock direction; we were really just having fun and somehow ended up with this track. Medusa is the 8th track off Drea C's debut album 'Sol Azul' and hopefully will make you feel like you're ready to fight a bull in front of a crowd in Madrid. The bull still wins, tho.
Credits: producer, recording engineer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer
Temos Que Partir is the main single off the EP ‘Saudade’, by the Brazilian band Alpist. The recording had everything to be a complete mess: we were in a tiny room, recording into an old Yamaha 12-channel mixer, no control room, and 7 microphones. My original plan was to overdub most of the elements, but the band performed a lot better playing together and without a click, so we ended up recording all the instrumentation live. Thankfully I was recording into Pro Tools, so we were able to overdub a bunch of vocals on top of our instrumental take. We also overdubbed a Spanish guitar that is buried somewhere there in the mix. Probably not my highest quality recording, but it has an awesome character that justifies putting it in here!
Credits: producer, recording engineer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer
Janela is a single released by my band from Brazil, the death season, featuring the singer-songwriter Ramon Gonzales. Our concept for that song was to do a lo-fi indie-rock track, mixing real instruments with some electronic production elements. We explored several different types of filters and saturations in the recording process, and the result was a song full of character and interesting textures.
METAL
Credits: producer, audio engineer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer, bass, electric guitar
Billy Boy was the first single by the artist Saint Romanov, and was all recorded in my studio in São Paulo - Brazil, except for vocals, which were recorded in Chicago. I remember being confused about who this Billy Boy guy was when I first listened to the demo. Turns out it is an American folk song, and Romanov was writing about his controversial love for folk and extreme music. Pretty deep, huh? Anyway, that drum tone is pretty sick.
Credits: producer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer, bass, acoustic guitar
Is this even metal? I don’t know. It does have distorted guitars and screams, so I guess that’s the best bet. We were clearly not very concerned about genres when making that. Everything, everywhere, all at once - just no awards for us, unfortunately.
Credits: producer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer, bass, piano, orchestration
Desfigurar is the main single off the album ‘liberté’, by the Brazilian band the death season. Even though this is a traditional metal song, it has an unexpected featured artist: the Big Band EMESP, that takes the song to a whole different place. Having all those musicians playing the arrangements I wrote was a very special moment in my career. I hope you enjoy this audacious mixture.
ACOUSTIC
Credits: producer, mixing engineer, recording engineer
Sunrise is the last track off Drea C's album 'Sol Azul', and it's not really as acoustic as the category may say. You can clearly hear an electric guitar there on your right ear; those strings are all midi. But if Rocket Man is in the Spotify playlist "Classic Acoustic", I should be able to get away with it, right? As the whole album, this song had vocals and acoustic guitar recorded by Drea C herself in Los Angeles, and sent over to me in Brazil for some final touches (things that the pandemic forced us to do).
Credits: producer, composer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer, vocals
Norte is an acoustic track released by my band from Brazil, the death season. I co-wrote it together with my bandmates, and even sang some verses in the last section of the song. It was mastered to 1/4" 2-track analog tape, so I was able to use the varispeed function to slow the track down. We all thought the original recording was a little bit faster than the optimal speed, and we thought using the tape to slow it down would add a nice character to it.
Credits: producer, recording engineer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer, orchestration
Sistine is a soon to be released single by Saint Romanov, who was kind enough to let me use this track before its release date. This was originally a project for my Analog Studio Recording class at Columbia College Chicago, and we were supposed to do a recording direct to the 2-track 1/4” tape machine. And well, I kinda cheated. There was only one Romanov for 4 cello parts + acoustic guitar + vocal to be recorded into a 2-track tape machine. I ended up recording into the left and right channels separately, and covered up the erase head of the tape machine so he could record one cello part on top of the other. Not exactly what the teacher wanted. Still got an A, though.
Credits: composer, producer, recording engineer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer, piano
illuminisme is an instrumental jazz track I wrote for the Brazilian band the death season, and was used as an interlude in the album ‘liberté’. Drums, bass, saxophone and trombone were recorded by the members of Big Band EMESP, and the piano was played by myself.
HIP HOP
Credits: producer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer
Verona is a collaboration between the rapper Cashstarr and the band The Groovy Motherfunkers. Interesting hip hop tune with a jazzy guitar solo in the end.
Credits: producer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer
This track could easily be in the metal section, but it hits harder when you’re not expecting the heavy guitar riffs. Plus, I’m kinda low on straight hip-hop songs in my repertoire ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
LIVE
Credits: recording engineer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer
This recording is a live version of the song Forever by Anteeter. It was recorded at the Columbia College Chicago 33 studio, with the band playing live to a small audience. There were no overdubs, and the mixing was made in real time. Since the band was playing to a click and I was already familiar with the structure of the songs, I was able to automate effects for each section of the song individually.
Credits: recording engineer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer
This recording is a live version of the song Taketime by Anteeter. It was recorded at the Columbia College Chicago 33 studio, with the band playing live to a small audience. There were no overdubs, and the mixing was made in real time. Since the band was playing to a click and I was already familiar with the structure of the songs, I was able to automate effects for each section of the song individually.
POST
This was a final project for my Applied Audio for Visual Media course at Columbia College Chicago. In this game trailer, I did everything sound related: sound design, soundtrack, and mixing/post. Yes, the robot voice is also mine.
Coordinated the location sound team on set and did all the sound mixing for the web series “Hotbox”
CONTACT
PEDRO CANAAN
pcanaanlopes.colum.edu
Cel: +1 (312) 730-6422 (US)
Cel: +55 (11) 97055-7937 (Brazil)