The Andy Vargas Lyric Lounge

Join Andy Vargas at the O2 Arena in London as he chats with the incredible Kevin Madigan, Santana's house engineer! Kevin, a Grammy-associated mix engineer, reveals his journey into sound, from live gigs in Dublin to working with legends. Discover his "secret weapon" unit, the Neve Master Bus Transformer, and hear untold stories about mixing for iconic artists like Kendrick Lamar, Lizzo, The 1975, and of course, Carlos Santana. Learn what it takes to make music sound "distinctly clear and powerful" for thousands of fans every night!

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Creators and Guests

Host
Andy Vargas
If Santana is the king of Latino Rock and soul, then Andy Vargas is the prince heir to Latino soul music in the US. Now cemented in music history for over two decades as the lead singer of Santana, Andy Vargas represents the future of music creativity and industry intellect for the next generation. Having performed and recorded with talents as Juanes, Beyonce, Enrique Iglesias and many more, Andy has created his own special genre of music. This seismic sound and new thought of artist’s rights and access gained the attention of acclaimed comedian George Lopez. Along with 800 Pound Gorilla Records and Warner Music, Andy and George are in the beta stage of their new record Label, Malaspalabras Records. This pioneering attitude of Andy’s is evident in his musical tastes of his roster of artists
Guest
Kevin Madigan
Kevin Madigan, a seasoned live and studio mix engineer, has been behind the scenes with some of the biggest names in music—Santana, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Neil Young, David Gilmour, Ray LaMontagne, Lana Del Rey, Smashing Pumpkins, and more.

What is The Andy Vargas Lyric Lounge?

Carlos Santana lead singer Andy Vargas takes some time to talks life and music with some of the most talented artists in the industry. Some you may have heard of, and others you may have not. Many episodes include an EXCLUSIVE performance with Andy and his guest.
Produced by Protagonist Creators Studio, LLC (www.protagonistcs.com)

2025_05_09-AV Lyric Lounge-Ep10-D1
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[00:00:00] Andy: Hey everybody. Uh, thank you for joining us here in today's special AV Lyric lounge. We're here in the O2 Arena in London, and I am with the amazing Kevin Madigan. He is our. House engineer. But more than that, Kevin is, uh, just an amazing talent engineer. That man handles sound and just makes hit records.

Um, but more than that, I, you know, he's a great friend and I'm very honored to call him a friend. Thank Daddy, uh, Kevin, I, I just, uh, thank you for just giving me a little bit of, of giving us a little bit of your time here, um, in such a, a great place. This is, we're, we're here in. You know, Kevin's land. Um, but, uh, you know, I have just a few questions that I've been interested in myself in wanting to find out.

Um, but, uh, you know, what got you started with sound like? What got you started with, you know, in, in the beginning, you know, entry [00:01:00] of, of, of, you know, getting you here?

[00:01:02] Kevin: Wow. Yeah. That's, uh, uh, yeah, quite a long time ago. I, I just love music. I always, you know, from, uh, just. From before I can remember. Um, and, uh, you know, always had a huge interest in music and, and instruments and guitar and stuff like that.

And, uh, I just ended up. Wanting music, you know, to work with music and, uh, I certainly was never gonna be good enough to be a player. So, to get on

[00:01:32] Andy: Did you try to play instruments before guitar? Yeah. Okay.

[00:01:35] Kevin: Yeah. So, but I, I can get a lot of fun out of it, but, uh,

[00:01:39] Andy: but you manipulate and make the sound sound so good and you know what to put on, you know, instruments and, you know, live sound to studio sound because you're a studio engineer.

As well. Yeah. Um, cool. Um, did you start with Studio Sound and then go to Live Sound? Um,

[00:01:57] Kevin: kind of the other way around actually. Oh, okay. Um, [00:02:00] so doing a lot of work local sort of gigs in Dublin, um, where I sort of went to to school and grew up there. Uh, lived in the uk, lived here in London for a while as well, working in, uh, sound here too.

Yeah. Um, so yeah, it was sort of, uh, more doing live stuff and then, uh. Also learning about, you know, what the studio end of things was as well at the same time, but it was always a lot more of live work. Um, and it, it more in the last number of years, sort of balanced a little bit more for the studio stuff.

[00:02:37] Andy: And you've, you've cut your teeth with, uh, you know, uh, some of the greatest. Artists of our time. You've won some Grammys as a mix engineer, right?

[00:02:48] Kevin: Yeah, well, I've been, uh, associated with the, uh, some of the tracks that, that worked with Manny Marquin doing the Atmos versions of, uh, our friend Manny. What's up, Manny?

[00:03:00] Shout out to Manny. And, uh, some of those have been nominated and have won Grammys, uh, for the, the stereo versions of those tracks.

[00:03:10] Andy: Uh, what a, what an amazing, uh. Amazing things to do, to do, to like, you know, do your work and then, you know, have them go to the, basically like the highest point of acknowledgement.

Right. You know, in, uh, in, in recording and the recording arts and stuff. Um, but, uh, you know, who were some of your, um, you know, mentors or, or engineers that, that you follow, that you love their work?

[00:03:34] Kevin: Oh, um. Well for live stuff, you know, there's, uh, a good friend of mine who, uh, is an Australian, uh, engineer and has worked with so many top acts from way back, and he used to live in London here as well.

John Lemon John, oh, and, uh, John, just killer mix engineer, engineering. Uh, learned a lot from John. He always had, you know, some good advice to, to [00:04:00] give. About how to progress and what to do and listen for and things like that.

[00:04:05] Andy: You know, for some of our, our listeners who are, you know, engineers or, you know, tech geeks like myself.

Can you just say maybe, what are some of the first things you do when you come in and you listen to a room?

[00:04:17] Kevin: Oh, yeah. I mean, uh, and of course it changes every day. Um, we have, uh, you know, variable acoustics so that we have to deal with every day. And we come in and we have, uh, very advanced tools to set up sound systems now.

So we have a lot of planning that goes into that ahead of time. Right. Um, so we optimize. Uh, ahead of time. The system designs that we come in and deploy then, and. With that, uh, we have, uh, brilliant system engineers that, uh, help optimize the system and make it work the best it can in the room in terms of reproducing frequencies evenly, uh, right, and in the way we wanna hear the music be, [00:05:00] uh, played.

And, uh, we, you know, we listen to tracks that we're familiar with and how that's responding in the room. Um, you know, it could be anything from. Something that you're familiar with, or maybe just even shouting on a, uh, a microphone. Just, you know, listening to a voice. But, and we have a, a kind of a virtual sound or virtual, uh, sound check that we can do every day.

So the, like the show that you guys did in Manchester two nights ago, I will listen to that back in the room, uh, today, this morning before you guys come in.

[00:05:34] Andy: Okay.

[00:05:35] Kevin: Uh, so I get an idea of how. Our music is going to, uh, sound like in this room. Of course, it's can be quite a bit different, empty to full. And we, uh, keep an eye on that.

That changes. It does it sound when the audience comes in. I mean, there's, you know, there's gonna be 20 something thousand people in here tonight. It's gonna change, you know, it's, uh, we're dealing with now with empty plastic [00:06:00] seats and that's gonna be fairly reflective and right. Uh, sometimes, you know, we get a, an improvement when the audience comes in as they kind of, uh, absorbs more sound and helps the calm, uh, the reflections down a little bit.

Uh, so we take that all into account when we're listening to stuff and there's so much you can do, but you have to be realistic about where. What's achievable and what's going to change when an audience comes in. And, uh, we're just going for a consistency. You know, that things sound great, but you guys sound great coming off the stage.

Um, and that everything is distinctly clear and powerful.

[00:06:40] Andy: Well, e everyone that comes to our show, everyone says like, there's not a change in this phrase. The sound was so good. Ah, that's really great to hear. I, I'm serious from House of Blues to all of the venues. You know, house of Bus, Las Vegas where Santana has a residency, uh, to our [00:07:00] live venues.

They just, they're affected. And, and, and what we do on stage, you, you know, really help bring that across to the audience. And from what I see, like, you know, it's not just like in the studio two speakers, you know, and doing a little. You know, a little mixing and stuff in there, you know. Um, but for a live setting, would you, I mean, are your choices of, of units kind of like your secret weapons?

There's a few things Yeah. Is there, is there one that you might be able to, you'd be willing to share that are our tech

[00:07:35] Kevin: Ys

[00:07:35] Andy: would love to hear. I

[00:07:35] Kevin: mean, one of the things that we've more recently started using is, uh, a Neve, uh, unit called a, a Master Bus Transformer. Man that adds some color compression. An eq.

Yeah. And there's some stereo widening to the signal as well, man. It's sort of, it helps us get back to maybe even, you know, almost a, an analog kind of feel Yes. To, uh, what we're sending out into the [00:08:00] pa and just that a little bit extra, you know, harmonic warmth and, uh, it just, you know, ice. We, we tried out the, the prototype and, and we said, well, we're not giving it back.

We, that's it. So that's been one of the really cool things, uh, that we've come up with, uh, that the guys at Nev have come up with.

[00:08:21] Andy: And is that just for live sound or,

[00:08:23] Kevin: you know, is that No, that's, you know, very popular studio. Studio. Okay. In studio. Yeah. Super, super popular for that. Now, since it's come out, it's like a, it's really little magic thing from the, we need roofer.

Neve desire. Yeah. Oh, there, yeah. It's,

[00:08:34] Andy: but uh, as you know, we're talking, um, you know. It, the, the tip of the top and all my, you know, uh, studio, uh, nerds, uh, know what, what we're talking about here, but, um, it, you know, uh, would you be willing to share some of the names of some of the artists you've worked with and, uh, in studio and live

[00:08:53] Kevin: for?

Yeah, of course. There's a, I mean, well, we're here Carlos Santana and, uh, so that's, uh, pretty, [00:09:00] uh. A very high start, you know, right up there. Uh, before that I worked a long time for, uh, Crosby Stills, a Nat Crosby still, and sometimes Neil Young. And, uh, yeah. So that was, uh, for quite a while. That was really a, a great thing to be involved with.

Again, you know, just classic music that we've all grown up with and yeah. Um, it's just some fantastic musicians work that were there in the band as well as the. The principal guys. Uh, so they were pretty iconic.

[00:09:30] Andy: And in the studio recently, what you were nominated for this last year?

[00:09:34] Kevin: They, we, we do, we've done a so much atmos tracks in the last, uh, yeah.

Four years. Yeah. Um, so it's a, I mean, there's a, Kendrick Lamar was a, a highlight, uh, that was a, a couple of years ago that we, uh, did quite a bit of work for Kendrick on the last album. Um. Lizzo, uh, another great one. The, I [00:10:00] mean, the list goes on the 1975. Uh, yep. We had, uh, just so many great clients that are Manny's clients and Ravi's clients that we've just been, you're so lucky to be able to work with.

And

[00:10:13] Andy: yeah, the amazing Manny Mary Keen, you know, we've. I'm blessed also and grateful to call him a friend as well and his family and known him for so many years. But How many Grammys does he have? He has over 18. I think He's running outta space. He's running outta space with the Grammys. I wasn't asked to borrow one and do like a loan just so I could have it there and visualize, you know, to get one, you know.

But, uh, well, and, and now how about for your, for your future? Is there, are there things that you want to do, you know. Moving forward or would it be in another band, or would it be something else within maybe designing your own unit or something?

[00:10:48] Kevin: Uh, well, yeah. I mean this is, being involved with music at this level is just fantastic, you know, and being able to do it and continue to do this, um, for live music is [00:11:00] just, I don't see an end to that.

Yeah know. Uh, it's fantastic to be able to work with Carlos and you guys and, yeah. You know, a joy for me and for the audience that comes in every night. Yes. You know, because you can see it. It's a, you know, the, uh, a emotional connection to the songs and the way that you guys put it out, you know, brings that old connection back again.

And, you know, that's quite a special thing for them and, uh, for us to be able to be a part of bringing that music to them.

[00:11:31] Andy: Yeah. And you know, we have, uh, Michael Caro. The original percussionist who played in the original Santana band with Carlos and Woodstock playing with us, uh, you know, here in Europe.

And, uh, and he's such a blast, such an amazing person, talented player, and has all the stories. Oh my gosh. Oh yeah. Has all the stories. Uh, um, you know, and I told him, and I continually tell Carlos how blessed and grateful I am to, you know. [00:12:00] Seeing those songs that they recorded at that time and now, and bring that across to these, you know, a whole new generation.

Wow. Yeah. With the originals involved, you know, and, uh, have played with the, you know, most of the original band, uh, has been pretty amazing, you know? Yeah. To be a part of this legacy. And, uh, here we are, you know, uh, in, in London and we, we leave the band actually as the, the crew closes shop, you know, the band moves on.

We go to Paris and we continue our. Our tour. You'll probably be watching this after our tours, uh, you know, close to wrapping up. But, uh, um, you know, this is, um, Kevin Madigan and we, um, you know, are so happy to have you with us here. Uh, we've got a pretty cool following now, you know, people that watch us and stuff and, and, um, you know, uh, I want to keep on bringing everything that I'm doing to you guys.

So Kevin, thank you so much for Thank you for your time. Pleasure. You know, I'm saying, uh, sharing a little bit of, uh, of you, you know, here [00:13:00] and, uh, you know, hopefully we get to see, uh, some of you guys, uh, at one of our Santana shows soon.

[00:13:04] Kevin: Yeah. Stop

[00:13:05] Andy: by. All right. AV Lyric Lounge Peace.