AMIGA

The fourth single to be recorded would be a composition by Toño Valero. At first, the song he proposed was “Será Mejor”, a nostalgic ballad that had been in his repertoire for several years. But Toño, in a video call between the four of them, decided to pull off an ace up his sleeve by showing them a beautiful song that he had composed in 2020 during the pandemic. This tune was “Amiga”, a powerful ballad with an atypical structure, faithful to Toño's composition style. This song had never been previously recorded formally. There was only one record of this during a rehearsal by Toño with his ex-band Inverno.

So, having already defined the single, the week of January 16, 2023, preparations began to focus on the production of "Amiga". Vitto and Toño worked virtually, together, on the drums. On January 21, the band entered MCA Studios to record Toño's acoustic guitar and bass, as well as Phelan's electric guitars. This time Toño would sing the main vocals, for which, that day he only recorded a reference one. In the process, Vitto suggested orchestrating the song with winds and strings instruments, so on January 24 Miguel José began to create the symphonic sound of the song on keyboards. Two days later, during the January 26 session at MCA Studios, Phelan recorded some additional electric guitars and Toño provided the final lead vocal on the song. Miguel José and Phelan would have to do the choirs this time. The maestro Saúl Cornejo was present at that moment and gave some wise advice at the time of recording. The three voices harmonized perfectly, and after hard work, the day's session concluded.

On January 30th Phelan finished polishing the last details of the guitars and our Recording Engineer Miguel Ángel Yance contributed some beautiful piano lines throughout the entire song. Phelan and Miguel José recorded the last choruses and the mixing began immediately, which lasted for several hours. The next day, and without any setbacks, the team continued to mix the song vigorously. February 4th was the third and last day of mixing. The start was somewhat bumpy as the main console of MCA Studios suffered a malfunction and had to be immediately replaced by another to continue with the work. Once the problem was solved, Miguel José, Phelan, Toño and Miguel Ángel began to finish mixing the song, which lasted until late at night.

On Sunday, February 5, “Amiga” was sent to Hitmakers Mastering for its final post-production step. The next day, with the song already mastered, the pertinent steps were taken in Distrokid so that the song could be distributed across platforms and networks. This process would take time, but Phelan was hopeful that the single would be released on Valentine's Day, because of the theme of the lyrics. Once again, Gerardo Larrea designed the graphic cover; and after a few days, on the same February 14, 2023, as Phelan wished, “Amiga” premiered on streaming nationally and internationally.

After this song, La R4ttio would take a three-month break to tidy up and restructure internally.