Recording Engineer Santiago Carregal Captures Iconic Soundscapes for Award-Winning Productions
- portialeigh1
- 5 days ago
- 7 min read
Though their contributions are often overshadowed by the glitz and glamour of the actors, directors, or special effects, recording engineers play a crucial role in bringing a film or series to life. Whether it is through recording techniques, mixing, optimising or syncing sound, the depth and emotion within a production are uniquely brought together by recording engineers, who are key in helping to complete the narrative. As human beings, we have an innate connection to sound, an aspect that often helps us recall a film or series long after we’ve watched it. This is precisely what sought-after recording engineer Santiago Carregal achieves in some of his recent award-winning work, which includes the hit HBO series The Last of Us, the Netflix film Pedro Paramo and the National Geographic’s documentary film Wild Life.
“Music in film operates on both conscious and subconscious levels—it underscores emotions, foreshadows events and highlights key moments in the story,” explains Carregal. “It can make you feel tension or relief, joy or sorrow. A well-crafted score is like another character in the film, guiding the audience through the emotional landscape.”
Growing up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Santiago Carregal was exposed to a city alive with music, something that helped shape the way he approaches and appreciates music today. From tango and rock to folk and classical, Carragel’s childhood was filled with the rhythm and music of the city.
“My earliest musical memories come from the CDs my dad played in his car. He owned plenty, but there were a couple we listened to on repeat. I remember Sui Generis’ ‘Confesiones de Invierno’, which I was especially fond of. We also had the Dire Straits ‘On Every Street’ album and another classical baroque compilation that included Pachelbel’s Canon on track 3,” recalls Carregal.
He started playing the guitar as a young boy, a hobby that grew into a passion that would influence his life in more ways than he could have imagined. When it came to choosing a career path, his love for music and composing led him to attend the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he studied Music Production and Engineering.
He explains, “For me, music engineering is the perfect combination of two things I love—music and engineering. I’ve always been a very tech-savvy person, eager to tinker with things and understand how they work. I have even built electric guitars as a hobby.”
After graduating, Carregal was tapped to work with the critically acclaimed legendary composer Gustavo Santaolalla. The winner of dozens of awards, including two Oscars, 20 Grammys, a BAFTA and a Golden Globe, Gustavo Santaolalla has been at the forefront of film music for the last two decades and has worked with some of the best directors and producers in Hollywood.
For the last three years, Carregal has been working closely as the recording engineer for music that’s been both composed and performed by Gustavo Santaolalla, gaining invaluable experience as his right-hand man while being exposed to truly unique opportunities working on high-profile projects with some of the best professionals in the film industry.
“In film, the music score is critical to driving emotion and narrative. A recording engineer ensures that every subtlety of the composition is captured and that the music seamlessly integrates with the dialogue and sound effects,” explains Carregal. “Without a dedicated engineer, you risk losing fidelity, emotional impact, and consistency. It can literally change the whole tone of a scene if the music is poorly recorded or mixed.”
While working with Gustavo Santaolalla, Carregal served as a recording engineer on some extraordinary projects, none more so than the hit HBO TV series The Last of Us. A tense, gritty and emotionally charged post-apocalyptic drama, this eight-time Primetime Emmy Award-winning series is set in a modern-day world where a pandemic-scale virus has decimated Earth. Boasting a renowned cast that includes Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones, Narcos), Bella Ramsey (Game of Thrones), Anna Torv (Mindhunter) and Golden Globe winner Nick Offerman, the action-packed show is driven by themes of survival, hope and resilience. The series garnered multiple nominations for its music, including Outstanding Score for a Television Production at the Society of Composers and Lyricists Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for Santaolalla.
“The score, composed by Gustavo Santaolalla, is hauntingly beautiful. It’s a blend of sparse instrumentation—often featuring the ronroco—and more layered pieces that underscore the emotional weight of the story,” says Carregal. “It’s both reflective and unsettling at times, perfectly matching the show’s atmosphere.”
Unique in its method of storytelling, The Last of Us utilizes extended scenes that focus purely on landscapes and scenery to convey a sense of adventure while emphasizing the characters’ journey. This means the role of the score and how it aids in transcending the storyline, both by building emotion and drawing in the viewer, cannot be overstated.
“Gustavo’s music captures the loneliness, desperation and fleeting moments of beauty in a world gone wrong,” says Carregal. “The organic tones of instruments like the ronroco mirror the characters’ raw emotions and draw viewers deeper into their journey.”
With his work as a recording engineer helping to bring Santaolalla’s music to life, Carregal's role was integral to season 1, as well as the upcoming release of season 2 of The Last of Us, which is slated to air later this year. During his time recording the music for the first season, Carregal also worked closely with Santaolalla’s close collaborator and co-composer Juan Luqui. Carregal’s role was to capture every nuance of the composer’s intentions, ensuring that nothing was lost in translation. From string vibrations and natural reverbs, to the breaths of a single note, it was Carregal’s role to preserve them and achieve the highest level of production quality possible.
Santaolalla says, “The main theme of the series was written on a ronroco and in this project, in the video game and the HBO show, I have used several instruments: this tin can violin that comes from the tobas, an indigenous group in Argentina. I have used bombo legüero, a percussion instrument from Argentina. Santiago really knows how to record them and how they should sound in the mix–that knowledge is vital to get the scores and the music that I am creating to sound the way that it should.”
Another major project that Carregal worked on with Santaolalla and Luqui was the 2024 Netflix film Pedro Páramo. Based on the novel by Juan Rulfo, the film brings to life a haunting world steeped in magical realism, yet grounded in deeply human emotions like love, loss, and betrayal. At its core, it tells the story of a son searching for his father, set against a backdrop of a community where the living and the dead coexist, all yearning for closure. To capture the film’s emotional depth, the score weaves together traditional Latin American sounds with ethereal textures, creating a sonic landscape that evokes nostalgia, heartbreak, and mystery. At times, the music feels almost supernatural, achieving a delicate balance between presence and space.
Santaolalla relied primarily on acoustic instruments to shape this evocative soundscape. His tin violins, played with a raw, aching quality, lend a sense of sorrow, almost as if they are crying. A baritone acoustic guitar and a pump organ add further depth to the themes, while his signature ronroco also appears throughout the score. The compositions are further enriched by Javier Casalla’s stirring violin and viola performances, rounding out a soundtrack that seamlessly underscores the film’s haunting and deeply emotional narrative.
Santaolalla says, “The knowledge of our music, the knowledge of some of the instruments, and the knowledge of what I am looking to get out of the instruments made Santiago’s participation vital to make the music for ‘Pedro Páramo’ what it is.”
While Carregal has undoubtedly proven himself as an expert recording engineer in both TV and film, his work also extends to documentaries. Carregal also worked as a recording engineer on the National Geographic-produced documentary film Wild Life, which took home Best Feature Film at the Sun Valley Film Festival and a nomination from the SXSW Film Festival.
While working on Wild Life, directed and produced by Oscar-winning filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (Meru) and Jimmy Chin (Free Solo, Nyad), Carregal once again collaborated with the composer Juan Luqui, helping craft a score that blended orchestral elements with ambient textures to capture the grandeur of the natural world. Exploring the relationship between Patagonia’s first CEO Kris Tompkins and her husband, Douglas Tompkins, the film chronicles their lives and journey through South America where they worked tirelessly to establish national parks and help preserve one of the world’s last wild places through the largest private land donation in history.
Working closely with composer Juan Luqui, Carregal captured his performances in a way that preserved both the expansive feel and the subtle nuances of the music, helping to make the overall score a touching masterpiece. He explains, “By carefully choosing microphones and crafting the recording environment, I ensured the sound conveyed the full emotional depth and complexity of his compositions.”
Carregal’s meticulous approach to capturing sound ensures that every score he works on serves as a powerful extension of the storytelling itself. Whether shaping the haunting melodies of Pedro Páramo, the expansive soundscapes of Wild Life, or the emotional sounds of The Last of Us, his expertise elevates each composition, immersing audiences in the world of film.
A great recording engineer doesn’t just capture sound—they help to shape the storytelling experience, making it more immersive through the unique way that they capture and weave in both dialogue and music. Without their expertise, film and television, as well as live music would lose the depth and clarity that draws us in. Through years of dedication and an undeniable passion for his craft, Carregal has established himself as one of the best in the business, and we can’t wait to see and hear what he captures next.