There is a guy from Varese in the recording studio with Jovanotti e Ligabue

 This engineer from Varese resembles a bit Jovanotti, with his bright eyes and beard. But we are not here to talk about similarity, because here the matter starts with sounds and leads to architecture and engineering.

Daily disciplines for Dario Paini (the first from left) and that will lead us to talk about the artist from Cortona. He is forty-two-year-old, born and grew up in Varese, an “audio engineer” as a profession.

“When someone asks me what kind of job I do, I never know what to say” he says. “I answer that I am an ‘audio engineer’ but in reality I deal with the design of settings dedicated to sound and spoken word”.

A curious but hard to explain work for those that are not in this field. As soon as you focus on it you arrive in a world made of numbers, measurements, frequencies and sound waves. What we can say is that when Dario comes to a place, in a recording studio, in a hall or in a theatre, he studies the space to make the sound (music or spoken word) the best possible.

“It is a work born from the attempt to combine multiple interests: so mathematics is the rational part of me and music is the instinctive part. (Dario plays the sax in “Distretto51”, editor’s note). I started to study industrial engineering at the Politecnico and I made a thesis on an acoustic simulation software. Then I attended a PhD at the CCR of Ispra and in Copenhagen. In other words the acoustics was there, on the border as “Il Lore” would say”.

“Il Lore”, for Dario Paini, is Lorenzo “Jovanotti” Cherubini, artist with whom Dario worked on several occasions. The audio engineer indeed, is essential for those that work with music, just think about the importance of the recording studio, the place where the artist spends the most of their time, where they makes sounds and words that then will be listened to from thousands of people on a CD.

“Lorenzo and I met each other thanks to Michele Canova and Pino Pinaxa, and from that moment a good partnership is born. At the beginning we worked in the Fortezza of Girifalco of Cortona, then for his home studio. Following this, Dario has worked in the studios of Gianna Nannini, Angelo Branduardi, Eros Ramazzotti, meeting Ligabue.

“It is important to understand what they want. Clearly it is not easy but, beyond the technical point of view, it is essential to succeed to grasp what that place stands for the people who work within it. This is the reason why I also look after architecture and interior design, in addition to sounds”. Because of this he has designed memorable place such as “L’isola” of Ramazzotti or the home studio of Jovanotti.

Ligabue will meet him in his studio of Correggio thanks to Michele Canova, while the broadcasting station RDS call him for their studio in Rome.

“This job is unique, at the base there is a lot of technical knowledge but there is also a creative aspect, the one that has to interact with all the things that you do”. Every artist has his “own world” and reproducing it in a recording studio is not taken for granted. “Il Lore” use very much his studio in Cortona, for him it is a place where he feels comfortable. Other artists prefer neutral spaces where they can relieve adrenaline. Ramazzotti asks me for a simple and direct work, like he is”.

This is a job that brings Dario to move around all Italy, to work with artists but also in theatres and public places. Recently he is preparing a project for the Italy pavilion for the Expo 2015 and his agenda is full of appointments. “I dreamt of doing this job. When I started I didn’t have clear ideas on what would happen. Today when I connect the small dots of my experiences, as Steve Jobs said, a figure appears that I didn’t expect, but in which I feel comfortable”.