Lenny Castro

Used for the congas on Maroon 5's "Makes Me Wonder", as stated by mix engineer Mark Endert in this September 2007 Sound on Sound interview.

“For the second verse we wanted congas, and Lenny Castro’s overdubs in Los Angeles. He’s such a good musician that we did just a couple of takes and we only used one of them, without editing, as you can see on the screenshot! Because I had made the drums so big, I had problems getting the congas to sound the way I wanted them to. The only way I could get his congas to really cut through was by taking the output of the track into my Re–Amp and then into my Comptortion [compression, distortion and EQ] pedal, which is made by Tech 21. I find myself using quite a few guitar pedals during the mix stage; sometimes there is a sound in a pedal that is just not available any other way. I had tried everything I could with plug–ins, but for some reason going out of Pro Tools and into a pedal and adding some distortion and EQ and compression and then bouncing it back into Pro Tools did the trick. One the screen shot you can see the return from the Comptortion that got printed. It was just a mono recording, very ’70s! [laughs]"

Developed in collaboration with Castro.

The LS-LC model timbale stick was designed by legendary percussionist, Lenny Castro. The length is 16” and diameter of 7/16”. The stick features a 14.5” black lacquer finish for a distinct look.

In this photo Lenny is seen with a Roland SPD 20.

In this photo taken at the 2006 Playboy Jazz Festival Lenny is seen with some LP Latin Percussion Congas.

In this photo Lenny is seen with some LP Bongos.