About us
It is not easy to talk about oneself, but I will try, without getting bored.
My name is Xabi Navarro, but everyone calls me Jota. I have spent my entire professional life as a sound technician, so I want to assume that something I will have learned in all this time …
I have always been struck by the sound. I remember how, I would have been 14 years old, I listened to the program “Club 44” by Gregorio Gálvez on Radio Popular, putting my transistor and me under the pillow. That seemed fascinating to me: Such a big world in such a small space! Afterwards, I also remember the afternoons at Rafa’s uncle’s house, who had an old giant turntable, valve, brought from Germany! There we listened to the vinyls that came to our hands, until we learned them by heart … What a great sound! And I wanted to record sounds like that …
But in our times there was no “official” way to learn that trade, only in a self-taught way. Of course, there was no internet, so learning was equivalent to knocking on doors, getting books, asking, practicing … it was the only way to learn that trade.
In 1980 I started with electronics, also on my own, and from there I jumped into the world of sound. I made my first sound table, a 5-channel transistor microphone mixer, which I still have. That’s where everything started …
Also at that time I made my first sound, to a group then unknown to Azpeitia, called Jotakie … Later I worked as an apprentice in direct, with different companies, downloading trucks of material and hopefully doing some sound. From there to Madrid (1986) to do an intensive course of recording. It was still recorded on a tape recorder, which was the only professional support then. On the way back I opened my first recording studio on a lower section of the neighborhood of Amaroz, in Tolosa, with an 8-track recorder.
At the end of the 80s I started working as a control and maintenance technician for BF and an announcer in Egin Irratia, the one that closed us Mr. Garzón. Then all the equipment was absolutely analog: Cassettes, vinyls and open-coil tape recorders.
When the first CDs appeared, we left prehistory. It was the year 1990. The digital revolution that started there changed everything, for good and for bad.
Since his inauguration in 1995, he has worked as a sound technician at the Kafe Antzokia in Bilbao. In all these years have passed through my hands about 5,000 groups of all styles and sizes.
In 1998 we built with our hands a recording studio in the hamlet where I live, in what had been the old stable. And since then we are still here, from our humility.
The other side of Musikorta is Maribi Ugarteburu, my partner since 1990. She will welcome you in her lap (Altzoa) taking care of your rest and also the palate, with our homemade meals. Without it, it would not have been possible for me to get into these sauces; neither the long days in the studio, nor the afternoons of the workshop, nor the endless nights of sound. In addition, it is usually my closest counselor, responsible for the “kitchen” of the entire project.