Issue 02 Producer's Edge David Banner Winter 2008

News Products and Developments

I

always wanted a record. I meant I always wanted a record of my own pressed and released. I dreamt of a huge black disc with a hole in the middle that would sit on my turntable and rotate while my eyes adjusted, trying to read the spinning label. That dream needed updating with the arrival of the CD. The idea of an album being immortalized on a bedroom wall was replaced by the smaller canvass of the jewel case. Still, it was kind of fresh to see a CD collection spinning in its stand. Now, at the start of 2008, music is roughly the same [save that thought for the forums], but the medium has completely changed. The CDs great contribution was portability and now; the iPod stuffed to the brim with MP3s is the new record collection.

What does this mean to you as an artist or producer? It’s time to rethink the tools and techniques you’ll be using to establish a viable music career- especially if a good percentage of it is powered by the internet. In short, you’ll need more than a flipped online presence and spam-a-lot marketing campaigns. Digital mediums require digital delivery systems and in this issue we are going to focus on a fresh crop of Digital Content Providers who double as e-commerce solutions.

I’d like to thank all the entities and individuals who helped us put together an outstanding second issue. Right now I’m watching the progress bar fill as my MP3 player tells me how far in the track we are. Get used to the new aesthetic.

Drew Spence

Editor In Chief

WMagazine had a vision and we e here at Producer’s Edge

delivered. We would like to thank you again for hanging in there with us. We appreciate all of the feed back that we have received from our reader’s.

Trust; we listen, as you will see all the changes in this issue. I’d like to give a special shout out to some of the people that looked-out for this issue. Big ups’ to Syreta of Triple Threat Agency & Universal Records. Producer Don Cannon Aphilliates Music Group. Hen Roc of Bad Boy Entertainment. Thank you to all.

Crystal J. “Work Now, Play Later”

Edays ...as they say in the south

verybody’s on the edge these

‘unowhatalbout’...I’m sayin this is what I’m talking about ...PE mag is curbing beats, sidewalk swag raps and the streets is lovin it! Drew and the team at Producers Edge have once again pulled it “off the shelf!”... while others collect dust. This is not your average one day magazine; no

2 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

fancy pic reading and useless gossip columns...”whatalbout”. I’m sayin ...we have an amazingly informative, smartly entertained double cover issue with explosive video interviews of David Banner, Mr Collipark and all the music production goodies to go along wit it..”That’s what I’m talking about.”

As you can tell I’m in the “A” gettin my slang on and choppin it up behind and on the scene with sis Richera Jones & Meda ( special thanks for providing exclusive networking possibilities.... you are the best! I know, I know; don’t worry I got you) Yeah, 07 has seen me at underground beat battles (Big Russ “Bangin Out Producers”) to red carpet events (Vegas VMA’s @ the palms, Dirty Awards in the “A”) to poppin bottles with super producers @ the ProducersBall (Swole, Nar’d, Liljay, Speedy, Khao and the list goes on ).... oh yeah producers pops bottles too!

Most importantly what’s really on the table is what PE mag brings...a mag that can smartly entertain and steer your career towards a “carpet other than the one you walk on now”.

Take part in the future of music production...for you are the living soundtrack of a future-sampled musical experience. ...and if your beats still suck after this ..then stop using those cheap Qtips ..get a Ptip and get the wax out ya ears!...start beat boxin!..get ya beat right! ..”uno whatalbout”.

Special thanks to (video crew) Mello & Dubble vision, Atlanta’s underground artist and beat battle host Dres the Beat Nic, DJ Fia, Mz NYC, Todd 1,and Big john. The Dirty Awards (Tahira Wright always lookin out for the press... appreciate ya) David Banner (the after party at Caesars Palace was crazy!)Mr Collipark (with his hip hop orchestra) Swole, John boy, CTE. Barkley (thanks for the sanity check) Cant forget all my family members that truly want to see me succeed through all I’ve been threw....and last but not least to all the acid rain niggaz that try to cloud the inevitable shine on the rise ...Producers Edge Magazine... ”uno whatalbout”. Big P

P

roducer’s Edge Magazine is The Creative Journal of Hip Hop,

Info@ProducersEdgeMagazine.com

EDITORIAL Editor In Chief/Czar Drew Spence Senior Editor Crystal Johnson Proof Editor Will Loiseau

BRAND BUSINESS Brand Specialist Pedro Mojica

R&B and Rap Music Production. It is a quarterly print magazine shipping with a DVD-ROM full of extended features including video, audio, software demos and tutorials.

Producer’s Edge Magazine is dedicated to the creative aspect of music production with a focus on the tools we use to bring ideas into reality.

For the Winter 08 Issue 02- Producer’s Edge is focused on Distribution.

Presenting your music to the masses of music lovers is a key obstacle facing the musician with unique challenges in this Modern Age of Digital Information. We will be conducting interviews and gathering information as we deal with this important topic.

Business Consultant Darius Myers Magazine Consultant Eddie Ugarte

ART AND GRAPHIC Art Layout AVX Productions DVDROM Griffin Avid

© Producer’s Edge Magazine. No part of this magazine may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or resold without prior written consent of the publisher.

Producer’s Edge recognizes all copyrights contained in this issue. Where possible we acknowledge the copyright holder. All contributions are submitted and accepted on the basis of a non-exclusive worldwide license to publish or to license others to do so unless otherwise agreed in advance in writing

Don’t just read about music production, live it in the pages of Producer’s Edge Magazine.

3 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

FEEDBACK FLOWS BACK kind words. Here’s a shot. Some of the names may be changed to protect the not so innocent.

S

o I need to crunch the math behind the general tone of the feedback. It came in from Letters to the Editor and from our Myspace page (buried behind all the requests to critique beats) and a surprising amount from our YouTube page. The overwhelming issue was the magazine being bagged and we’ve addressed that by inserting the magazine in a sleeve so you can still flip through the magazine and still keep the DVD-ROM in place.

More producers! We heard that too, but I don’t want to go down the road of quantity over quality. It’s nice to bait you with a glossy magazine cover and the names of a dozen producers, but I don’t think a little snippet about the latest project or a short article about a producer just for the name claim is the way to go.

Producers on the come up. I’ve been going over this with Crystal J and Big Ptrying to find ways to give exposure to all the cats that could use it, but this is a huge task. When you consider all the producers that have been overlooked by the industry, the media and even their music peers, it becomes difficult to keep making space for someone just starting out. To be fair, we are providing you with all the tools you need to build a foundation for your career. A feature and review of your beats in PE Mag is just not the place to shoot for first.

Video. We’re making the switch over to Quicktime since that was the most requested video format. Reviews. Maybe, just maybe we’ll create some kind of reviews archive on the site or open up some section of the forum for user reviews. Thanks for all your 4 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

I just got the first issue of a soon to be classic magazine!! great read from front to back!! lrockz’s article was great, and so were all the features about the less known producers especially the one about the cryptic one!! I hope to see more in depth articles about gear in the future, and more articles about underground crews, producers, and beat camps!!! keep those good reads coming!! can’t wait until the next issue!! good luck on your new endeavors, onelove as always, peace tmf velvet Thanks tmf. Every attempt is being made to step up the content and look of the magazine. It’s an ongoing process and your feedback is very important. Keep the feedback coming.

We would like to review a sample copy of a current issue of your publication, Producer’s Edge Magazine, for possible subscription.

If you can send, just forward it to the address listed above, with the attention to me. If you have any questions, or if there is a cost involved, please feel free to call or e-mail me back. Thank you very much for your cooperation and have a great day.

Um, yes there is a cost involved. It’s 24.95 for a 1 year subscription and 39.95 for 2 years. Keep the feedback flowing.

Note: We had to squash the insert caption idea since there wasn’t a single entry worthy or clean

Hit Drew Spence! Editor@ ProducersEdgeMagazine.com

enough to print! Try again next time.

Copyright © 2007. Sony Creative Software Inc. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCING ACID PRO 6

ACID® Pro 6 software is the ideal environment for composition, recording, mixing, and production. Its unique fusion of professional power and exceptional ease of use sets ACID Pro 6 software apart from all other digital audio workstations. With multitrack audio technologies, comprehensive MIDI sequencing, and legendary ACID looping functionality, ACID Pro 6 software will redefine the way you make music. www.sony.com/acidpro6 Multitrack recording • Real-time pitch and tempo matching • Inline MIDI editing • Unlimited media clips per track • MIDI track envelopes and keyframes • Drum grid editing • External control surface support • 24-bit, 192 kHz hard disk recording • Built-in DirectX® audio effects • VSTi parameter automation • 5.1 surround mixing • Frame-accurate video scoring • Groove quantization tools • Integrated CD burning • Over 1,000 loops

Includes Native Instruments™ KOMPAKT sample playback engine and custom sound library—a $200 value

5 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

+

+

= 6

Spinning on DISC

DVD-ROM Issue 02 Winter 2008

Video In Studio Series -----

DAVID BANNER MR. COLLIPARK Vintage Series -----E-MU SP 1200 with Dor from Boomspot.com REMIX Hotel: Yamaha Motif XS, MM6, Vestax VCI-100, Steinberg Sequel, Roland MV 8800, Focusrite Liquid Mix, Denon Serato.

Roland USA: Roland USA powered by Guitar Center and Sam Ash music stores -Fantom X, MV8800, SH201 hosted

by Warren ‘Hanna’ Harris and Mike Acosta special MV 880 +Sonic Cell segment.

KORG: The New Korg M3 and powered by Sam Ash music stores -Richard Formidoni hosts in store demo and clinic.

Sounds and Samples ----Sony Creative

– assorted sounds and loops from

their Bass-X, Unstrung, Diamond Cuts, Down Tempo Beats, Flammable, Global Groove, Platinum Theory and more.

Big Fish Audio- Ample samples from the DreadRoots Reggae, Hip Hop Exotica and Symphonic Manoeuvres.

6 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Sonic Emulations- Full drum kits from their Inspiration Hip Hop + RnB and Derty South packages

Sony PCM-D50 Field recorded sound design

Artist Spotlight ----Cop Shop powers: What are the 25 best 9th

Wonder beats? We’ll let him show you!

samples from Griffin Avid

Bonus Material Software ----(PC) Demo: XLUTOP (MAC & PC) Demo:

HAVOC The Kush sampler.

Chainer: VST host

Redsecta Mastering Part I

IK Multimedia: Amplitube, Sonic Saga Legin talks the SP 1200

and Miroslav Refills

IK

Multimedia

Amplitube

Jimi

Hendrix,

Philharmonic. Sonik Synth and Sample Tank 2

(PC) Demo:

(includes sound clips…stolen from his studio) Producer on the come up in Session more with Will C

Cuckos Reaper 2.0 Powerful and yet

ultra-affordable sequencer. Includes tutorial videos and additional FX Plug-ins.

(PC & MAC) Demo:

Propellerhead Reason 4.0

(includes additional Redrum kits by Griffin Avid)

7 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Turntables Of Contents Issue 02 Winter 2008 Notes from the desk: Points from the Editors

4 Your Letters and Feedback Near Gear

10 The Prophet ‘08 12 The Roland Sonic Cell 13 IK Multimedia ARC 14 IK Multimedia Sample Moog 16 Digidesign Pro Tools 7.4 18 Zendrum Digital MIDI Controller SOFT-TECH

23 Adobe Audition 3.0 24 Groove Agent 3 with Helge Vogt 27 Reaper 2.0 With Developer Justin Frankel and Technical Advisor Aaron Carey

Vintage Series

52 The E-Mu SP1200 with Sean Maru 56 Artist Connection: Producer Easy Moe Bee 62 iStandard Producer Showcase: Beast Of The Beats

63 Winner! The Apple Juice Kid Photo Gallery

66 Audio Engineering Society Floor Reflections

Music Production Photo Ops

IN THE LOOP SERIES

75 Sony Creative with Sound Development Manager Mike Scheibinger and Senior Media Developer Richard Thomas

60 SECONDS WITH

87 Producer and Artist Diamond D

31 Reason 4.0

with Sound Designer/Producer James Bernard

Griffin Avid’s Corner

36 Drum Variations with Adobe Audition 3.0 37 The Sony PCM-D50 Linear PCM Field Recorder MASTERING SERIES

38 Part II of Redsecta Mastering 45 AES Special: Preparing your Mixes for Mastering with

Adam Ayan from Gateway Mastering

8 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

INDUSTRY INSIDER

88 Why your next release will be intellectual property by John Nova Lomax

93 TUNECORE with Jeff Price 100 SNOCAP with Bruce Taylor The Vice President of marketing

102 iSound with DJ Burdick 104 The Independent Digital label IODA

107 Label Artist NASA from Uncommon Music 109 Insomniac with IZ-REAL and Kool Keith’s

Nogatco

126 Young World Mr

128 Mr

MAIN FEATURE 01

80 David

Banner

MAIN FEATURE 02

We bombard him

Collipark

What happens when success multiplies?

The Writer’s Block

with Gamma Rays and see what happens.

The Producer’s Edge 113 9th Wonder 116 DJ Bedtyme 357 119 Don Cannon 121 HAVOC The Mobb Deep maestro drops the Nature

132 Police State 135 The Digital Rhyme Book 137 Final Thoughts

Sounds powered album The Kush

124 KHAO 9 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Near Gear Harw are

The Prophet ‘08 Dave Smith Instruments

M

ost of us who have been following Dave Smith, the creator of Sequential Circuits and the father of the Prophet 5, are aware of his contributions to the synth world. Including his accomplishments in the world of musical hardware design [see box out] and the establishment of MIDI as the mainstay communication method between studio devices.

You would think he’d be delighted enough to just revel in his former glory and watch the modern ROMpler workstation reign supreme. No. In early 2000 Dave Smith Instruments (his new company) released the Evolver [monophonic synth followed by the polyphonic version Poly Evolver and desktop]. The units were firmly placed in studios as another synth; a fine compliment to the common bread and butter sounds in any modern composition. Set for a push in 2008 is the 8-voice Analog Prophet ‘08.

They say: The return of a legend or the beginning of a new era? The Prophet ‘08 is an eight-voice synthesizer with a 100% analog signal path. While the Prophet ‘08’s overall sonic character will be familiar to anyone who knows Dave’s work from the ‘70s and ‘80s, it is much more than just a vintage reissue with a few new bells and whistles. Of course, it includes features we now take for granted, like velocity and after-touch. Add to that performance features like an arpeggiator, gated step sequencer, and the ability to split and layer sounds. The modulation possibilities are much deeper than anything Sequential ever produced; making it capable of producing sounds the “classics” simply could not. Dave has always said that he is only interested in moving forward. The Prophet ‘08 is the product of evolution, not nostalgia.

10 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Spec sheet: •5-octave keyboard with semi-weighted action, velocity, and aftertouch.

•Spring-loaded pitch wheel and assignable mod wheel •256 fully editable Programs (2 banks of 128) with 2 Layers (2 separate sounds) in each Program.

•16 x 4 gated step sequencer •Arpeggiator •2 digitally controlled analog oscillators (DCOs) per voice with selectable sawtooth, triangle, saw/triangle mix, and pulse waves (with pulse-width modulation), and hard sync.

•White noise generator •1 Analog Curtis low-pass filter per voice, selectable 2- and 4-pole operation (self-resonating in 4-pole mode).

•3 Envelope Generators: filter, VCA, and assignable (four-stage ADSR + delay); Envelope 3 can loop.

•4 LFOs •Glide (portamento): separate rates per oscillator.

•Analog VCAs

Pre-sequel Sequential sequence

The Prophet 5 released by Sequential Circuits in the late 70s and early in using…presets! That is patch memory allowing you to save the internal settings.

The Pro-One was an affordable 3 octave monophonic synth meant to bring the power of the Prophet 5 to your desktop. Analog baby beastie for Leads and Bass.

Korg Wavestation was built upon the ideas found in the Prophet VS and brought us wave sequencing which used PCM Waveforms to create evolving and moving sounds. You were actually moving back and forth between sound sets and morphing a multi-timbre patch.

Beyond the promising specs and legendary lineage- it’s about what freshness this hardware brings to the table.

It’s going to be the raw sound and power that distinguishes this unit from all the very usable VAs available today. It’s a bold step forward in terms of using the past to shape the future. We are going to keep an ear out for this one. Should every beatsmith own a unit capable of producing classic synth tones? No, but the ones that want to add something beyond Banded Instruments to their compositions should consider the analogs... and this will be a good one. You can find audio examples and extended information on this modern beastie-master at DaveSmithInstruments.com and video on keyboardmag.tv

De La Mancha, who gave us the FREE random drum pattern generating VST erratic is back with Basic 64, a synth aimed at 8 bit retro video game sounds. If you ever wanted Timbo-Timberlake arp swirls without clearance issues, this is your download. He’s got lots of cool toys on his site. delamancha.co.uk/

Digital Sound Factory has reissued the original Proteus sample content for use with Cakewalk’s Dimension Pro and Dimension LE synthesizers.

The E-MU Proteus Pack consists of over 3,500 sound programs. Sounds from the Proteus 2000, Mo’ Phatt, Planet Earth: World, Virtuoso 2000: Orchestral and PX-7 for drums and percussion. Cakewalk.com

Yellow tools releases Independence 2, the soft-sampler workstation with a 70 gig library. Redesigned audio engine and 3rd party VST support for effects and instruments.

Check the Yellowtools.com site for cross-grade pricing. The Independence FREE (with 2 gig library) also updates to 2.0.

11 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Roland Sonic Cell

Video: Sonic Cell + MV 8800 !

Expandable Synthesizer Module with Audio Interface

I

f you own any Roland gear then you are probably familiar with the SRX series of user-installed expansion cards. A flagship like the Fantom-X holds up to 4 cards and the middle child; Juno-G takes only 1. The ultimate solution for expandability would be the Fantom-XR (rack unit) capable of hosting 6 cards. That would be a quite a beast- and also cost you around $2,895 for all that Roland goodness. The XV2020 (table top box) is still a nice piece and has room for 2 cards, but what would I consider for an updated sound set, modern features and a little room for expansion? Here comes the Sonic Cell.

Specs at a glance:

The Sonic Cell features a new bank of over 1,000 patches delivered through Roland’s ‘next generation’ sound engine. It’s driven by a new chip for increased clarity and presence and basically picks up where the Fantom series left off. It’s a desktop unit that fits nicely in your bag and functions wonderfully as your on-stage back up band. The Sonic Cell connects to your PC/Mac (via USB) and becomes your audio interface! With inputs for mic (phantom powered), line/instrument you won’t need much else to record full songs. Expect to pay somewhere around $795 for this table-top beast.

2 slots for SRX Expansion cards 128 voice sound module (polyphony) USB audio interface and USB memory stick compatible.

PC/Mac software editor- functions like a plug-in.

Cakewalk SONAR LE included 3 Chorus types and 5 different reverbs Live input effects (takes the burden off the processor) and 3 band compressor for mastering.

Streams audio (WAV, AIFF, MP3) and can be run by full MIDI compositions.

12 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

I

K Multimedia was on hand showing several new products at their booth. Along with the Stomp 2 and Apmlitube X-Gear were two new releases that had everyone buzzing. The ARC (Advanced Room Correction) system is a combination of hardware and software designed to compensate for monitoring your mixes in an acoustically challenged room. How so? It’s a plug in that slides in on your listening channel and adjusts the output to balance out frequency, phase response and even stereo imaging.

“When monitors are placed in a room, the surrounding walls, ceiling, furniture and other objects reflect and absorb their sounds; creating complex distortions specific to the roomcausing them to lose the accuracy they have been designed for, and you end up hearing more of the sound of the room than the music actually being produced. ARC features the revolutionary Audyssey MultEQ® technology, which measures acoustical information throughout the listening area in your studio. It then combines this information to provide an accurate representation of the room’s acoustical problems. The equalization solution then corrects for both time and frequency response problems.”

What do I actually do to make this thing work?

Install the software and the set up wizard will easily walk you through the included microphone placement and take different sound measurements in your studio. The Plug-in emits a tone which is the basic data used to create the compensations. This package is essentially a step-by-step, room measurement software solution for Mac/PC. The Hard Facts: VST, RTAS, AU correction plug-in for Mac/PC most popular DAWs (such as Pro Tools®, Cubase™, Logic™, Sonar™, Live™, etc.)

Professional measurement microphone Type: 1/4” precision measurement condenser microphone. Polar pattern: omnidirectional, free field Capsule frequency response: 20-16,000 Hz Calibrated frequency response when used with ARC: 16-20,000 Hz, +/- 1.5 dB Output: transformerless, electronically balanced, 200 ohms output impedance Sensitivity: 50 mV/Pa Noise Equivalent Level: 22 dB Max SPL: 130 dB for 3% THD The cost of the fix: Full price: $699 and reduced crossgrade pricing for previous product owners. Available by the time you read this.

13 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Video: Drew Spence and Sample Moog Software: Demo and sounds!!!!

IK Multimedia Sample Moog 16 Moog synthesizers in one VST!

T

he ‘other big one’ was Sample Moog, a VST ROMpler featuring over 1,700 sounds from 16 Moog synthesizers. This moog beast is powered by the Sampletank 2 engine with additional options for how any instrument plays back its sounds (Resampling and STRETCH). It’s loaded with sound sculpting tools beyond the standard ADSR and filters. You can use 4 internal effects and since it has 256 notes polyphony [16 part multitimbral ] you can stack/layer multiple patches and get some heavy sounds going.

This one is an office favorite and Drew Spence has done a video feature on this issues’ DVD-ROM. We also have the Demo for Mac and PC. Synths on blast: 1. Modular Moog 3C 2. Modular Moog 15 3. Modular Moog 55 4. Minimoog® Model D 5. Polymoog 6. Taurus™ 1 7. Prodigy 8. Multimoog 9. Vocoder 10. Concertmate MG-1 11. Source 12. Rogue 13. Memorymoog 14. Etherwave® Theremin 15. Minimoog® Voyager® 16. Little Phatty®

14 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Yes, the Minimoog Voyager and Little Phatty are in there too. For once it’s nice to use a piece of software and not have to question how much it sounds like...it’s supposed to. For more information check out Ikmultimedia. com for MP3 demos and more.

Hard Facts: • 16 part multitimbral sample-based synth • Stand-alone and plug-in for VST, AU RTAS on Mac/PC • 2 synth engines (Resampling and STRETCH™) • Built-in multi-effects with 4 effects per part selectable on 32 high-quality DSP effects, with BPM sync • Over 50 synth controls with Mono/Poly/ Legato modes with selectable Legato, 2 LFOs, 2 Envelopes, syncable LBF/BPF/ HPF Filters, Velocity, Range and Macro controls • Sounds can be read by SampleTank • 256 notes polyphony

Expect to lay down $299 to bring the moog sound to your studio.

15 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

The cost of staying with the pack: Customers who have purchased a new Pro Tools system or upgrade within one month prior to the release of Pro Tools 7.4 will be eligible for a free software upgrade. Customers purchasing new systems with old software will also be eligible for the free upgrade. Upgrades will be available through the DigiStore as well as through authorized Digidesign dealers. Pro Tools HD: $199 standard upgrade; $79 upgrade from Pro Tools HD 7.3 Pro Tools LE/M-Powered: $75 standard upgrade; $49 upgrade from Pro Tools LE/M-Powered 7.3

Digidesign Pro Tools 7.4

D

igidesign unveiled Pro Tools 7.4 (Mac OS X and PC) at the 123rd Audio Engineering Society Convention. They have added new features across the entire range including Pro Tools|HD®, Pro Tools LE®, and Pro Tools M-Powered™. The big highlight was Elastic Time. They say” “Our new Elastic Time functionality provides a revolutionary new way to manipulate the timing of audio events in Pro Tools—all in real time while maintaining the class-leading sound quality that our users have come to expect. Elastic Time is as easy to use as it is deep and flexible. It goes way beyond simple loop and tempo conforming, and delivers extremely powerful time-based tools…”

New Features at a glance: •Elastic Time: allows users to easily change the tempo and timing of loops, music, dialog, and other sound files in real time without cutting up audio tracks. Users can now easily audition or import loops and audio files that instantly sync with a session’s tempo. Users can also use the Elastic Time feature to quantize audio to the session grid or extracted grooves, and fine-tune regions with precision control over each individual beat.

•Avid Media Station PT 2.7 Software with Video Satellite Option Running on a separate computer, new Avid® Media Station|PT 2.7 software coupled with the new Video Satellite Option brings Pro Tools more deeply into the Avid workflow by enabling Pro Tools editors to quickly and easily play Avid video sequences in sync with Pro Tools|HD. The Video Satellite Option eliminates timeconsuming video exports and removes all video-processing burdens from the Pro Tools|HD system by synchronizing playback with Media Station|PT on a separate, dedicated computer.

•Avid ISIS Streaming Avid Unity ISIS offers the most scalable shared storage option for large, integrated post environments. With Pro Tools HD 7.4 software on Windows XP systems, editors can record and play back audio and video directly from qualified Avid ISIS shared storage systems.

16 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

The portable USB hard drive option gets sexier and sexier as prices drop and storage capacity increases. Just when you thought carrying around full mixes and stems on a dongle was the limit…

Digidesign drops the Mbox Micro.

What is it? It’s a USB drive preloaded with the latest Pro Tools LE software and an impressive VST bundle including gifts from the Bomb Factory. It’s a playback device with a 1/8-inch stereo jack for headphone or speaker monitoring. This is not an audio interface (no inputs). Mbox 2 Micro features analog outputs only. For a Pro Tools LE analog recording solution, check out the Mbox 2 Mini, or another member of the Mbox 2 or 003 families.

This is aimed at producers/engineers/ musicians who want the ability to mix sessions on the road or in foreign nonPro Tool powered studios.

They say:”Easily import audio files, MIDI files, and loops into Pro Tools, and edit and mix them to create musical masterpieces.

Plug in a USB MIDI keyboard into your computer and capture an amazing virtual instrument performance in Pro Tools — one that you can admire for posterity or tweak to perfection. Or route compositions from your favorite ReWirecompatible applications right into Pro Tools for further tweaking and mixing.”

The Mbox Micro plugs in plug-ins anywhere!

Hard Facts: Connector: One 1/8” stereo jack Maximum Output: +3 dBV into 600 Ohms Frequency Response: -2/+0 dB, 20 Hz – 20 kHz Dynamic Range: 103 dB A-weighted (THD+N: 0.002%) Supported Sample Rates: 44.1, 48 kHz Maximum Word Length: 24 bit Host Connection: One USB 1.1 type A connector Powered by USB bus only

Expect the Mbox 2 Micro to retail at close to $279.00

A

lso on tap was a bundle of VSTs from the A.I.R Group (Advanced Instrument Research group) expanding the Pro Tools –tool set and then some. They say: “We’re excited to offer these virtual instruments in one powerful and convenient bundle. The new Virtual Instrument Box Set offers Pro Tools users a complete collection of music creation tools, specifically designed for Pro Tools and providing top-notch sound quality and excellent playability…”

The Digidesign Virtual Instrument Box Set includes: • Structure, the professional sampler workstation: Structure redefines the art of sampling, allowing users to freely create, sculpt, and refine everything from simple acoustic instruments to highly complex soundscapes with amazing ease and in real time. It also includes a high-quality, comprehensive 5-DVD sound library from EastWest and the A.I.R. group, plus a 30-day trial of EastWest’s 40 GB Goliath—Structure™ Edition sound library.

• Strike, the ultimate virtual drummer: Strike makes it easy to create professional drum performances in Pro Tools with uncanny realism and unbelievable human feel.

• Velvet, vintage electric pianos: Velvet delivers stunningly realistic emulations of some of the most popular electric pianos.

• Hybrid, high-definition synthesizer: Hybrid combines the warmth of classic analog waveforms with digital wavetables, enabling users to recreate sounds or create something new.

• Xpand!, free sample-playback/synthesis workstation: Built for songwriters, film composers, DJs, electronic musicians, music producers, and sound designers, Xpand! provides fast ways to access and manipulate thousands of high-quality sounds from within Pro Tools.

*Structure and Expand are included in the Micro bundle.

Visit digidesign.com to see video of these new options in action.

17 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

FXpansion. And the first library I did for them was jazz and funk. And I actually had the library done before I even met the folks. And that first meeting with them was 2 years ago in New York at the AES show. Since then I’ve done percussion and the new BFD orchestra marching band pack, which will be out in a couple of months.

E

arlier this year, Proof Editor Will Loiseau and I were invited to attend the 123rd Audio Engineering Society convention at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York. It’s a chance to get a glimpse at the newest products catering to the highest ends of audio and music production. Included along with the floor exhibit is a full schedule of lectures and seminars. You can find out more about the AES by visiting their website at aes.org. A stand out was the Zendrum Digital MIDI controller. The Fxpansion booth was showing off the GURU 1.5 update (powered by the very hot AKAI MPK49) and BFD 2; controlled by 2 Zendrum units linked together.

Zen: a Buddhist doctrine that enlightenment can be attained through direct intuitive insight.

Zendrum: a MIDI controller designed by drummers to allow musicians to express their creativity in rhythmic and intuitive ways.

We sat down with Drummer/Percussionist and producer John Emrich for the details behind the unit. Later, our conversation is joined by The Zendrum Designer David Haney.

Drew Spence: What did you feel was missing, that you needed to create a new MIDI interface?

John Emrich: Well, the Zendrum is roughly 15 years old now. And I started playing it about 14 years ago. When I jumped in with this, I was not happy with the direction the electronic drumming community was going in terms of sounds. Module-based sounds never really thrilled me at all. I always ended up with this huge rack of electronics to put together sounds. And as it turns out, an email to a friend and a friend of a friend in a fluke, I was put in touch with 18 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

What went into creating that particular set?

Well, what goes into creating any of the packs... was assembling the gear. For these 3 packs that I’ve done for FXpansion, I actually own all that stuff. So you have to get the gear together. It’s a recording session. Each one of those packs takes about 6, 7 days worth of recording, about anywhere from 10-14 hours a day of playing every single note, every single articulation. So that’s the key with BFD. There’s no dynamic scaling. Every velocity is actually recorded. So for instance if you have a snare drum which occupies actually 5 articulations, you have a hit, a rim shock, a flam, a cross stick, and a drag. All 5 of those articulations on the one drum.

You must record each of these for proper dynamics.

So it’s very slow, very monotonous, lot of attention to detail.

All 3 of those patches were done at Omega Studio in Rockville Maryland. You can actually look that up on the Internet if you want more information about them. They have a recording school you might really enjoy knowing about. So there’s a full weeks worth of recording and then the editing begins.

Jazz and Funk by itself has over 66,000 wave files. That was about 6 months worth of editing. The percussion pack is about the same. It took me about 4 months to build. And the new orchestra marching band pack took me about 3½ months to edit.

These are very long tedious processes to put these together.

If you screw up anywhere along the line, you can’t necessarily be sure what you did wrong. You’ve got to start it over again to make sure that you don’t have any mistakes. Sampling on this level is a long, drawn out process requiring a lot of concentration. But in the end, I have the sounds an electronic drummer should have. And heaven forbid a real, professionally trained drummer makes the sounds the drummers use. Now the Zendrum itself, that . . . I started trying to play triggers

and things with my fingers. And a guy named Future Man who’s with Bela Fleck & The Flecktones actually arrived at the destination before everyone else with the synth-axe drumitar. It’s a handmade creation that he built.

And it’s almost impossible to create another one of those. At the same time, David Haney and Kim Daniels in Atlanta, Georgia had put together the first prototypes for the Zendrum.

You can go to the Zendrum. com website and get the history of the Zendrum . I’ve been working with the Zendrum for quite a while. To me, once you can understand the concepts of playing; this is one of these things where you bring as much of what you can to the table and you’re in good shape. You can just be a student drummer and just bang on it and it’s going to produce results for you. But if you have an understanding of Middle Eastern techniques and all these different ways of playing with your fingers and your hands, obviously that instrument is going to do more for you.

It’s great because whenever I tour or travel, I can pick up drums anywhere. I can pick up an electronic kit anywhere.

With this I can take my Zendrum and a small four-space rack, which houses my BFD turbo receptor. And I can jump on an airplane, putting it in the overhead bin and go anywhere in the world and I have everything that I need right there. 25 touch sensitive buttons that I can put on a little snare stand right next to my drum set and play.

Let’s talk about the pads themselves.

They have a very unique construction where they’re actually a lot firmer than you might expect any sort of pad to be.

Everyone thinks that a drum pad is soft or they think of it in terms of an MPC pad where it’s gum, rubber and there’s some give, which is more like a keyboard. The Zendrum’s pads are actually rigid. It’s piezo technology [touch sensitive transducer- enabling lightning quick response and extreme dynamic range -DS]. They just did it right in terms of being able to get all of

the dynamics out of it. So because the pads are hard and firm and don’t give, you can play it faster. You can also access more dynamics ‘coz you’re not dealing with the pad having to travel a certain range into the machine before it makes contact like a keyboard. So most people think that it’s going to give like a piano. It doesn’t. They’re hard.

And they’re built extremely well.

the two handrails on a wheelchair. A couple of us found out that he had made that and started bugging him to release it as another model.

And the reason I play that one is all the buttons are tighter. It’s all in one little small package. And for my playing technique, the way that I address the instrument, it makes more sense. When you look at how I play that instrument, you can’t see what’s going on with my hand.

But underneath my hand, I’m hitting things with my heel, different parts of the knuckle, different fingers, all these different little ways of bending your hand to make different parts impact those piezos. So for my style, it lays out that way.

Also when I put it on the stand, it’s symmetrical.

David Haney and Kim Daniel

My original Zendrum is about 13 to 14 years old. And it still plays just as well as the brand new ones that I have now. It’s just as tight. The dynamics are just as good. And keep in mind, this is done with piezos. That’s a true testament to the craftsmanship of the instrument. It’s a real instrument. It’s not a piece of plastic that everybody has. Each one is relatively unique because when you order one, you decide what you want it to look like. The layouts are the same. But everyone has their own unique individual instrument.

Now let’s discuss the actual design and layout. Why was it actually spread out with the pads in that arrangement?

Well, the ZX layout was the original one. I don’t think anyone really has an answer. But that was the design that was picked between Kim Daniels and David Haney, the two guys that actually originated and built it. Now the laptop model, which is the one that I played on the DVD-ROM was actually built for a guy in a wheelchair. It fits between

So the ZX is the longer drawn out style. And then the laptop is more symmetrical. And there is no right and wrong design. Each guy plays his own hexadome for his own reasons. I have both. I speak both just as equally. I just prefer to carry the little ones. It’s more unique to me as a player. Also, I can grab a couple of them and run out the door and not have to worry about trying to check the thing into an airplane. For me, those are my reasons.

As a studio tool and a midi interface, would you consider this more of an addition or an actual replacement for any sort of midi interface I might have now?

19 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

“ If you were using an MPC, if you were using an MPD, if you were using a Roland or Panasonic, if you were using any of those instruments to manually play in your drum sounds . . . Now, whether or not you’re using BFD it doesn’t matter. But if you’re beating on those instruments with your fingers, the Zendrum will replace them all. It has a much greater dynamic range and a more organic feeling.

And you can just get down a lot easier than with a gum rubber pad. “

Anything with a gum rubber pad, you have to hit it at least a certain level just to make the thing sound whereas the Zendrum- you can literally just accidentally bump it and get that nice soft dynamic. Now when you pair that up with BFD with all the dynamics that we put into the program, now you have a serious contender for replacing everything. But it’s a combination of the two. The Zendrum with BFD just in my opinion blows all the rest of it out of the water.

Now let’s talk about the material you used and why you chose that material? David Haney: The material I used is an inch and three quarter 6th hardwood. There’s a lot to be said for working with wood and putting nice finishes on things. But there’s a practical reason because the plastic just doesn’t trigger as well. You need something solid for these triggers to sit on so nothing is really lost. So it makes it real easy to dial the triggers in and they all turn out really even. And the trigger design is very simple. There’s nothing to break or wear out really. I haven’t replaced one trigger because it broke on anything we’ve ever made since ’94… So I mean that’s pretty strong. And there’s no glue in there.

You can take the thing apart and look at it if you want to. It’s totally shock mounted.

It’s totally indestructible basically. Unless you hit it with sticks.

Other than that, there’s nothing else out there that’s going to trigger like this. And I can’t figure out why

somebody hasn’t knocked it off either to be honest with you. What’s to keep Roland or Akai or anybody else from taking the triggers apart and looking at it. But part of this too is our circuitry.

And that’s something we got right in ’94.

I’ve been playing grooves all my life. That’s what I do. I still have a working band. And everybody tries to over-analyze it instead of just playing and feeling. So that’s kind of what the Zendrum is about. The programming end of it is as simple as anything that you’ll ever find. And once you’ve set up your arrangement of triggers from one side to the other and assigned the notes, that’s all there is to it. You forget about the Zendrum side and worry about BFD or whatever you’re running with it. So the Zendrumming should be as simple as anything you’ve ever seen. That’s my point. It does what it does better than anything else and it is very specific to what it’s good at.

There seems to be a bit of a conundrum. You are there with that incredible musical instrument. But then you have to now modernize it and embrace software. Does that cause any problems embracing the new age of software?

I was just going to make one to knock around for myself in my little recording studio here at home. And then everybody else saw it and said this is a product…the computer has finally caught up to the speed and the dynamics that the sounds are now good enough to bring out a potential the Zendrum always had. It’s the internet and the computer that has caught up.

20 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

We’ve been treading water for 10 years waiting for them to catch up. But up until now, it was always about plugging into some kind of drum module.

Now every Mac comes with GarageBand. All you got to do is plug the Zendrum into that and you got a recording studio in a box. And that’s what’s changed.

That’s become more of a household thing where it’s not just an inch of an inch of an inch anymore. And I would have to say 60% of our sales these days are to keyboard guys and DJs and guys that aren’t conventional drummers. We’re just trying to pay attention to what everybody is doing now. We’re still making the same thing we’ve always made. And if you put it next to anything else, there’s no way you cannot think our sensitivity is better.

And it’s a bulletproof design with a lifetime warranty. So there you have it.

We’re pretty strong in reliability.

As far as why we picked the wood, why we picked this trigger design?- it’s ‘coz it works better.

It works better than anything else out there. And everybody else is going to make disposable plastic.

And we’re never going to do that.

I’m never going to leave anybody behind that’s already bought the Zendrum. If I change anything, it’s going to be a chip you can swap yourself. I’m not going to try to sell you another one next year.

That’s the different philosophy for me because I went through the first 5 years dealing with all the mess of the music business and realized that it ain’t going to work for us. That ain’t going to work for us. We have to be on a personal level with people. So that’s kind of where things are for Zendrum.

In the last 2, 3 years, it’s got legs. It’s finally got legs. I’m shipping one to Australia Monday. I’m shipping one to Taiwan on Monday. Shipping them all over the earth now. And I don’t deal with distributors or musicians catalog or any of that stuff.

We’re making handmade works of art.

If that’s what you want, we’re there. I’ll gladly direct people to the price range that they’re looking for ‘coz there’s a lot of other stuff out there that does a lot of different things than we do. But it’s all basically the same sort of an idea of the MPC stuff. Everything is laid out in a non-ergonomic way too. And that’s the other thing that I think . . . my keyboard player just got one of the . . . what is it? The Fantom that has a little bank of drum bits on it. You can’t play that. I mean there’s nothing there to play. You have to hit it harder than you have to hit a Zendrum full out just to make anything at all happen. So you can’t really play that.

We just keep laughing to each other. It’s like why haven’t they put Zendrum triggers on this. I don’t know.

So basically I feel like that the computer and software is now at the point where the Zendrum becomes a blank canvass for people’s imagination. And there are no rules as far as I’m concerned about what people do with it. I’m thinking drum sets. Somebody else is thinking piano. So that’s basically where we are. We just got this time tested proven design. And it still works better than anything else out there. I’ll leave it to you to judge. But that’s what we think.

What about FXpansion gave you the confidence to work on this product?

John Emrich: FXpansion is the top company. Imagine entering the game with a top company. Why not? What I like about FXpansion and the reason I continue to work solely with them for sounds is their commitment. You’re not going to find another company that’s committed to making the best electronics drum BFD instrument that can be made. And everything that FXpansion puts into this is all about improving the product and making it better than anything else and taking care of its customer base, which is massive. I think we’re well over 5060,000 worldwide users that are registered. And everything that they do is centered on making the best product they can.

Here’s a great example. We just released BFD 2- it’s not just a substitute program for BFD 1. We’re not recycling any of that stuff. What we’ve done with BFD 2 is actually taken 1 and then 1.5 and made this huge upgrade to where you have even more power and more musical expression available within that program. And to me, if I’m going to have the level of commitment that I have playing drums and building these libraries, then the only company that I’m going to go with is a company that shows that same level of commitment in building the software that’s going to house my sounds.

Let’s say I’ve been chopping loops in Reason, using Rex, and I decide to actually learn how to begin to play the drums myself. Does this make a good entry instrument where I want to start entering drum hits myself?

Yeah. It’s a little more expensive than a lot of other things that you can buy.

But if you’re going to learn how to do something, you don’t want to have the machine that you’re learning on become a limitation. ‘coz you’re going to get frustrated. You’re not going to get the results that you’re capable of because the machine will slow you down. With the Zendrum, pair it up with BFD, you will not have anything slowing you down. It will give you the true response of exactly what you’re playing. So as you’re learning and you’re trying to work things out . . . wait a minute, my high end chops aren’t quite right, what you hear coming out of the BFD/Zendrum combination is exactly what you’re playing into it.

That gives you a lot more truth and a lot more ability to actually improve yourself. If you’re working with a software program that doesn’t have all those dynamics or if you’re working with a controller that doesn’t actually represent what you’re playing in the same way as you played it, how are you going to get better because your baseline is floating around? With the Zendrum and the BFD turbo receptor or BFD just by itself on your computer, what you play is exactly what you hear.

So that gives you a solid foundation for you to start learning how to play. Now some guy is going to want to play with sticks like a regular drum set. And there’s plenty of options for that also.

But for playing with fingers with the Zendrum being available, I would say save your money and not worry about the other things and just go ahead and jump into it. There is a website available where you can get the Zendrum in combination with the BFD turbo receptor preloaded and set up in a preconfigured way that you just plug it in and you’re ready to go right now. And that is www.the-freddy.com.

Basically that machine is a street legal version of the machine that I’ve been playing for the last couple of years.

What else do we need to know in conclusion about the Zendrum, John Emrich BFD 2? What do I need to know now?

Well, BFD 2 itself is not going anywhere anytime soon. It just keeps exploding.

It’s actually pairing up with many, many electronic drum companies as we speak. The Zendrum has stood the test of time. It’s not going anywhere.

In fact through work with magazines such as yours, it’s going to just keep getting more and more popular. And as people start playing it, you’re going to start seeing more and more people use it. So this is one of these things where it’s been around for a while and it’s just now coming into its own. If you want to play with your hands and you want the computers and all these different machines that you might be using in your studio to actually respond exactly the way your fingers are playing, then the Zendrum is the only way to go.

And in terms of drum sounds, BFD is the total package.

All right. We thank you for your time and talking to Producer’s Edge Magazine. John Emrich is the sound designer for Fxpansion who produced the Jazz & Funk expansion pack for BFD. Please visit his website: www.johnemrich.com

21 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Adobe Audition 3.

by Drew Spence

I

f you ask most producers about their favorite app for editing samples most will say Sound Forge or Adobe Audition. It’s the straight forward simplicity of the interface and the robust and accurate tool set that have placed AA in a special category of all around studio workhorsethat’s.. not …a sequencer. It handles multi-tracking, works with video for soundtracks, final preparation and mastering, burning and ripping CD audio and even supports REWIRE and VST effects. All of this and no MIDI recording or virtual instruments.

All of that is about to change as Adobe Audition 3 steps into the arena of full-fledged DAW. You’ll have to forgive me for taking this feature so personally, but Cool Edit- er I mean Audition was the first music software application I installed. Since then I’ve learned my way around every major sequencer, but there is always a special affinity for my first love. Version 2.0 changed the interface to the dock-able windows system more familiar to the other Adobe heavy hitter- Photoshop. The change wasn’t exactly welcomed as the interface presented more information than most early users were accustomed to.

With the addition of MIDI sequencing comes the obvious questions; how easy is it to set up and how much functionality do I obtain and is it at the expense of ease of use and stability?

The initialization is very similar to today’s most popular sequencers. Insert a MIDI track, choose sequencer tab to choose from a menu of all the relevant settings and away you go.

The speed edge Adobe Audition has over working with other apps increases with the ability to edit grouped clips as one single entity. With version 3 it will be easier to dive in and clean your samples beyond the standard Remove Noise and eliminate pops and clicks with enhanced spectral analysis. Rounding out the effects are the additions of Convolution Reverb, Analog Delay and a Mastering Chain. Be sure to check out the new Guitar Suite and Tube modeled compressor. It does wonders for drums too.

The reasons to update from version 2 to 3 are quite obvious, but the addition of MIDI recording, enhancements to an already stable and powerful engine [yes, it’s true old 1.5 sessions sound even clearer, fuller and more defined in version 3- GA] and an improved workflow make the idea of sticking with 1.5 ridiculous. A minor complaint about the simplicity of the two included VSTi – Bass Dropper Syn, which best functions as a supporting tone underneath another bass module and the Polyphonic Synthesizer which actually made me check the Task Manager to see if the Polysix from the Korg Legacy Collection

was running somewhere by accident. There’s enough quality and control to justify another selling point, but the simple GUIs of the newest plugs are a bit of a surprise since they are Adobe.

I spent a heavy amount of review time trying to reverse engineer by sound the VST plugin Mastering.

It is a fixed audio chain of Reverb, Excitation (to attack and bring out the high end), Stereo-widening a Loudness Maximizer (a Limiter [that can be made to pump if abused right]) and Output Gain. Although there are a few presets included, you’ll certainly need to roll your own for any passable results and most likely be sent back to the multi-track window as your mixing flaws are exposed here.

Overall, Adobe has pushed the Audition multi-tracker out into the arena of full-fledged DAW and singular recording solution. It is a bold move in an already crowded field of sequencers, but Audition is sure to differentiate itself with its intuitive interface and feature set based on the practical needs of your recording studio.

23 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

The Virtual Drummer is back and loaded with features.

T

he original Groove Agent was pitched as a stand-in drum player and was a perfect tool for creating a backing drum track to practice other instruments over. It offered a wide range of playing styles, ranging from Jazz to Modern Pop with Hip Hop and R&B workings thrown in for good measure. You could choose among the drum kits representing the genres by decade along a musical timeline and vary the business of the drummers’ performance with the intensity slider. A ½ tempo feel, switching from snare to sidestick and inserting drum rolls were additional options for flavorings on the fly. Groove Agent worked as advertised and gave producers a loose sketch pad to get on with the composing end of track construction. This was a program that was begging to be flipped and so it was. Drum hits were sampled out of the kits. The host sequencer was brought in to layer, scramble and mix the MIDI and audio to create an ever wider palette of patterns and sounds. Drum machines triggered Groove Agent 1 and 2 while the instant drum rolls (with full control over complexity here too) and accents were easily inserted at the end of 8 bars clips to stop the repetitive drum- yawns.

Producer’s Edge was able to catch a few words with Groove Agent 3 designer Helge Vogt

Double Agent

Get Smart Covering such a broad spectrum of music meant an artist working primarily in a single style was left with only a few choices for ‘fitting’ drum kits and working off the basic grooves. The workarounds included running GA in Cubase and editing the MIDI data and then using it to trigger other modules.

We wanted more styles, more variation, more sounds and well….more Groove Agent. Version 2 was more of an expansion pack, but 3 is a different beast altogether. It’s been rebuilt from the ground up by a new team and a fanboy’s list of features were added.

Added in are the Percussion Agent: straight loops captured for GA 3 - and the Special Agent: live drum styles recorded as loops and controlled by the original interface. Dual Mode is basically two instances of any Groove Agent set up running together. I find this to be the most versatile configuration where experimentation can be very rewarding. Let’s talk about the heavily requested new ability to rock your own samples. The Import & FX page is clearly laid out with slots for using your own kits, adjusting the compression, EQ and audio routing.

The Drop Off Point Groove Agent 3 was one of the most anticipated releases this year not only because of the long delays and confusing information about the release date, but also for what it promised to deliver. I could on and on about what you can do with Groove Agent but instead I was able to grab some time with GA3 head designer Helge Vogt.

We’ll dig in for the science behind an incredible alternative to tapping pads, although GA3 works fine in this capacity also.

24 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

What was the goal of the design team in creating a third part to Groove Agent? The main ones would be the two new additional drummers: one uses specially recorded audio material and is called Special Agent.

It sounds even more realistic than the original, or Classic, Groove Agent from previous versions, but is more streamlined in terms of styles. And the new Percussion Agent is specialized on accompanying percussion with a large range of styles and instruments. Plus we’ve got things like user sample import for building your own specialized kits, more drum kits, more styles. There’s also new playback functions that make the virtual drummer sound even more real like Alternate Hits, which avoids that really annoying “machine-gun” sound when you repeat hits on a part of a kit. And much more...

What did you think of the original before you decided to strip it down and rebuild it from the ground up?

We already faced big challenges in V2 because the code wasn’t written with a modern modular approach to software

use the Classic Agent like you did in GA2 and enjoy extended features and styles there. The organization and selection of styles might be even easier in GA3. Of course there is new functionality and new pages like SA, PA, FX and import but GA is well-known for being very easily learnable with a very shallow learning curve. That’s mainly thanks to the very intuitive user interface and workflow. Because we completely reengineered the software, Groove Agent 3 doesn’t import Groove Agent 2 programs and projects. So if you’re updating from an older version, you should keep Groove Agent 1 or 2 installed to finish off or play old projects.

However the projects can be translated to GA3 relatively easily because GA3 has all the sounds and styles that GA2 had (and much more). development. Our experience was that the software was doing what it should very well and efficiently but it simply wasn’t written to be expandable.

For Version 3, we wanted to rebuild the code to make it expandable for the future. And, of course, we wanted to come up with some really great new features. Also we liked and wanted to keep the easy User interface of Groove Agent 1 and 2 but make it a bit cleaner.

So the Groove Agent 3 interface has also been reworked, making it even easier to navigate and use than the original.

We were told the original intention of Groove Agent was to create a percussion backing track for a performer to practice along with.

When musicians became aware of the overall drumming potential it was adopted as a drum module.

Groove Agent 2 added more sounds and functionality, but how will version 3 satisfy the demand to actually replace a drummer in the production task?

We know that it is a difficult task to replace a drummer by software in the studio. But we did our best and I think we met our goal very well, especially when you factor in the amount of time you’d need to setup a real drummer

for a recording session. All styles were performed by real drummers and that’s how they sound, especially the new Special Agent, which sounds extraordinarily real. There is not a single other tool available that allows you to setup a complete drum track in less than a minute like you can do with Groove Agent 3 while sounding real right out of the box.

Why was there such a heavy programming revision and what remains from the previous versions?

A lot of the V2 concept has been ported over to Groove Agent 3, but there are also completely new concepts, like the Percussion and Special Agent, which are in fact 2 completely new engines.

The main reason for the complete reengineering from scratch was to extend the functionality of the software, and give Groove Agent 3 extendibility for the future. Now we will be able to develop much faster and we already have several very exciting ideas for future versions.

If I am comfortable with version 1 and 2 how easy will the transition to 3 be?

If you know how to use GA2 you are all set with GA3, you can immediately

What went into capturing the sound set for version 3? The Acoustic sounds and the Drum Machines…

There are new kits in there that recreate certain very distinctive sounds. One is modelled on famous kits played on many Swedish pop classics, another features recordings from a lovely old 60s kit that really takes you back a few years, while the third is a powerful, clean and punchy kit that’s got quite a modern, radio-compatible sound.

They’re all recorded with a lot of attention to detail, as the content guys really took painstaking care to get the feel of these kits just right. And we’ve added 42 new styles on top of the ones we already had in version 2. It’s really great to explore drum beats from styles you’ve never really heard on their own before, including all sorts of weird styles that you’d not normally say, “that’s my sound”, but that can really inspire you to try something new for a song.

Could you tell us more about how you captured the (MIDI) performances of some of the included drumming styles?

Yes: the majority of MIDI Styles were played by a drummer on an E-drums kit and later edited in Cubase. There are also styles which are entirely programmed in a sequencer, like the

25 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

non-acoustic ones. Throughout the entire creation process for the MIDI grooves, we paid meticulous attention to keeping the feel of a real live drummer, which came quite naturally for me, for example, because I play drums myself.

Why does the Special Agent ‘break the rules’ and use audio loops instead of MIDI ?

Special Agent is an all new module in Groove Agent 3 which adds live drum styles. It does not rely on MIDI sequences and triggered drum samples but rather on drum and percussion audio loops played live and recorded especially for this application.

The best thing about having recordings of a live drummer inside a drum machine is the Feel. The Groove Agent approach of using MIDI-controlled samples is great, because you can compose and edit patterns any way you want. Patterns recorded live are not as flexible, but they intuitively feel very dynamic and emotive.

What went into designing the effects section? Are the modules based on vintage designs or modern plug-in style effects and filters?

Our development partner db-audioware was one of the very first companies to offer third party VSTplugins, so they have lots of experience in designing effects. Their current main product QuantumFX is actually a completely modular FX building set with high quality algorithms. The ones used for

GA3 are based on an emulation of real circuits but are not modelled with a strong bias towards vintage emulation, giving them a lovely sense of character but without limiting you in the sonic options available. So it is a very good mixture of analogue and modern sound aesthetics.

Many users have been using Groove Agent to trigger other sound modules. Did you feel any need to increase the quality and/or the number of onboard sounds to keep Groove Agent a self-triggering VSTi? That’s why we added three top-quality studio kits in GA3, all with a highly polished, refined sound. All three kits can be widely used in many modern pop and rock productions and they support the new alternating hits feature to avoid machine gun effects on repeating notes. The other highlights of the GA3 content include the all-new percussive sounds and in Groove Agent 3 we also spiced up the sonic palette with some very well known digital drum machines from the eighties, such as the Linn LM1 Drum Computer.

Were there any ideas TOO ambitious to pull off that might arrive in a near update and further up the ante?

Yes, definitely. Of course I can’t tell what we plan for the next major version but one thing’s for sure: we’re very much looking forward to extending Groove Agent even further!

As a Steinberg product did your team have any special concerns during the development in regard to the compatibility and functionality of Groove Agent 3 across the broad palette of sequencers?

Oh, yes! Though Steinberg is most famous for digital music production

26 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

systems such as Cubase, for our instruments range we are very focused on supporting all major platforms and integrating them into all relevant sequencers. It is a lot of work for the whole team as it means supporting a dozen sequencers compatible to VST, AU, DXi and ReWire under Windows XP, Windows Vista, as well as OSX for PPC- and Intel-based machines. We did our best to ensure that it will install smoothly on different platforms and work in different sequencers without any hitches.

Did you ever take inspiration or consider the other drum related products available like BFD, Jamstix, Stylus RMX. Is there a conscious effort to out do these other programs by stuffing Groove Agent with features and abilities?

“Groove Agent has successfully created its own niche, with its own approach. Groove Agent 3 is designed to be very versatile, so it’s for anyone who either doesn’t want to or can’t program their own drum tracks, or doesn’t have the space, equipment or time to record a drummer. “ We’ve got over 120 styles in there, so there really is something for everyone.

It’s all about recreating those nuances and dynamics you get when you’re playing with a real drummer in one piece of software. Now with Groove Agent 3 we actually have a total of three drum performers in one VSTi, and you can get any two of the three performers to play alongside each other! And apart from using Groove Agent 3 to create drum tracks in any situation when you can’t/won’t program or record your own, it’s also great for jamming or practicing your instrument when you don’t have a drummer but want more than just a metronome.

Thank you for supporting Producer’s Edge and good luck with the release.

http://www.steinberg.net/

Software: Install it now!

A

robust and fully featured low-cost alternative. Isn’t that the dream of every musician and producer trying to assemble trustworthy tools on a tight budget? Sure, for effect plug-ins and some virtual instruments this quest has come to an end. What about sequencers? This one is fully featured, but takes years to learn. This one requires the reading list of a college sophomore to unravel. Sterile GUI. Buggy. Childish interface.

Perfect, oh but it cost over a grand. What now?

Reaper is poised to become that sleeper hit that’s not sleeping. It’s been around slowly gaining momentum as more and more users begin to realize its value and long term potential as the all-in-one solution. Specifically it’s shareware, but not cripple-ware or nag-me-ware. Meaning you are only honor bound to compensate the developers at Cockos for releasing such an ambitious app. To get in deeper we sat down with Developer Justin Frankel and Technical Advisor Aaron Carey.

year, why is there still such an interest in optimizing the code for how it handles the numbers?

Aaron Carey: You always want to reach for one more effect or one more track or one more really intensive plugin. The need for efficiency is probably always going to be with us, but at this point, it is not as big of a deal as it was in the Pentium2 days.

Justin Frankel: At this point the way speeds are increasing has changed— we’re seeing the transition to more and more processor cores, which is a challenge to make full use of in low latency applications like audio processing. We’re just now (finally!) starting to get to the point, though, where processing power is exceeding the need for power. At 48khz. So there’s always higher sample rates to chew a lot more power.

The screen real estate even with a dual monitor sets a finite limit on how much you can put on the main screen. How did you choose the original idea for the layout for what you presented to the user during their production task? As in, what appears on the screen when they first begin using Reaper?

With Cuckos REAPER, you can change the skin of the UI and totally change the way the sequencer looks. Download new and user made themes www.reaper.fm What was the general inspiration or idea behind REAPER? Aaron Carey: I think Justin wanted an easy way to mix things that he recorded from NINJAM, which is an online collaboration type of software where you can play with people all over the net. And the earliest version of REAPER really looked like the NINJAM mixing window. Luckily for us, he just wanted to keep going from there.

Justin Frankel: Actually Aaron is half right—REAPER did come about after I worked on NINJAM, but it was mostly to work on creating new projects, as well as for editing our live (mostly drunken) recordings. It looked a lot like NINJAM because internally there were a lot of similarities (mixing a bunch of audio streams together etc).

And now with the computer speeds doubling every six months or every

Aaron Carey: REAPER’s UI seems to me to be a logical progression from its function. It is more of a tape machine kind of look. It’s real estate that is on the tape and you’re looking at places along the timeline. If you wanted to splice [the digital audio file] it works pretty much the same but you can see the file as a graphic amplitude over time. A lot easier than rocking a few inches of tape back and forth across the heads to find an edit point.

Justin Frankel: I usually fire up REAPER and start recording some audio.. So I guess it’s biased towards that.

27 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

In terms of MIDI, what were your goals behind the MIDI implementation?

Aaron Carey: I know a lot of the early REAPER users were also Vegas users and there was no MIDI in Vegas whatsoever. So I think a lot of it came from just wanting to have the ability to record MIDI. We had no idea just how complex MIDI really was. You know, it was cool at first when I recorded MIDI and we would say “Oh this is great.”

We recorded MIDI and played it back.

“This is perfect.” and then as soon as we started getting users from more traditional sequencers, we realized that a lot more had go into the MIDI side of it and we are still working on that.

Justin Frankel: The primary goals in REAPER’s MIDI support started out as a way to use VSTis-- basic recording and editing and so forth. We still have a lot of more advanced things to do, but the basics are there.

What would you consider the main strength of REAPER? Like what is the main tool, what is the main aspect that people will talk about it going forward?

Aaron Carey: The routing. I have came from a console, patchbay and tape world and previously haven’t been able to do the type of side chaining and things that I am used to doing, or even just basic routing for headphone mixes the way I was used to. It is really frustrating in most software. So that was kind of my main wish - to really push routing in the sort of way that the older engineers are used to, you know, the basics from the earliest tape recorders.

Justin Frankel: Aaron’s answer very much shows that he’s coming from an audio engineering background. My answer to this question is a little less specific: REAPER does a lot of things really well, including tracking (try record arming tracks/switching their inputs/ types on the fly), mixing (you can add FX and routing and move them around on the fly with very little gaps in the audio), and interoperability. Now, a lot of people say “well Pro Tools is the best

for compatibility because everybody has it”. We can go one better. REAPER is portable, you can install it in seconds on nearly any computer, or copy it to your USB keychain and run it from any computer. So bring it with your project, and you’ll always be able to edit it.

What about audio integrity? There has got to be some heavy demand on the actual audio fidelity. What concerns did you have and how did you addressed them?

Aaron Carey: I think using 64 bit right off the bat, got rid off most of the issues. For sure the latency compensation, I mean, it doesn’t matter what kind of plug-in you use. Everything is fully latency compensated: recording, plugins, and even external hardware inserts, no matter what quantity and what order you have them in, and that, I remember, was a pretty big issue in some DAWs. A lot of applications where you’d throw something on your overhead and they would end up out of phase with the rest of your drums and that was just bad. It should go without saying but, people are still asking their manufacturers to fix that. It’s a weird thing to me.

Justin Frankel: Yeah, we can pretty much take advantage of the fact that the audio interface handles all of the really quality-sensitive stuff (conversion to and from analog), and once we have the samples in, we can process them with a great degree of precision (using 64 bit floating point numbers which translates into ~52 bits of precision, which is a ridiculous amount). Then we also just go and test to make sure we pass inversion tests, to make sure everything is both unmarred by our processing, as well as not offset in time.

What are you doing to introduce the brand new music production user to REAPER? What are you doing to actually ease their transition to a full fledged sequencer like REAPER? Aaron Carey: Well, for one thing, just having a single mouse tool and not

28 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

having several different tools you need to use for different functions. I think that makes it a little bit easier for people.

We try to make the start up real fast.

You don’t waste time. As soon you get the idea to do something- it’s open. Try to keep the menu layers pretty shallow so you don’t have to go very far to find what you are looking for. Files in any supported format can simply be dragged and dropped into REAPER, even while it is playing back. There’s no import process, just drop the file in and get to work.

“Completely customizable keyboard preferences, so that you can set it up the way you want, and if you are coming from another application you could use the same keystrokes that you were used to. You know, keeping everything pretty visual but without too much stuff on the screen at any one time.”

Justin Frankel: We also have a very diverse and knowledgeable community, who spend lots of time in our online forums, who are extremely helpful (with REAPER specific things, and audio engineering and other fields as well!)

Is there any style of music that has an inherent strength in using REAPER over another sequencer?

Aaron Carey: I would say that at the beginning of REAPERs development it was very much geared for recording real instruments, you know, real bands, lot of tracks and multiple simultaneous microphones going. One of the first real pushes there too was to get ReaGate [sidechain-enabled noisegate-DS ] working. You know, one of the strengths of being on the computer was that a computer knows what’s coming up ahead in time and it seemed like there were few noise gates that could really take advantage of that.

I mean, we should have better gates in the computer than in the hardware world. And people want that functionality . . . There are a few sequencers with that feature, but nobody is really taking as much advantage as they could. And setting up ReaGate to work this way

really helps with a lot of live mics going in and a lot of bleed at the same time.

The general selection process, grouping, and automatic cross fades just make REAPER really easy to use for the recording of a full band.

Justin Frankel: I don’t think REAPER really has any preference for style of music, from anything I’ve seen… If it did have to have a favorite band, though, I’d say it probably likes Radiohead the most…

What about the onboard effects?

What were your ideas for the included on board effects?

Aaron Carey: They had to be quality. I was trying to make tutorials in the downloads [area of the website] and things that would use only the onboard effects. So we really had to get a good suite of pretty variable plugins going. ReaGate, like I have said, was very important to me. ReaComp [sidechain-enabled compressor ] was made with so many controls that it’s a very versatile compressor. So you can really get away with a lot of stuff. Another included compressor, MajorTom (by Scott Stillwell) has an auto attack and release so it is instantly useable. It may not be the best compressor every single time, but it will always work and it is very easy to set up especially for people who do not understand dynamics theory too well.

You know, ReaFIR [FFT EQ+dynamics processor+noise reduction tool ] lets you see the spectrum of sound and what you are doing to it. So we thought that was pretty handy as well.

Justin Frankel: We were really aiming to build extremely flexible, lightweight FX that we could include with the installer, so that you could use them if you want, and if you didn’t want them, you wouldn’t feel like they were bloat.

Was there any actual apps beside the Vegas or any other software that you were looking at and saying “This is close but we can improve upon this” or was there any bad experience that you said “You know

what, we have to do something completely different to rework this model.”

Aaron Carey: I am not sure if there are too many train wrecks but definitely, Vegas was probably an inspiration. But it is like when we saw the lane feature in Cubase it was like “Wow that is cool” and so Justin and Christophe made their own twist on it in there. That is pretty much the setup: put in stuff that works, and don’t bother with the pork. Now that we are getting users from all different applications, they usually request certain features or modifications. Cockos is very responsive to the user base.

Justin Frankel: Yeah, I often see particular features in software where I’m like “this is great.”

However, usually if I keep playing with that software, I find 10 other things that bug the hell out of me.

Why such point?

an

affordable

price

Aaron Carey: Why should software cost so much money if all you are getting is the software? Reaper is definitely affordable and on the lower end of the price scale.

Aaron Carey: Strangely, we get a lot of the older crowds, the guys who really do not like computers seem to really like REAPER. The older, tape and console guys. We are getting a lot of new people who use the program because of how efficient it is. Many love it, some say they hated it; you know how it is with the software wars.

Justin Frankel: Yeah, there’s a good mix of people. In general, most people who start liking REAPER, end up as

huge fans. To quote a friend quoting someone else, “quality is hyper efficient.” I’m not sure what that means but all of the kids are saying it these days.

Do you have plans as far as file formats are concerned? What we can import and use inside of the app?

Justin Frankel: Well, the $200 commercial license price is relatively affordable, but we figure people using software for a living can afford it. The $40 non-commercial price reflects my frustration with wanting to buy software to play with, and having to pay the same as someone who’s using it for a living. I mean, why limit the hobbyist to crippled functionality, just because he’s doing it for fun?

Aaron Carey: Right now, sample rates from 8kHz to 192kHz. 8 bit to 64 bit. Record and playback WAV, AIFF, FLAC, OGG Vorbis, MP3, Monkey Audio and MIDI. Mix and match all these formats to your hearts content without the need for an import process.

You can also open Vegas EDLs, Samplitude EDLs. I would like to see open TL, AAF, and AEF 31, and I am working on that right now.

What has been the overwhelming feedback so far since this is still considered a very fresh and new product on the market?

Justin Frankel: Yeah we want to support everything. People who don’t support file formats because of competitive interests are missing the

29 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

boat. It’s not about locking people into your software—it’s about making your software so fantastic that people couldn’t consider using other peoples.

So in addition to supporting import/ export, we encourage other people to add support for our (native) project format.

What about the REX format?

Justin Frankel: Yes. REX file support would be pretty infusive for manipulating loops and chopping up loops and bits of audio. We’ll get around to it at some point. Our “todo” list only grows, it seems. You get 10 things done, there are 30 new things to take their place.

How does the speed of the workflow compare to some of the other major sequencers out there? Am I going to get up going faster with this particular approach?

Aaron Carey: I think that if you edit [live recorded] bands that your speed in here will be about as fast as it can be. I have a lot of issues with working in other programs. The way it handles things is pretty fast to me and similar to Vegas, but with a few twists, like tempo envelopes and more grid options. Other programs for that type of function seem very slow to me. I hear all the time that REAPER’s MIDI could definitely be improved to get the workflow as fast as most of these other sequencers, but even there, REAPER’s ability to stick audio and MIDI items in the same track is pretty handy.

Justin Frankel: I think once you know the REAPER way of doing things, it will pretty much clobber any other software out there in terms of workflow efficiency.

The main obstacle to that, however, is if you’re really used to working another way, you might not do quite as well— but even then, you’ll probably find REAPER to work pretty quickly. Finally, since many things including keyboard shortcuts are customizable, you can reconfigure a lot of things closer to your preference.

As a producer, do you believe that the choice of sequencer has an effect on you music?

Aaron Carey: It does and it doesn’t.

Sonically, it can be pretty minor. But how easy or quick it is to do something in a program definitely influences how far you are willing to go in trying new ideas. Experimenting with different approaches and such. And so a lot of the reason why the MajorTom compressor was made so that people could just get up and running pretty fast and have some good dynamic range control without really having to tweak on things and get everything else set first and then go back and look at what kind of compressors or things that you were using.

Justin Frankel: Yeah, I think there can be subtle quality differences in the audio engines of software, but these are extremely minor compared to two big differences. The first is what you choose to do in different software. If a particular piece of software makes certain things easy, you’re more inclined to use them, which affects the sound. The other major factor is little things like the default pan law. This can have a great effect on your mixing.

Suppose I am brand new to this and this may be the very first ocean I am going to dive in, what sort of support tools exist for REAPER that I could take advantage of in my learning experience?

Aaron Carey: The very best tool that we have is the forum community. They build tools based on user requests, macros and different types of scripts.

Definitely go to the form and check that out. And then in the REAPER Wiki, there are a lot of tutorial videos to download and watch and they should get you up and running pretty fast.

And now a user Nicholas has written an unbelievable 250 page manual that you can just download for free. It’s so comprehensive. I could see my written version of the REAPER manual being about two pages long… [laughter erupts].

Justin Frankel: Yeah, Geoffrey’s (AKA Nicholas) manual is phenomenal!

It blows me away how great it is.

What is next for development?

30 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Aaron Carey: I would like to see the MAC version get up and going real soon. I hope to see the MIDI expand pretty soon. We would like to support more types of files, Cockos goes out with an open hand, you know, to work alongside other companies. We are trying to extend a hand of friendship out there.

Justin Frankel: [scolding teacher voice] Don’t make me show you my pages and pages of a list… [laughter erupts] Aaron Carey: Yes. I am kind of a tape and microphone guy, but the other day I was testing out two instances of REAPER rewired to each other. And I know that a lot of the Pro Tools guys used REAPER as a rewire instrument, so that they can do offline bouncing and things, so that they do not have wait for real time rendering. And not just ReWire but we also we have ReaRoute. While we were waiting for the Propellerhead support to come back, Justin just made an inter-app kind of audio wire system.

As long as an audio app. supports ASIO, you could choose ReaRoute as your driver and you can go back and forth from REAPER to that application just through the ASIO stream. Luckily though, we also have REWIRE now so there are lots of options.

Anything else you want to let us know about REAPER or let someone who’s considering moving over?

Aaron Carey: I would definitely say to check out the IRC chat room for REAPER. It’s pretty active and a lot of helpful guys - including plug-in developers. Nothing will get you going as fast as that chat room will.

Justin Frankel: It’s probably worth mentioning that we’re trying to build great software and treat our users with respect. I know that should be implied, but a lot of companies seem to forget about one or both of those.

Producer’s Edge thanks the Cockos for taking out the time to chat. www.reaper.fm

Software/Sounds: demo and Free REFILLS

R

eason 4 is still on your mind. The same questions still circulate about recording live audio and supporting VSTs. The same answers arrive right after. REWIRE and….so what. The Props may be right for staying with their winning formula. A closed app that simulates a hardware rack loaded to the top for music production. The legions of users- fans I dare say, are content to keep churning out good music using their own ingenuity and creative skill to workaround whatever shortcomings you can level at Reason. The addition of the Combinator in V3 was a nice move to simplify the workflow and GUI, but in version 4 –a brand new sequencer ,a synth powerhouse called Thor, a ReGroove Mixer and the RPG-8 Arpeggiator takes the Reason experience to another level. We dig in with Producer and Sound Designer James Bernard for more reasons to check for Reason.

Was the changeover from creating sounds in hardware to software problematic?

which sounds are software and which ones were hardware. And they’re all software at this point.

James Bernard: It was actually not too difficult of a switch. Towards my last years at Korg when I was still working for the company, I wasn’t really using hardware. I was using software for most of my music production. So the only hardware I was using back then was my collection of everything Korg ever made. But I did so much travelling for Korg - doing trade shows and things like that that I started to mess around with software. And back then for me it was Rebirth, Reason, Recycle and Reactor as the main programs I was using to get different kinds of sounds.

And then I was starting to mess around more and more with software, the only hardware I held onto was my TB-303, TR-606 and then a couple of odd little synthesizers.

Drew Spence: I kind of find that surprising because as far as Reason itself is concerned, one of people’s favorite aspects is the Redrum Module. So I figured that would have been the first thing to replace your hardware and the drums would have been the first thing to go.

I wasn’t even using them that much.

As I started to make more and more music using software, I saw this benefit that I was able to get the sounds I wanted out of software. Even though the sounds were still not quite there. A lot of the software for emulating analog synthesizers wasn’t quite as good as the originals. As time went on I could probably guarantee if anyone heard the tracks I’m putting out now without knowing where the sounds came from, they would not be able to pick out

Yeah. It was one of the concerns for me. Doing drums was always difficult on hardware for me because I wasn’t as good at programming drums as I would have liked. And I always found there were limitations in the hardware because there was a lot of . . . not so much visualizing on the screen, but visualizing using numbers where hits should be and how things should be programmed. And I wasn’t as good at visualizing where a snare should be on a numeric base as when I might see it on the screen graphically.

And using things like Cubase or any other kind of music recording software didn’t really help me as much because you have to play in it and then tweak it a little bit here and there. But when I went over to Reason where everything was self-contained; where I could program a pattern on the Redrum and then export the pattern to a track and see where the parts that I programmed existed on

the grid. It made the whole process of learning drum programming easier and I started to create my own texture, my own sound in drum programming. It was like being educated while making music.

How does the opportunity come to work with Propellerhead?

It’s funny. Doing all these trade shows and guys like Sonic State and people doing features and showing me doing my thing on the Electribes, I’ve known these guys, Ernst and Toddy [Propellerhead founders- DS] and a bunch of the other guys at Propellerhead. We see each other at every trade show. And I was on the beta [testing] list for Rebirth and Reason one. From the get go, we always just enjoyed what each other did. When I was done with my demos, I’d go over to the Propellerheads booth and watch them do their thing and just sit there and be like wow, this stuff is amazing. And they may come over by the Korg group and see me doing my stuff – the little things with Electribes and they dug what I did.

In late ’97, ’98 or so we would see each other at the shows. In 2003, I got an email from Ernst looking for a demo guy. But he wasn’t looking for me particularly. He was kind of saying do I know anyone that does what I do demo wise. And I kind of put it to him like anyone or me? Even though he didn’t really approach me directly to do the job I put it out there that I might be interested. And that’s where we started off.

How did they break the news to you that there was a new module coming- meaning Thor?

I’ve known about Thor about a year and a half now. I’m part of the company.

When we know about products and things that are being worked on, it’s the ultimate silence policy. We’ve got to keep it to ourselves. I mean

31 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

everyone in the company signs a nondisclosure agreement. We all make sure that anything that’s happening in the company stays within the walls. we know about it, but no one else can.

Reason users rejoice over the addition of Thor, the Polyphonic Synthesizer!

But you had to have been on forums and these blogs and chat rooms where that was the demand.

“We want another synth. We want another synth.” That must have reached you.

Of course. Yeah. People have been asking me in all of my travels and forums and what not. I never let on.

I can’t. I can’t do it.

What was your first impression of Thor then? Immediately I loved it.

Immediately. I mean the first time I saw it and got my hands on it and started to tweak it, I knew what it was capable of. I mean it’s a monster. And having come from analog synthesizers and coming from modular synthesizers…

I’ve owned the ARP-2600. I’ve owned pretty much…you name it, I’ve probably had it in my possession at one point in my studio.

For me, getting on Thor was nostalgia in a way because it was producing and capable of producing all of these sounds from synths that I’ve long since sold off. It sounded just as good. The only difference being that it didn’t have

the noise, the hiss or anything like that.

But the texture and the depth of the sounds that I could get out of Thor, I mean even the simplest thing like the square wave going through a low pass filter sounded spot on to anything that I had in analog.

That’s pretty high praise. When it comes down to it, how easy was the actual programming in creating these new patches?

Basic programming is extremely simple.

I mean doing the simple thing of picking an oscillator, running it through a filter, applying an envelope and things like that to create a basic patch: extremely simple. It’s very well laid out, very well thought out. So getting your basic structure or timbre of a sound is a very, very simple process. The benefit is that you have this modulation matrix at the bottom. So if you want to explore beyond the basics and start to get into the types of sounds that are impossible on many hardware synths, and many other software synths for that matter,

32 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

that’s where the beauty lies. So even the basic straight up sound of Thor is easy to get and sounds great. It’s when you start doing the advanced stuff in the bottom modulation matrix where things come to life, all these other types of sonics start coming out.

Where does Thor fit in comparison to Malstrom and Subtractor? Does Thor make the other modules fall off?

For Malstrom, it doesn’t make it obsolete because the Malstrom is graintable based. It has a different sound source.

Thor cannot do graintable; it uses wavetable. They’re 2 different sound sources. Malstrom still is unique for what it does and the way that it allows you to get sounds by picking very small grains of a loop or waveform. Subtractor has a classic sound to it and I think there are sometimes when I go to Subtractor rather than Thor when I want a lowfi type of a lead sound or something very simple and take advantage of its unique texture.

Much in the same way I might still use an old synth that’s lying around here because it has a certain texture. And maybe it’s not capable of producing a wide range of sounds.

It’s something about the square wave inside Subtractor running through its filter, a character Thor probably could mimic, but… Another reason why we don’t delete synths is ‘coz we don’t want to break compatibility with older songs. Say I’ve created a song in Reason 3 and I use a lot of Malstrom or Subtractors in it. I want to still be able to open it up in 4. And besides, well maybe this bass sounds better in a Thor and maybe these lead sounds still sounds good as a Subtractor. It keeps the original essence of what I was doing.

How do you feel about the other changes in the newest version; Reason 4, the Arpeggiator, the changes to the multi track?

When you first start using it with all of the new editions, it makes you forget what you used to do in three. You start getting into this new paradigm. I mean the sequence is a huge, huge change

from 3.0. And initially, there was that 30 minutes or so of just using it for the first time, going what the hell is going on?

Nothing is the way it used to be. But after using it, it’s like I can’t go back to 3. I mean the way that we’re working in 4 now is so much more musical and so much faster and efficient. I’m actually able to do a lot with automation that in 3 would have taken forever.

I mean things like small, slow feeds or cutoff feeds or changing things inside of modules…changing oscillator types during a song. I mean that can be done by just drawing it in the automation. And then things like the patterns. The biggest problem for

the VST support or live recording of audio?

It’s the beauty of Reason. Rewire is there and I use it all the time. I use Logic and Ableton Live as my Rewire hosts. So anytime I want to add in . . . let’s say I’ve got a 303 plug-in that I want to add in on top of a track, I’m doing it in Reason. I just open up Live, open up Reason, and I’m good to go.

I think keeping the simplicity of being able to have it as a closed system and never have a worry that I load in a plug-in that’s going to crash Reason or recording audio inside of Reason would open up a whole new can of worms.

most people is changing patterns in Redrum during a song. That has been very tedious because you go into edit mode and do it in there. But with the new sequencer the pattern changing is all done right in the arrange window. It’s a dropdown menu. Just pull and create a cleft and then decide what pattern is playing for that length of time.

It’s really easy. And it’s going to make using patterns in a song much more musical and much easier to do.

The Arpeggiator is great. It’s something I’ve been wanting for a while and a lot of people have been wanting for a while. And the Regroups mixer, I think that’s the biggest thing people will start to use and see what it will do for their music. The swing, the feel, the groove and the timing - it’s going to be totally different. I mean I’ve already got a couple of Hip Hop guys now that have gotten to play with the Regroups and they’re like, “I’m done with my MPC 60.

Don’t need it anymore ‘coz the beats are all in there.” And now Reason can groove like an MPC 60 and then some.

What are your thoughts about Reason 4 coming out and it still remaining a closed system without

I mean that makes Reason something else. It makes it the sort of quirky program it is. It would be great to be able to have a VST plug-in inside a Reason and record audio in Reason.

But because I don’t have that option in Reason, it forces me to create in a new manner. It forces me to create like back in the hardware days, which is, I’ve got these pieces of equipment and I’m going to work them to get a song done. And I think that’s the problem with people that have VST plug-ins and audio recordings, when you have a lot of options . . . I’ve talked to so many people; how many tracks have you written this week? Oh I’m still working on this one. But I’ve got 25,000 plugins. Where I can write 5 songs in a week in Reason. To me the paradigm of having a lot of options almost equals not as much music. Whereas within Reason I know what I’ve got. I know the devices. And I know that if I want to get a certain sound, I tweak them, I work them, and I get lot more music done.

Have you noticed any differences in the actual sound engine between 3 and 4?

No. It’s funny people mentioned

sound engines alot. And it’s actually something that doesn’t exist in audio software. There is no such thing as a sound engine per se. When you’re dealing with audio software, it’s code.

It’s 1s and 0s. And audio out is a simple code that says audio goes out.

The only difference I’ve noticed from Reason 3 to Reason 4 is a much wider range of sound I’m hearing. So my lows are really low and I’m getting a lot of punch. My highs are really high when I’m talking about synth sounds and things. But to me, the biggest issue that people have had, when people say that I can’t get a good sound out of Reason, I always go back to that means that they’re probably not doing the right thing when it comes to mixing and mastering.

Reason is a very flat sound output and it requires that when you want to get a good punchy sound out of it, you need to do some work. You need to work with things like multi band compressors or some mixing using the M class EQs on individual channels. And you almost have to have a little bit of an audio engineering background.

Because there’s a lot of guys, myself included that do all of our music in Reason. And when you hear the finished produced piece of music, there’s just no way you’d be able to say oh that was all done in Reason. You couldn’t hear the difference.

Songs I hear from people with Reason; I can hear right away when someone hasn’t done more than just run through the default mastering suite for example. I know the sound. Unlike when you go in and do some really, really intense tweaking . . . I made a refill just recently called a multi band toolbox. And anyone who’s looking to get Reason to not sound like Reason should download that.

It’s free.

What you get is all these multi band processing tools for usage on individual tracks or on the whole mix. Reason is going to sound like something you’ve never heard before whether it’s Reason 3 or 4.

The Reason sound was really the accusation of how it handled digital

33 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

summing and also the number of users with the default patches and the included sound set. The harshest criticism was that everyone was using whatever came in the box- as is.

What are some of the good resources or books a totally new Reason user should have or maybe a Reason 3er going to 4?

There are a couple of books in the works. I know that some of the people

When you buy a hardware piece and strip off all the effects and all the EQ and everything they do on a patch and you just listen to the raw patch itself without all that extra sweetening- you would not have the same sounding synth at all. So these days when you hear hardware synths, they’ve already done all of that post production stuff for you on a sound. In Reason, we haven’t; we’ve given you the raw sound, which is really the way you want it. Because when you’re doing a mix, if you use all these sounds that have all these effects and all this post processing on it in a mix, it’s not going to sound good in a mix. And you’re going to have certain sounds, which stand up way too much.

If you were to pull up any of the mixes of songs that you hear on the radio now and listen to individual sounds when they’re pulled out of the mix, you probably think that sound sounded like garbage by itself. But when you hear it in the scope of an entire mix, it’s a whole different thing.

Sounds have their certain points in the frequency spectrum that they sit in or they lie in. And so like a kick drum that would have been Q’ed to accentuate a certain frequency where the base sound has that frequency rolled off.

But you don’t hear that in the mix because now the base sound and the kick sound are playing with each other.

It’s a whole different paradigm when you take in mixing and arranging. You almost have to have 2 different hats when you’re mixing a track or you’re arranging a track.

that have made Reason 3 books and videos are already working on Reason 4 resources. That’s going to enable people to make the switch over a lot more efficiently and know what’s going on and see all the new features and be able to use them very effortlessly.

When it comes to things like mixing, I think anyone that is interested in getting a better sound out of Reason should definitely look into a book or two on audio dynamics and all that you need to know about mixing a track, audio engineering, mixing compression; the basics.

‘cuz it is totally a different hat when you’re thinking about arranging final mixing to get it out there. It’s taking your track to the next level and mixing it and applying outboard effects even though there are internal things like dynamics or signal processing. All of that I think is knowledge everyone should strive to get. I have an unfair advantage because that was where I started in the audio engineering side of things. I took a course in it.-I taught it.

Earlier, Reason was touted as being a great first application to learn because it had all the modules, it simulated so many different processes. Has it grown too far now to be considered a great first app to get into?

Not at all. I think it’s a great app. There are a number of schools that use it as a way to teach things like signal flow.

You would connect a drum machine into a mixer or put a compressor as an inserter…as a send effect. Even

34 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

if you’ve never had your hands on a modular synthesizer, you can learn the basics of modular synthesis and control voltage and things like modulating devices using controlled voltage. I mean it’s a great learning tool. It’s actually expanded and become even more of a learning tool.

What about your patch design? Did you have any goals in your mind when you sat down to create those patches?

When I came in on Reason 3, we used a similar system as when I was doing sound design through Korg. We usually designate upfront the categories of patches that we’re looking to do. We’ll want synth based sounds and then maybe acoustic based sounds, synth leads and rhythmic directions. We’ll lay out a general guideline of the types of sounds that we’re looking for in the next factory sound bank. We’ll break down a rough estimate of the numbers.

I’ve already got it in my mind that I need to make 10 of these sounds and 10 of these sounds. I’ll put it in my head in for a day or two I’m making bass sounds. I see what’s in the factory sound bank already where there are places we can do better or fix deficiencies. I’ll do those off the bat.

Get that out of the way.

Once I’ve gotten that covered, I’ll go into some other places and experiment. And a lot of times when it comes to the more experimental sounds, I don’t necessarily have a sound in mind. I sometimes name the sound first. I’ll come up with a name.

This sound is going to be stretching metal. And so then what I’ll do is I’ll try to create the sound that goes with the name of the sound. It takes me into another place. We’re creating by painting a picture first and then making a sound that sort of fits that picture.

Do you feel any sort of burden when you create a sound- to be able to use it in a musical way yourself? Or do you feel that it’s really about I’m going to make an interesting sound and see where they take it?

I don’t necessarily think every sound I make is something to use in my music.

A lot of times I make a sound strictly as a sound. And then I’d like to see

how people play it and use it and twist it and make it something that sings in their track. I may already have in my mind how it can be used in the track.

I’ll inevitably hear it in a musical piece being used the opposite way. There’s beauty in someone taking what you’ve done and twisting it in their own way.

Now I’m going to ask you for a moment of honesty and truth. Have you ever created a patch you like so much you pulled it off and kept it for yourself? [laughs] Of course. I’ve got folders of them. I’ll make a patch and I’ll be like nah, this is just too much of my fingerprint on it and too much of me to let it go. Other than being a sound designer- as someone who also creates and writes music, it always comes up where I’m working on something and this sound is just too good. It’s just me. It’s screaming for a track I have in mind. So I’m going to not put this one in the pot right now. I’m just going to keep that one off to the side.

What’s next for James Bernard ?

I’ve got a few things actually going on. Right now, my wife and I just had our third daughter so that’s going to hold my production for just a bit I’d say. [laughs] But after that, I have a number of albums that are in the works for release. There’s a label I’m working with on the West coast called 360 Records. They’re releasing more of my esoteric IDM sort of glitchy down tempo stuff. There’s one album coming out in August entitled Flashback. They already have another album done and completed which is going to come out sometime either later this year or early next year.

And I think that one is going to be called Introspectives. So they’re sitting on right now 2 albums worth of material. I’ve got another moniker I’m using called Diego Bernardini which is a minimal techno sort of vibe which is sort of like ‘20s, ‘30s swing music if computers wrote it. It’s very minimal, but melodic at the same time. It’s all synthesis. I’m resurrecting an old project which was the first release I ever did as a project called Influx. And this was on a label that was back in the

mid ‘90s called Rising High Records.

It was a huge, huge electronic label back in the early ‘90s. And I released a lot of music on that label.

And it’s been about 10 years since I released anything as influx. And I just over the last 2 weeks started writing some tracks as Influx and actually created a MySpace page now and I’ve hipped a couple people to it. Not too many yet. I’ve got few tracks up there that I’m previewing. And I’ve got a label interested. It’s going back to the roots of Acid Techno. When you hear the songs, you’ll hear the Arpeggiator bass lines. I guarantee you’d think I went back to my old analog stuff. Coz I did some stuff with Reason 4 where the pitch isn’t perfect. So every once in a while, the pitch sort of drifts out on the melody line. So it has that analog feel where the oscillators are slightly drifting once in the while in the tracks.

So it really feels analog but it’s all software.

Anything else you want to share with us about Reason 4 and yourself and your involvement in the project?

It’s a monster man. When you get it, I think the biggest thing for people is definitely placing the patches that have been created for it in the factory sound banks by both me and the other sound designers and the signature patches that were created by the well known artists. After you’ve done some investigation and seen how we created some of the patches and have some fun with it. Go in, initialize a patch, and just start messing around with different oscillator types, different filter types, and definitely mess around with the modulation matrix.

Because it’s software…you can’t break anything. You can only just learn as you go along and do something to a sound that modifies it in a way that you’ll go huh, never thought of that. Have an oscillator modulate itself. Sure, why not? There’s so much experimentation that’s allowed within 4 that it really is going to make a lot of waves in the industry for sure.

Producer’s Edge thanks James Bernard for sharing.

We were able to get James to open up about his hardware kit list...These are the former tools of his trade.

Roland: SH-101 with MIDI Retrofit Juno-106, MKS-30 with PG-200 Programmer, MKS-10, TR-808, 909 TR-606 & TB-303 (Still have them) Korg : MS-20, MS-50 Korg Electribes (all of them) Wavestation A/D, Trinity, Triton Studio Karma, Kaoss Pad (KP1 and KP2) Monopoly, 01/Wfd, X-3, 1212 i/o MS-2000, microKorg, DSS-1, DSM-1 (2 of them), Poly-800,DW-6000, EX8000. A Korg Prophecy Prototype.. (still have it, but it doesn’t work) Oberheim: Matrix 6R, Matrix 1000 (Still have it), OB8 with MIDI (Still have it), DMX (Still have it... busted!)

Arp 2600 Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 Rev 3 with MIDI Sequential Circuits Pro-One Akai: MPC-2000XL, S01, S-950 Kawai K5000S Ensoniq ASR-X Quasimidi Raveolution 309 with all the updates/kits “Now... I use Reason version 4 rewired into Ableton Live 6 and occasionally Logic 7.”

And as we kept pushing, we amassed all his profile sites and producer aliases. myspace.com/jamesbernardmusic myspace.com/diegobernardini myspace.com/influxreturns threesixtyrecords.com/jamesbernard. lulu.com/jamesbernard

35 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

I

’ve been given the job, on a few occasions, to create drum variations on already tracked out sessions. In one case it was a producer who wanted to make a modern beat CD from his old MPC floppies. In another, a group needed a new arrangement for an instrumental that was split into two tracks- drums and sample/music. I also remember the R&B singer who decided, at the end of a session, she wanted interlude music to read a short poem over in-between songs…for a show that was only three hours away. For the instant melodic jazz piece in 15 minutes I turned to one of my loop CDs and pieced together something solid very quickly. And there was the time when I was recording vocals over another tracked out session where the artists ‘liked the beat but didn’t like the beat’. I tried to add congas, shakers, 808s and nothing seemed to work for them. They kept saying ‘flip the beat’ and that’s when I knew they meant the pattern itself- was too simple.

In all these cases I had to create variations of audio on the spot, which is different than going back to the creative process and programming additional sequences. Sure, I could dig in to my studio tools and Recycle, GURU, etc and slice-dice-chop. I could slap the pieces into an NI Battery and trigger away until the heads nod. But I’m in engineer mode. I’m just watching that MC saturate my pop filter and hoping they remember to leave my lighter. This is when the tool bar comes in handy…I’m using Adobe Audition 3.0, but this can all be done with most modern sequencers.

1. The Volume Envelope subtractive

3. Isolate Me Parts: Further along in the song, I’ve used several envelopes to isolate the snares to create a down point in the verse and emphasize a transitional lyric. I could create 3 different/unique copies of a drum loop and Amplify to Zero the different hit types in order to maximize my drum processing, but using volume envelopes accomplishes this goal just as quickly without creating additional wave files.

4.Slide Over: Volume envelopes can also be used to spice up a simple drum beat or add a build up without

Here is a session where I have a repetitive drum pattern and the vocals [red] dropping in at the start of the 2nd bar. I want to build anticipation by dropping out a region of the beat right as the vocals come in. I’m using a Volume Envelope to create a mute effect for only part of the drum loop.

36 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

using an additional drum roll sample or the typical Note Repeat technique.

I’ve taken one of the many envelope adjusted drum variations [Dark Blue] and dropped it down to another track and shifted it over. I’m watching out for elements that overlap and making creative decisions on who stays and who gets muted with an additional envelope. I’ll shift loops over in even divisions; 8th, 16ths, but I’ve also moved sparse hits around with my eyes closed and listened for an ill groove.

You can also enhance a pattern by

using envelopes over the entire loop and changing the peaks volume for every single hit and adjusting the dynamics- this is great for creating Ghost Notes [drum hits that are barely audible in the mix but add feeling to the pattern-DS]. I’ve used these techniques in place of the old sampled static and hiss technique to make my playing sound like a sample. When the music solos out, I add a very simple high-pass filtered drum pattern at low volume behind it. It sounds like I added the real drums on top of an old record with the wack drums refusing to leave completely.

The Volume Envelope is an incredibly powerful and creative tool that is overlooked by many producers in lieu of additional software or destructive wave editing techniques. It has the ability to smoothly silence sections of tracked out material and bring subtle changes you feel more than hear to your compositions.

Until then.

Brand new Tricorder?

Sounds: Field Recorded samples

The construction is flawless with its solid metallic frame perfect weight ratio. It has an internal memory of 4 gigs and also takes memory sticks. It records PCM 44.1/48.0/96KHz, 16/24 bit and plays back (Drag and drop supported) MP3. The left side hosts the Line/optical Out (3.5mm), USB and remote jack to control the unit without it being in your palm. The right side is for the Line Ins, memory stick bay and record level dial. There is a housing on the underside for a tripod (I love serious gear) and switches for the limiter (yes) and microphone Low Cut Filter.

But wait! Producer’s Edge doesn’t do reviews and we a mag for Producers…

Sony PCM-D50 Linear PCM Field Recorder

Have you even been out somewhere and heard an ill sound and wished you could use it? Ever walked by a construction site or machinery and heard a rhythmic pattern sitting in the noise? Sure a personal recorder could get the job done, but I’m talking about a sample quality where the captured element remains a musical option and not just an ambient bed or backdrop atmosphere.

I

saw the AES video of the Sony booth (now on our YouTube channel) and was pretty impressed off jump. In fact, when I heard we would be featuring the newest field recorder from Sony I had to come up with a slick idea for Griffin Avid’s corner to beat out the other resident producers and specialists (sorry Nate!).

T

he PCM-D50 is the kid brother to the PCM-D1. The D1 is the high end solution for capturing live audio like a concert or seminar. It’s the real deal and already has one of those “You should get one” reputations. The question now is Can the more affordable PCM-D50 hold up and not embarrass the good family name?

Yeah, so this is about sound design and bringing real world sounds into your production palette. If you are looking for custom sounds to separate your work from the herd- then a field recorder becomes a perfect option for creative sampling. Now. I got permission to visit a factory, laboratory and mechanic shop (and a few points inbetween) to capture live ambience and other interesting sounds. The factory was so loud they made me wear headphones and the roar was STILL deafening. The Sony PCMD50 did great under these conditions and the samples on the DVD-ROM will express just that. It has a signal to noise ratio of 93dB or Greater @ 24-bit so I took the levels down as low as barely registering for some recordings.

One of the issues I’ve had before with field recorders is having to turn the unit up so loud to get a good signal- my hand movement noise is captured too! Thankfully, the adjutsable dual mic (inverted; right mic captures left stereo field) signal is clean enough to eliminate that problem. When I was done I was able to quickly Drag and Drop the files onto my PC. Sony is not alone in the affordable field recorder market.

There is the Korg MR-1 (~899.00 great sound, smaller hard drive and shorter battery life), the Edirol R-90 and the Zoom H4. Among this field of Recorders, the Sony PCM-D50 is a great option worth exploring further.

Additional notes: The Sony PCM-D50 has a mode called Pre-recording that continuosly captures a rolling 5 seconds of audio before you start a manual recording. This is useful for getting the entire clip if you’re late on the trigger. The XLR-1 is an add-on option for recording external mics and has phantom power. Expect approx. 12 hours of recording time using 4 AA batteries.

37 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

38 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Mastering Part. II

Part I PDF included in case you missed issue 01

Tracking & Mixing Tips and Guidelines Words by L-ROX Redsecta Mixing & Mastering

T

he introduction to this series on Mastering focused on the history of mastering and what mastering is as a practice and how it has evolved for today’s world of music distribution. Here we’ll focus on what happens before a mix gets mastered, from tracking to mixing.

You probably have already come across general articles and tutorials on mixing, but the goal here is to focus on hip hop projects, taking into consideration many of the common scenarios people mixing their own projects deal with today. We’re going to first touch on tracking your beats, instruments and vocals – because that’s where it all begins – and not only give you some suggestions as to what to do, but also what not to do, to hopefully help you accomplish the best possible mixes for mastering. Then, we’ll go into the concept of mixing for mastering, and how to best use the effects you might have at your disposal.

In today’s world of do-it-all digital effects, perhaps the best approach is to use them in moderation; that whole “less is more” mentality definitely applies and it’s something you might want to keep in the back of your mind while reading this article.

This article also focuses primarily on the digital format, which is the most popular recording and mixing format these days. We will also touch on tape, since some rap projects are still being recorded to it (and for real good reason too). For those of you who have never worked with tape, it might be interesting

to see how some of the things you can do in digital platforms compares.

Before we get into the details of this part of the series, I want to start off by telling you something that can’t be said enough: A great mix is the key to having the best sounding master. It’s a common misconception these days to believe that mastering will fix the mistakes you made in tracking and mixing. It’s real important that you learn as much as possible how things work at the tracking stage, then the mixing stage to later understand where mastering fits into the equation. The best case scenario is to have really wellplanned and executed mixes so that in mastering, the mastering engineer will make those good mixes translate well to all listening environments and bring out the best qualities of those mixes, as opposed to having to deal with problems in them. Unfortunately, dealing with mixdown problems is something that Mastering Engineers deal with on the daily, and this article hopes to change that, so let’s give it a crack…

Get the Balance Right

There’s a common phrase out there: “Fix it in the mix”. Sure, you can fix many things at the mixdown stage, but there are some things you can’t do much about, such as recording a signal too hot, or putting too much noise on tape by not optimizing your signal chain. The first rule of thumb for getting a good mix is to start with tracking good signals; your goal should be to mix creatively, rather than mix to correct problems.

Clean Signal Path

Getting the best possible signal for recording is the first thing you need to worry about. Here are a few tips that should help you get an optimal signal for tracking: • Get the best cables you can afford and purchase cable lengths based on your needs, not extra long cables that may be on sale at the store. Spending a few hundred dollars on some high quality cables is not uncommon in pro setups.

• Keep your gear clean, free of dust, especially if you’re recording on analog media. Dust bunnies can carry static electricity, which may cause problems with your magnetic media, such as dropouts on your tapes.

• If you have ground loops, unplug everything in your signal chain, piece by piece and cable by cable until you identify the source of the ground loop.

In a lot of cases, this happens when you mix balanced and unbalanced cables, or make improper connections to balanced/unbalanced sources.

Check your gear manuals for making the proper connections, since they can vary by manufacturer.

• Invest in high-quality power conditioners.

These serve two purposes; they protect your gear by acting as surge protectors (in case of a lightning storm, for example) as well as having filters to block noise coming through the electrical current of your home, such as RF (Radio Frequency) signals and noise that can be generated from Fluorescent Lighting.

39 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Garbage in…

In addition to taking care of the connections in your signal path, you also want the highest quality equipment you can afford to record your music.

This article assumes you already know this, as well as proper mic placement and you probably even have the room where you record treated for sound (hopefully you did a good job at this, and not just purchased a foam kit and slapped it over your room where the pieces “look cool” – hey, I’m not assuming that’s you, but I have been around plenty of setups where they did just that!) Use acoustic foam and other acoustic control accessories where you most need them (corners, directly behind your monitors if your monitors are against the wall, for example).

Since most rap projects don’t incorporate the use of live drums, you don’t have to worry about purchasing a few high-end mics and channel strips for your drums, or build an isolation booth for your drum kit. With live drums, everything counts, from the room itself to how you place the mics on each of the drums and cymbals, as well as the type of mics you use.

Hip Hop artists generally are samplebased, so luckily, all you really have to worry about is sampling or getting good drum samples for your drum tracks. If you sample your own drums, you should know how to make best use of your sampling engine, as well as make sure you aren’t capturing things like noise and/or hum from your setup in your samples. If you sample 10 different hits and you have a noise or hum issue in your setup, you will multiply and make the noise worse when you put together your sequence.

If you use live guitars and keys, the amp outs generally go straight to the board. You don’t have to worry about your room’s reflections when tracking these instruments, not even so much if you also are mic’ing up the amps, but vocals is another matter.

In my experience with bad mixes, one of the most problematic elements is poorly 40 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

tracked vocals. The majority of the problems I’ve seen are from reflections from the untreated (or semi-treated) rooms leaking back into the microphone and poor-quality microphones and mic pres. Even with software that models high-end microphones and pres, they never sound as good as tracking with better microphones and it’s very hard (sometimes impossible) to overcome the reflections of the room that get printed with the recordings (if you’ve ever recorded anything and you play it back somewhere else outside your studio and your vocals sound like they were recorded in a bathroom or small closet, you know what I’m talking about). Invest in a good quality vocal mic and pre, even with top-notch mixing gear, you usually can’t make a cheap vocal track sound as good as a nice mic/pre combo.

A small bathroom can be treated to cancel reflections back to the microphone with foam, blankets and other sound-absorbing materials.

I got one mix where the producer asked if I could do anything with a vocal track that sounded “too distant”. I listened to the vocal track and sure enough, it sounded as if the MC was standing at least 2 feet away from the mic. I asked about the mic setup and the producer said “Well, the mic was behind my keyboard and a crate of records and the MC had to stand in front of the keyboard, but we turned up the gain

on the Mic and figured you could make it sound better on the mix.” So, two things: First, know what can and can’t be done in a mix. The key with recording vocal tracks is to make them sound as “dry” as possible while recording them so that you can add “room” effects later. The key to investing in a good microphone and preamp is to get the best possible tone from your vocals, not your surroundings. Second, the distance between the vocalist and the microphone in most cases is around 6 inches (you can play around with the distance a bit, all mics can give you different tones but definitely less than a foot. The only thing in between the vocalist and the microphone should be a pop screen).

Mono or Stereo I’m talking to my digital recording heads on this one specifically.

People who record with analog tape know how valuable tape tracks are; “bouncing” to them has a different meaning than it does to those who have only worked with digital tracks.

I get Pro Tools sessions sometimes from people that have tracked everything in stereo and in most cases, this is not necessary. This may not be an issue for people who are running DAWs that allow an unlimited track count, but what you have to keep in mind is that processing a stereo track takes exactly double the system processing effort than processing a mono track, and this can slow your system down as you start to stack tracks and add native effects plugins, so it makes sense to consider when to record in mono and stereo in the digital environment, for reasons other than what people tracking to tape have to deal with.

Instruments can be tracked in mono and stereo; it depends on the source.

If for example, you are tracking a guitar, with a line out from the amp to a channel on your console, you can then place a

mic right on the cabinet, and send that to another track. If you are recording a Triton patch that has a stereo effect, it would be a good idea to track it in stereo. If you’re sampling a stereo source, the same thing applies. In tracking samples, a common technique if you have a stereo sample with all the drums on the left channel and the bass on the right would be to track them in dual mono (using two independent mono channels as opposed to one stereo in a DAW). Then, you can play around with pans on the two tracks and get creative.

Drum sounds don’t need to be stereo.

Kicks, Snares, Hats, Cymbals can all be tracked in mono. Percussion sounds, if sampled in stereo and have a dynamic L/R image from the source can be stereo, but single hits should be mono in your multitrack session.

Basses should always be tracked in mono. Having a stereo bass track can phase out the bass line (relevant when cutting wax), and you could also phase out some of the middle frequencies of your mix in the process.

Vocals should almost always be tracked to mono as well, unless you want to capture a stereo performance, but we’re talking hip hop here, MCs in a booth with one mic, there’s no point in tracking stereo vocals from a mono signal. Keep in mind that placing tracks in the stereo field is done at the mix level, with the use of panning and effects processing, such as reverbs, delays, modulation effects, etc. If you do want your vocal tracks to sound like they are two feet away from the mic, record them dry and create that effect later with processing; you can even make your vocals sound like you’re twenty feet away if you want, the point is to start out with a dry track that will allow you to shape it in different ways.

How High?

How high you push your levels when tracking is different when recording to analog media than when tracking to digital. How hard you hit the tape will have an effect on your mixes, because

of the inherited quality of tape, which depends on many factors. Analog processors color the sound in different ways and everything in an analog chain will add its own “color” or character, up through the console. Tape media will have different characteristics that affect the sound as well. In the world of analog recording, how much you drive the processors and hit the tape will give you a varying quality of sound. With A-to-D converters, it’s important to optimize your signal chain to get as close to the 0db ceiling and best utilize the analog front end of the converter for your recordings. You can saturate tape for a tape compression effect, since with tape, you can hear an audible (and many times, desired) effect when running out of headroom before completely distorting your recordings, whereas with digital, going past the 0dbfs ceiling will give you a distortion that is nowhere as pleasing as anything you may get from tape.

Key thing to keep in mind is: the bigger the tape, the bigger the sonic “real estate”.

How hard you hit your digital converters depends on the bit depth you are recording to as well as the analog front end quality of the converter; you can push your levels higher recording at 24-bit than 16-bit for example, this is because the added wordlength (more 0s and 1s) in 24 bit allows more digital headroom while minimizing the noise floor giving you a bigger dynamic range, but one thing is certain with any bit depth, going over 0dbfs will distort the recordings.

A “safety” I’ve seen (and heard) people do is using a limiter on the master bus.

Some people tend to think “Hey, if it’s bad to hit 0db on my digital mixes, I’ll just put a limiter on the master track, set it to limit at -0.1db and bam! No digital clipping!!”

Well, that will work for the purpose of keeping your levels from hitting 0db and causing “overs”. However, what you are also doing is eating up the headroom of the mix, and that won’t leave the mastering engineer any room to play with at the mastering stage,

or even for yourself, if you plan on mastering your own tracks. A common effect that is heard by doing this is the lack of definition between instruments, lack of punch and a harshness that doesn’t sound as pleasing as it does when pushing up levels when tracking to tape.

The Meters As you know by now, Digital has an absolute decibel limit before audio starts to distort, 0dbfs. Because of this, it’s easy to state that anything above 0dbfs in a digital meter will clip.

A digital meter takes its signal directly from the data path, unlike an analog VU (Voltage Units) meter, which measures the levels based on voltage from within consoles, recording machines and other analog processors, which can vary.

Because of voltage differences among many consoles and recording machines, the decibel limit before audio starts to distort varies in an analog setup; somewhere between +18db and +24db. For example, one particular console and tape machine might start to saturate the recordings at +14db, while another console and tape machine might start recording a similar saturation effect at +18db. For this purpose, VU Meters on many consoles and tape machines are adjustable.

Whatever an Analog VU Meter shows as “0db” is an approximate value, and many engineers adjust the meters on their consoles and tape machines according to what they feel is right for their setup.

This doesn’t mean that all digital meters are 100% accurate. Most digital meters follow a -20dbfs calibration, but because of design, they may not accurately represent what is truly 0dbfs (decibel full-scale). For those who really want the most accurate digital meter, there are high-quality meters out there available, capable of truly reading the data stream and translating that to an accurate representation in decibels, but for most, the ears are what matter most, and use meters (analog and

41 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

digital) for an approximate reading of the signals only.

Monitors/Room/Ears

The tools you use to listen to your mixes on are also very important. Nearfield monitors (referred to also as Studio Monitors) were designed to take the room out of the equation while listening to your mixes, since when you listen to music through typical loudspeakers, you’re not only listening to the sound the speakers are reproducing, but also the sound reflections in that room.

Nearfields work best when the distance between them and your ears are 2-3 times shorter than the nearest wall, to minimize sound reflections coming back to your ears and hyping the sound you hear. Even if you have your monitors placed at an optimal setting in your room, with nothing directly behind them, you may still have to worry about the sound reflections in your room. Too close to a corner? Bass traps can help there, but in short, monitor placement and your room itself work hand-inhand with your monitors, so remember this the next time someone tells you “Aw man, you gotta get the ______ monitors, those are the best monitors!”

In some ways, it’s like someone telling you to buy the x-brand shoe because it will make you run faster. Sure, not all Nearfields are of equal quality, but don’t choose them based on other peoples’ experiences with them.

This is an optimal Nearfield Monitoring environment, keeping the distance from the monitors and the walls longer than the distance to your ears. >> Most home setups won’t allow monitor placement in the middle of a room, typically you’ll have your monitors placed very close to a wall or corner, so in addition to adding some strategicallyplaced sound treatment, the best thing you can do is learn your monitors as they are reacting to their placement in your room.

A common suggestion is to play CDs you’re familiar with through 42 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

your monitors, so you can hear how one of your favorite CDs sounds like through your monitors (and room) and try to make your mixes sound like that. In my opinion, that’s not really a good idea, since you are basically trying to nail your mixes to sound like something that’s already been mixed AND mastered through your set of nearfield monitors. The key thing to keep in mind is that the sound you hear through nearfield monitors doesn’t represent what a master is going to sound like in most systems, since nearfields aren’t designed to use the entire room when reproducing sound.

This is why mastering engineers like to use hi-fi “full-range” loudspeakers, since there’s really no way to master a mix through nearfields and get the kind of low-end response that you can feel hitting your chest, for example. Don’t forget about headphones; you may have heard that it’s not a good idea to mix with headphones, that’s not true, a good pair of cans are a great tool for reference checking mixes with (in addition to good nearfields). You don’t want to solely rely on headphones because you don’t get a very good imaging representation (think of the “feel” of panned instruments as opposed to “hearing” where they are panned in headphones).

Some Nearfields, like the Mackie 824 have frequency cut filters that help when placing monitors in the middle of the room is not an option. Other monitors have similar compensation features that help when placing monitors against a wall or near corners. >> The best way to learn your monitors (and room) is to spend some time mixing your song, then burn a CD, take your CD and a pen with a notepad to as many different systems as you can get out to, and make notes as you listen at each spot. Don’t compare what your mix sounds like in comparison to another CD you own that’s already been mastered (I already said that, I know); rather, listen to what sticks out in your mixes. I had someone ask me a real good question, which was: “How then, am I supposed to know when a mix is good, like good for mastering, if all I have to compare my mixes to is a bunch of stuff I have that is already mastered from other artists?”

The answer (according to my opinion) is what I consider the key to having the best mixes for mastering, and that is – you want to eventually have mixes that sound “even” everywhere you

studio; If the bass problem is too serious, you may consider a sub for your monitors and we can write volumes of articles on monitors and sound treatment, but for the sake of this series, let’s just say that spending the time in getting used to your environment will be more valuable to you down the line. Try not to fall for the “Buy the most expensive monitors you can afford” advice, since not everyone’s setups are the same, let alone their ears (and if I’ve learned anything with regards to nearfields, it’s definitely that price does NOT dictate quality in many cases). You can use manufacturers’ frequency charts as a guideline, but keep in mind that there is no standard measuring guideline for measuring a monitor’s frequency ranges; each manufacturer uses their own.

Mixing

and

Mastering play them. The bass should not sound muffled, it should sound defined, the vocals should be clear, the drums should sound punchy and dynamic, the highs should sound crisp, not brittle and you should be able to hear all of the instruments, with nothing sticking out more than it should. Mastering will take care of amplifying (and attenuating if need be) the frequencies and taking that great mix and tweaking it (hopefully not much) so that it translates well into most systems.

A key thing to know is, if for example the bass on your mix sounds good on your monitors, but when you take it somewhere else, the bass is muffled, understand your setup is not giving you an accurate bass response and you are adding too much low end, the same goes with the rest of the frequency ranges, so the more you learn how your mixes translate to other systems, the less you’ll have to leave your studio and with time, you will know how to best use your mixing environment and come up with good mixes based on what you hear in your

(later)

One of the services you should expect from a professional Mastering Engineer is the evaluation stage of your mixes.

If you give them squashed mixes, with no headroom to maneuver in, the first thing they will ask for will be mixes that aren’t as maximized. It’s important to not render loudness processing effects to your mixes and always keep the original mixes backed up, in the event that you do have your music professionally mastered one day.

Mastering Engineers also have highquality processors, and for example, a plugin mastering compressor isn’t going to sound as good as an outboard high-end compressor that an ME might have in their arsenal. You definitely want to give your mastering engineer plenty of room to have them make the most use of that processor’s high-end qualities, which will most likely give your music a better sound and not a “thin” sound that you may generally get with lesser-quality digital effects.

If you are doing your own mastering, you’ll definitely want to mix first, master last. Maximizing signals is considered part of the custom mastering process and you definitely want to take care of that part of it at the last step, not during your Mixing process. One of the drawbacks of doing your own mastering is that you are mixing and mastering in the same environment. This may not be a problem if you have a properly “tuned” room and an audiophile-grade loudspeaker system, but if not, you are definitely doing it all in an environment that may not be giving you an accurate frequency representation of what you are working on, On top of the fact that you are using only your perception of the sound, so keep the following in mind:

43 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

and all that other stuff? Well, here it is: EXPERIMENT. There are tons and tons of tutorials out there, starting with the manufacturers of your processors and plugins that are a good starting point, and today with online support for everything, you can find a bunch of documents that attempt to show you how to use a compressor, for example.

My thing is – how are you supposed to understand how a 3:1 compressor ratio on a drum loop sounds like, or how a 2db boost at 12.5kHz will sound like by reading about it?

To wrap up, in the grand scheme of it all, getting the best possible mix is the foundation to a great master. The best mixes for mastering require a small amount of EQing and have a good amount of headroom to increase the loudness of the mix. A great masterer would then use skill in combination with high-quality tools to increase the loudness of the mix while also maintaining the dynamic qualities of the mix as much as possible so that the song translates well into most systems.

In part III, we’re going to check out some of the tools used in a mastering studio and how they are different than tools used for recording and mixing.

If you are sending out your mixes to get mastered professionally, avoid putting a limiter at the master bus, just bring down the master faders so that you are not hitting 0db in your meters (and definitely use your ears in the process). A professional ME will be able to maximize the levels of your tracks and not suck the life out of them in the process (hopefully).

Use a compressor on the master bus only if you feel the mix needs a “gluing” effect, not to bring up the volume on the entire mix. Watch how you use compression in your mixes also. Just because you have the power in your DAW to dial up a compressor for every audio track in your session doesn’t mean that you should.

If you are mastering your own material (assuming here you are working with digital processing), work on mixing your songs first, master later, on the bounced stereo track; don’t mix AND master at the same time. If you think that your mix sounds too low from bringing down the faders, that’s fine, that’s what Mastering is for. When you think you’ve got your mixes where you want them, stop. Take a break from listening to your mixes and come back at a later time with a fresh pair of ears.

Take a day or two off from listening to the mix if time allows, this will let you check the mix with a different perspective and things may stick out to you that weren’t apparent when you last heard the mix.

When you think your mixes have the balance you were looking for, you can then think about mastering them, or send them out to get mastered. One of the benefits in sending them to a ME is that you’ll get a second pair of fresh ears in a more neutral environment than yours, and they’ll catch things in your mix that you might have missed, not just from the perspective of someone entirely different than you, but also by them listening to your mixes in a more neutral environment than the one you are in.

Panning, EQ, Compression, Reverb, Delay, etc. etc…Oh, were you looking for the section where I would give you tips on EQing, Compression, Panning,

Guru 1.5 drops. Free for all registered owners of GURU. 3 Gigabytes of new audio content covering hip hop, grime, rock, house, trance, experimental, breaks and more. The list of added features are too numerous to name here! Visit Fxpansion.com

SampleTank 2.5 New effects section with SEND and MASTER effects.

200 new Combi patches. Ability to read all “Powered by SampleTank” instruments. Fully compatible with Mac OS X (Universal Binary) and Windows (XP / Vista). FREE update for all SampleTank 2 L and XL users and can be downloaded from the IK User Area.

Redsecta.com.

LROCKZ is a Mastering Agent with specialized techniques for Hip Hop and R&B. Their house can also accommodate other genres.

“I know what your music should sound like, because it is also my music, and I also know that these days, independent musicians could use as many breaks as possible cost-wise to put out their projects, and I’ve designed my rates to be unbeatable for the level of quality you will be getting.”

Part I of this series is available on the internet and in this issues DVD-ROM.

44 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

NexSyn, our official AES theme-song generating VST, gets a free update and is now compatible with Leopard. keytosound.com

DVD-ROMs or send electronically. And in the past we used to do this Sony 1630 format. But that’s practically obsolete.

I It’s the final step in the creative process have to break mastering down into two steps.

of making a record whatever the format might be and the first step in manufacturing.

The creative process includes a few different details that we can talk about quickly here starting with equalization and dynamics processing, the final enhancement to the audio and to the mix that’s presented to the mastering engineer using a combination of equalization and dynamics processing.

Another part of the creative process of mastering deals with cohesiveness.

It’s very common to receive mixes from multiple engineers, from multiple studios and multiple producers. In the case of a compilation; audio from multiple artists as well. And the mastering engineer’s job is to take all those parts that are done different places, different times and bring them together to form a cohesive sounding album.

Bring everything basically together on an even-keeled sonic.

And of course that also includes level matching from track to track so that when you listen as a full album, you are not marching up to the stereo and turning the volume up and down.

STEP ONE:

Part of the creative side of the mastering process also includes editing.

Everything from internal edits of songs and mixtures, editing between mixes. And then of course the editing and the final running order or sequence. Again bringing a full album together, making it cohesive.

Top and tail editing, editing in the beginning and the ends of tracks, fade outs, fade ins, that sort of thing and of course, transitions from track to track, gaps and cross fades. How a record is paged from beginning to end? And PQ editing. To be started in the IDs, indices, ICC codes, EBC codes, CD text; all the sub code information on a CD master. Once you’ve gone through the creative process of mastering an album and you’ve gone through the process of sending references out to your clients…

STEP TWO:

Once those references are approved, the next step upon that approval is prepping the master for manufacturing, which is the second part of the mastering process. Basically we prepare final masters that go to manufacturing for all format CD, DVD, and files for iTunes.

And our masters these days are sent out on what we call pre master CDs, which are basically just audio CDs (burned audio CDs). DDP file sets that we send that we burn onto CD-ROMs,

In the process of making the master, one of the most important steps is quality control. Any master that’s going to leave our facility is going to go and be used at a manufacturing plant to replicate anywhere from a couple of thousand copies for an independent client up to hundreds of thousands or millions of copies for record label clients. We take quality control very seriously. We listen to the master from beginning to end with headphones. We’re looking for any audio defects, artifacts, things like that. But basically that’s the last listen that the master gets before it’s sent off to manufacturing where somebody may or may not be listening. But we always do a final quality control listen.

And we also run our media through an error checking process as well. For audio CDs, we have a computer system that will do 2-x error checking. As you all know digital audio has inherent errors. And some are ok. There’s a set limit to what is ok.

So we run every master through an error check or we make sure it lives up to our standards before it gets into manufacturing. Also at that stage we prepare final paperwork, the quality control notes, timing sheets, and error check reports that go to manufacturing.

So the manufacturer has basically everything that they’re going to need to replicate from our master that we’ve created.

What I’d like to talk about in the focus of this presentation for the most part is preparing your mixes for mastering and how you should present them to a mastering facility. Obviously we work in a digital world pretty often if not all the time these days. I still get some analog tape for mix masters. But an awful lot of digital. And in terms of final formats, we’re seeing everything from wav files, AIFF files, sound designer 2 files.

45 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

And of course our sample rates from 44.1 up to 192 and all big depths from 16 to 32 bit with 24 bit of course being the most common bits that the files come in at. We’re also seeing some of the Sony DSD format. Not so much as just a file format, but TASCAM has a relatively new recorder that records DSD onto a hard drive as well as optical media. And we’re getting quite a bit of that for mix sources.

These things are coming to us in a bunch of different ways. CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, hard drives, master link CDs, the TASCAM DV-RA 1000 discs on the DSD format, which comes into us in our recordable DVD, the occasional iPod that you mount to a hard drive to retrieve the full resolution files off of. And every now and then still various digital tape formats, be it a DAT format or the TASCAM formats. And of course a lot of electronic delivery via ftp, WhaleMail, DigiDelivery, iDisks, whatever the preference might be.

We’re doing an awful lot of transmission over the Internet whether we’re getting mixes that way or posting references. I have a lot of international clients. It makes things a lot easier than dealing with FedEx, which can be very reliable, but takes at least 2-3 days depending on where it’s coming from. It might get hung up in customs. Electronic delivery works really well.

Analog tape formats.

I don’t know how many of you are still working in analog. I’m still getting a bit of analog. I still love analog. I love getting it on tape. For the most part, half inch 30 IPS is the most common format I’m receiving. Occasionally other tape widths, quarter inch or one inch for that matter, 15 or 30 IPS. A lot of remastering work of course is coming in on some original master, which in most cases would be quarter inch and 15 inch. And the one-inch format is a relatively new format. One inch two track that you can run 15 or 30 IPS with no noise reduction. Mike Spitz at ATR services built a machine for us to do that. And I know he’s made quite a few of them.

46 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Labeling your masters.

This has become a really important part of presenting your mixes to mastering. It’s always been a very important part. But we’re finding with digital media, we’re just not getting the information that we need right on our sources when we’re being sent them. And here are few things that should always be included on every source regardless of the media type. And those are the artist’s name of course; the client’s name, which usually isn’t the artist name and could be the record label, the production company; the project name or album name if one exists; and then of course all the track titles that exist on that source including take names where there’s a master vocal at vocal down.

And I find that with take names from mixes is always good to avoid final.

Because final is never final and then you’ll get into your final final or final x 2, whatever you might want to call it. I always try to avoid final in any name in terms of what I’m doing mastering wise. And the same for mixing. If you can avoid final in the master or remix master or recall master, if you’ve revisited the master. But final always confuses the issue.

And always highlight the choice mix.

So if you’re sending more than one mix, which we’ll talk a little bit about the different mix variations that you can send along with your master. Always highlight your choice mix in some way whether that’s putting a little red dot next to it, using a highlighter, putting a sticker next to it, whatever it takes, whatever works for you. But if you’re going to send a variation of mixes, it’s always good to tell the mastering engineer of course what the mix choice is.

Now, I have some clients send me a wide variation of mixes, usually vocal ups and downs and that sort of thing. And then just tell me you use what sounds best to you. Start with the master mix, which is what the mix engineer and the producer and the artist have all agreed on. But if

you feel the need to use a lead vocal up or lead vocal down or whatever variation they may provide, do that.

But in any case, it’s always good to highlight your choice mix as the master engineer knows right away this is what everybody has lived with.

If the mastering engineering feels like they need to use a vocal up, they can ask you about it after the fact. When labeling your digital masters, there are a few things that are always really important to have on every source.

And of course your sample rate’s bit depth, which believe it or not I don’t see on many digital sources that I receive. But it’s always good to know the sample rate and bit depth of every track that’s on the source. And you may have mixed sample rates and bit depths from song to song based on the history of the recording and how it was done and that’s perfectly fine. But for every song, you should include your sample rate and your bit depth.

Your file types are also good to know if you have wav files on the disk or AIFF or sd2 files. Stereo interleaved or multi mono, they all work really well. But it’s good to know what’s on the source when we get it. And of course very well labeled file names. Everybody kind of has their own shorthand in the way they like to label their files. But sometimes it might not be as intuitive to the mastering engineers what your abbreviated titles means. Include the full song title and mix name and number as well.

And the reason I ask everybody for all these details isn’t because we’re lazy.

Obviously we can put the disk in and we can find out with our workstation what the sample rates are, what the bit depths are. But we find that it’s good for not only the engineer to know what’s going on at a glance by looking at the source, but also our front office.

We get a lot of last minute phone calls asking “well, do you have that mix, did we send you that in the hard drive?”

And if there’s no label on the instruction and my front office gets that call, they can’t really answer that question until they run the hard drive. If you have a

very well labeled source, anybody can look at it in our front office and say ok, we do have the instrumental mix. You did send it out on this hard drive. And this sample rate is 44.1 and it’s 24 bit.

It’s good to have all this information at a glance.

And with master link CDs and the TASCAM DV-RA 1000 files, it’s a good idea to label those really well. You’re limited by the number of characters in what you can label those files. So it’s going to be cryptic and abbreviated.

But try to make it as simple as possible and then of course be sure to explain those abbreviated names and some notes included with your source files.

way down the line for the 12 songs in the sequence. When you browse your hard drive and you look at the file names in alphabetical order, they’ll come up in sequence. And not to mention the fact that the number is already in the name.

So it’s very easy when you pull it into your workstation. Always include a label in the digital source. I know we’ve been talking about that. And it seems pretty self-explanatory. But it’s pretty common that I don’t receive any label.

And it’s pretty common I don’t receive notes as well. So always do that.

Also always include the sequence for the album if you have a working sequence.

It’s not uncommon for me to not know the sequence of the album until the end of the day or until the second day of mastering. But if you know your sequence, send that along with your source as well.

I’ve more than once been given a source and I’ve loaded it up and I have no notice what the sequence is. And I’ll call my client and ask them . . . you know the way I put it on the hard drive for you or the way I put it on the CD for you. But I think sometimes you get confused and you think well when I bring my audio CDs, I put it in this sequence. The files obviously are going to be date modified, file size, name, and alphabetical order depending on how you store files on your hard drive.

So always include your sequence with your source notes.

And just a tip in terms of file naming, if it’s helpful you can always put the number obviously at the beginning of the file name as long as you include a zero in front of any single digit number.

So if you do like 01 then the song title master mix. And you do that all the

And here’s a bit of a fuzzy picture, but a really well labeled digital source of TASCAM DV-RA 1000. What you see obviously is the artist name, the track name, the mix name, what the format is, the sample rate and all of those things, and then all of the mix choices below.

And with analog masters, few things that you should have every analog master labeled is of course your tape speed, whether it’s 15 IBS or 30 IBS, the record level that you printed the tape, the record machine, whether you choose a Studer or ATR or whatever the machine might be. I usually use my ATR for playback on almost everything.

But I do have some clients that like

their tapes play backed on the same machine that it was recorded on. And then of course noise reduction and type if there is any noise reduction. Is it Dolby SR? Is it A? Is it DBX? Or no noise reduction at all. It’s good to have that at a glance.

And always include of course calibration tones. The tail of the first reel . . . I don’t get them that way very often. It’s usually at the head of the first reel. And that’s fine. It’s not a problem. But if the calibration tones are at the tail of the reel, every time I have to recalibrate the machine, I don’t have to use shuttle all the way to the beginning. It takes me a little time shuttling. But even more importantly to me, I like to send the tapes when I’m done well packed.

So if I’m winding back to the beginning of the tape, I’m going to want to play or at least do a slow library wind to get a good packet of tape before I send it back and it goes into your archive so that there isn’t any damage to the tape in the future. So if the tones are at the head of the reel, I’m going to have to wind it back and then I’m going to have to slow either play it back at whatever the tape speed is or 60 IBS library wind to get a good pack. If it’s at the tape of the reel, I can always pull it up and get to the tones really quickly and not have to worry about that.

And of course in terms of tones to include, always include 1k, 10k, 15k, 100hz, 50hz, all at 0 vu and for at least 30 seconds. It will take me usually at least 30 seconds if not longer to calibrate the playback on a machine.

And if you get a tape that has only 10 seconds or 15 seconds of calibration time, you’re constantly winding back or you’re calibrating. So 30 seconds I think is a good minimum. And always leader at the head of the tape and the end of the tape as well as all the tracks tapes in between one. It makes it easy

47 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

to find at a glance where the third tape is on the tape. And if there’s leader at the head of the tape and at the end of the tape, you don’t have to worry about any problems. If the tape is played off and the tape is flapping at the end, you don’t have to worry about it dinging the audio. And of course always store your tapes tails out, which I never see anything otherwise, which is good.

In compiling your source masters, whenever it’s possible to keep everything in one place obviously that’s the best thing to do. And I’d mentioned before that one of our jobs is to bring files, mixes, that are coming from all places, times, engineers, studios, that make a cohesive album. It maybe impossible to get every mix engineer’s files and compile them before sending them. But when you can do that it definitely makes it easier for me to have them all in one place. But in terms of organizing your sources and finding them the future: have them all in one place for archival purposes. This is going to help you find your assets in future.

And this isn’t only a problem for us in the mastering room. But we’re finding record labels are having a hard time now going back and finding well, what was the choice mix from that album that we did 6 years ago. I have two hard drives and a couple of CD-Rs and I have a couple of DVD-Rs, but they’re not labeled what is what. You’re not only helping your mastering engineer out, but you’re helping your archival and keeping your catalog straight in the future.

And always feel free to compile in sequence your digital mixes and protools or whatever your digital audio workstation of choice is ahead of the mastering sessions. I do like doing fades. I do like pacing the record. I do it every day. And I enjoy that part of the process. One thing I’ve been asked by a lot of clients is well, how do we keep our budget down and we can’t attend this session, how do we keep the budget down in terms of making sure the gaps are just how they are?

Feel free to compile ahead of time. I 48 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

know that goes a little against sort of the mastering engineer’s credo of the past of don’t do anything, don’t fade, don’t edit, whatever, let us do it.

But Pro Tools and all the other workstations that everybody is using today are so good and sound so good. We don’t have tools that necessarily are going to make a better sounding fade outs. We have the experience to do the fading and everything of course, but always feel free to compile ahead of time in Pro Tools or whatever your workstation might be. And then again that also keeps your compiling together, keeps all your mixes together.

And please don’t send your multi track Protools session to me for mastering.

Always bounce your mixes down to 2 track and send them along. There are a few reasons for that. Of course one would be horsepower. I have a pretty powerful Pro Tools system. But it’s not set up for mixing. If you send me something with 60 tracks of your mix, I may not be able to play it back. I also don’t have every plug-in that you may have. So we may run into plugin problems. It’s turning a mastering session into a mixing session.

So I prefer to have the bounced mixes as they are. And then if there are questions about things whether it’s vocal level or any other change you may want to make in the mix, feel free to present variations on the mixes.

Send your master mix, which is the one that everybody’s kind of agreed on this is the mix we like. But send your vocal ups and downs and your base up and down or whatever you think might be a question when you get to mastering.

Also feel free to print stems, which we’ll talk a little bit about in a few minutes.

Work mixes to print. Again I mentioned the master mix of course, which is the mix engineer’s first choice mix and the engineer’s clients’ first choice mix. Vocal ups and vocal downs are pretty common and pretty important and I’d like to see them in half db increments. One idea is to send an instrumental stem along with a

separate stereo vocal stem. That way I can create the vocal ups and downs myself. So you can either prepare a bunch of vocal ups and downs and have db increments. Say usually a vocal up half and a vocal up one will suffice and a vocal down a half and a vocal down one is more than enough to have alongside of your master mix.

But if you don’t want to print vocal up and down mixes and you’re working in a digital world, you can print an instrumental mix and a vocal only mix stems.

And then when I pull them into a Pro Tools system and you play them back, the idea is you play them back and the unity gain in that equals your choice mix and I can make the vocal ups and downs as I see fair or as you the client sees fair to tell me to do it. And then of course any other up or down variations that you may want or any other sort of creative decisions that you maybe making on the lines that you’re not a 100% sure on, just print those variations and send them off to mastering and make the decision before the day of the mastering session or after.

I also like to see the instrumental mix.

Most clients like to send in instrumental mix. I like to have the instrumental mix mastered at some point. For say licensing. It’s pretty common to license your song to say a TV show or a movie or want to license only the instrumental portion of that song. So send the instrumental mix and I can run that through the mastering chain as well and master it just like I would the mix with the vocal.

TV mix is also very common, which is no lead vocal, but background vocal used for TV performances. I tend to get asked to master those as well pretty often. And with the occasional low level guide vocal on the mix as well.

And then I also occasionally receive vocal only tracks. Even if I’m not given the stems right off, you need the vocal only as well as the instrumental.

And occasionally I’m asked to master those.

Mix bus processing.

A common question that I’m asked is how much compression should I do in the mix or how much limiting should I do in the mix. And my answer is always whatever you’re comfortable with. I’m not going to tell a mix engineer that they shouldn’t do any compression over their mix. There are obvious reasons for that. One, when you’re mixing into the compressor and you turn the compressor off, your mix values completely change. Two, whatever mixing compression that you like to use is going to create your mix.

And I’m never going to overstep my bounds and tell a mix engineer not to use compression.

The question usually arises when it comes to using additional compression and limiting to push the mix references up close to the loudness of mastered commercial CDs. When that’s the question, I always say do what you’re comfortable with but feel free to print variations. Print one with that additional compression limiting and one without. And if you’re feeling like you need to do an in between as well, do that. And I can listen to them. And if you’re attending the session, we can listen together and decide what works best in the mastering session.

Again stems as well starting with either just that instrumental stem and a vocal only stem where those are basically . . . the entire instrumental mix without the vocal in it, with all the effects printed, everything stereo. With the vocal, it’s the entire vocal mix with all the vocal effects printed stereo. And again the idea being that when you play the tune of them together face locked, with both of them in unity gain, the output is your choice in your master mix.

I’ve been giving stems that are broken down even much further than that into guitar stems, a stereo guitar stem, a stereo drum stem, a stereo base stem, a stereo lead vocal stems, stereo backing vocal stem. If you’re unsure of things, again I don’t like to see the

entire mix. But if you want to break it down into stems like that that can be helpful. Or you might say ok, we’re in the mastering session and maybe the base wasn’t quite loud enough. You weren’t quite sure when you’re doing the mix. Or we have this full set of stems. Let’s just bring the base guitar up a half a dozen [Dbs] in Pro Tools and everything else stays at unity. And we just created a base up mix by doing that. It saves you having to print a lot of variations.

And again mix bus compression or processing, what’s ok? I always think it’s ok to do what you feel comfortable with. Whatever you’re uncomfortable with print a variation. And again always remember if you’re mixing into your compressor, you’re not just using it for loud at the end of the day to make a loud reference.

But when you’re mixing into your compressor, of course the second you turn it into bypass or take it out of the chain, your mix completely changes. So remember that when you’re doing it. If you’re mixing into the compressor, you may not have the ability to make those variations without making major mix changes.

I’m regularly asked what are some of the most common mix problems.

What am I seeing as problems when I get mixes on the creative side of things? And of course one of the most common things especially today in a day where everything needs to be really loud is over compressed or over limited mixes.

Now we all know that if you provide an over compressed or over limited mix, we can’t undo that dynamics processing. Once it’s done, I don’t have an uncompression processor that will undo it. So once you printed it, it’s there. So again mixes are squashed.

The natural music dynamics are lost.

Lack of clarity, distortion, those kinds of things are what you’re hearing when you hear over compressed or over limited mixes. And it can’t be undone.

An over compressed or over limited

mix not only makes it impossible to regain those dynamics, but it makes it really difficult to do anything with the queue. When everything is sort of up against the wall, your master engineer’s hands are going to be tied in terms of equalization that they can do. It just makes it very difficult to bring any definition with equalization into an over compressed mix.

Also for mastering engineers, a big part of your master engineer’s job is dealing with loudness and dealing with compression and getting loud but in the most musical and dynamic sounding way as possible.

And once you’ve done all of that over compression, that can’t be undone.

And the mastering engineer’s hands are tied. They can’t use their tools and their experience to make your record as loud if not louder, but still feel like there’s some dynamic movement.

One other thing I’ve come up against with over compressed or over limited mixes is that the mix engineer’s client, the artist, producer, whoever else is involved in the process, becomes married to that sound of bad compression. So you may just use compression and limiting to create loud references to give your client at the end of the day when you’re done mixing.

So when they listen in their iPod or they listen in their car, it’s somewhere near the loudness level of an already mastered commercial release. And then you’re going to provide me an uncompressed mix to work from. I’ve more than once been in the situation where I’ve used that uncompressed mix. I’ve been able to make it even louder than that compress mix and what feels to me as more musical, less lack of clarity or distortion and that sort of thing. But clients get . . . they tend to get stuck on bad sounding compression or anything that sounds different for that matter as well. So if you’re doing a lot of compression or limiting for loud at the end of the day when you’re done mixing, know that your clients are probably going to get used to that.

What might end up happening is even if you provide your mastering engineer

49 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

with uncompressed mixes to work from, your client may not be happy with the end result. They may want to go back to those compressed mixes. And I certainly have a lot of mix engineers say that they hate doing that but they have to do it. And I understand the position that most mix engineers are put in in terms of having to provide compressed punchy loud mix references at the end of the day. But just know that that’s the possible outcome.

Vocal levels of course are always a common mix problem. Is the vocal too loud? Is it not loud enough? Another reason to print vocal up and vocal down mixes. Vocals that are too loud or too bright compared to the rest of the track are also a really common mix issue that I’ve been seeing these days.

If a vocal is really loud compared to the rest of it, it’s really hard to get the balance just right. It’s really hard in mastering. There are tricks and ways of doing it. But it’s really hard to get the vocals set back in the mix where it needs to be.

And then it also makes it really hard to equalize the entire mix, especially if that vocal is not only too loud, but it’s overly bright as well. What that means is if I bring a track up and the vocals are little too loud and a little too bright compared to the band, the band is not feeling exciting, I’d like to open up the top end on the band itself and make it a little brighter. Anything I do to try to make the band sound brighter obviously is going to make the vocal even that much brighter and hurt the vocal. So my hands are tied there.

I can’t do anything to make the band sound more exciting or brighter or whatever needs to be done with equalization because whatever I’m doing there is going to hit this overly loud or overly bright vocal that’s in the mix. Another common mix issue, which I’m sure everybody has run into here or there is bass issues. Are you hearing the bass response properly in your mixing environment? Are you hearing too much, too little? I come across this a lot with mixes that come from a project studio, especially in the 50 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

DIY world that we’re living in. Bass issues tend to be the hardest issues to deal with in a room while you’re mixing.

And you’re working on smaller near field monitors and maybe not the best acoustic space.

, the better the mastering is going to be… the better the final product is going to be. And I can’t stress that enough. If you can alleviate as

How do you feel abut the extra studio time ($$$) needed to create stems?

It could take more time. And I think the reason you use stems generally is to help you make some last minute mix decisions or let your mastering engineer do so if need be. And the best way to save time and money when you get to mastering is to have all those decisions made ahead of time. Everything from your choice mix to what the sequence is going to be, the more decisions you have made, even compiling like I mentioned before, compiling the sequence and Pro Tools ahead of time, that’s going to save you time and budget in the mastering phase.

I certainly respect the mix the way it’s been done. So I’m not going to change that. But occasionally I’ll get a mix that seems a little off center but not on purpose. So the lead vocal and the snare that seem to be skewed a little off to the left or off to the right. And I may deal with that. I may try to tweak the left or the right channel to get the center back in the center. But certainly if there have been mix decisions made, you have things off center. I’m not going to change that. I’ll respect the mix of course.

Question and Answer:

From a mixing standpoint, what’s your opinion on being careful with how many bounces you use, how many times you mix actually to a stem song? And that versus using an analog summing mixer in there?

So then when I get the mixes I’m hearing the residuals of those bass issues that you’re having in your mix room. Of course that means either too much bass or too little bass. And I get asked often what’s easier to deal with. And the answer is usually neither. Neither is real easy to deal with. If there’s no bass or way too little bass, it’s really hard to build ..bass.

And so I guess having too much bass sometimes is better. But when there is too much bass you usually lose a lot of the definition with the kick and the bass guitar, especially the relationship between the two.

And when you’re just dealing with equalization and the mix, it’s hard to fix that.

We’ve all heard of the fix it in the mix philosophy. Of course like any other part of the process, the better the mix

many issues in mixing as possible as opposed to leaving things to be fixed in mastering, you’re just going to come out with that much better of a final product.

If we’re going to give you a stereo mix that’s uncompressed, how hot . . . what’s a good range? Like how hot should our mix be just in general?

In terms of digital full scale? I would say you can always print right up to zero. Let your peaks always just touch zero. Certainly don’t feel the need to compress more to get the overall average up. But let your peaks always hit as close to zero as you possibly can. You don’t necessarily have to leave any headroom in terms of the digital full scale for me.

I find that I don’t have a problem with the way a bounce sounds and of course I usually don’t have the opportunity of hearing what it sounded like not bounced. But I think that most of the workstations these days do a really great job of bouncing without leaving a sonic footprint or very much of a sonic footprint. So I think that’s ok. It’s not uncommon to get a last minute stem to even put in and then have to mix in at the last minute and you’re bouncing again. I think you can usually get away with that pretty well. In terms of analog summing vs. working in the box, that’s such a subjective thing to my ears

and I’ve certainly been given here’s the digital version, here’s the version where we ran it through the summing bus.” And I’ve heard some summing buses that make an improvement and some that don’t. And I’m sure it’s also dependent on the music and recording itself. So I think that’s sort of a personal creative decision to make.

And I don’t have an opinion as to which one is better. I think you just need to listen and see what works best for your recording.

I was reading about certain plants that don’t like to take masters that have negative tracks or tracks that are in-between tracks. Have you done that before and seen certain errors where it doesn’t work out?

I’ve certainly done that before. I’ve never had a manufacturing plant reject a master for that myself. And it should work just fine. I think having the hidden track before the start of the first track, the thing that you mentioned first where you queue up to the first track and the only way to find it is by hitting rewind, that’s outside of the Redbook spec. So some manufacturers don’t obviously like to see anything else out of the Redbook spec. But I believe most will make them. They probably don’t guarantee the same percentage of good disks that come out of manufacturing.

What about normalizing your mixing out?

Of course it depends on the software program and how the software handles normalizing. I don’t really have a problem with normalizing because it’s usually just a game function. So it’s just looking to find out where’s the peak of this file. Is it peaking at 0 already? Or is it peaking at -4? If it’s peaking at -4, we’re just going to boost the gain 4 dbs so the peak is at zero. So I have no problem with normalizing. But if you’re approaching your mixing like well, I’m going to print it at lower level and then normalize it, you might as well just print it, put the peaks already hitting at 0 and then again you’re using the full bit, that full resolution.

What are some of the standard things you do to process in terms of multi band, compression, limiting etc. And I’m particularly interested in the order of the signal flow, should the stereo spreader be before or after the limiter?

and how much limiting you do. And you want that limiter to keep you from going above zero so that you’re not printing a master with overs. So the limiters should always be at the end of any mastering change. The dither of course would come at the very, very end. But in terms of the process of EQ and compression and limiting, limiting would always come at the end. And then from there really honesty I think it’s what sounds right for what you’re doing in terms of whether you have some EQs before some compressors or vice versa. It’s kind of like experimenting and seeing what sounds best. But I usually find EQ somewhere near the beginning and limiting certainly at the end.

Producer’s Edge Thanks Mastering Agent Adam Ayan from Gateway Mastering for sharing his knowledge with the AES and our readers.

Please visit his website at gatewaymastering.com/ mastering_adamayan.asp

I would say virtually everything is going to come before the limiter. The limiter you’re going to want to have as the last thing in your chain because again you’re basically mastering everything right up to 0, but 0 is kind of relative now in terms of perceived loudness

Is there any way to do something like that at home?

I can’t think off the top of my head about a software program like say a [Roxio] Toast or Jam or . . . I don’t even know if Master List is still around. But I can’t think of any programs that would do it. The old Sonic Solution systems won’t do it. I know my Pyramid system will. I think that because it’s outside the Redbook spec, a lot of software just won’t touch it. Though it’s possible to do it. And again with manufacturers, they may say well, we’re not going to tell you you’re going to have 90% good disks from this one. Maybe it will be 80% or something. I’ve done it before.

And I’ve never had a problem. I’ve never had a complaint about it.

51 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

VINTAGE SERIES: THE EMU SP-1200 REVISITED

I

t is hard to overstate the impact that the SP-1200 has had on hip-hop production. It has inspired countless classic albums, it was THE go-to machine for a great many “Golden Era” legends and there is a good chance that if you make hip hop beats you owe at least a little bit of your style and/or a few of your tricks to this little Gray box. This edition of Vintage Series will explore the SP-1200 and its contributions to hip-hop production.

We will also examine how this piece might fit into the modern studio.

Finally we will address the tortuous rumors of an updated SP-1200 (usually known as the SP-1600 or SP-2400).

make it feel like a toy. Its sample “engine” offers 1.4 seconds of sample time at 9.38 kHz. It has no midi, no effects, and did I mention that its memory is volatile (i.e. your lose you work when you turn it off). Moving right along, you have the Sequential Circuits 440. Now we are talking. Its got a 12 bit, 8 voice sampler and a relatively full functioned sequencer. It will hold 50,000 notes across 8 tracks and has adjustable swing (50 - 75%). To top is all off it has a SCSI port so you can transfer data between machines. You are sold, right? Wrong! It only has 512kb of memory and it costs 5 grand! Besides, you just heard that Sequential Circuits is about to go bankrupt so why hitch to a sinking ship? Finally, the Emu SP12 looks nice but even the turbo model only has 5 seconds of sample time and the even though you have heard great things about the sequencer and you have a feeling those 5.25 disks are on the way out, so no thanks.

Pre-History First, let’s set the stage. It’s the summer 1987 and if you make beats there are not a lot of options if you want to build sample based tracks. You have the uber expensive and hard to find Farilight CMI series but they are incredibly bulky and you don’t have Peter Gabriel money so forget that.

The Casio SK-1 is at the other end of the spectrum but its specifications

Enter the SP-1200! <Cue Dramatic String Sample> Its game over! This beast has 10 seconds of 12 bit sample time at 26,040hz (albeit in 4 chunks of 2.5 seconds), 32 user sample slots, a flexible 5000 note sequencer with input quantization, midi in/out/thru connections, smpte sync, analog filters, and 8 individual ¼ inch outputs so you can break things out on a mixing board. To top it off you can save everything to 3.5 floppies! Now you have a self-contained way to sample, sequence, mix and save your tracks. Then you realize this thing is just small enough to take with you just about anywhere which means you will

52 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Video: Overview and Samples

BY SEAN MARU

be that much more productive (no pun intended). You can work on beats whenever you have spare time (and a few records) and you won’t have to deal with a lot of bulky equipment.

Having an essentially mobile studio means you can track, collaborate or perform he with more people in more places. The possibilities of are endless.

T

allows you to quickly set sequence tempo or input notes automatically at the currently selected quantization value.

You also get 8 sliders that can be used for data entry in various edits.

decades ago. Its thoughtful design and hands-on approach made it easy for producers to put down ideas quickly and that rawness was evident in the music that resulted.

Sampling

history of hip-hop is often the history

As we said, we are only talking 4 banks of artists doing a lot with very little. 2.5 seconds so you will have to plan carefully Don’t have a canvas? Find a train. Don’t have a to make the most of this Not so Fast! <Cue sound beast. Most of us by now of a needle being brutally drum set? Use Dad’s record collection. As we are aware of the trick removed from a record> of playing the record at Not so fast you say. will see, the SP-1200 embodies this concept 45rpm and detuning the sample at playback. Well, It is almost 2008 and this machine (along with your phone has more completely and it does it with style. the original SP12), were memory than this thing! the initial inspirations for that technique.

Their function changes depending And just about any recent computer By playing the record faster, you could upon which mode you are in. You has enough horsepower to provide a sample longer phrases and make better can use them to control the pitch, virtually unlimited number of tracks, use of your meager sample time. Do volume, decay or loop point of selected many Gigabytes of storage and a sea you remember what I said about doing sounds. They are especially handy in of effects to choose from that Magellan less with more? An added benefit wouldn’t cross. Okay so maybe is that when you pitch the sample endless is a little strong. The back down to regular speed the SP-1200 was a great update but interpolation that takes place often it still had plenty of limitations. yields pleasing results. An almost However, there is something to ring modulation-like artifacts color be learned from this machine and the sample. the producers who mastered it.

That something is the art of “less The SP-1200 does not allow for is more”. The history of hip-hop extreme precision when editing is often the history of artists doing samples. When adjusting sample a lot with very little. Don’t have a start points, for instance, you will canvas? Find a train. Don’t have find that the smallest adjustment a drum set? Use Dad’s record you will be able to make will be collection. As we will see, the about 25 samples. The upside for SP-1200 embodies this concept some styles is that this can prevent completely and it does it with you from sucking the soul out of style.

In-Use <cue the smell of a dusty your beat by being too “on”. One man’s truncation/loop mode. Sliders 1 and 2 record sleeve> slop is another man’s funk. Additional controls control sample start points. limitations include the omission of Slider 1 is coarse adjustment and things we take for granted today, like slider 2 is fine adjustment.

Sliders 3 Lay of the Land time-stretch. On the SP-1200 there and 4 control sample end points.

As The SP-1200 is a very hands-on isn’t any. Also, the pitch adjustment you may be able to guess slider 3 is for machine. You get 8 buttons that are allows you to only tune in semitones, coarse adjustment and slider 4 is for used to select sounds for editing and as opposed to cents, so matching fine adjustment. Sliders 5 and 6 give also to trigger sounds when sequencing. samples require a good ear and a little control over coarse and fine loop point The bank select button lets you step luck. The multi-pitch feature allows adjustment, respectively. The sliders through each of the 4 available banks you to pitch one sound across 8 pads can also be used to make edits while (A, B, C or D) providing quick access and each of those pads can be tuned sequencing. For example, you can also to all 32 user sounds. Other function independently. This allows you to play use slider 1 to adjust sequence tempo. buttons are dedicated for important your samples in different pitches and Overall, the user interface of the SPtasks. There’s also a global switch to come up with melodic/rhythmic phrases 1200 is very efficient, especially when toggle each trigger’s velocity sensitivity as you would on a traditional keyboard. considering it was designed over two on or off. The tap/note repeat button 53 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

The SP1600, SP2400 and Other Urban Legends

O

ver the years there has been much speculation about the possibility of a new generation of SP. These fantasies are not totally unfounded. For a time, there was talk at EMU about producing such a machine.

Rumor has it that the new machine would be called the SP1600 (or SP2400) and would, depending upon who you listen to, would utilize the 16-bit sampling engine from either the Emax II or the ESI-32 samplers or even a new 24 bit sampling engine. Sadly, the project was supposedly killed because Emu felt it was too much of a niche product. And so the story goes, one of the chief architects of the new SP project jumped ship and went on to produce another sampling drum machine you might have heard of: the AKAI MPC 2000. Ouch. To make a long story short, it is highly unlikely that we will see a hardware update of the SP-1200.

As an example, you can have one pad trigger the sample at original pitch, one at the fifth interval above or below original, and maybe one at the third interval. This can be very useful for creating basslines, etc.

Sequencing

Sequencing on the SP-1200 generally involves recording a handful of segments and then chaining them together in song mode. While building segments you can save time by using auto correct to align hits to a selected value (1/8, 1/16, etc.). After your parts are laid you can add swing at the desired value. They are entered in terms of percentages. In case you are wondering WHICH percentage is the key to achieving perfect bounce, don’t ask. Just feel it out for the song at hand. If you are interested in gross generalizations, then think of the highest percentages as more “Jazzy” and the lower settings as more “rockish”.

Right in the middle is hip hop territory. It is important to note that many get great results from not quantizing or adding swing at all. Find your own path Grasshoppa! Experimentation is the key and it lead to one of the most widely use tricks in hip-hop, namely the double tempo trick. That is if you are working on a beat that is 90bpm, simply set the tempo on the SP to 180bpm. This effectively doubles the sequencers resolution, giving you twice as many places to put your hits.

It allows for more nuanced patterns and enhances other programming tricks like ghost notes, etc.

Other sequencer features include the ability to erase notes on the fly which greatly speeds things along. The note

repeat button can also be useful for drum rolls or for laying down a quick hi hat line. As you assemble your segments you can save additional time by copying or appending them to each other. Once you have created segments for your intro, verses, hooks, variations, etc. you are ready to chain them together in song mode. Song mode is essentially a list of segments.

You can specify how many times a segment repeats or you can insert/delete segments at will until your song is fleshed out.

While working you may need to make detailed edits that are tricky to do in real time with the note erase feature. In these situations, you will want to enter step edit mode. In this mode you can move through each note in the segment and insert or delete as desired. Think of it as microscope mode where you can slow things down and find that flam or that bum hit and fix it.

Fast Forward to 2007

So the SP-1200 was a very capable machine in its day and it enjoyed a pretty good run until it was finally discontinued in 1998. The question that remains is how it fits into a modern studio. First of all, the SP-1200 could be a killer tone module. Its 12 bit sound and warm analog filters can be a nice color to have on the palette.

Before you even bring up the cute little sample rate conversion provided by your DAW, just stop. It is not the same. Sorry. As for the filters, you buy a nice hardware filter module but it won’t be cheap and it will do only one thing, unlike the SP. Next, the sequencer makes the SP-1200 a valuable addition to most studios. Even if

54 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

you don’t buy into the hype surrounding its “magical swing”, this machine is still one of the fastest ways to set a tempo, bang out a beat and hook up a song mode. Right click that. Really the whole package is a great first draft engine. You can throw on records, hook up quick ideas and if you want to get really surgical you can send dump the midi and/or audio to your DAW and enjoy the best of both worlds.

Finally, there is an intangible reason to include the SP-1200 in your arsenal.

It is hip-hop history. It is hard not to be inspired by a machine that spawned so many great ideas.

Final Thoughts On paper, its specifications are not impressive by today’s standards, you get very little sample time, a relatively primitive sequencer and your storage options are limited. Nevertheless, the SP-1200 still draws high bids on eBay (about 1300 as of September 2007) and has the respect and admiration of producers young and old school. The enduring fascination with this machine is one part idol worship, one part nostalgia for the Golden Era sound, and one part appreciation for its “do a lot with a little” personality.

SP 1200 Production Timeline 1987

1990

1993

1998

|------------------|---------------------------|---------------------------------------| SP-1200

Original

Reissued (Black Version)

Final batch of SP-

Launched

SP-1200 discontinued

w/updated electronics to meet

(Partly due to limited

regulatory standards

1200s produced

Availability of SSM Chips)

Pros: •Grimy 12 bit sound that CANNOT be achieved by sample rate reduction

Summary of Specifications Sample Memory 10 seconds at 26,040 Hz in four 2.5-second blocks (12bit linear resolution)

•Hands on feel (Sliders can be used for mixing, tuning and editing functions.)

Filters:

•Flexible sequencing and input quantization

Sequence capacity

•Limited sample time-forces you to be creative

SSM Analog Filters 5000 notes minimum (depending on density of parts)

•8 mono outputs for mixing flexibility

Patterns (referred to in the manual as “segments”) 100

Cons:

Songs 100

•Very pricy (still) •Limited sample time forces you to need additional gear for some ideas •Discontinued and thus parts and repair options are limited Pioneers and Masters: Pete Rock, The Bomb Squad, Large Professor, DJ Muggs, Marley Marl, Da BeatMinerz, Lord Finesse, Pharaoh Monch (Organized Konfusion), etc.

Hear it in Action: Pete Rock & CL Smooth “Mecca & The Soul Brother” (1992), Cypress Hill “Cypress Hill” (1991), Public enemy “It takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988), Organized Konfusion “Extinction Agenda” (1994), etc.

Fun Facts: •The SP-1200 was the first sampling drum machine with integrated floppy. This encouraged use of it as a portable studio.

Tempo Range 40-240 BPM Auto correct with values of: 8th note, 8th triplet, 16th note, 16th Triplet, 32nd note, 32nd triplet and high resolution mode Outputs Mono mix Individual channels, (eight, programmable. tip = unfiltered. ring - filtered). MIDI out. MIDI thru, SMPTE, Metronome/Clock Inputs Sample, MIDI, SMPTE/Sync, Footswitches (3) Interface MIDI, SMPTE, 24 pqn clock Data and Sound Storage 3.5” floppy diskette

•The longest run product in Emu history •One of the first drum machines to utilize smpte synchronization

Optional accessories Additional sound library diskettes, footswitches

Vintage Series

45. I like my stuff to sound round and warm like that.

Artist Connection

Let’s talk about your record digging process. What kind of samples are you attracted to and why is that?

E-MU SP-1200

Producer

Easy Moe Bee

P

roducer and PE writer Sean Maru gave us a list of producers he wanted connected with the SP1200 VS article. Easy Moe Bee was at the top so we got at him.

Simple as that. We begin with the placement that lands the gear... instead of the other way around!

Easy Moe Bee: We gained another victory in “Calling Mr. Welfare”, but I actually did it on somebody else’s equipment. And the money that I earned from that, back then, that wasn’t a whole of money, but it was the first money that I ever received. He gave me $1500 a track, so that is $3000.

And that went straight to buying the SP? Straight to the SP. I bought that first SP1200 when we were recording with him on the It’s A Big Daddy Thing album, we did that at a studio called Libra Digital. I do not even know if it still exists in Astoria, Queens.They were done on a Synclavia.

Going back that far? Was it just sitting there in the studio or you actually know it was going to be the tool?

I bought all my records and all of my sounds to the studio. I had my little pad laid out with all of the sounds that I wanted to sample, whether it was kick and snare, or loops, little pieces, or

whatever, and we did it that way. As a matter of fact, I was right there. I watched them do “Smooth Operator.”

“Smooth Operator” was done on the Synclavia too. Then I am sitting there and I am watching the whole process of keyboard sampling. I already had it in my mind this is the machine I wanted.

I was just saying to myself “Wow; this is the process of keyboard sampling.

What is it going to be like sampling on the SP1200?”

So how did that process hold up in the age of the MPC and the ASR-10?

How did that still remain a tool?

I bought the SP1200 a couple of months into ’89. The SP1200 was still a really popular machine. I understand what you are saying with the MPC that came along and everything, and a lot of other people gravitated, but I don’t know, there is something about the 1200 that I was stuck on. Probably still to this day, it is the sound that I keep implementing. That sound would be a comparison between analog and the first digital.

Was it also in the sequencing, the timing structure or just the raw sound you couldn’t get away from?

It was a nice clear sound but just not as crystally clear as the digital MP series that they were coming out with and everything. Like I said, the difference in the sound is probably between dropping the needle on an old 45 versus playing a CD. And if I had a choice of what my sound should be, I would rather it be the nice, full body sound of dropping the needle to an old

56 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

I love guitars.

I love keyboards, sounds- like pad sounds from just about anything or anywhere.

Of course drums, I am really into the acoustic drum sound. But I will sample electronic drum sounds too. But I am really big on guitars. I still use a little bit of horns even though that might not be really popular but I still deal with them.

And I love any kind of futuristic sounds.

People got the best of that in “Flava in Your Ear” with Craig Mack.

When you are actually doing your digging process, do you have the catalogue in your head of what bands, what kind of instruments and what kind of sounds, or are you a record cover-type digger where if the cover looks interesting, you are going to scoop it?

Well, first of all I got a basement.

Just picture my basement. It is full of records. I have been collecting records since I was 8 years old, and some of the things that I loved as a kid in records are some of the same things that I love as an adult now. And when I buy a record, a lot of times, it can be an artist that I never even heard of. A lot of times, I buy albums by just the personnel alone.

Who played drums? Who played bass? When I see Harvey Mason is playing drums, Bob James is playing keyboards, Idris Muhammad is another alternate drummer on the album, and Leo van Doeselaar is playing organ, I think I need to have that album, you know what I mean? I will look just at the personnel alone.

A lot people buy records for different reasons. A lot of people are drawn into an album by the album cover. That gives me a lot but I have to read who the producer is and who the

personnel are. That usually gets me to pick an album out whether I know of it or not.

The personnel can almost tell me whether I need that album or not. And sure enough, like the kind of lineup that I just gave you, I will bring that kind of album home and I will play it, and sure enough, I will love it. And at that point, it becomes of use to me. There is something in there that I can do something with.

What shaped your producer’s ear?

What do you use when you are going with your sound design? What gave you your musical ear?

make that machine sing. I have played keyboards on it. I have arranged horn sections on the SP with full harmonies and everything.

Let us talk about the actual recording industry itself and your involvement there. You have been around quite some time and have been very prolific. What are your keys to survival?

Just keeping the love for the music. It all comes home for me and what I use musically, like you asked me before… what shapes my ear or what gets me going, what would start me off and get me to actually making a track, and I

Out of all the people that I have worked with, I have never worked with him. It is kind of hard to say because a lot of the people that I could work with, I might not be compatible with because my sound is not necessarily, how would you call it, a dirty, dirty sound?

It is the 808 sound. I have never really been big on that. In any type of tune, I like to hear acoustic kicks, the snares, drum sounds, and band samples. I like to hear real keyboards, pianos, horns, you know what I mean?

You are into real instrumentation.

Yes. So anybody out there right now in ’08 that is still cool with that, Easy Mo Bee can get with you.

What shapes my sound? A lot of everything that I do is based “...what pisses me off in this day Nice. Aside from the around the drums, but I do not 808, what else have you always have to start with the and age, you have younger people noticed as far as modern drums. Sometimes, it could be music is concerned? I a keyboard line. Sometimes, it who come into the business and they am not going to even could be a stab or something. I ask you about the will start to build from there and expect to be renowned as a hip hop poppy stuff that is on build drums around it, then I start the radio. I am going to decorate the beat, the same producer but yet, they have not done to say: the change in way you would a Christmas tree, the underground or you drape the bells and other any research.” what the most talented stuff around it and then you spitters are using for their backing find myself instead of moving forward, come with the tinsel. I am the same tracks now.

I keep going back to everything that I way with the tracks, but I have to get loved the most in the beginning. that first main groove going, you know Okay, one thing that I noticed about In other words, all the things and all what I mean? today’s current underground is that a of the records, all of the sounds, and lot of the underground artists are doing everything about music that originally Have you been impressed with what a lot of the mainstream artists influenced me to do this and come up keyboards at all? Oh yes. It is kind are doing. So it makes me wonder with the tracks that I did, that is the stuff of old now, it is like 10 years old, but I how much of the underground we still that I will make sure that I will continue have got a Kurzweil K2500. I still use actually do have. to listen to in my leisure time. a lot of sounds from there. There are

And do not get me wrong, sounds that I love that I have no idea there are still some classic genuine

The way I used to sample where it came from, and I just sample hip hop out there and what we will call drums, I still do it that way. The way them and do it all for records. the underground. But there are so I used to buy records and the types many people that are just trying to be of records that I used to buy, I just And built your own library? mainstream. There is a lot of following maintained that whole part about From the unit itself. A lot of times, you right now.

There is not enough it. Everybody has their own specific get a different effect if you hook your originality like it used to be. They are qualities. I have mine. I have what keyboard to your 1200 as opposed to like De La Soul versus the Big Daddy works for me and what I love. That is sampling that padded voice. And then Kane versus the Poor Righteous what makes me tick. once you get it into the machine, into Teachers versus the KRS-1 album or your SP1200, or if you use an MPC record. Each of the records that I just Who is it that you are looking to work and then you transpose it, then you said, each of the artists, and each of with now? Who are you looking at start copying, and key grouping it, and the producers for those albums, they right now as worthy of your music? creating harmonies. all had their own individual quality.

I have done things with the Right now, everybody mostly sound I would love to work with Common.

SP1200 that a lot of people have never the same, and I work hard not to try to Believe it or not, that never happened. ever done. Some people tell me I 57 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

get caught up in to that.

Take us back to the history of “Flava in Your Ear.” Take us back to the day that song was created?

Okay. I was still living in Brooklyn maybe about two years. I moved out from my mom’s house and out of the projects and got my own apartment. I woke up one day, and this is the honest truth, I remember it like the back of my hand, I woke up, walked over to the machine, clicked it on, and started playing some records. And I was not even dressed yet and did not even take a shower. I made “Flava in Your Ear.” I made that beat in my drawers.

Did you know? At what point did you know it was special?

While I was making it. A lot of producers talk about how long it takes them to make a track. I do not put a specific time on it. I have taken six hours and I have taken three days to do a beat.

Sometimes it is easy, sometimes it flows. I even close it off, come back, and do little more. I have taken three days to make a track until I finally get it where I want it to, and then there are some other things that happen in just 15 or 20 minutes. “Flava in Your Ear” happened in 15 or 20 minutes.

That was a pretty chaotic time, I am sure, working with Craig Mack, and you had the Biggie work that you were putting in. Was that probably the busiest and most hectic work schedule you have ever had?

Yes, it was man, I definitely would have to say that. Especially because of the work that I had done with Craig Mack and with Biggie. Yes, that was the start of what we would call the heyday.

Yes, it was real, real busy for me back then.

And how were you able to maintain focus? It was real busy, and I do not care how busy it gets still to this day.

The accountants can call me on the

phone. The lawyer can call me and need me to come down and sign this or do this or do that, and I would have to run around to meetings and play beats for people, but sanity for me is being able to play my records.

That is your relaxing time?

Yes, because you got to think, you only get to sample after you have the chance to listen. That is a big part of my recreational leisure time. It is listening to my records.

Let us go over to some actual audio processing. What kind of outboard are you using?

I know this is going to trip you out, but at home, in the studio, we had a bit more of a set-up. Of course, over there, we are using Pro Tools and stuff. But at home, you are not going to believe this. Okay…

I have my SP1200 to my Akai S950.

Right. My SP1200 goes into the line one of my DJ mixer....that’s it.

What? My DJ mixer. My 950 goes into the line two of my DJ mixer, and I basically sample sequence and just do a whole lot of programming. At home, I view home as the programming station. After that, after we drop it and track it, then I get all fancy and get into the whole engineering process.

But while I am making a track, I do not want to deal with anything but the actual sequencing, sampling, and programming part of it. I do not want anything else interrupting me. So you could say at home, what I am doing is a lot of dry sampling. But a lot of the dry sampling beats that I have done, people think they are better than some of the engineered stuff out there.

You think it lost something in translation on the mix board?

That is exactly what I am trying to tell you, it is what happens a lot of times.

You have a lot of these dudes who got a lot of the best of the latest equipment and then they are making beats, and while they are making beats, they keep chewing while they are making the track and all. I do not need any of that.

58 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

You give me my records or my sampler sources and what I am going to be sampling. I have my machines in front of me. I sample. I truncate. I loop or whatever. If necessary, I add keyboards to it. Everything is done dry. And then after that, then the engineering process starts. To me, if you cannot get it going on a dry level, it is not even going to be worth anything once you start engineering it.

So there is no computer in your setup at home?

“No computer. No mixing boards.

I know your magazine. This is good for your magazine. I know most of the people who ever knew Easy Mo Bee and my love for this music, they are gonna bug out for all of what they have. And that is right. No multi-mixing boards. No outboard gear of any kind. Straight, dry sampling.”

Let us talk about the S950 since that is a pretty popular combination.

Have you been using the filter section on the S950? Is that its primary role?

Oh yes. I used them much less than I used to, but I still do use them.

Filtering used to be a really big thing back in the early to the mid-90’s. A big shout to my man Lord Finesse, Large Professor, Pete Rock, and so many more, but those dudes, and Diamond D, These and the other producers are friends of mine, I respect their work. All of us together kind of popularized that whole filter thing.

What about Miles Davis in 1991?

Miles Davis’ album called Doo-Bop. Actually Miles Davis came to Russell Simmons and told him “I want to do some hip hop.” Russell referred Miles to Francesca Spero who was the manager for Rush Producers Management at that time. Russell had Rush Artist Management and in the end, Rush Producers Management.

Genius album, Words from the Genius on Cold Chillin’. I did 10 songs and my brother did four.

I was with Big Daddy Kane and then two years later, I am producing Miles Davis. I might have felt like I was doing it all, but in my mind, I still knew there was so much more to be done, and I am happy that I was not a victim at that time of what they used to call the Grammy jinx.

He had a girl named Francesca Spero who was my manager at the time, and she took the call for Miles. She put together a reel of several different producers under the management over there and somehow, Miles gravitated towards me. We started recording on the album and just from the beginning, he declared that he wanted me to finish it and do the whole thing.

Miles Davis and Easy Moe Bee What did that do to you mentally to have that happen? Was that the end? Did you say “Okay, this is all I need to have done. My place in history is confirmed?” Did you feel there was still something beyond that? Is that a blessing?

There was so much more that I still could do. That is an interesting question that you asked because it happens like in the beginning of my career. You got to think in 1989, I just finished producing Big Daddy Kane.

The second biggest project after that was, me and my brother LG, we produced the entire pre-Wu Tang…The

I sample. I truncate. I loop or

on that record, like creating harmonies and all of that and everything, nobody has ever done that. Nobody. And I have heard a couple of copycats out there who try to do it but nobody does it like me. Do you know how that came about? That came about from working with what you have. That came from wanting and wishing that I had more but just working with what I got. In other words, I wanted people to always think that I had all these keyboards in my crib but I did whatever. If not.

necessary, I add keyboards to it. Everything

And when you get to the is done dry. And then after that, then the studio and you see how I do it, people engineering process starts. To me, if you cannot are like “What?

Wait a minute. get it going on a dry level, it is not even going to That beat that you have been playing all this time in the be worth anything once you start engineering. car… that is how you have made it? Everything is in tune at once?” And Because Miles Davis’ album, it they would look to me like “Dude, you won a Grammy for a Best R&B Jazz are crazy, man. How do you do that?”

Instrumental album. So after that happened, I was worried. Man, I Pretty amazing. Can we talk about hope I would not catch the Grammy The Lost Boyz for a second? jinx because most people who got a Grammy back then, they were finished Oh, okay. Let us talk about Jeeps, and done. Think Young MC, think Will Lex Coups, Bimaz & Benz. That was Smith, you know what I mean? supposed to be for Craig Mack but he…You are lying. Yes, he turned Let us go back to the keyboard it down. No...no..It is crazy. About a thing. Did you have formal music month ago, me and him talked about instruction? that too.

No. Everything I have ever done has He heard it over the phone and always been by ear. There is a special turned it down, or are you saying he process to the way I produce. With was there live and turned it down? the SP1200, I do something which, for years, I have called play samples.

No, live in person. I remember I played What I mean is harmonically in the the track for him, me and Aaron Ross. end, everything is in tune and it can He was at Uptown at that time, “Butt be a brand new creation. It does not Naked” Tim Dawg, me and him, we have to be a loop or original. What I were seriously trying to push that track mean is it is original but it is all in tune on Craig and he did not want it. harmonically. I form horn sections and form chords. If you listen back to Maybe he just did not feel like he the things that I have done, I will give had something for it. you an example, like Busta Rhymes’ The same thing with “Warning” on “Everything Remains Raw”.

Also, Notorious BIG, where I sampled Isaac the other record on that album, “It’s A Hayes’ “Walk on by.” That was made Party” featuring Zhané, if you listen to for Big Daddy Kane. I had made that the things that I was doing with vibes 59 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

for him not because he asked me to. I was like “Okay, this is for you.” He said “Play the next beat.” I said “Are you sure?” He said “Play the next beat.” I asked him one more time. I said “Yo, are you sure?”

He said “Yo man, just play the next beat” and I said “Alright, man”, and the next time he heard that beat, it was on Notorious BIG’s album.

your signature, why not just stay in that groove, and just flow with that movement?

Because at that time, I kind of liked being independent and being able

“I

would

love

to

be

remembered and recognized ... right now as one of the greatest producers to ever sample and make beats for hip hop and for rappers, because I know for a fact that I have not gotten all of my props like I should have.”

I remember hearing a lot about the production team behind Bad Boy and everything else, but I actually was not aware of how key your actual sound was when added into their mix?

Well actually, my sound was not added into their mixes. As far as the timing of releases on Bad Boy, you can call me one of the firsts. There were no Hit Men yet. The Hit Men concept came a little later towards the Life after Death Album. That was something they formulated. But in the beginning, something else a lot of people do not know is that I am the first producer that Biggie worked with in a real studio.

A lot of people also do not know that I did what was considered almost like half of that Ready To Die Album.

That is 6 songs. Hey, that is half of somebody’s album.

So let me ask, how do you walk away from that? Why not make that

to move around the way I did. Puffy approached me too. He had offered to manage me and I was managed by Francesca Spero at that time and I was like “Yo, what are you doing, man? I am already managed by her.” I told him and I said “Listen. Let me get back to you on that.” I think the problem was I never got back to him on that.

So to this day, I always wonder if he liked that or if he did not like that. But if you noticed, I did not have too many producer spots over there in Bad Boy after that.

Yes, I can see that would be a problem. Or it might have been a problem for him. There was something that he wanted that he did not get, and that was me. Nobody can deny that the Easy Mo Bee sound was like the foundation…the foundational structure of a sound at Bad Boy. My sound kind of defined the beginning, and I even watched how a lot of the work that The Hit Men were doing after, the stuff that was done in the beginning, was designed, and based around the work that I did. Yes. Do you notice when it comes to Bad Boy, I do not really get

60 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

talked about a lot, right?

No, that is why I did not know. I thought maybe… That is because I was not a Hit Man. So that did not sit well with them.

So what is it that you want then?

What do you want from this industry?

What I want is to be remembered, after it is all said and done…that I was a dude who cared so much about the music and everything that I did. Think about Curtis Mayfield. Curtis Mayfield was an artist, but he also was a producer. Now when you listen to the body of Curtis Mayfield’s work, it was uncompromised.

He stood for a certain something in his music, and every time, he embodied that. He put that across and that is what I am trying to do. I am happy that a lot of the stuff that I have done has sold gold or platinum or whatever, but at the end of the day, I want my body of work to be remembered as something that has some integrity to it. That is how I want to be remembered.

What do I want out of this industry? I would love to be remembered and recognized even currently right now as one of the greatest producers to ever sample and make beats for hip hop and for rappers, because I know for a fact that I have not gotten all of my props like I should have.

What does make me proud though is there are a lot of technical parts in the process of how I made tracks. When I look to date, there are a lot of people that do what I did, and it only could happen because I did it first, you know?

Alright, can you give us a gem for that up-and-coming producer, the guy who is still working it out, trying to find his sound, and trying to find his way?

I would tell any producer that is upand-coming and that is trying to find his sound…first I would ask him, if I had a one-on-one with him, I would ask him what kind of music does he love, because maybe he does not want to be a hip hop producer. Or for the

music that you love, do the research on it. Study it. If it is rock, you know what I am saying? Study it.

If it is hip hop, first of all, this is what pisses me off in this day and age, you have younger people who come into the business and they expect to be renowned as a hip hop producer but yet, they have not done any research.

When it comes to hip hop, it is almost like a class that you take up in college.

I have taken the personal time to experience and even still now, to go back and study the origins of not only the artist but producers. If you want to be a producer, study the origin of the producer.

If you are in hip hop and if you consider yourself a hip hop producer today, even regardless of your age, there is no reason why you do not know who Herbie â&#x20AC;&#x153;Luv Bugâ&#x20AC;?, Howie Tee, Marley Marl are? Jazzy Jay, one of the premier early hip hop producers, was more like a teacher. If you call yourself a producer, it does not make sense that you do not know who Norman Whitfield, Bob James, Curtis Mayfield, and people like that are. Want to be a producer? Study the origin of the producer, especially in the genre that you are doing.

Marley Marl is my mentor. I eventually got the chance to meet him, but before I got the chance to meet him, I knew everything about this man, to where he lived, the type of records that he loved and that he sampled, everybody that he had worked with, and the equipment that he used.

You got to do your home work and you got to study. A lot of people look at DJ Jazzy Jay as just DJ Jazzy Jay. No. If you did your homework, you would find out that Jazzy Jay was one of the earlier premier hip hop producers of our time. [pauses and gets lost in this thoughts...] I wonder how many producers out there, besides myself, are still using the SP1200.

Let Easy Mo Bee know by checking him out at www.easymobee.com

iStandard Producer Showcase Beast of The Beats.

Video of top producers!

Words by Drew Spence

I

n our previous issue we detailed the largest producer showcase created

by Don Di Napoli & J Hatch. This ongoing series culminated in one night

where 40 of the previous event winners gathered to display their talent in front of a discerning judge panel including Just Blaze, Lenny S (Senior V.P. of A&R Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam), RIGGS MORALES- (Senior Director of Shady Records) and Buckshot (Legendary MC from Black Moon / CoFounder of Duck Down Records).

NYC Stand Up lub T-NY was packed with producers, industry personalities, supporters, media and fans of good music. Many factors separate the iStandard from the many producer battles and open mic styles showcases.

Firstly, it is organized and run well by professionals and never has that hustle angle you feel at so many industry themed events. The opportunities are real for exposing your music and making those vital connections to advance your career. The right person at the right time is in attendance since getting new music is the point of being there. Atlantic, G-Unit, Shady Records, Def Jam, Duck Down, SRC and others were in the house and collecting packages. The pedigree and talent pool they pull their judges from is unquestionable. For Beast of the Beats, Just Blaze represented the Producer’s Producer while Lenny S gave us the A&R aspect with Buckshot weighing in as an MC. The criticism and level of analysis was sharp [and even harsh] as samples were named, tracks were dissected, production tools and techniques exposed and the chances of a meaningful placement projected.

It was the type of authoritative honesty every producer could use…an invaluable critique of where you stand in a professional context.

C

Standing Room Only What’s the point of all this producin’ if it aint about the spit? In-between producer showcase segments the crowd was

treated to performances by Saigon, Sha Stimuli , Big Lou, Fred Da Godson and Sic Osyrus. Mike Acosta from Roland USA was on hand showing and giving demos of the new MV 8800 and Juno-G – these were prize packages along with software from Ableton. 40 different producers displaying 3 tracks each gave us an early listen to what that next sound might be. 1st Place went to The Applejuice Kid. 2nd to G.I Joe and 3rd Place to P.Riot.

gain a placement. It’s about credibility and building enough trust with an artist or label to become a valued opinion and a source of direction. So much falls on the shoulders of the music man.

You’re expected to bring early interest and buzz by being associated with the project. Your creativity is leaned on to bring an artist back into mainstream consciousness by building on their past and reinventing them for the future. It’s the tricky task of growing and here are no excuses to hide behind. No extending a fan base while satisfying work in progress or under construction the hardcore supporters.

If signs you can throw up just in case your the project stalls or flops much of art is not appreciated. the blame will be passed on to you. “It was the beats!”

What Do You Stand For? It’s never what the artist, whose face What’s more important than winning is on the album cover and voice you or losing is showing up and displaying hear selling the complete product, did your talent. There is a bold statement or didn’t do. You’ll be the first to invest about confidence in your work and a in your career and many times the last mark of quality since you have won to be compensated. You will face this during the previous year. It takes uphill climb with only your beats and something special to stand on a stage imagination. Right now it’s cool to be naked before an audience more a producer. Instant props for having knowledgeable than most. There are the potential to create the backdrop no excuses to hide behind. No work in for an artists’ life story, an anthem progress or under construction signs for the masses or a killer to style on. you can throw up just in case your art is It’s an incredible journey from where not appreciated. Producers have been you are to where you want to be. The the pones to stand in the shadow and iStandard Producer Showcase is an let their music speak for them. In this excellent path that will shorten the trip. most recent age of the producer being Congratulations to everyone with that the star- the engaging personality of the something extra who participated. producer does much to seal a deal or

T

62 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

40 Producers from all over the world...

Almost 1000 beat fanatics in one club...

A Judge panel of JUST BLAZE, LENNY S., RIGGS MORALES, & BUCKSHOT...ONE “BEAST of the BEATS” CROWNED!!!

Congratulations to THE APPLE JUICE KID!!!

The highly anticipated “BEAST of the BEATS” event will go down in history as a “gut check” for anyone trying to break into the world of production. There was a common theme heard throughout the night from our judge panel: “I’ve heard that before”. Granted, there was an over abundance of talent in the building, but one person brought something COMPLETELY NEW, INVIGORATING, & CREATIVE to the table, and his name is THE APPLE JUICE KID. He presented us all with an intoxicating blend of live drums & percussion, booty shakin’ bass, and unmatched energy (both in his music AND presentation!!!)

Sounds like SWIZZ BEATZ, ?UEST LOVE, & DANGER MOUSE somehow had a child together and named him “AJK” !!!

D

rew Spence: Let’s talk about your production work in the studio. Are you playing live drums? Have you been experimenting with some of the electronic drum sets like the Roland V drums and stuff like that?

Apple Juice Kid: It’s a pretty simple process. I usually program a beat in Reason. And then I’ll throw in sampled or electronic drums, keyboard or samples. Then I’ll start recording live stuff. So, either I’ll record shakers and congas or drum sets for all real instruments. All my friends are musicians, so I’ll get a bass player to come over. I’ll get a keyboard and violin and start layering to the program sections.

Well, why not REWIRE Reason then?

I’ve seen it work. You know, I’m not totally comfortable with the rewiring process. I just found it easier to throw two-tracks in and not worry about multiple programs being open. That and Adobe Audition 1.5.

You are using Reason 3 now. Have you been messing with the Combinator and the Dr. Rex module? A little bit. Not as much with the Combinator as I want to. But, yeah, I like that a lot. I do use Dr. Rex occasionally. I think that along with most people who use Reason, I try to make it sound different. It sounds like Reason real easily if

you start using some of the loops or presets.

Well, Are you using any Refills?

Yeah. Well, I use some Refills. I use a lot of the standard sounds and then tweak them out. Or a lot of times I won’t use any Reason sounds at all. I’ll just use it as a trigger for other sounds that I’ve sampled off record.

That’s because you find the sequencer so easy to get around in? It’s honestly what I’m used to. If I had to advise other people if they were starting off, I would say use Fruity Loops. I think that‘s actually a better program than Reason for hip hop production but I’ve gotten so used to Reason. It’s just what I’m used to. A lot of the programs do the same stuff. Reason, to me, is too big a program; it takes too long to open and sometimes it’s a little slower than Fruity Loops.

What are you using hardware wise? I use a PreSonus Firepod as my sound card. To record, I either

use a Sure 58 for just percussion and I use Groove Tubes for vocals. I have a MicroKorg. I have a pretty simple setup to start making beats. My whole house is full of instruments from all over the world. That’s the hardware …Punjabi guitar from India or a Jambi from West Africa. I do have lots of percussion from Brazil. I made my living off being a drummer so I’ve been essentially a working musician. Actually, one bit of news is I just played on a record for Timbaland. Just last week, I went to New York and was a session drummer on Keri Hilson’s new single. Dre McKenzie at G Unit hooked that up. He heard they needed someone and called me. It all happened within a single day.

Let’s talk a little bit about your contest winning. I mean you’ve been on quite a tear winning just about everything you’ve entered. What does that mean to you, confidence

63 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

something new. For me, by combining try to come out differently…This beat wise, as a producer going in and Nirvana with Swizz beats…that’s a will make me sound way different than taking these meetings or better yet, new sound that could propel music. anything else out there and that will get what does it mean if they don’t give I’m really interested in finding a cutting me attention.” you that placement in light of all that edge or an original and unique way to effort and achievement? bring music into the future The contests just allowed for me to have my foot in the I just picture a crowd going crazy to what I’m making. and not just recycle some stuff from the past. door. I don’t think winning the contest in no way If I’m making a beat for a beat battle, that’s the only You’ve assembled a means that you are going to get a placement. I never thing on my mind. It’s really like winning over the crowd pretty impressive line up of about six or seven realized the whole process of getting placements until just trying to think of drops and intros and breaks tracks which have been bringing you victory after this past year and a half. It was just my creative way of that would just get the crowd, you know, going wild. victory. Do you feel any pressure to top yourself getting a buzz on my name going forward? so I could get meetings. So, yeah, that’s how I make beats for a beat battle.

Once you get in the door The pressure I have of the record label you’re right now is to get my music in the Knowing that the producer’s almost in a beat battle again because marketplace; to get a commercial personality has almost become as you only have so many songs you can release. I don’t really have that important as the rapper’s image, play for them. You have to think real pressure in my mind of winning another where do you get the confidence quick about what they are looking for beat battle or trying to top the last beat. to still be yourself? You are not out and try to give them what they want Really my concentration is writing there with any sort of image that fits like when you are trying to win over a songs or writing hits and taking that the demographic. You are not what crowd or judges in a beat battle. There beat battle energy and channeling it into people expect to see when they are a lot of strategies once you go into something that’s viable for commercial hear your music. You are actually the meetings at the label. appeal. That’s the pressure I’m feeling an authentic white guy who is not right now. acting like a black guy.

Take a look at your unique position because you do have a unique And how are you able to wear Race and politics have been a real sound and yet- you are competing multiple hats? You are in a band but interest of mine from my beginning with people who are coming in you also have your own budding years in high school. It’s always with standardized music. Do you solo career. How are you finding fascinated me. I am really aware. I was have that feeling inside like, “You time to focus on both? And how are brought up around Jazz music so I’ve know, man, I should have just made your band mates reacting to this learned about the history of music in something a bit more normal sounding” new-found surge of popularity?

America and around the world. And I’m or do you feel like you have that ace Well, there are a couple of bands. highly aware that white people have in the hole that once you finally do There’s Freebass 808 which is with basically taken black musical ideas as find that team willing to get behind Suede and that’s a band. And, you their own for great profit. Bee Bop is you that you could really make a know, he has his career with Camp a great example. Bee Bop in the ‘50s change in the sound of modern Lo. Both of our careers are helping the was kind of like Hip Hop where you music? group that we’ve developed together. would never think Bee Bop would be The other group I have is called The played in fancy restaurants but now it That’s a great question. I have been Remix Project. And that’s a band with is, mostly by white people. I am trying tempted to make music according to five other musicians and I can’t say to come at a [predominantly] black the standard of what is happening in there’s any conflict. Everyone is real musical art form which is Hip Hop [as the game right now. But I really do want thrilled because any success is only a Rappers tradition] in an extremely to change the face of music and bring going to propel the other projects I’m respectful way where I’m just trying to an original style to it. I continue to make involved with. I don’t feel like anything add to the genre and not steal it and the type of beats I think are creatively is working against each other. If not recognize it’s roots or where it amazing. I haven’t attempted to mold anything, everything is helping. came from or my influences and how I some stuff for certain artists. I wouldn’t got to where I got. If you take race out normally think about making my music What is your business team set of it the way music in generally goes a little simpler …but I haven’t; I am up like? Who do you take into forward is by combining things that going down that route and waiting for meetings? Who are you getting to have come before and then making the right artist to say Okay. I’m going to 64 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

pitch in the meetings for you?

It’s gone through a transition. I definitely have to say that I was with Relentless Management which I’m sure most of you know, if you read PE magazine, are familiar with. So, Tony Perez [issue 01] and Tiffany Jay managed me when I first got in the industry. They’ve managed me for probably six to eight months. And they were a huge reason for me getting my foot in the door as far as record labels are concerned. They did an incredible job. I am not with them anymore. So now it’s been a couple of months I’m actually fielding offers. As a producer I’m on my own right now.

I’ve made a lot of connections within the industry. And there’s Prototype or I Standard [Producer Showcase] and Dynamic Producer. All good support systems for me while I’m not with management. As far as Freebase 808, we have a company called Quest Tone who is helping us get our music out there and shop it around trying to find that right situation for us.

How does a situation like Relentless dissolve then? Basically, they have a lot of producers on their roster.

Someone like myself; a new producer, if I don’t get a placement … after a good period of time, I guess six months or close to a year then it’s up to them to decide. Do we want to let this person go? Essentially that’s what happens.

And I mean I can honestly say I’m still in contact with Tony and Raj Jadeja [also a manager]. I still submit stuff to them and they’re still really supportive of my career. It’s just not the exclusive management situation like it once was.

What’s next for the upcoming year?

I have some releases for the Apple Juice Kid. I have the Miles Davis Remix album. I’ve taken Miles Davis samples and made a whole soundtrack out of his career in music. That project has YahZarah who is now called Purple Saint James. She’s on that project.

She is a real talented artist that I’ve worked with a lot. I’m also looking for management situations that might fit more perfectly. So, I’m wide open.

Freebass 808 is huge priority for me. We probably recorded two albums. With

all that material, we are just looking for the right place to commercially release it. Suede and I have also developed a company called La Universe. And we have several acts including Rare Formula that we are going to be releasing. Life is extremely busy and good and I have no complaints.

Do you think entering all these contests has affected your workflow or your aims in production? What you are trying to accomplish when you are in the studio? Are you cognizant when you make your tracks like I want this one to be a dazzler that can win me something or overshadow someone else’s production? Or are you sort of just going along and picking out what sounds best for the event?

Don Di Napoli, Applejuice Mike Acosta from Roland and J-Hatch I started making beats because I wanted to enter a beat battle. It’s how my mind is set before the workout.

I just picture a crowd going crazy to what I’m making. If I’m making a beat for a beat battle, that’s the only thing on my mind. It’s really like winning over the crowd... just trying to think of drops and intros and breaks that would just get the crowd, you know, going wild.

So, yeah, that’s how I make beats for a beat battle.

What was your experience like at the Beast of the Beats? Actually, being there on stage and pulling that off?

be there with the forty other people that have previously won. I was competing and the level of talent was unbelievable.

I was very shocked that I won; I wasn’t expecting to win. I just went up there and tried to be completely silly and crazy as I normally do and just have a lot of fun with it. I had met with Riggs before and I’m a huge fan of Just Blaze.

For him to have said that he’s heard my stuff before on YouTube was a surprise for me. Don Di Napoli and J Hatch have been extremely instrumental in my career by providing opportunities.

It felt amazing to win.

Leave us a gem for that new producer who is sitting at home thinking about entering one of these contests to forward his career.

I would say I’ve studied as much as I can about how people have made it or gotten their start like 9th Wonder remixing Nas [God’s Son as God’s Stepson] or Danger Mouse, doing the Grey Album.

I set in my mind that the beat battle was going to be the way that I’d get my name heard. I would say the beat battle is an extremely new, fresh way to get exposed in this industry. And even if you don’t win, the networking opportunities are amazing and just the inspiration you get from seeing everyone else would only propel you to be better.

All the producers I’ve met have been extremely supportive of me. It’s an incredible atmosphere to be around.

I was terrible when I first started the beat battles. I got basically booed off the stage. But it was just seeing other people showcase their beats that inspired me to go back and work even harder. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to Producer’s Edge. Applejuicekid. com, freebase808.com

That was incredible. It was an honor to 65 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Will canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t help it must...make...beat

Sound Series: Loops & Samples

Find the right music content every time.

Fast, easy, and 100% royalty-free.

When you need music and audio content, you want to cut through the clutter and locate unique materials that won’t blow your budget. The Sony® Sound Series catalog contains over 125 royalty-free content libraries—from single instrument titles and song construction kits to exclusive sound effects and our groundbreaking Artist Integrated™ series of fully synchronized libraries. Our sounds are expertly organized so you can find what you need—fast. Our legendary pitch-shifting and time-stretching metadata has made ACIDized® loops an industry standard that is supported by most music creation applications. Sony Sound Series loops can be imported into any program that supports the .wav file format.

To audition and purchase Sony Sound Series loops or locate a dealer near you, go to www.sony.com/loops.

Copyright © 2007. Sony Creative Software Inc. All rights reserved.

SONY CREATIVE SONY

. Say the word and images of high-end and high quality electronics come to mind. For some of you, it will be SONY Pictures (We Own The Night, 30 Days Of Night, Spiderman 3) or Television (Jeopardy 2 and Boondocks). SONY has taken up root in the software world with video: Vegas and Cinescore, DVD Architect. And done as well for audio: Acid, Sound Forge and CD Architect. Hey, remember when every rapper needed his package done now, although he’ll gladly pay you on Tuesday because he has a meeting with SONY (BMG)? Sorry, flashback. The SONY tree has a branch just low enough for you to pick its fruit- early. SONY Creative is interested in loading your studio with quality soundscapes, loops and kits. We chopped it up with Sound Development Manager Mike Scheibinger and Senior Media Developer Richard Thomas from SONY Creative Software.

What history lead to Sony Creative Software’s loop library series?

Mike Scheibinger: We started out as Sonic Foundry. It’s a Madison, Wisconsin company. I think they went public in about 1997 or 1998. And right about that time, that’s when they came out with the first version of ACID, which really did rock the music software industry, especially in the PC world because there just wasn’t a whole lot of software out there for PCs. Well, ACID is known for the way it can manipulate the loops but that was sort of unheard of before then.

Why was that the chosen direction?

Who figured that?

Mike:The direction wasn’t really just about ACID, it was about getting the PC up to speed as a viable platform to make music on. Sound Forge and ACID did a lot to help bring the PC to the party. PC users had been waiting for something like Sound Forge for years. ACID was just a huge surprise for everyone. Using ACID was a jawdropping experience for a pretty long time after it came out. Years.

What about the MIDI connection with ACID as compared to the other main sequencers like a Cubase or SONAR? Mike: When ACID first came out, it didn’t have any MIDI functionality at all.

Now ACID Pro is a full-fledged DAW

with complete MIDI functionality that can stand up against any DAW. You have all the functionality that made ACID famous, plus multi-channel simultaneous recording like any other DAW. Everyone is very aware of the Vegas product. Now, why would you think that the drum loop category would be so popular or so powerful in mainstream music today?

Mike: Loop lovers - that’s where the sample libraries go. I think you know the basic drum loop is your foundation.

I mean, when you’re building rhythmic music you start with beats. We’ve always had really good luck with our drum loop libraries. Everyone needs good drum loops. You can never have enough of them. So putting out drum loop libraries has always been a kind of an easy decision for us.

What about one of your latest titles, Diamond Cuts?

Mike: Yeah, Diamond Cuts. That’s more than just a drum loop library.

That’s a complete construction kit. You can make full pieces of music with that.

So it’s not just drums, it’s everything you need to make finished music.

Who on the product development side is keen enough to have that understanding to really break down your libraries in extremely specific genres? I’ve never seen another company go into this much detail as, let’s say, West Coast or UK garage where it’s really, specifically aimed at a particular subgenre.

Richard Thomas: I think that comes from having Mike and I being music fans first and foremost.

Mike: Yeah, between Richard and I, we have decades of obsessive musical train-spotting experience. I’m a little bit older than Richard, and so between the two of us, there’s not much music that gets by that we don’t know about. Sure, we’re into all these deep subgenres of dance music, electronica, IDM, glitch microbeats, you name it. We know the best sounds of what’s out there. We’ve got all the bases covered and truly have an understanding of what the market will be into.

Let’s talk about the title Underground Soundlab. Now, when I first heard of that title, I pretty much thought it was a marketing ploy, because the word underground is such a key word and it has so many connotations to it. I said, “Oh boy, here comes Sony.

They’re going to cash in on the word underground, get all of us doing underground music to pick this title up and who knows what’s going to be on it.” But then you actually pulled it off. It works.

75 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

the sounds, then it’s all there for you.

Now one of the coolest things is when you start mixing all of these different production aesthetics from people all over the world and all these different studios, and you start laying the lo-fi on top of the hi-fi on top of the dry, and you start getting all these things going, you can come up with some amazing psychoacoustic properties in your mix.

Mike: The loop libraries, they kind of fly below the mainstream Sony radar. Now if you look at Sony’s music catalogue, I mean, all of the different labels that Sony Music owns, they own some pretty esoteric stuff. I mean Bob Dylan and Miles Davis. Talk about underground. Those guys were underground when they were coming up. We have a freedom to put out what we think sounds the best and we’re highly aware of the underground trends. We’re also aware that the people who use ACID are very much DIY kind of undergrounders themselves. And so we’re here to appeal to those people directly. So this library program will never sell out. We know what people want and they want this kind of stuff and so that’s what we’re bringing.

Why would you choose to go with some final processing? A lot of your material sounds great dropped into the sequencer and left alone. Why go in that direction as opposed to putting out really raw samples that would need a lot of coaxing into shape?

Mike: We have both. We have libraries that are really processed and produced and we have stuff that’s bone dry. We like to cater to musical preferences across the spectrum. It’s also about what you are as well. If you’re a music producer/engineer, you can bus out multi-track drums that are dry and then sit down, get busy and produce that way. If you’re a commercial producer and you want to make a clip, if you want to score a YouTube video or if you want something quick with full production embedded right in

that tape. So basically the reason processing is there on the loops is because that processing is expensive and you’re not going to get it yourself, not anywhere near it, unless you have a lot of money and a lot of studio to do it in.

In comparison to the Sony brand name which as far as electronics go and other appliances, it’s really, I have to say, maybe even at the top right now - how much trust do you put in the producer’s ear like a Lukecage in assembling this library, seeing he’s going to go under that same umbrella?

Mike: If it’s not good, we won’t put it out. Richard: Yeah. We go through a lengthy process where a developer will come to us with a certain amount of material. If Mike and I don’t like something, we’ll send it back and have them send another revision and another revision until it gets to the point where it’s matching the quality standards of

A lot of these people who are making our libraries use classic, traditional, ultra high end or antique, ultra expensive hardware processors. Just one of these processors alone costs ten times more than the computer that you build your music on. So you get the benefits of this super high end studio gear. When I went to Bill Laswell’s studio, I spent seventeen days in that studio fishing stuff out of one of his vaults. And behind me there was a wall six feet high and twentyfive feet long racked with processing gear of the highest order. You’re not going to get that anywhere else. You get a super high dollar sound without having to resort to doing it yourself.

DSP processing inside of a computer like what most home studio people use to compress and effect their sound has a long way to go before it gets to the point where the sound is as good as dedicated hardware stuff. It’s just a fact of life the same as you’ll never get, at least not yet, a sound in digital as authentic as running your sound on a 24-track Studer and saturating

76 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

everything else that we put out. A lot of these guys do multiple libraries for us.

Sometimes, just like anyone who’ll put out an album, the first one will be great but maybe the second one will slip a little bit. It’s our responsibility to go back and make sure not only are they bringing the stuff up to the level of the catalogue that we have, but keeping their own standards up as well.

Even Lukecage?

Mike: We’ve never had to send Lukecage back to the drawing board.

REX files on one of our libraries.

They’re not super necessary though.

ACID can read transients and chop loops into segments right inside the program.

Then there are some VSTi out there that can read our metadata and manipulate loop slices in real time.

AMG’s ONE VSTi comes to mind…

That guy is a monster. I mean whatever he puts out we just bring it and that’s it.

Richard: It’s funny, I just opened up a package right now of some brand new Lukecage stuff. The guy is prolific.

Mike: He has an incredible sound. It’s just the perfect mix between the sound of vinyl itself and blending that with the MPC. It’s astounding. It’s unbeatable.

Richard: He’s got a really interesting style where he brings in a lot of eastern stuff and a lot of stringed instrumentation, the kind that gives you that club vibe. But it’s not as dumbeddown as most club tracks. The style is a lot more thought-out.

Mike: Yeah. And there’s something else about Lukecage too - he knows music up through the decades.

There’s nothing he hasn’t heard of or referenced. And this guy, he’s the ultimate crate digger. I mean he knows soul music and funk music and knows how to put it together with the new technology, the MPC’s and all that, and get it blended up. He’s a musicologist.

Very nice. I got a question. What do you think about the REX format?

Mike: It’s great. We love it. We have

Okay. Here’s a tough question.

Because this is what goes on maybe in the lowest levels of the production arena which is maybe the forum where people will argue over using a library and what it means to you as a producer to actually use one of these drifts up in actual production. Meaning, you didn’t play the bass line. You actually pulled it off of an ACIDized loop. Maybe you didn’t even chop. Maybe you just used it straight in your record. What about the charge that these libraries are making it too easy for someone without talent and skill to get a free pass on parts of their production?

Richard: I think that’s twofold. You’ve got two different kinds of musicians I think that you’re looking at. On one side you’ve got people who work for film and television. Some of these guys have to turn stuff out on a dime, so things like loop libraries or products that we have like Cinescore really help them make music that’s sophisticated and doesn’t take too long to make. It sounds really good right out of the box.

That’s really attractive to people who are doing spots for film or commercials, or maybe DIY scoring or documentary films. It really works well for them. On the other hand, a lot of these guys will use loops as a starting point. I think loops help people put out ideas really quickly. They help to formulate stuff

in their minds. It’s a good jumping off point. Sometimes they’ll take that loop and they’ll play to it live in the studio. The loop will inspire them, get a specific kind of groove or specific tempo, and then they’ll say, “You know what, I like that but I’m going to go and make it myself in the studio.” So to answer your question, I don’t think it dumbs down the producer at all. I think what it does is it helps people who may not have the resources to put a drum kit in their garage because they live in an apartment complex, or can’t spend $6,000 on studio fees. It helps boost their creativity.

Mike: For me personally, I don’t attach any politics to this. I mean I look at two things: first of all, does the music sound good? And if it sounds good, it is good. Second of all, is the person having fun? Is he into it? Is the creative process working? Is he feeling creative? Does he feel like this stuff is feeding him something genuine? Then it’s all good. Those are the two most important things. And the other thing is kind of like a chicken-or-egg question: does music change technology or does technology change music? You look at ACID, you look at loops. ACID changed music. I mean we were partially responsible for whole rise of mash-up culture. Dangermouse made that moment with ACID. Richard: He did the Grey Album in ACID. He used ACID when he tracked and put together the Gorillaz record.

Mike: What is he going to say? “No, this is drag.” Or, “I feel like I’m not a real artist.” No. And you ask people, what do they think of this stuff? And I‘ve heard people actually say with all sincerity that this Dangermouse thing was one of the defining moments of 21st century music. This whole argument to me doesn’t have any value because when people do things with their music and they play it, it’s called ‘playing music’.

That’s why they say ‘play’ because it’s got to be fun. It’s got to be engaging.

And there are a lot of people out there who think that using ACID and loop libraries or any software program that

77 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

generates music that way is the most fun they’ve ever had doing art. And I listen to the music. It sounds good.

Now, on the opposite end of that, you’re actually being given credit especially the loop libraries, as saving sampling. As we dig deeper into the modern production world, sampling is taboo and everything is about original music. But you have all these producers who are still using the sampled chop, the sample rearranging, and the looping as the main focus of their production.

They’re stuck now with so many submissions saying, “We don’t want samples.” And they are now able to preserve their work flow by using these sample libraries of riffs, of bass lines, elements of music to continue working the same way they have in a modern, sample free production world. So on the opposite end now, you’re being charged with, “From now on the only samples we get to use in production are from your library.” So I guess moving forward, when are you going to address that new idea of your samples being the only ones able to be used on commercial projects?

Richard: I think as long as you have the ability to pull sound off the record, people will still sample. I think it’s our job to tap whatever is out there.

Conversely, if we have a great session drummer who feels like going into the studio and laying down some stuff and putting together a jazz or funk library for us, we’ll do that.

Mike: One thing that I always say to people, and I really believe is true based on what I’ve seen, is that whenever a certain genre of music comes up or when it gets invented, it never goes away. It’s there forever and there’s always somebody making that kind of music. There are people still making punk. There are people making hardcore techno. There are people making stuff that sounds like gabba, drum ‘n’ bass. It’s like once these genres come, they never go away.

They’re always there. Name a style of music and you can go out there and find an artist who just released a record of that kind of music last week. Now, there’s one other thing that occurs to me here. And this constantly amazes me - trends in music change but you can still take our loop libraries and use those loops and make music that fits the trend. So if the trend is for the kick drum to drop at a little different place, you can chop that loop up and drop that kick there. You can offset it. You can do things that make all of our content fit in with whatever the current trend is. So in that sense, loop libraries never go out of style. They never wear out. It’s like a guitar, you know. You pick up a guitar and you can play today’s music on it, whatever it is.

I know you have affiliations with the KOMPAKT player for some of your products but why are the drum loop libraries left standalone and don’t have any sort of software player for them, like they’re not coming bundled in some sort of ACID interface?

Mike: We’re growing fast. Look at all the different products that we have out - Vegas, ACID, Sound Forge, CD creation software, DVD creation software, media management software and more. And so the question is, where does VSTi development fit into this? We have Cinescore and Theme Pack libraries…Cinescore is something you’ve got to try. But as far as VSTi libraries go we just haven’t gone down that road because the other stuff we’re doing keeps us busy.

We completely understand the impact of this VSTi environment, how important it is that ACID is able to play friendly with all that stuff in addition to DSP processing sound cards and certain external hardware. So even though we’re not making these VSTi instruments, we’re still making sure that ACID conforms to the VST spec. And to this day, I really haven’t seen a DAW program out there that performs better with Native Instruments VSTi than

78 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

ACID. I think Native Instruments VSTi are probably the most sophisticated and best sounding instruments out there, granted there are a ton of them and a lot of them sound terrific. But a lot of them don’t have their own proprietary software interface. What they do is rent the software interface from Native.

So say for example, I’m a drummer and I’ve got a bunch of hits and I want to make a VSTi, I would go to Native Instruments and get access to their engine [KOMPAKT sample player] and put my sounds in that engine. ACID in conjunction with Native Instruments VSTi is one powerful combination. And it’s almost like you’re working inside one program because the interfaces do so well with each other and they don’t crash ACID.

I Like DAW programs. When a new product comes, I’ll get a box of it and throw it on my computer and play around with it and see how it works. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses. But when it comes to running with VSTi, especially the Native Instruments stuff, ACID is just rock solid. So that’s a beautiful thing.

Here’s a question about pricing.

Now, I’m sure you’re aware of what your contemporaries are doing.

Why are your products coming in at actually half the price of their product but the same content?

Mike: We just simply wanted to democratize music and that’s all there is to it. It has a lot to do with ACID. We wanted to put ACID and our loop libraries in the hands of everyone.

So you bring the price down into the range of affordability and you’re getting more music out there to the people.

We really mean that. When ACID came out we had this vision of ACID just becoming a household word. We make these ACIDized loop libraries available, very competitively priced so that people have an easy time getting started with a lot of loops. And also, we always include a huge content bundle on every new release of ACID. ACID Music Studio 7 has more than 3 gigs of content including a hundred different DLS instruments. And so yeah, I mean

make it cheap and put it out there and hopefully more people will come to play and make everybody happy.

Richard: Mike and I do a lot of research too. Every once in a while we’ll look and see what the competition is doing and we’ll pick up a bunch of pieces of content of theirs. I just got like a Brazilian library from someone, and some drum ‘n’ bass libraries. And we’ll go through them. We’ll look at them and we’ll see what they’re doing. Let’s say one of our competitors releases a hiphop library on two DVDs and they’re saying that there are 3 gigs of content.

[Uh-oh…] ...Well, it’s priced about the same, maybe a little bit more, let’s say we have 500 megs of content on ours, they have 3 gigs of content on theirs and the price difference is maybe they’re about twenty bucks more expensive. On the surface you look, “Wow! Well, for twenty more bucks I can get 3 gigs of content versus this amount of money getting only 500 megs.” But what I notice is when you crack open these boxes, it’s about 300, 400 or 500 megs of original content in six different formats.

I knew that was coming.

Richard: I look at it and go, [does excited voice] “Whoa! 3 gigs of Brazilian craziness. Let me get that.” And I look through and I listen, and I’m like, “Whoa! Okay. So it’s only 300 megs of original stuff.” You get 300 megs of REX files, which I can understand, but then you get 300 Apple files and one of the discs is an audio CD. If I really want to convert it, I can do it on my own. If I want to put it in another DAW, I can do it on my own. If I want to burn a CD of this so I can listen to it in my car, I can do it on my own.

I painstakingly edit and name our libraries. You should see some of the things we get. These guys are musicians first and foremost, so when they deliver to us they’re not thinking about the package as a consumer.

Their primary concern is the music.

When I get it, I look through it and I go, “Okay, these guitars sound the same or these riffs were played through the same signal paths so I’m going to

name them similarly.” It’s the process of making the library go from awesome pieces of music to usable tools for a music creator. I take a lot of pride in that because eventually someone is going to open it up and go, “I want more than just weird bits of tracking.”

Mike: There’s another thing in addition when you’re talking about price versus performance. Right about the time ACID came out, people were putting out these big boxes of loops, thirty thousand loops for $19.95, you know. You open the stuff up and it’s like, oh my god, alright…it doesn’t sound that good. Now, a couple of things about that that will give you some perspective on the hows and whys of how these all came out. A lot of these big boxes, these twenty or thirty thousand loop boxes that were coming up for twenty bucks, this stuff was coming from Europe. And a lot of it was coming from Scandinavian countries, or Germany, where dance music and loop based music production has a bit longer history than over here, a little bit more intense. Now, the reason why the Europeans were putting out packages like that is this: they have more distribution for physical product in Europe, from Virgin Megastore to the smallest mom-and-pop record store. There are more record stores per capita, per person in Europe than there are here by a magnitude. No matter who they are every single one of these stores has a shelf of music creation software and loop libraries.

Mike: The European record stores have been stocking music creation software and loop libraries for years. And that is something that American stores just have never done. And so that’s where you see these twenty thousand loops for $20 or whatever, you know these horrifyingly huge collections of artless stuff. It’s because they had distribution and they could count on that kind of volume selling out of European stores.

We’re at the point now where we have so many loop libraries that we have the luxury of being able to put out really super highly focused collections of esoteric art that’s made by

people who live for this stuff. They’re obsessed by it, not some guy with a beat box and cheap sound card delivering loops. These guys are artists.

Alright. In closing what can we look forward to going from now to the end of the year?

Richard: Crazy stuff, man. We’ve got some libraries coming up by some artists right now who are big in the production industry. We’ve got remix contests that will be coming out in conjunction with these loop libraries where you’ll be able to purchase the loop library, and go to AcidPlanet. com and engage in a remix contest.

We’ve got some incredible prizes as well; some great gear companies and magazines [I wonder who?] on board helping to promote these things.

Mike: We have some secret stuff we can’t talk about. Richard: Yeah, we got some stuff we can’t talk about but really great stuff in the hip-hop world, really great stuff in the electronic world, and some great stuff coming out in the rock world. But I think the major difference— and this is what we’re trying to do with these libraries— is have it be more than just a loop library. We want these to make an impact not just in the music creation market, but in the music world in general. We don’t want these things to be looked at just by people who are using ACID. We want people who are looking at magazines like URB or BPM or Remix to see these. Loop libraries, remix contests, mash-ups…really thinking out of the box. sonycreativesoftware.com/ acidplanet.com/ Producer’s Edge is going to thank you for your time.

79 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

“I’m probably one of the most

musical producers. If you listen to my albums, that’s not the truth.

People want to hear the stuff that I put out on other people’s CD. But if you listen to my albums, I’m probably one of the most musical 32, 42 track using mutherfuckers in the game; bridges and hooks.

But niggas don’t want that shit.

Regardless of whether we want to admit it, you can’t name a hip-hop producer that really produces big sounding records.

Strings! Niggas don’t do that shit ‘coz don’t nobody want to hear that shit.

”

80 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

DAVID BANNER

music is a way that you can do it. I tell people I like to make movies. When I make a beat, I want it to be a movie. I want it to have a thing. I want you to be moved by it. Regardless if it’s a slow song like “Cadillac on 22’s” or some other song, of course you know I want people to be moved by my music.

What about your personality?

You’ve actually taken a pretty huge risk and you exude a personality way beyond just being a gangster or just being a tough guy. Do you ever feel that your personality of being so engaging is possibly hurtful to your career… of being taken as seriously and maybe in some other circles where gangster music is so appreciated?

M

ulti-talent/Multi-task. Wear many hats. Don’t get Angry. I wonder if any of these thoughts roll around the head of David Banner; Rapper, Producer, Actor, Activist and any other title befitting a man who lives his words. Point of note, the name David Banner is based on the television series “The Incredible Hulk” starring Bill Bixby. Bruce Banner is the comic book character. It’s the same cat so stop asking about it.

The album that put him on the map was Mississippi: The Album with the hot single: “Like A Pimp”. We caught up with Banner during downtime for a talk about the game. Hope we don’t make him angry.

The first question is about the transition from actually being an artist yourself, to producer and how that came about?

David Banner: My people always ask David Banner, how did you make it? I never thought I was really dope.

I used to always compare my music to my favorite artist. At the time, I liked Redman and I liked OutKast and Goodie Mob a lot. Before I was putting CDs out, I would be honest with myself.

I’d ask “Is my music as dope as these artists’ [beats]?” If the song didn’t match up to my favorite artist, then I wouldn’t put it out. You know what I’m saying? I started rapping in the late ‘80s and my thing was no excuses. I still live by that. Don’t make excuses of why you can’t make it. If somebody is not going to give you dope beats, then you got to go out and make your own.

So what’s the first piece equipment you leaned on then?

The ASR-10.

of

And you started out with a sampling matrix. So how did you go from sampling to actually playing most of the sequences yourself?

When people start cracking down on samples and charge too much, like people know they charge too much for samples. They do whatever the fuck they want to and just charge us really wild prices. How are you going to get 50% on the song when I didn’t use the whole sample? I just used pieces of a sample. It’s better to play and you’re going to have to learn how to do it.

Made me more of a man.

Even in your collaboration with Lil Jon, a lot of those songs are really on that super high energy end of being anthems. What brings that out of you?

I really like rock music. You know what I’m saying? If you listen to me and Lil Jon’s stuff, it’s really just rock music.

It’s a thing. You want to touch people. I really want to affect people’s lives and

eah. But I think you know that’s good for the cheese. I really used to hurt people for real. I don’t have to act like a gangster, I am. And that’s the problem with a lot of people. They’re trying to be something that’s [not them] - all that gangster [bravado] about what you were doing. When the time comes...? I really don’t walk around like a gangster.

If you’re black or you’re white, you ain’t going to walk around acting like you’re black and just being showy…same thing about being gangster. If you’re a gangster, your skin is showing. Gangster is something [you are] because you have to be.

That ain’t cool. That ain’t funny. It ain’t something to be proud off. You’re a gangster. So what? That ain’t funny.

You’re selling dope. That ain’t cool.

That ain’t something I wanted to do.

When I hustled, and I did it all, I would move at night. You risk everything for the greater good. Kids need showing that you don’t have to be no one . . . you don’t want to be. Be yourself.

Kanye West has truly leaned on the college swagger. He’s borrowed some of the aura of fraternity folks when you’re actually the real deal several layers deep. So how does that affect you when you see someone else sending out the image of the college educated cat

81 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

when you’re actually living it so many steps beyond just a swagger?

[David Banner belongs to Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity] I mean he’s a smart kid. He’s carved up a network being that type of college dude. I wasn’t that type of college cat. I walked around with a backpack and a hood over my head and some headphones on. People didn’t even see my face. My thing is I really don’t care what nobody else does. I think that’s what’s wrong with the Hip Hop dudes. What’s wrong with rap music?

[Sighing] I honestly don’t care what another man does. I’m happy for TI and 50 and [Kan]Ye and Tim[baland], but that’s not my business. That’s what girls do. Girls sit around and look at what other girls are doing. They talk about their clothing. Ooh, I hate that bitch cause she...

I don’t give a fuck what another nigga is doing. What Kanye is doing don’t make me shit. If anything, lot of niggas need to learn from him. That’s all we do. They’re turning Hip-Hop into the WWE. I hate that dude. They’re trying to shoot him. Other cultures are looking at us and laughing at us right now. When I say nigga, I don’t mean black people. I mean just Hip Hoppers period. They’re acting like niggas, dawg. It’s so stupid and childish and so predictable. I don’t give a fuck man.

How he dresses? The nigga makes good music. That’s it. Apparently he’s doing the right thing ‘coz people buying the shit out of him. He can act like an asshole and everybody loves it. So it’s fine.

Now that culture has sort of seeped over even into the music production realm where now it’s about what kind of music this guy makes vs. what kind of music that guy makes, what are your thoughts productionwise and how that’s affecting people? There’s a Down South sound. There’s a West Coast sound.

There’s an East Coast sound.

Oh man, I just make hit records dude.

I told somebody one time. I said, Do you think 50 cent is worried about what

type of music Timbaland is giving him.

He don’t give a fuck. Do you think Jay-Z gives a fuck? Nah, he don’t give a fuck.

Just give me good music, something that really matters to me. We’re getting into the wrong shit. That’s the problem with Hip Hop. People are worrying about their image. They’re worrying about all of that shit and not making hit music. Make a good album my nigga.

That’s what I want. I haven’t heard a good album in a long time. That’s why I made The Greatest Story I Ever Told.

Now this is a fucking album.

If you like David Banner and the type of music that I make, then you’re going to love this. If you don’t like David Banner; you’ll still think it’s a cool album . . . ‘coz it’s just good music. Whether you like what I do or not. Where I’m at right now? I’m about making money, doing it for my people, doing my thing. ‘Coz I think that was one of my problems . . . I stepped away.

Have you known in my production, I never really just sat on the type of music that made me hot? Everybody else took my shit and ran with it, but me. That was my fault.

You notice Lil Jon, Timbaland, The Neptunes and Jazzy Pha once they found their sound and ran with it.

You sit on it. I didn’t do that. And now I understand: you find that sound that people like and it’s what they want. Fuck what everybody is saying, the critics: their beats all sound alike. McDonald’s they always number one. People talk all that shit about McDonalds, but when you go in there you know what you want.

You do tend to exude this aura of not caring. But you actually do care way more than a lot of artists even in your position. You actually have a lot to say about what goes on in the political arena and what happens to your people. So you’re not concerned . . .

What happens to poor people, period.

I used to be on the pro black shit. It ain’t really . . . you’re looking at me ‘coz you want some more. Poor people are like dogs. They make us think it’s about

82 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

black and white dudes. It ain’t about black and white. It’s about rich and poor. It ain’t about nothing more than that. And the truth is; I can honestly say I don’t care as much as I used to because people don’t truly give a fuck about me. I sacrificed dude. I don’t talk this shit. I live what I talk about.

You know what I’m saying? Do those same people turn around and help you in your time of need?

Last year was the worst year of my life dude. Muthafuckas left me out there bad. And do you think if I hadn’t came back that a person would have really given a fuck about me?

Hell no. And that’s the cold truth. So understanding that my dude, I want my money now. I want my motherfuckin paper. That’s what I’m all about right now. Do you want to know what David Banner is about right now? I’m about cold hard motherfuckin cash my nigga.

Because if you even look at politics, if I make money, then I’m able to really help the people of Katrina and not talk shit about the government. I can do something. So that’s what I’m about.

Stop bitching and make paper nigga.

Make money.

What is your goal then for 2008? I mean let’s say you do get where you want to be career wise, money wise, what exactly is your ambition then?

What’s driving you?

My ambition, first of all, is to stand on Gods’ Law and truth. And then you’ll be okay. But really I’m trying to take everything I do, my dude. I really want to be feared. When I step in the studio, I want motherfuckers to say damn, that nigga raw. I’ll give you an example.

Puttin names at the beginning of a track. Who started that? You don’t have to say it; I did. They didn’t start putting names before tracks until David Banner. Will I ever get credit? Will a motherfucker bow down to me as one motherfucker that really influenced?

You listen to a lot of this R&B shit that sounds like “Rubber Band Man.” You know what I’m saying? From putting the hard beats over, the 808s making that shit fashionable and cool.

I don’t trip. But at the same token, I want my shit. They say they respect the South. People say that shit. Look at how I’m rappin. I’m really focusing on my writing. Listen to the verse on 9MM. If Biggie said that shit- it would be a hip-hop quotable. A bitch is going to respect where I’m from. And they gonna pay me just like I’m a New York nigga. I want my mutherfuckin money.

A lower level nigga from New York with only one hit could charge more than David Banner. That’s bullshit. Give me my mother fucking money. I want to put a bitch in a position where they gotta pay me. Even if you don’t like me, you gotta see me. That’s my goal. My goal is to make the bitch pay, to make the bitch truly hate me, to make it come out. You know how a nigga is so good that it makes the hate seep out? That’s how I want it to be.

Let’s go then to a studio level on what the current toolset is. What are you using now?

Keyboard wise, I don’t discriminate.

I’ll use a keyboard from Toys”R”Us. My drums, I know they’ve got all of these new computers and shit, but to me there’s nothing like an MPC, homie. I’m always going to have an MPC. I wish that Ensoniq would bring the ASR-10 back. No matter how much I use other shit, it’s still my best tool.

I use everything now from all the Korg products, the Virus to the Proteus. I still love the Triton. I still think the Triton is

underrated and people don’t give what it’s due, but the Triton is mine.

And software wise, you’re just not into the software at all?

Nah. I mean it’s cool. I never really had time [to explore]. I got poppin right when the new software started coming out. Right now, my people are trying to get me into Logic but I just haven’t had the time.

Now what about your sparse sound?

Like you are one of those producers that use exactly enough to get the track to bang and nothing else. No extra sounds. No additional bells and whistles. As soon as it gets to the levels of affecting you, boom, it goes out. Why is that?

Well, because people don’t buy the other shit. I’m probably one of the most musical producers. If you listen to my albums, that’s not the truth.

People want to hear the stuff that I put out on other people’s CD. But if you listen to my albums, I’m probably one of the most musical 32, 42 track using mutherfuckers in the game; bridges and hooks. But niggas don’t want that shit. Regardless of whether we want to admit it, you can’t name a hip-hop producer that really produces big sounding records. Strings! Niggas don’t do that shit ‘coz don’t nobody want to hear that shit. I tried. I got the whole orchestra going. A lot of people think my new album is a lot of

samples. It’s not. That’s the one thing I disagree with you on. If you listen to my production of the shit that I love to do, I’m probably the rap producer that uses the most acoustic guitars, the rock guitars/the hard ass rock guitars.

It’s just that people don’t expect us to be as musical.

Even Lil Jon, listen to Lil Jon music. It’s musical. The cats love the tracks but people don’t want to buy that shit. People want “Rubber Band Man” and “Like A Pimp.” Regardless of what you say, that’s what people want.

If you look at “Cadillac 22s,” that was real guitar. I’m from the South. I want to make real music. But people don’t want to hear that shit. You can’t tell me a hit song right now that got more than 10 tracks.

Yeah, that’s not the trend now.

On the rap side, it just don’t work.

Is it that people just require such simple nutrition? Is it the audience that’s to blame for this?

I don’t know. You can blame it on audience, but if you don’t give the audience the opportunity to choose, I mean you can’t put it on them. That’s what people want. That’s what the rappers want.

You’ve been very outspoken on the state of black culture, on our people, how we’re doing, the political front.

What do you think are some of the solutions? Or what could happen to fix this, to change the direction?

Well, me being a historian and me being one to look at history more than emotions, I think it will take a tragedy.

It’s going to take a church blowing up.

It’s going to take another 9/11, some shit to happen like that. Because for the most part black people are happy where they are. Oprah is not going to stand up for black people…because she’s happy where she is. Your great hip-hop moguls who make millions off of music now, they’re not going to do shit for us. They’re happy where they are. It’s going to take a tragedy.

The worst thing to happen to black people wasn’t a depression, wasn’t discrimination. The worst thing that happened to us is government jobs,

83 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

integration and a little bit of money and a basketball contract or a record deal or a football contract. Or niggas getting their own magazines and making clothing lines. Niggas don’t stand up for nothing no more. It’s going to take something bad happening. And it’s bad. But regardless of what anybody is thinking, nobody can prove me wrong about that. We’re no longer proactive, we’re reactive. The proactiveness was beat out of us as slaves. And then we washed it out with some water during the ‘60s and a couple of dollars.

It’s tough to follow up after that. .

David Banner: [laughing] It’s hard, but it’s true. I’ll try not to do another speech.

What about Al Sharpton then? How does he fit into this whole equation?

He’s more hurtful than helpful?

Yeah, I think all of them are more hurtful... I mean because first of all they’re outdated. Two, when have you ever seen them stand up for black people? When have you ever seen them solve anything? Like they run around and chase ambulances and come in the guise of helping black people. But what have they solved?

What have they done? That’s anybody’s question. Nobody can tell me that. What have they solved? What case have they truly solved that we can go back and get an answer from?

What are their motivations? And I will ask you a question I bet you can’t answer. I’ll give you $1000 if you answer this question. Are you ready?

Oh-oh. Yeah.

Who elected them to be our leaders in the first place?

White media.

Well, I mean you can’t say it for real.

And I’m saying that nobody can tell me that. Like, who makes you my leader?

Like who said that you can speak on behalf of black people, dude? Who said that you can forgive Kramer on behalf of black people? You’re fuckin fake. You work for hire. You might as well be a rapper. At least rappers tell you…give me my mother fucking paper. Do that. Give me my paper.

Well, every actor has had a moment when he’s showing his great moment of being forgiving right before they blow. Will Smith in Wild, Wild West had the speech where he forgave white people for slavery. I mean almost every actor or every rapper has had to at some point say racism isn’t a problem. Things are ok now.

It’s almost like they just put pressure on you to have to say everything is ok so we could focus on other pursuits aside from changing our lives. So you as an actor yourself, you got to see some kind of barrier ahead of you saying that they want you to play the game.

I think that’s where my blessing comes in that we’ll call rap. I can jump back and forth. As long as I’m able to jump back and forth, I don’t have to do nothing. I don’t have to rap anymore. I rap when I choose to. I make a whole lot of money on the outside of rap. I’m good.

What is it that you want in the end?

What do you want people to know about you? What does this album represent in your career? What kind of milestone does it represent?

Money. I want to sell records. I’m going to smash muthafuckas. I want people talking about it and saying this bitch is jamming. Politics? I actually went back

84 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

and took all that shit out. The politics and thought provoking stuff on this album? I’m going to tell you a secret.

I went back. This album used to have 20 tracks on it. It was great. I really think it was one of the best rap albums in history. But I realize people are not going to give that to me.

You’d have to be honest with the state that rap is in, in America. They don’t want to see me on the level of Jay-Z or a Biggie. I’m smashing these things, really. I’m cutting my album in half; put one out and put another one out next year. And then I’m done with Universal. You put everything that you’ve got for a mutherfucker that’s not going to support and give you what you deserve- then fuck it; I might as well keep on moving.

How far can you go on anger?

You’re not concerned that your own anger will consume you?

No, I’m not angry. I’m rich. I’m so happy.

Is the word determined, driven?

I’m very driven. I hate to lose. But it’s hard for you to win when the team you’re on don’t want to see you win.

I need to surround myself with more motivated people. When I say my team I mean more or less the company that I’m around. I got a team; my management, my publicist, I got like the strongest secondary team ever, please print that and I’m pleased. And

my secondary team, my publicist, my management now, we own it my dude.

In the fraternity system between the brothers and the sweethearts, how do you go about picking a soul mate? How do you open up with enough trust to let a person into your life... to be close to you?..[um…] Oh I think I got you stumped now.

Nah, I was eating [laughter]. I just wanted to let people be people and not try to rush it. People always show their real side if you give them a second. So I just learn to be patient. And god will bless me when it’s time. And it’s going to happen no matter how hard it is.

You still believe in love?

Yeah. I do. I believe it’s out there…if that’s really what you want. But you got to be willing to look for it and you got to be open.

In this business and the way it works, how do you find it in your heart to trust someone?

I ain’t trusting nobody. I just live and people will show their true colors, both good or bad. I just live. If you’re a snake you’re going to bite someone someday. Just like these bitch-niggas.

You can’t keep your pussy concealed too long. It’s going to come out cause you’re a bitch. It will come out. And the blood will come rushing out. I see the bitch in these niggas. It always comes out. That was quite graphic, wasn’t it?

Yeah, I’ll say.

But it’s true.

What brings you this keen insight?

Is this about your upbringing?

I went through a very bad depression last year, a really bad depression. And God just put me in a valley for a minute and I came out on this side.

How is that possible? I saw you at the VH1 Hip-Hop Honors. You seemed to have it all. You were listed as one of the most promising artists. You had the career going.

You had music. You were just so land marked at the time. How could things go down from there?

Well, I mean what you have to understand is…I look great.

It’s somewhat hard for people to tell.

And once I’m out, I have to hold up a persona and not only to me, but for my people ‘coz I represent more than me. But it was hard dude. My dad had brain and lung cancer. Katrina. The label and my last record. It was just crazy, but people always see what they want to see.

How were you able to bounce back then? Religion?

Just believing in God’s ability to travel with me. I stopped feeling sorry for myself and just got up off my ass.

With your music being so energetic as an anthem and having such a deep message, what does it say for the youth that are enthralled with these images found today in hip-hop music and rap music in general? Are you concerned with the message and what it could say to young people?

No, I’m not. I mean that is a problem in the music because that’s a problem in the world. TV is shitty. Music is shitty. Rock n Roll is shitty. Pop music is shitty. Look at all the girls in pop music. They act like whores. So why is it always on black people? That’s just crazy. The problem is America don’t raise their kids. People want everybody to do [their] shit. They’re supposed to do it. It’s not my fault that you had kids.

We’re not responsible for you having a baby. It’s just not my problem. You shouldn’t have laid down and picked that dude. That’s the truth. It’s harsh, but it’s the truth. People have made mistakes. And then they don’t want to admit they fucked it up so they put it on everything but themselves.

Let’s take it back into the studio and how you’re going to shape all of this? When you’re putting a track together, is it concept first or is it music first that leads to the concepts?

It’s different every time I sit down. I just let God lead me. Sometimes I don’t get samples, A musician samples.

Sometimes I go and use the sample.

Sometimes I just sit down and beat on the drum machine or keyboard or something. Sometimes I listen to other records. I mean I think when you just let the music flow it’s always better. I let it come. Sort of like karate. If you’re a true karate master, you don’t push.

You control the force that’s thrown at you. And that’s sort of like how I do.

What about the flow itself? What has influenced your flow on a lot of these records?

Just trying to prove what I actually can do. I think I’m underrated and I know it.

I got something to prove this time.

How important actually is education towards being a true lyricist and being expressive?

Of course you have to have some kind of dexterity with words. The ability to flip words. If you don’t even know a small amount of words, it’s hard for you. And then you’ve got people who are smart and you consider them literate, but they really aren’t saying shit either. Lot of people come up with “Phenomenal, monumental fax machine through the universal “. . . man, you ain’t sayin shit! That’s why I like [Tu]Pac more than any other rapper. He wasn’t the super-traveled-dude-of mind lyricistbuilding-my-lessons-kid, he talked the way niggas talked. He got his point across. I can even give an example of a person like Mace. Mace could really rap. People don’t know that. But he chose to do the type of music that he did. And I think it made him better.

So let’s say now I’m that producer who’s thinking of coming into the game. I’ve got a few studio tools and I’m looking at trying to get into this. What lessons are there to be learned from your insight?

Learn about your publishing and your points and handle your business. The music is the easy part. It’s the other shit that fucks you over.

Anything else you want to tell the audience out there about your new project coming up?

85 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

It’s the shit homey. I’m going to really see what hip-hop or rap is made out of.

They talk about classic albums. They talk about this generation of music. I’m going to see what they’re really about.

That’s my motivation my dude. Get ready for it.

What about artists like Goodie Mob that’s not around right now this very minute. What are your thoughts on groups that have been here and then are just not on the landscape right now?

That’s crazy. ‘coz I went and bought Goodie Mob CDs and we listen to it. That’s what I listen to in the car right now. [talking to someone in the background] It’s crazy he asked about me about Goodie Mob. I said we listen to it in the car. I really don’t think about it my dude. It’s a tragedy. But one day we’ll all be that person. One day, sooner than later. Usher is going to be that person. One day, R Kelly going to be that person. Who would have ever thought Michael Jackson would have fallen off? Who would have ever thought people would have stopped listening to the [King Of] Pop? It’s just going to happen. So I don’t think about it homey. I try to stay in as much of now as I can my dude. I try to maximize the time that I have until it’s time for me to go.

Who are the other production talents can you appreciate? Who else can you appreciate out there musically?

Musically, let’s see. Let’s see...

I mean name someone surprising. I mean it’s pretty easy to say Premier and Timbaland.

I wasn’t going to say none of them.

No way. I like Little Drummer Boy. I like him a whole lot. People don’t give him his due. I like . . . you know who I like? I like Brian Michael Cox. I mean people know him. That dude has been on the charts ever since his first record.

He’s been on the charts consistently.

Nobody else has ever done that.

Beyond the Redman, who lyrically do you feel is worthy of being listened to right now?

I mean I was talking about back in

the days with Redman. I used to like Redman and Outkast when I was starting up. You know somebody else that people don’t give…Bun B from UGK, like I don’t see people giving that young dude Cassidy his credit.

Yeah. Cassidy has the credibility as an MC. But they’re still waiting to see some kind of huge amount of record sales before they validate his career.

But we’re not talking about record sales. People have to make up their minds. I said that in the beginning. It don’t always have to do with your record sales. Do you know if your label don’t put out enough records that you’re not going to sell records anyway? ‘coz they don’t ship the right amount of records. I mean the record stores are not, especially with downloading, record stores are not going to reorder if they didn’t come in with a big one in the beginning. So like there’s a lot of intricacies that come in that’s bigger than just record sales. You asked me who did I like musically. That ain’t got nothing to do with record sales. That got to do more with maybe just the nigga rappin.

So you’re aware of Papoose then?

Oh yeah, I know Papoose.

How about Cannabis?

I know about Cannabis. I know about all of them. My favorite rapper is still Andre 3000. I really, really like Eminem.

Scarface is at the top of my list, way up there. Somebody else that they never gave credit for rapping is 8Ball & MJG. If you go back and listen to what them boys…they sang, oh my god, they never get the credit ‘coz they’re from the muthafuckin South.

People always consider the rappers who have simple flows, straightforward, like a Jay-Z or Cannabis. They either got to have 1 or 2 flows. Or you got to have a little laid back swagger. You know what I’m saying? Like if you’re listening to somebody like Busta Rhymes, he never gets credit for really rapping.

This is Mystikal. As a matter of fact, you know one of the best rappers is?

Twista, hands down. If you slow down what that nigga is saying [laughter]

86 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Overlap] on top on that speed that he’s beating the wind.

Listen to Chamillionaire; he’s smashing right now. But will he ever get the credit? No. He’s from the South. André 3000. I never heard a wack version of him. Why isn’t he in the top 3? Why isn’t ScarFace on the top 5? Why isn’t Bun B in the top 5? Bun B? He even smashed Jay-Z’s record. Go back and listen to Big Pimpin. He smashed that record. I mean smashed it. You want to talk about raw lyrics, what about Killa Mike? ‘coz if we can talk about a Cannabis, we can talk about a Killa Mike. Daz and Kurupt.

Oh my gosh. The statistical, kinesis, telekinesis.

Oh my gosh, Kurupt reminds me of a type and I mean of a Piranha. I produced that record on the last Dogg Pound. [Faknass Hoes] Wow. So what can be built for talent like that to rise to the top? What can be done to change this?

Hit records. ‘coz even though . . . and I think we still have to tell people and then they start listening. If they were really listening to the one that . . . motherfucker . . . rap, doesn’t say anything better than these niggas.

People really weren’t noticing Lil Wayne and TI and all these niggas…

You got to tell these niggas to rap. Wait till you hear me in the booth.

Well, I’m certainly going to be looking forward to that release then. I’m going to wish you good luck with that. I’m going to thank you for sitting down with us for this extended interview.

David Banner: Yeah, I appreciate that. Anytime homey. I thank y’all for the opportunity.

Check all of David Banners’ music including Grey Skies with his earlier group Crooked Lettaz and his first solo album Them Fire Water Boyz, Vol. 1.Projects like MTA2: Baptized in Dirty Water and Certified will keep David Banner green for a very long time.

60 seconds WITH: Producer/Artist Diamond D Words by Fine Print

S

o tell our readers what you’ve been up to since your last LP “Grown Man Talk” and the Mixtape “The Diamond Mine” and what gave you the inspiration to start working on the new album?

Since the Diamond Mind CD I’ve been touring over seas mostly in Europe.... did a few joints in the interim period... the joint for Sadat X and Sean Price... did a few joints for Sy Scott out of Philly; he’s on Rowdy/Universal... co-produced the Natalie Cole joint “Daydreamin when I’m thinkin of u” that was nominated for a Grammy earlier this year...I’m more known for my productions than I am as an artist and I remember when J Dilla had his deal at MCA he wanted to focus on being the MC as opposed to producing the entire LP himself...so that’s my inspiration for the new LP...just to fall back on some of the production duties and focus more on my MC game as a producer.

Give us an idea of what the “Hugehefner” album and concept is about.

The concept for the Huge Hefner LP is that I always felt I was one of the best producers on the mic who writes his own shit. That statement alone cancels out a few producers who spit. So in my stature as being huge in that sense, as

far as producers who spit go- plus the respect that I get from other producers I came up with the huge....the Hefner is self explanatory...we all love females.

I’m makin the drum beat up in my head as I listen...that’s how I do it mostly... but there is no one way to get busy in the lab...it depends on ya mood too.

Who do you have appearing on the production side and emcee side of the new album?

If you could get an unreleased acapella for you to remix, who would you like?

IllMind, Scratch, Nottz, Jesse West, Def Jef, 45king and the new producers I have in my top friend list on myspace.com/therealdiamondd

The acapella to the NWA album Niggas4life...yea id kill that with some real eerie shyt

You basically originated the hip hop term “Diggin In The Crates” roughly how many records do you own?

I stopped counting records a long time ago....I have a room full of records and I keep boxes of em in my garage...well over 15,000 How do you organize your collection?

I keep all my drum records together and I alphabetized all other records i use for sounds or loops...took a minute but when ur shit is organized you work better....and you find shit easier too Are you ever concerned about the legal issues involved with sampling?

No. If a sample is noticeable you just have to clear it...no way around that fact...other times you can manipulate sounds and samples where it will have the feel you want and you’ll be able to make it work without it eating away at your publishing.

In the studio, what are your main weapons of choice?

The MPC 3000 and the new Motif keyboard...that’s the basic setup now.

How do you like to build a track?

Drums first? or Samples?

I always program my drums first cuz when I’m listen to sounds on records

What do you think of today’s music?

Today’s music is like the 80’s almost...

Kanye has the number 1 LP out... brilliantly produced with a lot of 80’s influences on it and most critics have tipped their hats off to it...then you got the “dance-hop” records out now which has its place just as “the Pee Wee Herman” and “The Wop” had its place... from me traveling a lot I understand that the northeast, mid-west and west coast elements of hip-hop, we focus more on lyrical content and who can say the slickest shit metaphorically but still be relevant to what’s goin on in the hood...most, but not all, southern rappers, keep the lyrics real simple, and the hooks even more simple than the verse...they aint tryin to be respected as a lyricist, they just tryin to get their bread up...as long as the beat and the 808’s is bangin and the females is dancin to it in the strip club is what counts in the south..Outkast, Goodie Mob,TI,Luda, Ceelo, Big Mike, Mally-G, Concious Elements, The Backwoods, Young Fell and a bunch of others down there in Atl who I fucks with for their creativity.

You’re at a club and two dudes are pointing and whispering about you, what are they saying about you?

They say “Damn he looks like Diamond D...just a lil smaller” [then laughs].

87 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Why your next record will be intellectual property

By John Nova Lomax

L

ast month, EMI Music Chairman and Chief Executive Alain Levy walked up to a podium at the London Business School and told an assemblage of bright-eyed young titans of tomorrow something that, in all likelihood, they already knew full well.

decision imposed on music fans and retailers, who had to spend huge sums refitting their stores. The labels saw that they could both charge roughly double the money for new music and re-release their back catalog on the new format.

“At the time, the labels owned the CD technology,” says Greg Ellis, an HP “The CD as it is right now is dead.” contributor and 30-plus-year veteran As usual, the big brass at the very of the music business who currently pinnacle of the industry seemed the works at local label Blue Corn. “They last to know. Levy’s remark came justified their high prices with that drug towards the end of a year in which the company logic -- that they needed more 89-store national retail chain Tower money for ‘research Records went bankrupt and announced that all “...the pace of pop culture is faster than ever. and development’ and stuff like that, of its stores will soon which was bullshit shutter. Online giant Things just move so quickly, too. Even on new after the first couple iTunes cracked the top of mega-hit CDs. ten music retail outlets for releases that are right up our alley, we’re gonna Downloading caused the first time ever, and the them to lose control only places CDs actually sell 90 percent of what we sell in the first two of the technology, sold well were stores like and so they fought Target, Best Buy and weeks. They come out, and then they’re gone. it until Apple showed Wal-Mart. them a way to make And yet it remains too After a month or two, people either have it or money off of it. Not early to say that the CD as much money, but is dead, as in buried in they are never gonna get it... it was either that or a casket underground.

It’s certainly terminally And there’s the rub. The percentage of actual nothing.”

“The record labels’ ill, condemned, a dead main business model medium walking. Indeed, musical talent cannot keep pace with the tidal is to sell plastic,” sales of CDs still dwarf says Garrett Kamps, digital sales, to the tune wave of mediocre music and the speed of managing editor at of $6.45 billion to $945 Rhapsody Music million worldwide. But CD Internet culture.” - Kurt Brennan Services in the San sales are sliding, a little Francisco area and an occasional nor was the sound an improvement faster and steeper every year. People Houston Press contributor. “They on vinyl -- indeed, most audiophiles tend to buy less music as they grow manufacture and distribute plastic. Of argue that their sound is inferior. Jewel older, and the CD audience is pretty course they have to put something on cases were ridiculously brittle -- they much exclusively aged 30 and up. Very the plastic to make it more appealing were rendered useless by a drop of few teenagers buy CDs, and what’s -- but the music is secondary.” four feet or so -- and they were hard more, just about every music retailer All of this turmoil at the top can be to open, as were the huge and idiotic will tell you that those who do will end seen clearly at street level here in long-boxes CDs were packaged in up burning that CD for a few friends.

Houston. The SoundWaves chain has well into the 1990s. Their visual appeal contracted from nine stores to seven, was almost always minimal and yet CD sales fell a further four percent and in some of those that remain open they took up what now seems like a from 2005’s numbers in the first half -- notably the Montrose location -lot of shelf space. In fact, CDs were of 2006, according to figures cited in the CD racks diminish astonishingly, really just another example of how the the UK newspaper The Guardian. “We replaced by coffee bars and shelves of music business has been about profit, figure the value of CD sales will be 50 surfing accessories. But nowhere is the rather than music, for a long time. The % less in three years than it is now,” steep falloff of CD sales more apparent move from vinyl to CD was a top-down said Ged Doherty, the UK head of the Sony BMG label group. “We predict digital growth of 25% per year, but it is not enough to replace the loss from falling CD sales. By 2010 we will be 30% behind in terms of revenues. We have to reinvent.”

As Fats Domino once sang, “Ain’t that a shame.” But the record labels brought all this on themselves. Looking back over the past 45 years, it is now plain that the move from vinyl to CD was not the bold step forward we were told it would be. CDs were not scratch-proof (as the labels had us believe early on),

88 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

than in the Shepherd Plaza area. That district was once something like the Flower Alley of music retail, home to CD-heavy stores such as Cactus, CD Warehouse, Wherehouse and Record Rack, not to mention vinyl-only or vinyl-heavy stores like Black Dog and Sound Exchange, blocks away at Richmond and Hazard. Cactus’s closure this year capped a dramatic five-year free-fall. Today, only Black Dog and Sound Exchange, the nichestore/vinyl specialists, remain.

In five years or less, the CD really will be dead, another music delivery system chucked on the scrap-heap with the 78, the 8-track and the cassette.

Today, CDs are selling briskly only at stores like Best Buy, where they are used as artificially priced loss-leaders to entice customers into buying some other (vastly more expensive) item. “CDs have gone from being a destination purchase to an impulse purchase,” says Thomas Escalante, co-owner of Midtown record store/ gift shop/art gallery Sig’s Lagoon. “Music is probably 50% of my business, whereas ten years ago it would have been probably 90. And within that 50 percent, there’s probably only about 5 or 10% who call me and ask me if a CD is out and come down to get it.

These days, more often, it’s like they are already in the shop and they see the CD and go, ‘Oh wow, that’s out? I’ll go ahead and get it. Or maybe I’ll go next door and get a beer instead.’ It’s an impulse buy now -- that’s why CDs sell so well at Starbucks.

“Think back to ten or 15 years ago,” Escalante continues. “There used to be these record release parties at record stores at midnight on the release date, and people would come out in droves.

But if you did that now, I would be surprised if anyone would show up.”

While the CD’s passing is not to be lamented, this is not merely the trading in of a little-beloved old format for new.

Today, music is no longer something you must physically seek out and pay for, hold in your hands and feed into a machine of some sort. You no longer need voluminous shelf space, nor is there even one uniform playback

device or one file format. And all of these developments, coupled with the ease of access to millions and millions of songs, have eroded music’s communal nature.

Indeed, some believe that the entire world of music has been devalued by the very fact of its ease of access. A study at the University of Leicester in England earlier this year came to that very conclusion. Music psychologist Dr. Adrian North and his team monitored 346 music fans over the course of two weeks, and they concluded that music had become a commodity and had “lost its aura” of magic. “In the 19th century, music was seen as a highly valued treasure with fundamental and near-mystical powers of human communication,” North told the BBC. No more: “The degree of accessibility and choice has arguably led to a rather passive attitude towards music heard in everyday life.

“The accessibility of music has meant that it is taken for granted and does not require a deep emotional commitment once associated with music appreciation.”

It wasn’t addressed in North’s study, but a lot of people today have taken a worse than merely passive attitude toward music. Laments like this are now common: “I used to be a big music fan, but I’m not anymore. Music sucks today. All you ever hear on the radio is crap, and MTV doesn’t even show videos anymore.”

And there are elements of truth to some of those claims. For one thing, we really are awash in a sea of crap these days. Both the major labels and the underground are churning out lots of shoddy music, for vastly different reasons.

First, the majors are trying to service the demands placed on them by radio, which often can be boiled down to something like this: send us some more of the same crap that is sinking our whole medium, please. The people who run commercial radio have made a conscious decision to abandon musically discerning people. The managers at radio conglomerates like Clear Channel and Cumulus concede that true music fans will be listening to

burned CDs, iPods or satellite radio in their cars, so today, their target audience is made up of a combination of the least-technically savvy among us and/or those who have the least interest in new music. Take a look at the ratings here in Houston. The top 20 stations are as follows: two hip-hop; four Spanish-language, one pop music; two contemporary country; and one modern rock station that often sounds stuck in the 1990s. The other ten are either news/talk outlets or “classic” stations, ranging from the solid gold soul and R&B of Majic 102 to the pop balladry of Sunny 99 to the inane ‘80s blather of the The Point.

Today, mainstream, terrestrial (as opposed to satellite) radio caters to rap and country fans, blue-collar immigrants and people who are some combination of poor, old, new in America or not interested in new music.

The explosion of talk, sports and news radio on the AM dial is also in response to today’s high-tech realities. Music’s place on the radio seems destined only to shrink, and the stuff that makes it on the air is going to be very formulaic and familiar. The best places to hear new rock bands today -- at least in the old media -- are TV commercials, teen dramas like The O.C. or films like Garden State. And with each passing year, it seems more and more likely that a good chunk of America’s pop, country and R&B stars will be anointed

by American Idol rather than by the traditional music business machine.

The second reason for the glut of bad music is more complicated on the face of it, but it really just breaks down to simple mathematics. In any society, there are going to be a few truly talented musicians. Back in the days of vinyl and the early days of CDs (before it became ridiculously easy to make your own), for a band to have a record on the market signified something. It usually meant that they had someone in their corner who believed in them enough to help finance the recording and pressing of a record, and more often than not, it usually meant that the artist in question had some talent and had worked hard enough at developing that talent to garner a hefty financial

89 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

investment from some other party.

Today, any jackass with a home studio and a computer can make a record, and just about any band with a record can find some independent label to back them, and with a little luck, a blogger or two to sing their praises.

“The music industry is one of the only industries that, as the demand for what you sell decreases, production doesn’t,” says Kurt Brennan, co-owner of Montrose-area record store Sound Exchange. “They haven’t slowed down releases or making CDs at all, even though Americans spend millions of dollars less on CDs than they did the previous year. Any other business would cut production as demand went down. And yet every ten years, the amount of music that’s available increases 15 times.”

“If you look in a release book for a onestop [CD distributor], there’s thousands of CDs being released every week,” says Escalante. “Can you imagine if a store bought one of everything that was released every week? Within a year you would probably circle the earth with CDs, five times.”

“I guess the good thing is that there’s some good stuff out there that’s getting ignored right now that will be discovered in ten years,” Brennan says. “But we are a store that specializes in small labels and the amount of stuff we get offered every week amazes me. It’s well over a thousand, every single week. And you’re just like, ‘Gaaah.

Another band that sounds just like Bright Eyes…Another Williamsburg hipster band…’ And that whole freak folk thing has gotten ridiculous.”

And with the explosion of music blogs on the Internet, many of these bands are intensely overhyped. Here’s my best guess on how this happens: Some blogger with some juice among the others of his ilk is having a great day -- his rattletrap vintage Volvo passed inspection, and that foxy barista he’s been chatting up at Starbucks every morning for three months has finally cracked and surrendered her digits. So the blogger drifts home in a pink cloud of joy and writes up a glowing review of the first slightly-better-than-competent Williamsburg hipster clone band CD in

the stack of 15 on his desk. Some guy at Pitchfork reads it and wants to stay cutting edge, so he piles on, awarding the CD something above an 8.0 on their ten-point scale. And it’s Katy-bar-thedoor after that; dozens of bloggers will sing hosannahs about this unoriginal hipster band’s unlimited potential and reinvention of rock and roll for the new millennium, all before any of these commentators have seen them live or even have listened to their record more than three times. The band will announce a spate of gigs opening for The Hold Steady, but already a hater parade backlash will have set in, one that is no more informed than the initial wave of hype. And then the band hits the road, where they are exposed for what they really are -- a competent indie rock band, no better or worse than the five or ten bands like that in every major American city. That’s when the gust from the haters reaches hurricane force, and the band is never heard from again.

And even the best bands come up with lots of mediocre music. Because a CD holds up to 80 minutes of music, many bands feel compelled to fill them up to justify their $17.99 list price. That’s a mistake, Brennan believes. “It seemed like the LP was the perfect length -- 35 or 40 minutes, you got a break when you switched sides, and bands had to edit,” says Brennan. “You got their best 40 minutes. But you give them 60 or 70 minutes, and you don’t have to edit as much. With attention spans seemingly getting shorter, I wonder if something an hour long can hold someone’s attention.”

“I’m only 36, but I feel this major generation gap,” says Eef Barzelay, the frontman for the Nashville-based rock band Clem Snide. “When I was about 22, my roommate had a pretty good record collection. He was really into soul. We didn’t have a TV, and after work, we’d come home and get high, smoke some cigarettes, drink a couple beers and just listen to Al Green vinyl. Just listen to it. The whole thing, like side A and then side B. And then we’d just talk, and it was one of the best times of my life. And now I don’t even really listen to music. It’s all on

90 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

the computer, but I don’t want to listen to it on the computer. I got an iPod and I just didn’t like it. So now I just don’t even listen to music anymore.”

Every week, amid this mad, headlong rush, our collective ignorance grows exponentially. “With the amount of stuff that’s out there, it’s really hard to wade through it all,” says Brennan.

“People will go on a message board and ask if some album’s any good, and then somebody else will say, ‘Well, I downloaded one song and it was kinda all right.’ And then that’s it. Especially with downloading, it seems like you just acquire all this stuff, but do people ever get around to going back and listening?

Even here, with all our mountains of promo stuff, sometimes I’ll stumble across something four months after I get it that is really good.”

What’s more, Brennan adds, the pace of pop culture is faster than ever.

“Things just move so quickly, too. Even on new releases that are right up our alley, we’re gonna sell 90 percent of what we sell in the first two weeks. They come out, and then they’re gone. After a month or two, people either have it or they are never gonna get it.”

And there’s the rub. The percentage of actual musical talent cannot keep pace with the tidal wave of mediocre music and the speed of Internet culture. In this shuffle-driven world, the golden needles are a constant while the haystack grows exponentially more immense. Kids who were rock fans who grew up in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s had only a few hundred new records to sift through in any given year, and unless they were fans of country, jazz or blues, not much to worry about learning from the past from before about 1965. Today’s young rock fan has not just all those records to get lost in, but also the thousands coming out every week.

Sadly, all too often, today’s great music often goes unheard, and we’ll likely never know just how much of it sinks without a trace. “There’s no quality control now,” Brennan says. “You just throw it out there and hope it sticks.

The good thing with digital technology is that it’s so cheap, anyone can release their stuff. But the bad thing is,

everybody has released their stuff.”

Marshall McLuhan once famously said that “the medium is the message.” He’s been proven right time and time again, never more emphatically than with CD-Rs. Today, people are constantly burning CD-Rs for each other, perhaps without even playing the music. And CD-Rs -- those plain, burnable jobs available by the hundred at Office Depot -- have so little intrinsic value that you often find them scratched, mud-stained and forlorn, littering the streets. The message this medium delivers is that music has become a throwaway commodity.

“It’s like they have no value,” says Brennan of CD-Rs. “People chuck ‘em in the back seat of the car.” “I treat my song files burned to CD as I would a disposable lighter,” says concert photographer and KTRU DJ Rosa Guerrero. “I keep it as long as I can but concede that I will lose it soon enough.”

You’d think that people would place a greater value on the files stored on the computer at home, but then again, why should they? The files are intangible, and if something happened to them, you could probably call a friend with an external hard drive and feed a few dozen gigabytes of music into your computer in an afternoon. It wouldn’t be your music collection, sure, but when you are talking tens of thousands of free songs, who’s counting? “While it would stink if my computer crashed and I lost my files, it wouldn’t make me want to drink myself into a stupor like losing my vinyl or CD collection would,” says Guerrero.

Still, others do deeply care about their files, and that brings to mind yet another of McLuhan’s maxims. Invention, he said, is the mother of necessities.

No longer are plenty of shelf space and a kick-ass home stereo enough.

The digital age has birthed a plethora of new “needs.” People need iPods now, and the iPod has spawned a whole cottage industry of accessories.

And most people with thousands of songs on their home computers are not satisfied with the factory-issue speakers, so they go out and buy an

amplifier and some more powerful speakers, then some more for another room in the house and a third set for the backyard. Then there are the more high-tech gadgets like the Sonos, a $1,000 graphing calculator-sized gizmo that will wirelessly beam all your songfiles to stand-alone speakers you can install all over your property.

Then there’s the booming trade in hard drives -- 10,000 or 12,000 songs take up a lot of memory, and not having them backed up exposes you to serious risks. Back in the old days of tangible product, outside of a house fire, the sudden loss of your entire music library was an almost unthinkable occurrence.

Today, a virus or crash could erase your entire music library in minutes, or it could simply erode naturally over a period of years from data rot.

Local musician Jeff Balke knows that drill all too well. “I was never anal about backing up data until a few years ago when my computer crashed and I lost about 25 percent of the information on my hard drive, including critical business files, e-mail and some music,” he says. Now, Balke has two external hard drives and also backs up his critical files on a burnable DVD every month. Some savvy techies have even installed DVD players in their cars, with audio but no screens, in order to have several hundred songs to choose from on one disc.

And there’s one last McLuhan maxim that is very pertinent to today: “The future of the book is the blurb.” So, too, is the future of music the snippet. The 30-second song clips on iTunes can determine whether or not a potential customer will download a song, just as a great three-minute film trailer can ensure the success or doom of a film’s all-important opening weekend, or snappy blurbs from just the right luminaries can enhance a book’s sales potential. What’s more, as Brennan said, people’s attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, and music fans will sample an album today based on one song. If they don’t respond to that song immediately, the rest of the album will fall back in that dreaded zone of being “so two weeks ago.”

Snippets have to instantly entice you

to buy the song, and the song has to instantly entice you to buy the album.

Did we mention it had to happen instantly?

And as far as we’ve come down that road in the last few years, it’s hard to imagine that we still have far to go. It’s still more shocking to ponder how fast it is likely to come. Already, the iTunes model of 99-cent downloads seems to be threatened by gathering clouds on the high-tech horizon.

Garrett Kamps believes that his service and the similar Emusic.com are the way of the future. With iTunes, you buy songs for 99 cents each and can then transfer those songs a limited number of times. Not so with Rhapsody and Emusic; both of these services charge flat monthly fees of around $15 or $20 for premium services and offer access in both cases to millions of songs.

“Think of it like cable,” he says, “but imagine if you got not just the shows you paid an individual fee for, you get every single show that’s out there on cable, but it’s up to you to decide what you want to watch. It’s pretty much like you could own every CD you could ever want for a $15 subscription.”

Now imagine that you can do all that on a handheld personal music player.

Microsoft’s much-maligned new Zune MP3 player has wireless technology -- Zune owners can zap songs back and forth from each other’s players, with a few notable catches. The songs that people send you expire from your player after either three playbacks or 72 hours, whichever comes first.

Many in the high-tech press have mocked Microsoft for the seeming uselessness of this feature -- who wants to “own” something with those kinds of strictures? -- but others think the computer giant might soon have the last laugh.

After all, many major American cities are working toward making themselves wireless-friendly zones, with some politicians arguing that access to wireless Internet technology is a basic human right.

Kamps’s hometown of San Francisco is one such. “Imagine this scenario: San Francisco, like a lot of cities, is working

91 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

on becoming a wireless city,” he says.

“Wireless Internet will be a public utility here, and it will be available everywhere in town. And then let’s put the peanut butter with the jelly -- say you have one of our players and a subscription to our service. For $15 a month, you can have all the music in the world, at your fingertips, on the go.”

So there’s the future -- all of us walking around, beaming the entire known universe of music into our ears. And that will have to do until the next thing comes along.

Turntables Turns out vinyl wasn’t dead after all Even as the packaged compact disc approaches death, vinyl, the music medium it was supposed to have completely destroyed, is showing signs of a small but significant and growing comeback.

“Vinyl has totally made a comeback,” says Thomas Escalante, a co-owner of Midtown record shop/novelty store Sig’s Lagoon. “I’ve seen a big increase in sales, and a lot of it is from kids who only rip and burn CDs. And there’s so much stuff on vinyl that’s not available on CD, and will never be available on CD.” Also, when you bought a vinyl album, it satisfied several primal human urges.

One was the quest/hunt -- you left your house and went out and killed that thing and dragged it back to your lair.

Another was the fact that there was a “thing” to be dragged, a tangible object to hold and gaze at. Vinyl album covers were a similar size to many of Western civilization’s great paintings and/or religious icons, and some of them were worthy of hanging on your wall, whether as an erotic adornment, a hallowed quasi-religious icon, an ironic or kitschy statement, or as a dartboard.

And when you shelved a bunch of them library style, they brought a warm feel to a room, as opposed to CDs and their sharp, pointy and frail cases. A collection of them on display conveys only plastic sterility.

Furthermore, the pictures on the album cover shaded your thinking on what sounds were within -- you expected defiant innocence from U2’s War, sleazy rock from the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers and a sort of epic,

sprawling grandeur from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

“There are many of us who remember spending afternoons after school with the gatefold album that was just released by our favorite artist,” says Paige Mann, a former sales manager at music distributors Southwest Wholesale. “Looking at the out-groove and discovering that hidden message that surely you were the first to find!

Nothing like it!”

Album covers and sleeves also provided plenty of information about the music. CDs did too, only the print was off-puttingly small. “What I miss most about older formats is their ability to convey visual information,” says Rosa Guerrero, a KTRU DJ and concert photographer. “Stories, photos, background, addresses, discographies.

Even stickers.” “Exploring lyrics and artwork and memorizing all the players on every track were just part of the experience,” says Mann. “While I am completely open to the digital age, I find it hard to fathom downloading a new album ever equating to a musical event like buying an album back in the day.”

And most importantly, vinyl just sounds better than CD. “I like the way records sound when played on a good turntable with a good needle the best,” says David Beebe, a member of local cover band the El Orbits. “The initial sound of the needle touching the record, the crackle, it is why I listen to music,” adds local musician and music journalist Kwame Anderson. “People who only know CDs and MP3s are being cheated.”

With all that in vinyl’s favor, perhaps the comeback shouldn’t be perceived with surprise. What is puzzling, though, is that it’s not just baby boomers and Gen X’ers indulging their lost youth.

“There’s people who never did make the switch to CD, and there’s people who buy both, but tend to concentrate on vinyl,” says Sound Exchange coowner Kurt Brennan. “We’re seeing a lot of high school and college kids who buy vinyl from us, and it’s classic rock vinyl. But they have no intention of buying that stuff on CD. I’m wondering if they’re buying the CDs online or

92 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

through iTunes, but they definitely aren’t coming in and buying the CDs. CDs just don’t seem to be good value, and there’s something about vinyl -people will spend money on it.”

Perhaps it is about money -- you can buy four or five secondhand albums for the price of one new CD. Beebe sees them as a cheap way to get a great education. “The cheapest and easiest way to get into great music is to comb the used record stores.”

Brennan says people in his shops even pick up and hold records more reverently than CDs. After a brief honeymoon, CDs quickly lost their spell over the buying public. “Back when CDs first came out, it was like, you know, the future,” Brennan says.

“Space age and all that. But now you can make your own. If you could buy a ‘make-your-own-record kit’ for 50 bucks, with a glob of raw vinyl, and cut your own record, maybe people would feel the same about vinyl.”

Hard-core CD collectors are a rare breed, Brennan says, but vinyl fetishists are very common. “We see people all the time on the other hand who walk halfway up to the register with about three CDs, and then they slow down, they start looking at ‘em again, and they put two down and just buy one.

But with records, people come up with armloads of ‘em.”

CDs are merely a means to the end of acquiring sounds. Album collecting, on the other hand, is a hobby in its own right. “Most of the customers who come in here don’t even look around,” Brennan says. “They are just looking for one CD. They come in and ask for a specific Marshall Tucker Band CD, we say we don’t have it, and they are out the door. But people who buy vinyl start at ‘A’ and go to ‘Z.’” “Vinyl will always be the format,” says Anderson. “Albums are meant to be listened to on vinyl; vinyl is the most romantic form of music listening. The album cover, especially the foldout, is like the caviar experience of music.

Nothing will ever beat the opening of an album, the pulling out of the inner sleeve where the lyrics are, the removal of the vinyl from the paper or plastic sleeve -- it is a priceless experience.”

W

e are going to take a turn and study the profile of an industry figure and dig into the origin of the digital distribution system TUNECORE. Why the pricing tier, what that means to musicians today and what it could mean as an alternative. But before that; there are the questions: How and Why? We sat down with Jeff Price of TUNECORE and asked for all the details.

Jeff Price: I started this record label Spin Art with my high school friend and partner Joel in 1991 or so. Eighteen years later, we released over 200 albums including releases by The Pixies, I call The Bunny Men, Nelly McKey, Vic Chestnut, Poster Children, Eels, Bradley’s, Magnetic Fields, Apples And Stereo, Clem Snide. I don’t know. The Dears, Trashcan Sinatras.

The list goes on and on and on. And over those 18 years, Spin Art Records was always independently owned and controlled by myself and my friend Joel. And we ended up in a label deal in 1992 or ’93, I don’t remember, with Columbia Records for 3 years which is kind of funny because we were 2 kids in an apartment wearing our label deal. And then it ended up in another deal with Giant Records and with Sire Records. All that time, we were just 2 guys that just loved music and wanted to put out music that we just enjoyed.

We built people’s careers and really got off on it personally if we could take someone where they wanted to go.

In 1997 or so, I was on the phone calling a guy named Ken Ghosh, who was the manager for The Pixies and Frank Black, the lead singer of The Pixies, trying to get our band Lotioned on tour with Frank Black. While I was on the phone with him at one of our calls, I learned that the Frank Black and the Catholics had a new album coming out and they were negotiating a deal with Stone Concerts label from

Pearl Jam and the deal had fallen through. I asked the manager if I could put out the record and he said yeah.

The reason the deal fell through was because Frank Black had done a deal with a company called Good Noise for his digital rights. It was 1997 and all they had available were his physical rights.

Well, I wasn’t quite sure what all that meant. But it sure sounded cool and it wasn’t a problem for me to do a deal with his physical rights. But what ended up happening is the guy showed up in my office and these 2 guys showed up eventually named Gene Hoffman and Bob Kohn. They were starting this company called

development while continuing to co run Spin Art Records. That’s how I really got involved in digital distribution…and ground zero was when Frank Black and the Catholics and Spin Art Records put its entire catalog up online for paid downloads of mp3s in like 1997 or ’98.

It started with Spin Art. That’s kind of cool.

That was way ahead of the curve.

E Music predates Napster and it predates iTunes by many years. That’s where it started and it was a hell of a roller coaster ride. I learned a heck of a lot and E Music happened during the dot com boom. By the end of the dot com boom, E Music found itself in the same position as every other dot comer and I was laid off and then moved back to New York. I focused again entirely on Spin Art, where I set up a sort of deal for a worldwide distribution, marketing

“You get these pompous sometimes egocentric people sitting in an office telling you how they know everything. And this is the way it has to be…and it’s wrong. It doesn’t have to be like that…and there are ways to change it. You know what? I’m going to do something about it because it’s not right. “ Good Noise. Good Noise was going to be a digital record label and again this was back in 1997. It predates everything…and ultimately I became friendly with them and they let me read their business plan and I contributed towards writing a new one. I wrote a new business plan and some of the things that I’d written were adopted.

Good Noise became a company called E Music and I was hired as a consultant. I was the interim VP of content acquisition for E Music while continuing to GM Spin Art Records. We were in their New York office for a short period of time and then eventually relocated to San Francisco where I worked out of the Redwood City office for E Music doing business

and promotion by partnering up with some other labels around the globe.

That sort of moves us forward to about middle of the year 2005, where I was noticing trends.

Our revenues were down at the label for obvious reasons.

Record labels traditionally make their money by selling music or as it says in the legal agreement, exploiting the masters. If the thing that we sell is the thing that people can get for free in a limited quantity in perfect digital copy, we might be a bit fucked. How can you sell the thing when everyone can get it for free? What I mean by that is, not only can you use a peer-topeer file sharing service, but you can instant message people. Or here’s a

93 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Tunecores’ Jeff Price believes your music should not sit on a shelf perfect example. There’s a program called Senuti, which is the word iTunes backwards. You literally can take your iPod and plug it into your computer and pull everything off of iPod and place it onto your computer.

So, if a friend or my wife as an example has an iPod and she had a whole bunch of music on it. She gives it to me, I plug it in my computer and I drag 30 albums off of her iPod onto mine. You’re allowed to do that under fair law of use…but you just think about that. Holy shit! Now a kid can just hand another kid his iPod and get 30, 50, 100 albums transferred. It’s not like anyone is paying for it. You’re IMing it and you’re emailing it and you’re sending it. DRM, digital rights management and restricting the use of the music, it doesn’t work. I mean there’s just no way to enforce that and I’m not sure it’s the best idea anyway.

So with the ability for one person to buy a record and then distribute it out to literally millions of people, record labels, publishers, artists, songwriters, retail stores, distributors on the physical world, we’re fucked. So that’s what was going on. At that time, this is like in the middle of 2005…we saw the trend and we were early adopters

of digital. I’m a big fan of it and I’ve always experimented with the Spin Art catalog and put it up in consignment mp3s…but on one particular album we put out, we lost a lot of money on it. In Spin Art Records, we’re 5 people.

You’re saying it was pirated?

Maybe the public didn’t like it, maybe people got it for free. Who the hell knows? But for whatever reason, the record wasn’t selling what it should have. And we lost a lot of money on it. And no, I’m not going to say it was solely because it was pirated. I have no . . . I have an instinct. But I have nothing to back it up. I’m sure that contributed towards it. There’s no way around it. But what got to me was everybody else made money. What I mean by that is everyone in the service sector side was generating revenue.

For example, the recording studio, the CD manufacturing plant, the place that made the posters, Maxell when I went and bought blank DVDs and burned videos onto them off this artist’s stuff, the video producer, the post office with the postage money.

The jiffy envelope maker when we mailed stuff off, the independent

94 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

publicist, the independent radio promoter, Staples when we bought paper, the photocopy machine company when I needed more toner.

Everybody was making money off of us. The publisher…but we lost the money. And it occurred to me at that moment as I looked back…I’m like you know for the past 18 years of my life, I’ve actually been in the service sector.

I just didn’t realize it. Now what I mean by that is record labels make all this crap and provide these functionalities for artists and musicians. But we make our money back not by charging the artist a fee but by getting rights to their music and then trying to sell it and then making back the money we advance.

So it’s a backend model...but we’re still a service sector because we’re providing all these services.

But the music industry has never been healthier. I mean there are more artists and more musicians than there have ever been. Music has permeated our culture in a way I have never experienced before. It’s in videogames, the music on TV. It’s on the Internet. It’s in elevators. Music has gone sort of to the side and you’re getting like real songs, polyphonic ring tones. It’s just fucking everywhere.

When I was in high school, there was a kid in a band. I’m 40. When you go to high school now, everyone is in a freaking band and everyone is encouraged to play something because the costs of . . . the barrier to entry, the cost to that barrier has lowered and lowered. You can afford a guitar now or direct plug-ins. Get a PreSonus Firepod (FP10). Or get a light version of Protools. Or get the USB plug-in where you can play your electric guitar.

The ability to record and buy gear has gotten cheaper and cheaper and everyone loves music. Music isn’t food, shelter, or clothing. But everybody wants it and everybody needs it on a global level. It touches us in a way that most other things don’t. So the ability to experience it, to make a mix tape . . . well, I’m showing my age again, to make a mix tape for a girl that you want to have sex with,

that’s the sort of thing that you do in music. You don’t do that with many other things. It’s true. So sure you’re in this industry that’s exploding. Well, in one small sector of it, it’s imploding.

And the area that’s imploding, that’s getting destroyed is the distribution of the music. If you think about it, the equation for the music industry for the past 100 years has been as follows.

These are all the things that are ticking around my head in 2005.

An artist creates music and wants to get their music available in a store where people can go to buy it and discover. Well in order to get your music into a store, you need to have a distributor. A distributor takes your CD or you’re A Track or whatever the hell it is or your wax spool and puts it into a store on a shelf that has a limited amount of space…because Tower Records before it went out of business could carry 20,000 tiles.

There’s hundreds and thousands if not millions of titles that exist in the world. So what goes in there and you have to fight for that shelf space and then fight to get new inventory and then fight to get advertising programs and pay the store money to get advertising programs so you can be in a listening station and all that other crap.

So if you’re an artist, you can’t do this on your own. So you end up going to a record label. The record label then does the deal with the distributor. And the music industry for the past 100 years has been about distribution. The record label would go to the artist. And the record label used to actually play a very important role. It was expensive to record. You had to get a high-end studio. 24, 48 track or get up as high as you want.

Rent gear and equipment, bring it in, bring in the high-end producer, mastering, mixing…even art work and the graphic layout and design. This was all a very expensive endeavor. It was very specialized. It wasn’t general knowledge. You just didn’t have a way to tap into this on your own. And you needed the guidance sometimes. And then the record label will be involved

in manufacturing the product and front the money for that.

Once it was manufactured, they would then have to turn and give that product to their distributor to put it into the stores. And then once it’s in the stores, create demands for marketing and promotion. And the way people used to discover music is really one of three ways. That’s it. You had Viacom which owns MTV, VH1, and CMT. And you have print publications like Spin, the Rolling Stone or Cream or whatever it might be. And then you had commercial radio. And those three things are the way that people on a national basis would discover music…three. You had the fanzines in small pockets but you couldn’t do mass communication. You couldn’t go to the photocopy store and photocopy your fanzine and get it spread out all over the world. It just didn’t work like that.

So the three entities that would promote music worked from the top down. We will learn about it because we turn on the radios, see it on MTV, or read about it in the magazines. Those magazines and the television and the radio really expose music, they expose music from a very finite pool of artists that were pushed to them by record labels. So if you’re an artist and you’re outside of that realm or you weren’t on a record label, the opportunity to even be considered to be promoted and exposed probably wasn’t going to happen. Only on very rare occasions…the one in a million, one in a trillion. But for the most part, you had to be in a record label which would then feed you to the machine and then the machine would pick and choose what it wanted and then you would get the exposure. So then the demand would come. A customer would walk into the record store. Your record is on the shelf. They would buy it. Now the distributor would take a percentage of the money.

So the way it works is you’re an artist. You go to the label. The label turns to the distributor to put the shit in the stores. The distributor says fine. Shoot me your inventory. I’m

going to put it in my warehouse. I have a 500,000 square foot warehouse because I’m via so and so or I’m Sony BMG or I’m EMI. And I’ve got 40 people that work in my warehouse. And we drive around in little trucks. And we pick and we pack and we ship orders out. And the minute something leaves our warehouse, you’re going to be paid money. Let’s say you’re making 10 bucks off of each record that sells. The minute it leaves my warehouse, you’re getting paid 10 bucks. It doesn’t matter if the record store has or has not paid me. I’m paying you 10 bucks because part of my job is to go deal with that collection so you don’t have to.

And if something happens to the inventory, it’s insured and you’ll get your money on it. And if the CD breaks on the way out, they’ll send it back. I’ll refurbish it. Make it nice and pretty and we’ll rewrap, shrink-wrap it so it can be sold on a store. And then you’ve got another 30 people that work out there that walk around the United States that walk into the record stores and talk to the owners of the stores and the main buyers and tell them why they should bring in a particular record.

Print a catalog. We’ll put that catalog in front of people. And we’ll fight to get the shelf space which is limited to put your CD on it. And get that inventory replenished…and we’ll front money on your behalf to the advertising program for the store.

But each time the record sells and you make that $10, how about a little something for the action. Why don’t you give me a percentage of that $10 bucks? Let’s say 25%. So I’ll make $2.50 and I’ll give the rest to you the record label. You the record label gets $7.50 and you give the artist their band royalty which usually works out to around $1.35-1.75 premium. That was the food chain. That’s the way it all works. So here we are in 2005 losing money watching my sales go down, realizing I’m actually in the service industry. Just didn’t realize it…cuz I know how to make all this stuff. And a thought occurred to me…and the thought was this company showed up in my office called Aggregators. They came to Spin Art.

95 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

And they said hey, we’re an aggregation company. What we do is we provide you the opportunity to get your music in iTunes and Napster and Rhapsody. We’ll compound all the statements for you and make your life easier. That sounded great. Well, the deal terms they wanted were twofold.

Number one, they wanted to control my masters exclusively for a said period of time just like a record label. Then, the second right that they wanted is each time their music sold, they wanted to take a distribution fee like a physical distributor. I politely told them to go fuck themselves…and I did. I’m like number one, you’re not a record label and go through that laundry list that I just ticked off. Record labels, manufacturers, market promoters, advance money. We’re the ones that get the phone call at 3 a.m. in the morning when the tire blows in Iowa and the band is fucked and needs a place to go. You don’t do any of that.

Why in the world are you controlling my masters? Then on the other side of the coin, they wanted to take anywhere between 15-30% of the money just like a physical distributor.

It’s a distribution fee. That’s the way the model works…and I was like but you’re not a physical distributor. You don’t have a warehouse. You don’t have 60 people on staff. You take my file. You deliver it once in binary data, zeros and one. I mean that’s what computer language is. You take my digital file and you deliver it once to Apple where it sits on their server.

Why in the world do you get 25% of the revenue each time it sells? I’m the guy causing it to sell. So is the band.

They’re the one busting their ass playing gigs. You mean the band goes and plays the gigs somewhere that I funded through my marketing and promotion and we have press around, somebody buys the music and you’re going to get 25% of the money. Fuck you.

Look at the White Stripes.

They got 3 or 4 back catalog albums.

Then they went onto international superstardom.

Well you’re telling me that the White Stripes used your company to get their music into a digital store service, each time it sold, you were going to take 25% of the money from the back catalog. Come on. That makes no sense. But you know what?

It did make sense because that’s the way this industry works. So they came back and said . . . hang on one second.

They came back and said well you know what? We market and promote.

So that’s part of the value service that we have here. And that’s why we should get that backend. I was like well, how many record labels do you work with? And it varies from company to company. One’s at 3000. One’s at 5000.

Yeah. How much attention are you going to get? How much attention would you get in that list?

Well it’s not only that.

The first question was ok, are these . . . one released a month. Sure. So 5000 records a month. How do you actively market and promote 5000 releases in a month? Then what you just said came to mind. They’re like well, what we do is we prioritize. We pick and choose what we’re going to promote. We’ll pick and choose and we’ll promote Spin Art. We’ll make sure you’re a priority. Oh really? So you’re going to prioritize me and fuck everyone else? Oh no, that’s not what we meant. Well what did you mean? Well, we can only work with stuff that has value.

So, I go out and I create value for something because it doesn’t have any value unless I make it have value, then I give it to you. So the thing that already has value that I made have value, you get to tell other people it has value and then you get 25% of the sale.

That makes no sense. So here’s the bottom line. Marketing and promotion isn’t scalable. You can’t have 5000 releases a month. You can have maybe two. I mean when you work at a radio station or at a magazine or wherever it

96 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

might be, if you get a phone call from a company saying here’s this week’s 3000 new releases, give me a fucking break. But even if they were effective with marketing and promotion, even if they really did something, when I hire people to market and promote…be it a publicist or an independent radio promotion company or a street team company or a new media marketing company, I pay them a flat fee.

I do not tell them you’re going to get to control my masters . . . money on my behalf and take 25% of the revenue generated from the sale of the music with no ceiling. It’s more like here’s a $1000 a month…and that’s the way it works. It’s a service sector. So I told them to get out of the office and they did. So I was thinking about this and I thought well you know what, why don’t I reinvent the music industry ‘cuz this is ridiculous. You’ve got like these 2 or 3 major changes. Number one, you have unlimited virtual shelf space.

So you’re no longer going to be in the position where you have to fight to get your record into the place where people go to buy in the first place. ITunes is the 4th largest seller of music in the United States today. It goes Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, iTunes. And that’s happened in like a year and a half. ITunes sells a lot of frigging music. So there were real stores where a lot of sales were occurring. As a matter of fact with Spin Art Records over 50% of all of our total album sales are happening in iTunes in US. Yeah, it’s significant. Then you add these additional song sales on top of that. So with somebody like Apple, you’ve got this virtual unlimited shelf space. Put on another record. Sure it’s in the stock. Why not? All you have to do is add another server if your other one gets full. It’s another hard drive. Then the second thing that has radically changed is you never run out of inventory. It’s a virtual unlimited inventory that’s made on demand. You never have to make anything anymore.

It just sits there, the sort of virtual copy of it. Someone buys it and the copy of it downloads. But it’s still in stock. And

then the 3rd major change is there’s no more returns. Everything is now a oneway sale. A sale is a sale is a sale.

See in the old model, you only knew what you shipped. You never knew what you sold because some portion of what you shipped can be returned back for a full refund at any time. In the new model, you don’t pre ship records out and hope that they sell.

It just sits there and waits to be bought.

And when it’s bought, it replicates itself and it downloads. But it’s still there. But the sale happened. The sale happened before you needed to make the inventory. It’s unbelievable.

If you think about it, you’ve just eliminated like this huge overhead thing. No more manufacturing CDs upfront, warehousing, shipping them out, returning, return processing, some of them are going to be broken, some of them are going to get lost called shrinkage.

So all that shit goes away which means that these 500,000 square foot warehouses with the big package shipped inventory and all these field stuff becomes moot. What’s the point?

You don’t need that because the model changed…and it’s the distribution of the music which has changed. We at record labels get music to people.

The things that we give them is merely a delivery vehicle. When someone buys a CD, they’re buying a piece of technology which happens to be a 5 inch circular piece of plastic that they can shove into a machine that then allows sound waves to come out of the speaker. And it’s those sound waves that people ultimately want. Not the freaking CD that delivers it or the CD player. They want to hear the music and music is savorless. You can’t touch it or taste it. You can only hear it.

So what we at record labels have been doing is being involved with artists who create the music, then providing a vehicle be it vinyl or 8 Track or cassette or CD that allows somebody else to hear it. It’s the distribution of the music…and in the new school, in the new model, people are getting it for

free. But they can also just download it without having to make those physical pieces of vinyl. As great as they might be, I love my vinyl and so forth…and so I thought why don’t I just change the model because the way this should work is people should be able to gain access to put their music into places like iTunes without having to sell their soul. It’s not the way it should work.

It’s the way it has been working for the past 100 years and in some cases there was a need for it. But the model changed. But the business field terms haven’t.

So why don’t I just go and set up my own direct relationships with all the digital stores and services. Now the question that gets asked a lot is well why don’t I just go as an artist and deliver myself to iTunes. And the answer is because the digital service producers, DSPs that they’re called, don’t want to do deals directly with every artist on the planet. It’s not what they do. Apple sells hardware and software and operating systems.

Apple is not in the business of doing millions of direct contracts with millions of individuals on pieces of paper that go into filing cabinets, that they have to keep a running tabulation on knowing when they expire so they can send off new ones for addendums.

And deal with literally paying out royalties or wholesale pay rates to people on a monthly basis to millions of different bank accounts. That’s just not what they do. It’s not what they’re about. So if you’re Apple or Napster or Rhapsody or Music Men, what you want to do ideally is go to one place and get all the music in the world because then you only have one place you have to deal with. On the administration front, it’s a lot easier.

So if we could just go to one person, let’s say you, and say I’d like to get all the music in the world, then you go ok, here it is and Apple goes great, I’ll pay you each month. Now Apple only has to pay one person.

Then you can pick what store you wanted your music to be delivered to, iTunes etc. And why don’t we just charge a really simple upfront one

time fee and that’s it. So for the cost of a pizza basically, your music can be made available around the entire planet and the stores where people are going to buy it with unlimited inventory and you will get 100% of the revenue from the sale of your music. When your music sells, instead of a piece going to the distributor and a piece going to the record label, you get all the money.

I’m the delivery service. I’m the digital delivery service. And you just pay the simple upfront fee. A 10-song album currently as an example to be delivered to iTunes US is $20.87. That’s the cost of a FedEx package.

For $20.87, your music is now available in iTunes US with unlimited inventory, you get 100% of the money.

On top of it, I won’t control your masters. This is a non-exclusive deal.

I don’t need to exclusively control you.

You can cancel it whenever you want.

That’s the way it should be…and on top of that, you get your money whenever you want. See in the old model, we used to do royalty accounting periods every 3 months or every 6 months… and then within 90 days after the end of the 3 months or 90 days after the end of the 6 months, you get a statement. With the statement would come a check. That makes no sense in the new model because these are digital sales. In the old model, you had physical sales. So you didn’t know what shipped and returned. Then there was return processing, reserves and withholds and the leases and all this other crap.

But in the new model, a sale is a sale. It’s one way…and it’s pretty instantaneous. So you should have access to your money. The aggregation companies were doing these ridiculous policies of not paying you until the end of every 90 days, which is stupid seeing as you get the information every 30 days. And they would only pay you if they decided you earned enough. So in order for you to get your $100, you have to earn $200. It’s like walking into the bank to withdraw 10 bucks and the bank says I’m sorry sir, you only have $15 in your account. You need to have $20 to

97 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

withdraw your $10. That was the other part of it. I called up an old friend that I worked with at E Music with the idea in October of 2005…and by January of 2006, it went live. The music industry changed on that day. For the first time, an artist could get 100% of the revenue from the sale of their music in a non exclusive agreement with no contract, can cancel at any time and just log in and take their money from their sale.

Over a year later, everyone from Ziggy Marley whose reggae album won a Grammy this year, used TUNECORE. He paid us $18 and sold, I don’t know how many tens of thousands of copies of his album got all the money. To Ricky Skaggs. You know his bluegrass album? He was second hand serenade at the time, an unsigned artist out of San Francisco. The guy was an early adopter of TUNECORE in 2006. Over the next 4 months, he went on to sell over 200,000 songs with no record label, with no radio play, with no PR, using his MySpace page and the mp3 blogs. To an artist named Kelly who put up a viral video on YouTube, got over 30 million views and sold over 106,000 copies of his song in 3 weeks via iTunes. He paid us his 12 bucks and he had all the money from the sale…and there’s example after example of that.

The other part that I left out is how you market and promote. Well, you have things like YouTube, MySpace, MP3 blogs. Basically, the top down doesn’t apply anymore. It’s going from the bottom up. Kelly is a perfect example of it. An unknown artist…guy puts on a wig. He’s a comedian. Puts on a wig…writes a very catchy song called “Shoes” and puts up a video on YouTube that he probably spent a couple of hundred bucks making. The thing proliferates in an organic way. It picks up. Friends tell friends and the next thing you know he’s now being represented by the William Morris agency, has TV shows offered to him,

has a number of major label record deals thrown on him. He’s managed by a guy named Bill Silva who booked of all things Hollywood Bowl, manages Margaret Cho and has been around for over 25 years.

It started at the grassroots and has worked its way up. An LA based band, used TUNECORE, got featured within iTunes ‘cuz they loved them over there, and sold 5000 albums within a month…ended up on Letterman.

Catherine Feeny, independent artist out of England…she doesn’t even need to come to the fucking United States now.

She can sit in her house where her label actually can upload their music to get delivered to iTunes US. They can now get into another market. She doesn’t need to come here. They send out some email blasts. They do mp3 blogging. They utilize the net. She sold over 20,000 copies of her album in like 60 days. I mean there’s just example after example of this. It’s nuts…and that’s the major fundamental shift.

That’s where I’m focusing myself now.

The purpose of TUNECORE is to allow an artist to succeed under their terms by being a service model as opposed to an exploitation model and take the headache out of your life. You go to one place and get your digital distribution. You can go in and you can withdraw your money. You can even use it to administer and payout all your royalties if you want. There’s a system that allows you to send checks out through TUNECORE. You can get your CDs made there. You can get posters, t-shirts, stickers, and things like that.

And in December of last year, I did a deal with Guitar Center. Guitar Center now has an equity position within TUNECORE and they’re a strategic business partner. And we’re about to roll out some additional strategies.

For example, you’re going to be able to take the money that you’ve earned from the sale of your music and use it to buy gear and equipment from Guitar Center. But you’re going to

98 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

be able to get like an extra amount of money. So if you buy a gift certificate, you’re going to get extra bonus money on top of it. So your $100 will become $110 or something. So your dollar goes further. And now you can buy gear and equipment through TUNECORE. Or if you’re selling really well, you’re going to have the opportunity in the future to have your physical CDs placed and made available for sale in Guitar Center stores.

So that’s coming down the pipeline.

In the month of June, we’re going to be giving away . . . we did this in conjunction with Guitar Center. We have a contest. The winner gets a new Ford Econoline Van, $5000 in cash, a Mac book and national broadband access.

This came through my partnership with Guitar Center. Now you can upload your music and hit the road with a $500 gas card.

I got to ask you a very rude question.

Why aren’t you trying to get more money then?

Why should I? It doesn’t make sense.

It’s not right. But you could.

Look at Federal Express. Federal Express is worth about $20-30 billion dollars. That’s billion with a b. They made their money $18-20 at a time by delivering a package somewhere.

Certainly seems to be a pretty good economic model. And it’s the right model.

Yeah. I send everything FedEx continuously.

So what TUNECORE is, it isn’t digital distribution. That’s certainly something that we do and we do very well. Think of TUNECORE the way you would think of www.expedia.com. You go into Expedia and you primarily get an airplane ticket. But once you’re there, the other things as a traveler that you’d like are available. Car rentals, vacation packages, traveler’s insurance, hotel, etc. When you go there, you’re going there for a reason and you also get additional products and services that you need. Well, I want o do that for the musician. You go to TUNECORE and you go there primarily for the digital distribution. But all the other products and services that you need

are going to be there for you to use at your discretion. You don’t have to use any of them or buy any of them. But if you choose to do so, I want to take the pain out of your life.

Instead of having to go to Hertz rental car and then to rent a car and then www.hyatt.com to book a hotel and then www.americanairlines. com in order to buy your airplane ticket, you go to Expedia. The same thing with TUNECORE. You go there and it’s being built as a system that uses technology to simplify your life. You click a button and you make a CD. You click another button and a check will be paid out for you. You click another button and you made posters. I believe that being in the service sector side as opposed to the exploitation side is the right side of the economic equation to be on…from a moral perspective, but also from a purely economic perspective. When you look around you, Guitar Center is doing wonderfully man. It’s a company worth $1.6 billion that does $500 million a quarter in music sales and has that growth every year for like the past 5 years of like 5 to 7 to 12%.

You’re seeing Digidesign that makes Protools worth a couple of billion dollars and selling more versions of Protools. You’re seeing paper companies and CD companies . . . CD companies maybe not, but poster manufacturing companies increasing posters. All that stuff, tshirts, it’s all going up. The service sector side is doing wonderfully. The record label side is fucked. So why not get involved in the service sector side? Number one, it morally lines up with me. Number two, it’s a better economic model. I’m there to serve.

And there are more musicians and artists than there ever have been before. So why not cater to them? Get them a price that is lower than what they could get on their own because I have volume. Simplify their life through technology and enable them to succeed. And then with all those products and services, hopefully they’ll utilize your service for each and every one of them. And why wouldn’t they?

I’m not taking their rights. And it’s

cheaper than they could get on their own. And I’ve made it easier. With a click of a button, you can get a CD made.

What is it that you’re after at the end of the day? What do I personally want? I personally . . . in regards to these musicians? Enable them to succeed. I get off on that. It’s like a psychological thing for me. I like empowering people and helping them get where they want to go. I mean that’s what I’ve been doing for 20 years. And this is just another form of that. But this is a form of that which is much broader. And communicating and working with tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of artists.

Each one with a dream, a passion, and a desire and the ability to help them get where they want to go really is kind of what makes me run. And I got to say being involved in reinventing the music industry, coming up with a new model, that’s really cool too. That wasn’t the reason I did it…I started it because of what I saw I thought was wrong.

Out of necessity?

Well, necessity was part of it. And then really…and this sounds like I’m a philanthropist or a Mother Teresa and I’m not. I’m human. But, I really believe that what the aggregation companies were doing was wrong. It was just morally and philosophically incorrect. They were gouging because they could…and it really upset me. I don’t like people taking advantage of other people because they can.

So this is sort of revenge on that old system?

Well, not so much revenge. It was more . . . revenge wouldn’t be the word I would use. It was a correction. So number one, yes it was necessity.

But number two, it was like you’re a bully. Fuck you. And I’m going to do something to allow it to be corrected, to give the everyday man, the everyday woman, the everyday person the right way to do this. You get these pompous sometimes egocentric people sitting in an office telling you how they know everything. And this is the way it has

to be…and it’s wrong. It doesn’t have to be like that…and there are ways to change it. You know what? I’m going to do something about it because it’s not right.

I went through this with Spin Art. Joel and I…my partner and I took so many lumps over the years doing things wrong, people wouldn’t share information. We got taken advantage of because we didn’t know any better.

People could have told us and nobody did. The people that got away with it got away with it…and we had to learn.

Thank you for the knowledge base.

But that didn’t make it right. I hate it when people just rip other people off.

It’s just not the way the world is . . . and that’s wrong. I mean really that’s what sort of drives me as a person across everything I do. When I walk down the street and I see someone throw litter on the ground, it pisses me off. What, you’re just fucking lazy to make it to the corner on 76th street in Manhattan to reach the garbage pall. The subway door opens and you can’t get out of the fucking way. Come on. You hold the door for somebody. You don’t crank your music at 3 a.m. in the morning.

There’s right and there’s wrong. And you do what you can. At least I do what I can to do what’s right.

I think this is way more important than an article actually. And I guess I’m going to encourage you to write some kind of book.

You know I started it. I just don’t have the time. I wanted to share my sort of experiences of running a label.

And my goal was with this book to be entertaining, but also inform and educate.

Either that or maybe you’ve got to do some kind of seminar series or something.

Well, I love teaching. And I teach a lot of classes…I taught at Pace. I get called in for a class in Berkeley in Boston or Northeastern or Pace or NYU. I love teaching. It’s kind of where I wanted to be and fell into a record label in 1991 when my job fell through.

Well, I guess the world is so much the better.

tunecore.com

99 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

I

f you’ve been surfing profile sites with built in stores then you have certainly come across the SNOCAP embedded music player. It auditions

your entire catalogue and functions as a direct link to the MP3 retailer. It’s the nice neat all-in-one package synonymous with MySpace. Recently a deal was worked out with CD Baby bypassing all the red tape of having multiple outlets selling your releases. We sat down with Bruce Taylor, the Vice President of marketing and PR at SNOCAP who joined on last year.

How do you feel about the impact MySpace itself has had on musicians in presenting their music?

an EP, or what some people just call a bundle. We’ve got some people that bundle together a $3 bundle pack or a 3-song bundle pack. And they’ll put 3 songs in there for a $1.99. But once you’ve set up your store, then it’s a matter of doing the marketing. And there’s no substitute for hard work when it comes down to marketing, particularly on MySpace. So once you’ve created the store, then you need to send a bulletin out to all your friends on MySpace telling them that the store is there.

Bruce Taylor: MySpace is an incredible platform. It is allowing artists to connect directly with the fans and giving them all the tools that they need. I mean it’s pretty amazing when you have somebody like Snoop Dogg that’s got over 500,000 friends on their MySpace they’re going to feel attached to you page and with the push of a button and ultimately the more tracks they’re Snoop Dogg can send a message out going to buy from you. to all those people and it doesn’t cost him a cent to do it. That to me With SNOCAP, you can actually embed The field of video is an incredibly powerful tool distribution is so wide for someone at Snoop Dogg’s the store directly into the bulletin. So and open with so many level or even for somebody every time that friend is opening up services.

It’s a huge that’s just getting started with ocean.

SNOCAP is their bulletin to read up your new tracks quickly rising to the their career. It has really given them all the tools in which they that you’re promoting in the bulletin, the top tier of that. Do you can communicate directly with store pops up right in front of them. So feel pressure from the their fans.

SNOCAP has industry? given them an opportunity to that’s really a way that you can really No, we really don’t feel sell their music directly to their grab an impulse purchase very quickly. pressure from the industry. fans.

We’re trying to support the

With SNOCAP, you can industry. We’re trying to do everything actually embed the store directly into As an artist or a musician, where we possibly can to make sales on the bulletin. So every time that friend should I be before I begin to seek the Internet easier for the industry. is opening up their bulletin to read up out SNOCAP as my distributor?

We’re making deals with labels your new tracks that you’re promoting It doesn’t really matter to be honest with everyday because they understand in the bulletin, the store pops up right you. We work with artists at all levels. the importance of MySpace and in front of them. So that’s really a way We’re really all about empowering they understand the importance of that you can really grab an impulse artists. I don’t think it’s ever too early in connecting directly to their fans. The purchase very quickly. So the bulletin your career to start using SNOCAP. industry has really accepted us with is important. Making sure that you’re open arms. blogging about your activity. If you What is a good strategy along with How do you feel about video in this go into the studio and you record a SNOCAP to widen my audience? context? We think video is great. And track there and you upload that into Once I’ve signed up with SNOCAP, video is certainly on our roadmap for SNOCAP, write a blog about that. what do I do now? future releases of our product. But right Really give your fans an inside look Once you’ve signed up with SNOCAP, now, we want to nail audio distribution into what you’re doing as an artist, what you upload your tracks and you set the first. the creative process is. The more you price for your tracks in your store. You What about an artist who already get the fan involved and engaged and bundle the tracks together into what has several albums out and is in the creative process itself the more some term an album, what some call making the conversion to digital 100 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

the folks at SNOCAP. One of the cool things about SNOCAP is almost everybody that works at the company is an artist themselves and a musician. So it’s just a really cool creative group of people at work who come up with the concepts.

A general idea for your store design and the album has already been in the marketplace?

We recently announced the deal with Warner Music Group and recently put up stores for Diddy and TI and Notorious B.I.G. All these stores are selling that catalog content. So it doesn’t just have to be about new releases. We really want the SNOCAP store for each artist to be a repository for all their content.

And one of the neat things about the store as an artist, you have the ability to manage the order in which the tracks appear in the store, how the different bundles appear together. So it’s really your store to merchandise the content in the way that you want to.

Whose idea was to make the embedded player? Like that was a stroke of genius not only from MySpace, but I’ve seen the SNOCAP profiles on many, many artists’ sites and many other sites that aren’t even the artists themselves.

Sure. Sean Fanning who was the founder of the original Napster several years ago, he was the one that came up with the idea for SNOCAP and for our digital registry. And I have to be honest with you…I can’t attribute the specific embeddable store concept to any one individual at the company. We have a really great development and creative process where we do a lot of brainstorming together. And it wouldn’t be right to give any one person credit for that idea because it’s really a group and team creative process among all

What do you see for the future of SNOCAP besides implementing video? There are other aspects of revenue in which we want to empower artists to be able to sell direct to their fans. So you can imagine things like ring tones, things like merchandise, ticketing, and video of course.

Are there any thoughts to branch off from MySpace and perhaps make your own SNOCAP profile site, which is based on basically only musicians and artists?

Not currently. MySpace has been a great partner for us. And we’re doing everything that we can to make MySpace even better than it already is for musicians and for artists and for fans. It’s definitely not our intention to create our own SNOCAP retail environment. We’re really trying to put the power in the hands of the artist and the power to the people that are creating the content and the power to the labels and enable them to sell direct to their fans on the websites that they control.

How do you feel about the overall direction going into the digital sales distribution idea and moving away from vinyl and also now moving away from the CD medium?

Well, I think it’s inevitable as we continue to progress through the 21st century, digital is going to become more and more important. I think you’re going to see things. In addition to downloads, you’re obviously seeing a lot of streaming right now.

There have been some interesting

discussions about people doing away with their CD and actually just selling a USB key, which has the songs already uploaded onto the USB key itself. So then you just slide that in your USB slot on your laptop or your mp3 player.

I think you’re just going to see a lot of different strategies in the digital world.

And we’ve really built SNOCAP to try to capitalize any place where digital distribution is happening. We think the SNOCAP registry can be a central hub for that.

Well, I certainly congratulate you on your business. I think SNOCAP is a wonderful resource. Many of my friends and affiliates are already using it. Is there anything else you’d like to add and let people know about SNOCAP? Well, I think it’s all about empowering artists to be able to take control of their own careers. There is clearly a role for the record label. Once an artist builds up a solid fan base, running the business and the marketing side of being a major artist takes a lot of time.

And so I think there’s always going to be a place for the record label in this business. What we’ve done with SNOCAP is just really give an artist all the tools that they need to manage their careers themselves and also sell directly to their fans.

So there are some cool things you can do with our store. You can set your own price for your tracks.

And we’ve seen some artists that are selling their tracks for 59 cents because they’re just starting out and they want to try to reach many more people with our lower price point. And then we’re also seeing rap artists that are selling instrumentals for $500 a track. Again, just as another distribution channel as a way to sell tracks. So we’re seeing lots of different creative things out there. And we’re just really proud to be a part of the whole revolution that’s happening. And the revolution that’s happening on MySpace is certainly a major force to be reckoned with in the industry. snocap.com

101 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

W

hile many sites only give you the choice of between fan or band, iSOUND presents your profile with the choice of being a label. A perfect idea for individuals who want to release music under different stage names or a movement with several artists on their roster. We sat down with D.J. Burdick the founder and CEO and picked his brain about this multi-faceted profile/e-commerce option.

My first question is the usual. What is the inspiration behind iSound and what lead you to start the company?

Dj_Burdick: The inspiration behind it is primarily to help the smaller labeled bands and, you know, bands without any representation to bring their music to market cheaply and as easily as possible and also allow them to keep as much of the revenue as possible.

So basically cutting out the middle man and allowing them to keep all the profits from their sales.

A sample profile from the Hip Hop/Rap category

When someone starts a great company there is usually a dark story behind it. So we assume that you must have been some sort of musician and had a bad experience that lead you to go out on your own and start to deal with this obstacle as your own company.

musician website of bands looking at other bands. How have you broken through that barrier to actually reach the fan, the consumer, the person with a love of the music itself?

Right, yeah. I used to play in bands and, you know, as part of the music scene in Seattle. I saw an opportunity within the Internet where you don’t really need distributors and retailers taking big chunks in that labels kind of way.

It seemed like a great opportunity [for iSound] to mesh with the independent artist and really allow them to take control of their own career.

I think our community is really full of people just looking for music as well as the bands. But if you go to MySpace, you know, you will find a lot of other distractions there. You know, people are looking to meet up or whatever. If you checking out iSound; it’s people who are really music focused, music lovers who are on there looking to discover new music.

The biggest obstacle or at least I should say the biggest problem for MySpace is that it has become a

Many sites have set up fees where you pay a certain amount to setup an account, others have a yearly fee,

102 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

some have monthly, and some take a percentage of your sales. What is the iSound scale?

Basically the way we did it is we give the artist 100% of their sales and charge them, you know, a very nominal monthly fee. So the reason we decided to do that it is because we are just providing the ecommerce service, the shopping cards. After all that it’s really up to the artists to take control of their music. They are the ones who are working hard, promoting and performing. They are really the ones who should be reaping the benefits of that. So what we have is just the basic fee which allows them to actually take all the profits.

Some of the ideas are pretty revolutionary like the embedded player and the ability to place it on other websites. This makes for one of the most friendly alternatives for digital distribution. Where did you come up with that idea?

I just started seeing some sites like YouTube out there, you know, their digital players are all over the place and I just figured, why not allow our artists to sell their music from anywhere on the web. We would not restrict them to one site and force you to send fans to the iSound page. Any site, any blog can now be your ecommerce solution.

Now what about the actual MP3 encoding? I know you have used a little different system and it does not have the muddiness of the usual MP3. Did you actually sit down or was that just a stroke of luck?

Yes, we actually don’t drop down the MP3 bitrates like a lot of other sites do. A lot of other sites, you know, like MySpace for instance will take the files and get them down to the lower bitrates. You know it won’t sound as good, but it saves them on bandwidth.

Has there been a success story?

A standout group that has come to mind that you sort of think about in the back of your head as in this is what we were here for?

Yes, I mean, there is quite a few. There is a group called “Stephen Speaks” who are really hardworking band who sells tons of music through the site and then there is also, these are all off top of my head, there is also a Hip-Hop Artist called “Maniac” who does a ton of business on the site as well. So there are two completely different genres, one is Acoustic Pop-rock another is a pretty hardcore Rap. So you know, it is across the board, people are using it and quite a few have been very successful with it.

Okay, the next question is about

your customer service and how you actually answer emails in a timely fashion. And I know that sounds like a small thing, but if you are an artist and you have questions or concerns about your music like where it’s going and what is being done with it... Do you think you can actually maintain that system as you expand and grow?

Yes, absolutely. One of my main goals of success is having timely email responses regardless of the size of the site. So that is something that is necessary and as the site expands, we will bring on more people to help with that to ensure you continue to get timely and courteous responses. I have noticed, from my personal experience that a lot of website services are not very good about [customer] care and that is one of the main things I want to do differently with iSound.

What about digital promotions, marketing, and distribution? Is that inspired by the ease of use up or did you actually feel or see a decline in CD sales and physical media?

Both. You can see the decline in physical CDs. It’s sales in general with all the CD stores closing. It is really obvious. You can see it right in front of your face. Yes, if you look at the industries involved as well. It is the route things are going. If someone wants a song, they want it now, it just makes sense for them to just pull it right down, copy to their iPod and go. . .

So what do you see now for the future of iSound?

What we are working on is just extending more services for the artists to really making it easier and expanding. We will be adding merchant services. We will be able to create Tshirts and things like that, you know, it is all different kinds of merchandised stuff online. Easily upload their logo, get it on their shirts and we’ll handle everything in the backbend. And we are working on a whole new video system similar to YouTube so you can

DJ Burdick presents all you need... create all your music videos and easily and put them all over the web. We are working on more mobile services so people can get songs on their mobile phones. We will cover every aspect a working musician could ever want and making that as easy as possible for them.

You could pick three different services when you first sign-up?

Yes, right with the basic [service plan].

Yes, you can get three and then if you still wanted more then we got our premium level service. We have ring tones going on the site right now and it is working out pretty well. There’s quite a few artists who are selling a ton of ringtones.

Are you feeling your impact in the actual World Wide Web as many bands are ditching a personal website of their own and utilizing profile websites instead?

Yes, I mean, I definitely noticed.

Sometimes it is easier for a band to not have to maintain their “official website” and if they want to just send you to their iSound page where all their music is for sale and their ringtones are for sale and fans can listen to their entire catalogue on one site, it seems like more people are opting to do that.

Producer’s Edge thanks iSounds’ DJ Burdick for sitting down with us today. http://www.isound.com/

103 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

B

eyond making your songs available in the digital universe is the idea of a digital label. This is an entity much more that a Digital Content Provider. A Digital Label provides the same engine as a standard landbased business, but is specially geared to take advantage of the strengths offered by operating in cyber space. As the recording industry is forced to account for digital sales when crunching numbers on who sold what in the first week- it’s labels like IODA that are at the forefront of this new frontier.

We dig in with IODAs’ Vice President of Content Erik Gilbert.

He began his career in the entertainment industry in 1984, when he became the legal beneficiary to some 300 published compositions written by Joseph George Gilbert. These included numerous songs from the 1920’s and 1930’s, many co-written with composer Lawrence Wright; many of these compositions were number one pop hits in England. Erik managed the worldwide administration of these compositions, securing covers and negotiating sundry publishing deals, and remains involved in a number of publishing concerns to this day.

How did you make the transition from a physical based label to a digital label?

Erik Gilbert: I’ve been managing labels for many, many years. And the last label I was managing which I still have is Dark Tower, which is actually a catalogue label. It was less about moving the label from the physical to digital space. It’s more about me moving from a business space to digital space. I was the first music industry executive to do a promotional deal with Bill of Napster. [Chief Technology Officer Bill Pence-DS] I was very vocal about supporting Napster and did a deposition for them in their lawsuit about being sued. And I did a deal because it’s tied originally with one of IODA’s competitors very early on before I even knew about IODA. And I got involved with IODA because I became very frustrated trying to deal with this other company. I was making marketing suggestions, trying to acquire new releases, being proactive and very excited about digital space. I wasn’t getting anything back. So then I came across IODA because someone kept emailing me and said, “Would you want to get additional rights.” I said, “Well, they were already taken care of.”

So then I’m happy with my additional partner. The label went to the point

where I sort of needed to do something else, either get a job or do some consulting or something. The founder of IODA was very impressed as an individual. I was also very impressed with him and his company. He was trying to build it up at that time, which is really four people at that time, a very small company. But they were people that came with the music background, very passionate about music and people that saw the opportunity to market things in the digital space, not just take records and stuff them through the traditional pipes. They would ask: How do we market records and how do we try to maximize digital listings in the market place for our label clients. And those were the things that excited me so I took part in it.

So what was going on in your life in your teenage years and early twenties?

I’ve always been involved with music- in bands for many years as a teenager up until when I was twentyseven I think. I’m forty-three now. My grandfather was a songwriter. And in my early twenties- - My grandmother died in 1984 and when she died, the royalty stream and the copyrights were given to me and my siblings, my brother and sister. And someone had to sort of manage those copyrights.

104 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

So, I put my hand up and said I would do it. I knew nothing about it. I was twenty one years old playing in a band, having aspirations of becoming a rock star or something. And I just dived into it and had a lot of fun and made a lot of mistakes but learned a hell of a lot and at the same time, got very interested in the business side of things. To me, that was sort of the pivotal moment. It’s clear I’m not going to make it being a musician. I’m really interested in the business side. That’s why I sort of moved myself over. That’s why I also moved from London to San Francisco, California, and started working for a small independent label. I just went and got my foot in the door somewhere.

My first job was as an intern. And from there I met a couple of people that wanted to start a label, which were the people that owned the label Asphodel.

They needed someone to help them so I did that. From California, I went to New York for Asphodel. And we did that for five years then.

Do you still have a relationship with Dan the Automator?

I have a relationship with his manager, probably mostly him at this point. I think I probably talked to him a year ago. I haven’t seen Dan in a while.

Are you still interested in the artist end of it, do you still take a new artist?

Do you still go to see showcases?

Do you still review music?

Oh yeah, I’m a music fan. I mean that’s why I’m in this game and why I’m doing this. I have to do it in a way. I just love music and working with artists and working with labels and discovering new artists. And also, I’ve realized that’s my biggest contribution, I think, and my biggest joy is trying to help artists actually develop and grow in the marketplace. That’s sort of what is really rewarding to me. What I always found really rewarding is once you have an artist that doesn’t necessarily have an easy pigeon hole. He’s not necessarily very easy to market but to actually get a record out, and help him to find his audience is great. Even if he

can we do this differently?

They’re not thinking, how can we do this without having a label? And that’s the great thing about digital.

I think it gives artists an opportunity to start asking themselves that question.

Maybe they don’t need a label. Maybe they can do it themselves. Maybe there are opportunities there. So to me, it’s very easy because the digital just had all these promises. You know, it’s a blank canvas and we could make it anything we want to. And for the first time it’s a true opportunity. Just like the majors. Maybe there’s a tip from the independent community that they really have to wake up to and think about. only sells a few thousand records, that to me is what’s really rewarding at the end of the day.

What artists right now do you feel has your ear? Like what would you put in your CD player right now to listen to?

Yeah, there’s one record I’ve heard recently which I keep saying to people, “You got to hear this. This is my favorite record of the year.” It’s by an artist called Andy Palacio. He’s on the list. And it’s a sort of interesting mix between Latin and Afro-Cuban. And it’s a small label called, Stonetree Records. It’s got a license I suppose. It’s an absolutely amazing record.

In IODA’s case, how did you find the confidence to go in that direction?

I don’t know. It was exciting to me. It was something new. It didn’t have the baggage. The record industry often has a baggage attached to it especially the record labels. A lot of record labels still sort of think and market themselves in a very traditional way, and often have a formula. And they don’t often think, how

Do you think IODA will impact physical sales of CDs? No, I don’t think so. I think we reach the audience that’s sometimes not going to buy a CD anyway. I think some people have made a decision to buy visual or physical. Some people still buy physical. That’s fine. So we’re not here to necessarily impact the CD business.

I think the CD business will just have its natural decline anyway. I don’t think what we’re doing is necessarily directly impacting it. I think it changed the shift going on naturally, whether IODA is here or not.

How did you establish relationships for other markets? Like, how do you feel about iTunes, MSN.com, and other sites that also sell the mp3 system?

I think they are all great. I mean we want them all to succeed. It’s very difficult. It’s pretty easy for iTunes to be in the game. They got Apple who got lots of money and resources. The same is true with Microsoft. Sometimes it’s very tough for a small niche store to do well. There are a lot of stores which are

now popping up. There are a couple of world music sites. And that’s tough I think to sustain those businesses. We do everything we can to support those guys. In the same way, a good physical distributor would do everything I did as a label. I always try to support them on retail stores and as well as selling into Best Buy and Trans World or the other big stores, making sure that we are fully supporting independents. And we still do that at IODA. We work around all the complexities and difficulties.

And they don’t always necessarily ingest content very well. They have trouble with reporting sometimes from a technical perspective. We do everything we can to work with them because that’s where it starts; it’s grass roots.

What if you could close your eyes and imagine a perfect artist you’d like to call the IODA office and seek a deal? Who would that be and what position would they be in?

Someone who has a label understanding, that we’re no longer living in territories. We could flick a switch and a record could be marketed globally, an artist that understands that digital has a place. It’s not necessarily the future. An artist that understands that there are new innovative marketing opportunities and an artist that would want to work with us and have a partnership with us to actually sort of explore and make things work.

It seems as though the distribution problem has been solved through electronic means. But now we’re looking at another hurdle of marketing and promotions.

Absolutely.

Once an artist is now on the IODA roster, and this artist is now ready for release and ready for the promotional engine to back him up, what’s the strategy behind IODA that can separate it from a crowd of other digital distributors and labels?

The difficulty in it is IODA is a technology company. And because

105 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

we’re a technology company, we’re able to build a very interesting set of marketing tools. So we try to get places then in front of iTunes. Everyone does, and we’re very successful at it. But the things that sell though are the things that are digital on the front page. It’s very competitive to get on that front page. If you’re not on that front page, then you’re invisible.

So there have to be big things happening externally to the store. So we do a promotional platform with bloggers and podcasters, and anyone on the web that wants to help promote and market songs and music can come in and have access to promotional free tracks but the labels of ours have said, “This is a free mp3, I want you to give it away.” So it’s been cleared on both sides, on the publishing side and the master side. We have about I think… twenty five thousand tracks now in the system which are free and clear for that use.

So we allowed bloggers and podcasters to come in but what we do is there’s an arrangement that happens. There’s a license that they sign. We want them to help market and sell the music. So it’s all co-generator. They can copy and paste that code. That code would then go on to their blog and will produce the album cover, the artist name and the album name and then direct links to buy it from iTunes, Rhapsody, Memusic, and all these different services. And because all that color is actually pointing back to our service, we could track where all the click-throughs that’s happening so this blog has a track. Someone downloads it, listens to it, clicks on the iTunes link, goes into iTunes, we can track that providing all the data back to the label.

So what we’re doing is really monitoring and tracking the free tracks which have already been done before but driving people right into a store down the aisles to where your record is, making them pick that record up, taking it to the counter and buying it. So that’s

really exciting. Those are the sort of the marketing opportunities that we have to bring. Technology is the word to drive people into the stores.

What would you say is your biggest hurdle business-wise?

Sustainability. This show is obviously still a small portion of he overall music industry. Depending on the label there is a percentage, but the general opinion is it’s running in about 10% of their over all balance. So 90% of the market is physical product. So for us, it’s really sustainability and getting the message out and being able to expand internationally because that’s the opportunity here. It’s not just North America or it’s France, it’s Spain, it’ s Brazil, it’s Japan, it’s Australia. All those are sort of our opportunities.

What has been the biggest success then? On the opposite end, what has been that thing that has really gotten you even more excited once you actually started? A success story maybe...

One of the success stories that we talked about a lot recently is the Tokyo Police Club. It was on an independent label in Canada called Paper Bag. We bought Paper Bag when I think they only had two records out and they were on no one’s radar. They distributed physically through Fontana Universal in the US. The records sold about twenty thousand copies I think overall.

65% of their sales are digital and 35% physical. It’s through Fontana. So it’s a real distributor. It’s not just some rinkydink distributor. And that is primarily because what we did, we did a lot of online blog community activity to market it and promote that record. And the label did as well. And that really drove additional sales. So to me that’s a real success story.

What is your focus now for the next three years?

Three years, I think about next week.

[Laugher] I think really to expand internationally. We’re also moving into

106 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

video on sale. So that’s the next stage of the digital world. It’s audio visual, not just audio.

Is there an artist where you sort of saw them and you said, “Man, I want that catalogue as part of our service.” And maybe you’ve gone after them?

Oh, that artist I just mentioned to you earlier, Andy Palacio. We didn’t get it. But I’m still a fan of the record.

We have a lot of success in classical music. We’ve done deals directly with some of the bigger orchestras in the US, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for example. Those things are very rewarding because they’re unusual.

They certainly don’t ever expect people to talk to them about becoming a digital label. We helped them sort of create a digital label and hopefully gave them the impetus for that and they deal with us. Those things are pretty exciting.

To see them happy when they get some sales and see themselves up on iTunes, it’s amazing.

That’s very good. So winding down, any thoughts of going back into music yourself?

No, I’m personally actively involved. I do a lot of publishing administration.

So I’m actually involved in that side.

There’s no recording going on at your home on weekends? Be honest.

Reading and music, me and my lady. I still listen to lots of music. That definitely consumes my life without question.

Is there anything else you want to add about yourself or IODA in closing?

No, I think we’ve covered a load of stuff here actually. You got a lot of good questions.

And you’ve got some great answers.

Thank you for letting us profile you in Producer’s Edge.

I

t’s time to target a label owner who has made the switch from conventional methods of distribution to ‘all digital’. He’s NASA the engineer behind Definitive Jux ,for over five years, who has now branched out as a producer and label owner. The roster includes Arcsin, Dig Dug, Centri and The Presence. He’s going at t alone powered by IODA. Let’s hear what he has to say.

“Running a record label is like being trapped in a maze at times, sometimes your able to run down long hallways unimpeded by anything or anyone, other times your met with blockade after blockade keeping you from achieving your goal. The answer to this problem is to attempt to tear down the walls of the maze with new ways out, thus explaining our labels motto.

The digital medium allows us as a label to advance the creativity of our artists by allowing us to get many more releases out to the market than would have been possible due to the incredibly high manufacturing costs that exist out there.”

As an independent label, how has the idea of digital distribution affected your marketing, promotions and distribution strategy?

Nasa: It changes everything, now instead of starting every project approximately 2 grand or more in the hole, due to the cost of manufacturing, you can take that money and put it toward your actual promotion. The drawback of the whole digital thing is that most cats doing it don’t follow up their releases with the promotion that has to be done. You still have to service press and get the word out about the project; even if it’s just you yourself doing mail outs. You don’t have to hire someone to send out a select amount of press that is targeted.

The other advantage of releasing projects digitally only is that you can put out that much more material and build the catalog of the label, which is very important. Your releases are getting into the hands of press and radio, that many more times a year, and they can become more familiar with your music.

You can develop relationships with certain journalists, DJs, and supporters because you should be expanding your list with every release. This process

can take years if you have to work the logistics financially of pressing up CDs, but it can take months when you’re releasing projects digitally.

The bottom line is it gives a lot of power back to the labels and the people that are actually making music. There’s no more elite club that you’re not allowed into by the traditional gate keepers- Distributors and Manufacturers. It helps creativity flourish on a musical level, because you can get that much more music to your listeners.

For previous releases, you’ve used the traditional avenues like hard CD sales and live appearances to promote your music. What results and benefits have you seen from this new approach?

At Uncommon we still press up CDs, for example we’re about to drop the new album from Arcsin “Oculus Fang” on CD, but digitally as well. Ultimately though, I envision Uncommon as a digital only record label, realistically, I envision a time where the only way to get any music- is digitally. One of the things we’re trying to do here at Uncommon is get the traditional base that still buys CDs to make the jump

to the digital platform. We encourage our fans to sign up to Emusic or Itunes or any other service and promote that heavily on our site. We’re going to put out a mix CD this summer that features a lot of our digital only releases in order to bridge the gap that’s out there, hopefully cats that pick it up get directed to all the dope music we’re dropping digitally and make that jump.

The results have been that we have a lot more opportunities to reach an audience. With each release, that release gets serviced, giving us a stronger presence among insiders, but more importantly we get to put out more music that reaches more people.

The more we put out, the more variety of artists we put out, which helps us cast a wider net overall and bring in more fans than if we were just pressing CDs. It’s spread the name around, and we’ve just begun, by the end of this year we’ll likely have a catalog that consists of over a dozen full lengths, if you include CDs and Digital releases.

Uncommon Music has shied away from the profile sites like MySpace and Indiefi. Why is that?

We don’t anymore. The label is now highly visible everywhere online that’s

107 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

wants to make music. deemed worthy. We have a Myspace page for the label now at myspace. com/uncommonrecords. We have a heavy presence on LastFM, building up our own label page there and uploading the catalog for play on their Internet Radio. We’ve worked a lot with Internet Radio sites like Pandora and AccuRadio, getting our tracks on their playlists. I have my own Podcast called Uncommon Radio (www. uncommonradio.libsyn.com), which features artists that are on Uncommon and many more that aren’t as guests and is now newly available for subscription on Itunes and all other major Podcast Directories. Not to mention our own website www.uncommonmusic.net which now features a “Prog Blog?” that deals with issues that are important to fans of Progressive Hip Hop, and has lots of updates on the label itself. It’s all an effort to provide content. content is key. You have to build your presence online if you expect people to buy your music online. You have to make your company a destination for people. It’s foolish to try to move your business online and sell records digitally, and hate the Internet at the same time.

You have to allow someone as much entertainment from your content as possible.

It then becomes that much easier for them to make that purchase. I’ve taken the approach of embracing new technology as much as possible with Uncommon and will continue to seek out any opportunity to continue this in the future.

Your main Distributor is Ioda. What have you experienced as one of their customers?

I think that they really provide labels with tons of information. If nothing else, I’ve learned so much about how to operate a record label just by working with them. The info they give you on all of their deals is an open book and reading it helps you understand the nuts and bolts of this business and gives you a good context for developing your

own strategies. Internet promotion isn’t wasting money on some banner somewhere, its’ getting your name out there by providing content to people as I mentioned before. They show you all their deals (Retail and Promotion wise) and it helps you figure out, ok, I want to try to raise our presence on this site or that site.

The best thing about them is they never rest. They are always getting new deals for their labels. I’m really encouraged by a recent deal they struck with Other Music, which is a long time Independent music store in NYC. Other Music has started up a digital store now, and if they’re successful it could lead to other “boutique” digital stores.

This would be great because instead of having our releases in the giant ocean of Itunes (which is very valuable), you could also be in small ponds where you’re a big fish as well, all over the net. They also do promotional deals for your music, servicing Bloggers and Internet Radio online in what they call their PromoNet. They strike deals on the retail and promo front all the time, and keep you posted on ongoing talks through well put together updates.

The most important thing of course is their payment of collected royalties.

This is also organized very well and is always delivered on time to you, unlike physical distributors or consignment stores that you have to bang down doors for what is owed to you.

What are some of the new hurdles concerning labels experimenting with an all-digital release?

The hurdles are people that are little bit behind the curve. Reviewers may still have apprehensions in reviewing digital only releases, and Radio stations may still not accept releases in MP3 format. With that said there are a lot of people out there that are all over it and support. It’s only a matter of time. The hard copy days are numbered.

The other hurdle is the same as always: an over-saturated marketplace.

But that will never change, everyone

108 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

What new pressures do you face competing with the many other labels and artists now placing their music in the same crowded lanes of internet interest?

I don’t feel much pressure at this point.

Our label stands out because of our ideas. People that buy our music know they are getting a high quality product, not some of the junk that floats around the net or some of the watered down underground stuff a lot of the bigger Indies are releasing. Like I said, you’ll never cure over saturation in the music business; all you can do is stick to your guns.

Are you now singles minded or do you think there is still a place for a cohesive album based on a theme or concept.

I think there is plenty of room for both; we put out digital singles and full lengths. There is still a demand for a digital single that comes with clean, instrumental and acapella versions.

With CD turntables and Serato that stuff is still great for DJs to have. It’s also great for fans to still have the feel of what made 12 inch records so great for all these years.

I think the idea that Itunes is somehow killing the album concept is a myth. It’s killing albums that were never cohesive to begin with. If you put out an album full of singles that are all on different tips, people will naturally pick the singles they want.

If you put out an album that is strong and cohesive, where each song feeds off the next and have something to do with each other, people will buy the full album. Why wouldn’t they when they can get your full album for 9.99? That beats paying 13.99 at the store for a CD, so if your album is strong, there’s more incentive to buy the full length online if it’s truly worth it. You just have to keep your game up.

uncommonmusic.net

We thank NASA of Uncommon Records for sitting down with PE.

W

e’ll close the Industry Insider feature out with an individual wearing several hats who is tackling both the physical and digital methods of marketing and distribution. IZ-REAL is the force behind Insomniac Magazine, a Hip Hop industry publication in existence for over 10 years.

Insomniac Music is the independent label pushing the Kool Keith powered Mr. Nogatco [read backwards]. It summarizes the total digital package and takes advantage of multiple mediums. It is tagged as a CD-ROM and includes a mini-movie, comic book and photo album. Let’s dig in and look into this ambitious project.

First, tell us a little bit about Insomniac.

IZ-REAL: My actual background was initially being a recording artist.

It started off back in the 80s in the Bronx. I was actually signed to B Boy Records, the same label that dropped Criminal Minded. I left New York and the Bronx river area and moved to Orlando. There really wasn’t any Hip Hop. I ended up doing a radio show.

I did that for over ten years and continued to make music and release records independently and then also started to write for magazines. I was actually the Hip Hop editor for a little while at Jack the Rapper which was like the oldest urban music magazine. I did that for a couple of years and then eventually started Insomniac which was the first Hip Hop trade publication which we printed for about ten years.

Then, I also kept making music. So basically my background was almost in anything related to Hip Hop whether it be magazines, journalism or radio, recording, producing etc.

When did you first hear about Ultramagnetic? Being from the Bronx, I was always aware of Ultra. Actually I didn’t know Keith back in those days. I used to run into Trevor [TR Love] every once in a while. His aunt had a store in Park Chester. And I used to buy records there so I ran into him once in a while. We used to talk about Hip Hop and stuff like that. But I mean just really being a fan of music, you know, growing up in the Bronx, we see people like that just chilling. These were the people that are now the forefathers of Hip Hop. I would see people like Red Alert at parties in the park.

then finally we decided to get together and make that full length happen.

Were you aware of his work for Dan the Automator? Oh yeah, no question, of course. It’s interesting because he’s one of those guys and I always give him so much credit.

There are very few artists that could transcend different genres in different eras. There are very few people that have been around in the ‘80s that are still relevant and Keith is one of those guys. He obviously had his career and made his place in Hip Hop, through Ultramagnetic and was able to redefine himself with the Dr. Octagon and Sex Style and Dr. Doom along with a bunch of other artists. So he’s one of those few guys that I think is such a rare talent.

IZ REAL and Keith operate the boards...

How did you actually end up hooking up and creating the album project then?

Kool Keith and I had done solos in the past. He’s been on a few of my releases in the past. And we had talked about doing a record for a long time- over ten years ago. He played stuff on the radio but basically in 1993 the Source was supposed to- -I don’t know if you remember at the back of the Source they will just tell you who’s going to be on the cover of the next issue, like one month, it was supposed to be Ultramagnetic. They ended up not putting Ultramagnetic; they ended up putting TLC instead. That really got me mad. And when I left Jack the Rapper and I started the first issue of Insomniac in 1996, the first person I wanted to put on the cover was Keith.

I reached out to Keith and he pretty much understood. We worked together on different projects. He’s been on a bunch of my projects. And we always talked about doing a full length and

Following on the heels of the Ultramagnetic legacy, did you feel pressure in going into a studio with him? Maybe you felt like I have to come up with something extra special or extra different.

I would say …yes and no, not necessarily. The record that we did is very unique in the sense that it’s not just a record. It’s also a movie and it’s basically everything that Kool Keith fans love about him but you don’t get to just hear it -you get to see it. We not only made the album but we put together this short film that basically has him as his persona in outer space.

You know, it’s kind of modeled up to this old school science fiction movie.

Humorous and not something that should be taken seriously. But basically it has him in outer space dissecting aliens. I’m actually his assistant in the movie. As far as trying to follow the Ultra, I’ve haven’t been trying to follow up to Ultramagnetic because that was classic. That’s classic material from his time. I mean a classic material is defined

109 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

by age, not necessarily something that you define when it comes out. Even though you might like something, then you might say that’s classic. You really don’t know that’s classic until ten years later or twenty years later. So I wasn’t really pressured in that sense. I was just more so going into it like I know what Kool Keith fans like. I know what I like and I basically wanted Keith in an environment that his fans want to see him.

I hear a lot of processing on the vocals. What were you going for in that area?

The whole album is going back to the ‘50s science fiction era. So it was basically almost that antique kind of feel where everything sounds like you came from a time tunnel. So the whole album has that feel where basically it sounds dirty but it’s dirty on purpose.

You have the sound bytes and stuff like that, that’s given that extra touch but the body is almost like a time capsule from 1953 and the only difference is it’s a Hip Hop science fiction time capsule.

What gear powers that album?

Everything and anything because we had producers that submitted beats from all over. And we basically took that. And they created those beats on every single denomination and format of equipment. And then we would take that into Pro Tools, chop it up, add effects, put things together that normally shouldn’t be together, add sound bytes and create something totally different.

What about the actual tracking over the records? You were in the studio with Kool Keith doing vocal sessions?

We tracked all the vocals. Then after we tracked the vocals we went back in and tweaked it. But the music itself was tweaked and chopped up, and I did every single last thing to it before he laid vocals. And after he laid vocals, we just basically fine tuned to make it all sound right and make it work.

What was his initial reaction to your production process?

I’ll be honest with you. I love Keith.

He’s one of these guys who’s easy to work with because he becomes the character. So basically it was my concert. This was the kind of album I wanted to make and steer the direction.

But he lived it. He breathed it. He is the character. So when we’re in the studio, Keith hears the music and he writes.

He’s a genius. All the lyrics were written in the studio. He came prepared

You just rely on people that love the music to discover it. And it’s one of those things that some people won’t discover for five years later because it’s not on MTV, it’s not on BET. It’s not on the soundtracks for the hottest new movie.

It’s not in video games. I think that’s the beauty of good music in general. You don’t depend on a multi-million dollar budget; you’re dependent on the word of mouth which is the most authentic

‘...at the end of the day that’s the music that in twenty years people will go back and say, “Man, that guy started something

brand new and no one ever did anything like that.” And that’s an originator. I think that’s what Hip Hop is about.’ with lyrics. We sat in the studio and during the process of a week, the guy just basically wrote an album as he’s listening to the beats. So that’s one thing about Keith. Anybody could rap.

Anybody could rhyme. There are so many rappers out today but I would say Kool Keith is truly a genius.

How aware were you with the business behind this album as you were producing it? Distribution, promotions, how it’s going to be marketed and how it might be received by fans.

Well, at the end of the day, it’s Hip Hop, so as far as the business - something coming up from any of these major Hip Hop cats … it’s independent music so when you look at marketing, when you look at putting the record out, your expectations are set for progressive Hip Hop. You can’t go in and say we’re going to do these majors things. That’s why we utilize things like the video of him dissecting aliens and images of outer space and that kind of stuff that we can just put on the net for all the die hard fans in the world.

Do-it-yourself. It’s small in that sense.

110 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

way to learn about something.

Do you have a signature piece or a signature piece of gear that you feel really could define your sound?

You know what, not really, man.

When I started recording, we used the DMX, we’re using or triggering through the Ensoniq Mirage. We were using the first SP12. To me, equipment is really just a vehicle to get your personality out. So I want to say that I have one, but today everything is digital, anyway.

I mean half of the music that you hear is created on computers. So I mean you know, I can’t say that there’s one piece of equipment that I value any more than another. To me it’s just a vehicle to the end which is something that you could call music. I kind of dig the MPC500 because it’s portable and you can take it anywhere and it runs on AA batteries. But yeah, I want to say that I have a piece of equipment that defines me. I’m pretty much into anything that has the final outcome as good music.

Are you into virtual instruments at all? You know we have used some of that stuff on production in the past but not necessarily. I’m not, you know,

...and then on Aliens! stuck on anything. I mean if we can work on a drum machine that came out fifteen years ago or you’d give us something that we could create on iDrums or something on the computer, that’s fine with me. At the end of the day, it’s what it sounds like.

Did you actually have any influence on his writing or on his vocal techniques during the recording process?

Well, you know what, I can’t. There’s no way that I can take credit for anything that Kool Keith rapped. But you know, obviously as the producer, you know my definition of a producer is almost like a movie director. You kind of guide the process, not just necessarily the music but also the process of the feel.

So sure, there were times when he might deliver something in a certain way and I will say, “Why don’t you try it this way?” Or, “Maybe if you did this...”But I wouldn’t take credit for Keith’s genius. At the end of the day, Keith is one of these guys that need minimal input as far as directing him and what he does which is basically deliver lyrics and rap.

What about Ultramagnetic supporting sites like Critical Beatdown? How vital is that to the actual spread of information about independent artists?

In general, the fan sites add authenticity to the record. I think they are more valuable than having the biggest ad in the biggest magazine because at

the end of the day when we read magazines and when we watch TV, we’re trained to ignore it, because we see so much of it and it’s not authentic.

Okay, so we know you have money to buy this ad.

Technically if you have the money, you can be on the cover of Billboard tomorrow. But I think fans of true music are a little bit savvier than being persuaded just by that.

So I think that those sites, you might consider them small and they might be created by a guy in his bedroom but at the end of the day I think that’s some of the most valuable form of promotion because those are the real taste makers and the guys that are like the experts, you know the pundits in music and I think that when people are really fans of music, they value that so much more than the biggest media in the world.

What’s next for you?

I’m in the process of working on a new documentary about cult hip hop music that basically appeals to a small group of people but those people are so dedicated that they follow these groups anywhere. And it’s a movie that I’m in the process of wrapping up and Kool Keith is actually on the soundtrack. So that’s something that’s in the works now. So it’s not out yet but that would be the next project that I’m involved with.

What’s your favorite song from the Mr.Nogatco album?

I would say “Alpha Omega” is my favorite song because of the sound. I’m basically hearing Kool Keith step out of his role of all these different characters and all these aliases and talk about himself and basically let people know that he was really the creator of a lot of what you see out there, mainly more mainstream but he’s the guy that, as far

as I’m concerned, started the aliases.

It’s him breaking down the knowledge: he’s a lot more to Hip Hop than just another rapper, another guy from the 80s that happens to still be around.

He’s almost like an architect of most of the current hip hop music.

Is there anything else you want to share with your fan base or other people that are trying to do something different and maybe lack that confidence?

I would say as far as I’m concerned, you got to remember that the future of Hip Hop is diversity. I mean when I grew up in the Bronx, when I grew up in Bronxville Projects, Hip Hop wasn’t about the bling. Hip hop wasn’t about crime. Hip hop was about creativity, originality and bringing something different to the table. When I first heard Soulsonic Force…I mean nothing sounded like Soulsonic Force.

When I heard Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, Whodini, Grandmaster Flash for the first time, no one sounded the same. Everybody brought something different to the table. I would say to the up and coming producers out there: it’s so easy to sound like someone else and say, “Man, that sounds good because this sounds like this hit record.” But it’s so difficult to step up to the plate and bring something brand new that no one has ever brought to the table before because even though it may be harder to promote it, maybe it’s harder to get people to kind of get it but at the end of the day that’s the music that in twenty years people will go back and say, “Man, that guy started something brand new and no one ever did anything like that.” And that’s an originator. I think that’s what Hip Hop is about.

It’s about originating and when you listen to Hip Hop, you’re not listening to a genre of music. You’re listening to Punk music, Soul music, Latin music and every other genre intertwined together and people keep forgetting that. They keep identifying and labeling Hip Hop as one thing. But that’s the beauty of hip hop. Hip Hop can’t be defined. insomniacmagazine.com

111 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

9th Wonder “...if

I want to make beats with the same

snares and kicks; people say that I use… you know what? I’m going to do it . . . that producer or dissector or whatever can keep downloading my beats. It’s up to them to keep doing it. ‘cuz that’s what they do. It’s like they say ah, you sound the same. I’m getting tired of them and they download everything I do.”

Video: 9th displays a best of behind the wheels!

What should your diehard fans expect out of the Dream Merchants album?

9th Wonder: The 9th wonder…classic 9th wonder. I make a style of music that’s not really for the mainstream marketplace like that.

What about on a lyrical front?

What’s going on there?

The lyrical front is just raps, man. Just straight metaphors and similes. It’s rap that’s not in the mainstream place either. So I guess that’s the lyrical front.

I know you said that you’re going to basically ignore any sort of criticism or pressure from your fans. But you know in particular, and I will say, you in particular, your sound- every bit of audio quality, the high hat, the snare, the kick, anywhere you chop your loop- is being dissected by the diehard core producer fans.

The guys on the come up are really listening to every single thing you do and using it as a model for themin their sound and their aspirations.

Is there anyway you can ignore that while you’re making your tracks and really tune that out?

I do it all the time. I ignore it all the time. I mean I’m 32 years old man and I’m not easily influenced. I mean as far as what I want to do in my everyday life. I got other beats ,that’s made with different hats, snares, and kicks. But if I want to make beats with the same snares and kicks; people say that I use… you know what? I’m going to do it . . . that producer or dissector or whatever can keep downloading my beats. It’s up to them to keep doing it. ‘cuz that’s what they do. It’s like they say ah, you sound the same. I’m getting tired of them and they download everything I do.

You are the legendary producer still using Fruity Loops when so many other people are building these multi-million dollar studios and not getting as far as you are in the game. There’s got to be some envy and jealousy. But, is there pressure for you to switch up your workflow?

Are you still being hit?

It’s easy. It’s like Basketball man.

Either you can play or you can’t. I mean if you could dunk, you could dunk with Jordan’s on. You could dunk with Chuck Taylors [on]. It’s the same thing with music. If you can make music, you can make music on Fruity Loops, Cubase, a Triton, the Starship Enterprise, whatever. It doesn’t matter.

So I’m going to still continue to do what I do. There’s jealousy and envy and you know what jealousy and envy does? It gets you nowhere.

What about also the statement that people want to see you back with Little Brother again? What are you going to do to pacify those fans that want that combination?

I mean we’ve got the deal that’s going on right now. Hopefully, we’ll get back together. But one thing is certain. I’m going to continue to put out good music.

And Phonte, Big Pooh are going to continue to put out good music.

Even in that sense you’ve worked with a lot of big name groups, I mean a lot of really hugely established artists. But yet you still find time to break those artists around that middle level of our consciousness.

Why are you still reaching back to artists that are on the cusp of being known?

Because I was an artist on the cusp of being known. One thing I learned from Jay-Z is I’ll put you on so you can put your boys on. That’s a pay it forward type of situation. That’s my thing. It’s like he put me on to millions of people. The best thing that I can do is put somebody else on to millions of people…whether they feel like they need my help or not. There’s something

113 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

about being on that middle cusp area that’s more honest. I don’t ever want to lose that. I never want to be considered unreachable by anybody.

and you know kind of what drums go where and whatever. You can see it on the screen as far as Fruity Loops is concerned. But I see drums in my head and then do what I do after that.

babies. So where I live, I’m around soccer moms all day who don’t listen to 9th wonder. So I’m with soccer moms who shop at Wal-Mart. There’s just this whole other family man in me.

A lot of other name producers And then what are you using for including Just Blaze have really Where do you draw that line between all the swing settings?

You’re been dropping your name in their respect for the MC and appreciating doing that by ear? You’re doing it interviews saying who’s worth the money and commercial success by numerical value saying I know a listening to. How do you think that that comes from working with the round here gets me where I want to came about? Or what music do Rapper? go? you think they’re listening to that’s It’s not about that you’re a Rapper By ear. saying 9th Wonder is the next guy or MC. It’s accessibility and nonAs far as processing goes, how to pay attention to? accessibility. That’s the two things. much happens between what I guess for Just Blaze to be a fan of Either we can my music means find you or we a lot to me ‘coz can’t. There’s I’m a fan of his.

“The producer sees the song, whether he gets the a guy in San And that just goes Francisco by to show you we idea for the song or he sees the total duration for the the name of can all coexist as Jay-T that did far as different song, whether he’s in the studio or not. A beatmaker this.

He’s a producers.

Rapper/MC/ There’s not does his beat and he can do whatever. No concept. whatever. enough love being And he just shown between No nothing. And when he gets the song back, he sold…this guy artists. And that’s is a millionaire. one thing rappers doesn’t know about where to drop [elements] or Nobody has don’t really do. ever heard of Producers do that. anything like that or effects or anything like that. him.

We always show [love]. It’s like a That’s the beat maker.”

What about brotherhood man. that distincWe band together, tion between producer and beat actually leaves your door and gets stick together to the hinge. I don’t maker then…do you see a line finally sent out for mastering? Are know exactly what Just Blaze said . . . there? you a big plug-in user? Are you I know he called me and told me about That’s a big difference. The producer more native? Do you do a lot of the “Let it Go” [Little Brother ft. Mos sees the song, whether he gets the tweaking? Do you leave that to the Def] joint that I’m in. And he said that’s idea for the song or he sees the total mix board? crazy man, that’s crazy. And for him duration for the song, whether he’s in I leave that to the mix people. I leave to say that is equitable of what he puts the studio or not. A beatmaker does all that tweaking and stuff to the mix out there. For him to say that about me his beat and he can do whatever. No people. means a lot. So we do got to love each concept. No nothing. And when he other like that. gets the song back, he doesn’t know What’s the reaction in your about where to drop [elements] or own neighborhood about your Let’s go a little bit over your anything like that or effects or anything production? Like are you able to workflow when you begin to actually like that. That’s the beat maker. go outside and be unknown or is start producing a joint. I’d have it a lot of dudes hitting you up with to assume it’s going to be sample How do you deal with the producer propositions and ideas? first. block? You’re sitting in the studio No. I mean I’m a family man.

Yeah, sample first. and spend a couple of hours and So you’ll still accept a beat CD? You When you’re laying out the drums, you just haven’t been able to put still accept a guy coming in with just are you still into the tapping it in or something together that you’re him rhyming on the mix tape saying can you actually visually see the feeling for that day. How do you get I want to work with you someday? sequence in your head before you past that?

No, I’m not . . . see the thing about me start laying out the drums?

Go get something to eat and come is I’m a family man. I’m married with Well, it’s kind of it’s like you listen to it 114 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

back. I don’t do too much on that man.

Go somewhere. Walk away from it and come back.

Do you listen to other people’s music for inspiration at all? Do you ever listen to someone else’s old stuff, modern stuff and say oh this is another way I could take it?

Yeah sometimes. I listen to a lot of early ‘80s R&B. The SOS band, midnight songs stuff like that. I found that by kind of doing it, taking it that particular direction inspires me.

Where are you going for your crate digging? Do you still enjoy crate digging?

Yeah, I still enjoy the crate digging man. I go to A One records in New York right now, their sound library…it’s down in Manhattan. I go there a lot.

I go to a guy by the name of Gene Brown that sells me a lot of records.

He travels the countryside collecting records. And he sells it…and I go to Q Records in Philly. I go there. I go to Earwax in Atlanta…some different places I definitely frequent.

Are you actually listening to the newer crop of beat makers coming up? Are you listening to unsigned music stuff- maybe from MySpace, dudes making the beats on YouTube?

Yeah man. I listen to those beats man.

There’s a lot of good beat makers out there man just doing their thing, making names for themselves, ones after me. Like I’m a big fan of Black Milk [myspace.com/blackmk].

He’s doing his thing. I definitely like a lot of the beatmakers.

Have you ever thought about getting an apprentice? Or maybe do you have one, someone that you bring up along underneath you?

I have a kid that I influence, not necessarily an apprentice. I just have kids around that like to learn.

Well in that regard, how do you feel about ghost production? Would you ever let someone else push a

track forward under your name to get them in the door?

It depends. I wouldn’t do that. Doesn’t make me feel good. Some people coming onto me and be like ooh, you did that beat. I’m like I didn’t do it though. I can’t. I couldn’t live with that.

I really want to be known doing my beat. Now I would give proxy if I knew somebody that found the sample. But as far as me doing the beat, I want that person to get his . . . now, it maybe a situation where some people do ghost production. And that’s what they do.

And that’s their way of doing it. There’s nothing wrong with that. I just can’t do that man.

There’s been a lot of talk on what tools producers are willing to cosign and stamp on and which ones they won’t. So I’m going to ask you what are your feelings on the loop libraries or the sample packs, commercially available sample libraries, loops, drum kits, all of that? Are those tools considered taboo? Or is that ok to be part of your arsenal?

I mean I don’t use them. But if you got to use them . . . I mean you got to think man. What if I live in Montana or Pocatello, Idaho or some far off place in America who don’t have record stores?

But I want to make beats…and I can get these sound libraries off the net man. I mean you can’t deny the kid who got the hunger to do something.

He ain’t just sitting out there. He wants to do something man. So I don’t use them. But those things are creative . . . I don’t get into that man. I don’t get into all of that what you use, what you don’t. I like to pump it in my car and listen to it. If I like it, I like it.

How do you feel then about virtual instruments?

There’s a great debate going between the studio being all virtual or should it still be based on old hardware.

I know you’ve embraced the soft sequencer. What about the sounds themselves if you’re going to add some instrumentation?

Same thing. For me, I got bit man.

I’ve been a fan of Hip Hop man. Before

9th wonder came along, I was a fan of hip hop for 16 years man. 16 years I knew nothing about that stuff. I didn’t grow up in a studio. I wasn’t around a studio. None of that. All I wanted to do was put my CD in and play it. If it bangs, it bangs. So all that extra what you got in your studio, I don’t care. I really don’t care. If I found it out later, I found out later. ‘coz there was a lot of people that got these big studios. They paid $200,000 to buy all this stuff. And then when you hit play, it’s hot garbage. Why did you buy all this stuff for? What are you doing this for? You know what I’m saying? I really don’t care daddyo. I want to hear the final results, the end result. Does it sound good? Can I play it in my car? Can I play it at my cookout? Can I ride home at 4 in the morning and listen to it? Can I do that?

If I can’t do that, all of what you got in your studio means nothing to me.

Nice. Well what do you want to say for the supporters, those that are sitting there, hanging on, waiting to see you go to that next, next, super level, and crack that tier where we have a summer where every song is a 9th song on the radio?

Man, just hold tight. Hopefully that day is coming. But if it don’t come, it just don’t come. And I don’t make music for that. I make music to make people feel good. And my goal is not to be the ruler of the radio. My goal is to make music that people can enjoy and play for their kids and play it for their friends. That’s my goal. And if I happen to still make some money, if I’m making money because of that, then fine. If I don’t, then I don’t. And just keep listening ‘coz there’s definitely more to come.

What projects are next throughout the rest of the year and early next year? What else are you trying to get into?

9th wonder: Buckshot’s Killer Formula.

Sweet Lord by Murs, Jeanius by Jean Grae, The Wonder Years. And that’s it for right now man.

We thank 9th Wonder for sitting down with us.

115 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

DJ BEDTYME 357 at a diner, I’m an easy type of person to spark up a conversation with. So just off of general convo and networking basically, that’s what leads a lot of these artists to me or leads me to them.

It’s more so hearsay.

H

ectic, hectic night. It’s showtime at the iStandard Producers showcase and there’s beats to drop, interlude music to cue up and a guest list of producer talent to be on top of. The hosts; J-Hatch and Don Di Napoli throw a curve ball of guess who just walked in the building. Meanwhile, a rapper wants a beat CD. A beatmaker wants in. Medai wants to talk and an MC wants to spit over the track and in the middle of all this…DJ Bedtyme 357 stays on point. The right tracks play, the needle doesn’t skip and the room is full of noddin heads.

What got you into DJing?

DJ Bedtyme 357: My brother Chuck.

Big shout out…he was the DJ while I was just setting up his shows…and as time progressed and we started getting more serious about this whole music thing, he started having to work late.

So we had people signing contracts and accepting deposits and someone had to be down there to set these parties up. The people who were hiring us were in China Hill and my brother was working late so I started spinning records or putting on the tape recorder.

One thing led to the next and people started requesting the DJ who initially set the party up. I got forced into it.

been keeping me . . . I don’t want to say ahead of anyone, but that’s been giving me my edge in the game.

What are you going to say your DJ edge is? What is it that makes the Bedtyme . . .?

Commitment and contacts. It’s been holding me up for all the years that I’ve been in the game. Hopefully, it [my work ethic] will continue to drive me through the rest of these coming years man. I’m keeping my ears close to the streets and keeping a strong bond with other artists worldwide. That’s

Are you just pretending to be somebody else in the crowd and you just sort of listen to the dude’s joint and then snatch it? Is it through JHatch? Is it someone saying this guy is hot? Where are you getting your talent from?

My men have done a good job of providing me with the necessary business savvy that wherever I go, whether it be on the train, whether it be

You’ve been mixing records we’ve never heard before with commercial releases? ...Records that people haven’t heard before. I would be in a packed nightclub on a Friday night playing everything ranging from 50 to Ciara to Remy Ma to Busta Rhymes. And then you’d hear like Alex 9/11 which is an unsigned artist from Jamaica, Queens.

Or you’ll hear a track from Fizz, which is an unsigned artist from Philly. You know what I’m saying?

116 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

What about people you can’t help?

You can’t help the whole planet. And maybe there are some people that aren’t even ready for your services yet. How do you deal with that?

Well, it’s really up to the artist. You know what I’m saying? It’s really only so much that I can do and I am only one person and I do conduct a life outside of this music business. So through the outlets I have, whether it be the showcases or parties …my radio show, it’s really up to the artists to maintain that relationship and for them to build off of what we already established.

If I got at you about me playing your music on my radio show or one of the three radio shows that I’m on. It’s up to you to get people to keep listening and to make me aware that they’re listening because you need an extra edge. Playing your record more might draw attention from label reps because they heard your music on my show.

Now here’s a tough question. Sean Price on his album said “DJs used to check for record. Now they want a check for a record”. Now you’re swimming in that same sea of the unsigned artist…that fringe point when you could really be the guy to break somebody in.

There’s got to be a tremendous amount of pressure that the artists are putting on you to play their record. How are you navigating that ocean?

I don’t want to say it’s pressure.

At times it gets annoying because everybody wants their record played.

Everybody believes that they’re the hottest rapper or singer. And I can’t say that I personally receive money for me playing people’s records on the radio or in the club. I’ve been asked about

it before, but that’s not my cup of tea.

When we put out mixed tapes, they’re costs involved. And there are costs involved with running a radio show every week, but there’s other options for people to contribute money- especially something like a sponsorship where artists won’t feel like what would seem as if they’re paying for placement. That whole DJs want to receive a check right now thing, there’s a lot of DJs that do. They want to receive money off of it. But I’m a well-kept dude. I’ve got a 9-5 with a corporate company. So I’m good. The artist can keep that money and put it to something else.

What about your own sense of loyalty to an artist who’s on the come up or artists who have been underneath you that are making moves? How are you going to deal with that loyalty now that this is his 3rd mixed tape or his 3rd time coming back to you and he wants a little more this time?

Ok. Well, I don’t ask much of artists, except for you to use my position to get to where you need to go or where you’re trying to take your career. I don’t keep too many people close. I always try to say I keep everybody within an arm’s length. I take a couple of dudes on the road with me when we go out every once in a while. We run into everybody. So instead of me having to introduce you to everybody, I want you to be your own voice. You know what I’m saying?

Are mix tapes killing albums?

No. I think it’s pretty much allowing artists to put out bull crap. I don’t think it has anything to do with killing albums.

If anything that would be a tool to help album sales increase. It’s just that everybody is doing it now. And it’s just a tool for them to say look, this is who I am and whether you think I’m garbage or not…I still have to convince this storeowner to put the CD on the shelf.

Or... do I still have a street team out there willing to pump garbage, which has no meaning.

I know when you’re searching for an artist, there are certain traits

that are pretty obvious: Looking for someone that’s straightforward, someone that’s hardworking and really into the music. But what’s one of those hitting characteristics we might not be aware of that you could be using as criteria when you pick someone to work with. I’m going to mess with this chick or maybe I won’t because they either have this or lack this.

I will listen if someone is willing to listen to me. There’s a lot of artists who are nice as hell and very gifted with their wordplay. -Massive members behind

How are you getting your work together for the producer showcase?

I’ve seen you in the booth. I’ve seen rappers in the crowd trying to go crazy. I’ve seen producers trying to make it to the stage, trying to get that 7th song in, that 7th beat on. I’ve seen Hatch trying to talk to you at the same time. I’ve seen people in the booth with you. How are you keeping your head straight underneath those conditions?

It’s just about listening, man. Like you could really be paying attention

“Hopefully now, some of those pioneers of Hip-Hop will get the credit they need. People will start seeing where hip hop evolved from and learn from it instead of coming out with any ‘ol dance record. Todays’ music serves its purpose, but that’s not Hip-Hop to the full extent. It works for clubs.

And little kids love it. So you can’t disrespect it…and it’s helping these artists make money.” them that can help promo their material from here to China. If you have an individual that’s willing to listen and take in what other people are telling them, whether it be positive or negative, and still maintain a humbleness within themselves, meaning the way they carry themselves on stage, the way they carry themselves in person, and just in general conversation, that’s the one thing that I think helps make an artist stand out with me.

What gear are you using to support the show? I’m running around the world with my Serato and instant replaying machine.

There’s times where when we get to clubs and I don’t need to bring all of our equipment and machines. They’re not very big machines. They’re light weight and can do all the things that I need. A lot of times we won’t have a full show.

So we might be performing only 1 or 2 songs. And all I need to do is dump tracks onto a CD and carry the CD with me to the show.

to everything, but got to focus on one thing. Hatch and Don DiNapoli [see the IS Producer Showcase profiled last issue] do a very good job of laying out the format of those shows before it actually goes down. So before I get in that booth, I already got a scripted outline of the show for the evening. So regardless if this person is in my ear trying to get me to put this song or this producer trying to get an extra beat on, regardless if Hatch is talking about last night’s basketball game, you got to follow that outline.

And the show must go on. Beyonce fell down during her performance and she didn’t miss a beat. There’s going to be interruptions. And I guess not to toot my own horn, but if you’re good at what you do, then hey, all those distractions could be there and you welcome them.

Because when you have an outsider such as yourself looking in and you’re seeing there’s no glitch in the show and the performance is still up to par, that’s what leads to interviews like this. [observation!]

117 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Should scratching return to the hooks of modern records or does that need to come back?

Scratching is good, but in only certain instances man. If I’m listening to the radio, I don’t want to hear a DJ scratching their records a hundred million times just to bring it back. You know what I mean? If I’m in a club, I don’t want to hear the record jumping back and forth. People doing doubles on words just because the DJ knows how to do it. Just Turntablism- just conscious of stuff like that. The TMC do a good job of doing that every year. That’s where most of that stuff is welcome. But if you’re doing parties and radio, nobody wants to hear that craziness man.

What do you think about the music going on today?

I think music is about to recycle itself.

The whole style and the format and the way it was maybe let’s say…back in the Kool G Rap days. A lot of the styles that these artists are using now, you could almost see the style that . . . Dookie ropes came back out. Who would ever think that? People are going back using phrases like fresh.

Remy’s first single of her newest album PunisHER is titled “Fresh.” Who would think we’ll go back to saying fresh?

Hopefully now, some of those pioneers of hip hop will get the credit they need.

People will start seeing where hip hop evolved from and learn from it instead of coming out with any ‘ol dance record.

Todays’ music serves its purpose, but that’s not hip hop to the full extent. It works for clubs. And little kids love it. So you can’t disrespect it…and it’s helping these artists make money.

Speaking of making money, this issue in particular is dedicated to digital distribution, which means we’re all switching over to releasing mp3s, even the CD itself is sort of being phased out. How is that affecting the modern outlook of a DJ? Well, I don’t think it’s going to affect them at all because a lot of DJs are switching over to the Serato thing. Serato scratching the whole

RANE program. And at the same time, it would kind of take away from these record labels and these artists’ pockets somewhat because now you don’t have to go out and buy this stuff. You can get a mp3 for 99 cents as opposed to going into a record shop and buying a $13 CD for one song. So I don’t think it’s going to hurt DJs at all.

Do you feel there are more opportunities now that hip hop has moved into the club zone?

You know what man, hip-hop has always been in the clubs. Now it’s just on a broader spectrum because you have artists like Jay-Z who . . . well, let’s say Run-D.M.C who did this whole “Walk This Way” thing with Aerosmith first and they actually made the crossover with Hip Hop and Rock.

And then you have Jay-Z do it with hiphop and Linkin Park. You have people across the world listening to hip-hop.

And some people appreciate it more in its old essence than now. So I don’t think that hip-hop has just recently started being in the club. I think that it’s more accepted now. That’s all.

Now help me out. I’m a DJ. Or at least I should say I want to be a DJ. I’m at my house. I’m playing with my CDJ turntables. I’m working on my DJ-ing techniques. How do I go from that level to being taken seriously by artists, by the industry? How do I get past being just one more guy with a nondescript mixed tape?

I never really set out to be a DJ for artists or running around the world with a top Hip Hop artist or an R&B artist. I never was playing music with the intent of trying to get into clubs or trying to be the hottest DJ in my city. But if that’s something that you have in your mind, then you got to find your lean. And you definitely can’t copycat something that somebody else is doing. Because you can take elements of what you’ve seen done or what other people are trying to do and then make your own recipe out of it. But being a copycat is going to get you nowhere. So you got to pretty much come up with some kind of angle that’s going to help you stand out.

My angle is the artist thing. And

118 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

that’s been working. Because you said you’ve seen me DJ before. So I don’t know if you noticed that. But in a lot of my shows, I don’t implement a lot of scratching and mixing and things like that. It’s pretty much just straight laced for me. At a showcase you have to do too much extra work. Now in radio shows, I might put in a little mixing and scratching here and there just to show people that I can do it. Stand out without being looked at as a shadow of another DJ. Are you into digital technology like podcasts? Oh yeah definitely. I have a podcast on the net.

Are you still going to keep doing mixed tapes or will there be a point where you just go all digital?

Nah, I have to still keep doing mix tapes. I have to. At one point in time, we may have to just go straight digital. But people still look for mixed tapes. There are people who still look for mixed tapes. They still have CD players in their homes and in their cars. A lot of cars carry mp3 players now. So you don’t need a CD. But I have to still keep putting out CDs. PE Mag thanks Bedtyme listen to his radio show Hate Money Radio every Friday night on www.1.fm JAMZ, 91.9 FM New York City and www.brooklyncollegeradio.org. Each and every Saturday you got the R&B mixture at 1.fm from 10PM to 12AM. R&B will never be the same again and Saturday night will never be this way.

We’ll keep checking the DJ booth.

Thanks for taking the time.

DON CANNON

Words by Crystal J

What first got you into music?

My uncle. When I was 5 years old I was given my first Fisher Price turntable and a crate of records. The first record I ever owned was the Jackson Five Triumph. “Can You Feel It?” That’s what they used to stop me from crying as a baby.

They’d put it on to quiet me down. Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder. At eight I was sitting there trying to make beats. Mom had a funny ear. Normally parents would listen to Marvin Gaye “Let’s get It On”, Michael Jackson and she would listen to Nina Simone at the same time so I got different genres…

[Hamilton] Bohannon. The Rolling Stones. My dad was into Jimi Hendrix.

W

hat’s your opening drop and the hot one you want them to think about before they read your words?

DON CANNON: I go by Don Cannon a.k.a. Mr. Money Machine. We have a label; Affiliates Music Group that I rock with. I’m partners with DJ Drama and DJ Sense based out of Atlanta. All the way from Philly. I did “Go Crazy” for Jeezy and Jay-Z, “Mr. 17.5” for Jeezy, and I did a record for Claudette Ortiz [“Can’t Get Enough”] I’m working with a lot people. I did the Lil Wayne “Cannon” which was last years’ Street Record of the Year. Go Crazy was that for the year before. I’m just one of the hottest Producers/DJs out right now.

Let’s back up. Did you always want to be a producer?

Yeah, always, since I was little. I’m a tall guy. I’m like 6’6”. I always wanted to be that Shaq type person. I wanted to play ball and produce …like he was a rapper/basketball player. My Balling slacked a bit so I went on my way with music.

What Music dominates your listening list? It changes. Every producer out there knows your ear changes every six months. At first I was into Jazz music. Obscure Jazz, funk Jazz. I graduated into Soul then Blues. Rock Music followed. Hip Hop is at the core with Pete Rock and DJ Premier. I looked at them cats and wondered how they flipped Branford Marsalis into a new anthem. It sparked a flame inside of me to get music done.

I had the alter egos. DJ on one side and Producer on the other with Jazzy Jeff pulling me one way and beatsmiths pulling on the other.

When did you decide music as a career? Wow. I don’t know how easy it is to say this is what starts my career today. It’s not easy to say this is what I want to do with my life. It was just second nature for me like brushing my teeth. Just because I make some money from this…I’m only 26…it hasn’t dawned on me that this is my life. It’s still second nature. I’m still excited about it. I never knew it was

coming. Someone asked for some beats and I…I always wanted to be that big producer. That big DJ I’m still striving to be. It wasn’t planned. I have just been doing it.

How does one go about getting heard? What’s that next step in the game? I tell everyone it’s marketing and image. People don’t want to hear it. I was a DJ so I played my own music in the club. Imagine if you could be on the radio and play your own record.

It was the ultimate shit for feedback.

Genius. You have to think of a new creative way to get your music heard.

You have to think about what’s right for you. Mike Jones said his name in all his raps. People thought it was absurd, but he tore the wall down. He was heard. He sold a million records as an independent. That was the plan. No one really liked Mike Jones. He made them like him.

Jay-Z. He talked about how he was a drug lord. He walked into every label and no one was feeling him. He took his own money and did it. Put 100,000 units in the street. Now he’s Jay-Z. It’s about how you’re going to make it happen.

Who takes notice of your work first?

Hip Hop is the foundation of everything going on. Good music is still music.

I want people to know I really feel a record. I’ll play it over and over. I need the kids first. I need them to get it. My first placement was DJ Drama. A GI Mixtape and he needed a track for an acapella and he put TI over the beat. TI thought the beat was crazy and redid it. A year later, Young Jeezy got hot in the streets. We did the release party and at the end of the party I played my joint and people recognized it from the Mixtape. I just kept spinning it and Jeezy came up like Yo, what beat was that- and you got beats? We went in and he laid the hook and asked is this too much for the people? I said do you and we flipped it over the track. He took the songs to Def Jam for Jay-Z to hear. He was the new executive.

119 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

He brought them 6 joints; the Mannie Fresh joint, a few others and mine was last. When Jay heard my song, Jay-Z stood up and said that’s the one and got on it. He did 24 bars on it. I kept getting calls that Jay-Z went crazy over it. When someone that people already believe in hops on one of your tracks like that it sends a message.

Gear list? My ASR-X Pro. You know… used by Timbaland, Pharrel, RZA… It’s one of those machines everyone recommended me not to use. Everyone was like get an MPC. It aint about what you use it’s about how you use it. I was just making beats at the crib. When I hear crazy sounds I get energized.

Record Digging?

Digging isn’t really the same as it used to be. When I was young or even as early as 2 or 3 years ago I could go and get dusty digging for hours.

Nowadays records are extinct. Record stores don’t carry...records! Especially in Atlanta. New York is easier because of Artifacts so Just blaze and Alchemist can still shop. I got to a point where it’s my man Gene Brown who goes state to state and digs for records. It was so bad I was using CDs. He linked me up with vinyl and I’d sit down with him and search. I can let him hear my anthem joint and say where is more of this?

He’ll hear my music and find similar stuff. Now he’s good to put a stack aside for me.

Education. My mom made me go to college like every parent. [Does a nagging voice] Get your education!

Get a good job and make us some money! I was sent to Atlanta to be with my cousins. One is in Spellman, Morehouse and two in Clark. I hated it here. I never went to class. I only went to math and business since I knew that would help me later on. I stayed in my dorm and made beats and DJ’d parties.

Without her pushing me I never would have made it.

Sampling. That’s a sensitive subject.

I love it to death; its draw for me is inspiration to create new music. The downloading is ill. The game is at a point where you understand you can use music and some of the old heads, I call them old farts, some of them want

all your money. It doesn’t give young people a chance to support themselves off their music. Publishing for 75% leaving you with nothing. You have to sample smart. Playing stuff over and chopping. I’m doing both. Playing and sampling. My core is still the sample.

Not everyone can sample. Anyone can play a couple of notes on a piano. Not everyone can pick up a record and make it sound like a totally new song.

What about Bounce, Snap, Pop? That’s another thing. If you are in the outside looking in, it looks like that. The South is still good for music from the Goodie Mob, Outkast... It’s just not as popular as reaching the masses and making that money. The reason T-Pain is winning right now in comparison to Baby Huey or Shop Boys is the melodic feel. Some hate on him, But I feel he’s one of the best to ever do it in this day and age. Listen to “Buy You A Drink”. It has a Stevie Wonder feel that’s catches everybody along with the lyrics. He didn’t have to do that. He could have done a regular song that caught on more slowly.

What about business? It’s ups and downs. I’m different enough to stick out from the Hyphy Snap music and East Coast. I have my own little lane. Like Kanye, he has his own lane so when it comes to his sound it’s all him.

Early advice. It’s about whatever you have in you. Everything needs its niche.

Use all your resources to the best of your abilities. Formulate a team. More heads the better. I have a person that thinks about business. I have someone that thinks about being a star so he hangs around the celebrities.

Who’s the leader? Timbaland. No one has changed the vibe of music since 94 in so many ways. If I didn’t say him it’s R Kelly. I consider him more of a songwriter than producer.

He [Timbaland] moved from that fast paced music. Some cats stuck to their formula, but he reinvents himself every time and still wins. Him and Aaliyah “Are you that somebody?” Graduating to Justin Timberlake with SexyBack and records like “What Goes Around Comes Around”. Which is different from

120 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Ginuwine “Pony” which was different from Missy “Is That Your Chick?” He changes so fast…in this industry once they pick up on your style and clone and copy, he switches up to something new. Most producers don’t get a chance to do that.

Who’s still doubted?

Swizz Beatz been doing it since 97.

I’ve never known anyone with five consecutive hits playing at number one for so many years. Regardless of opinions…who’s getting props off of wack beats? I think who’s coming next from the South Is Drummer Boy, Shawty Redd, and Danja. KHAO East Coast, I fucks with Neo Da Matrix, Chad West. Nephew from Cali.

What is it going to take for you to get to that next level? Better Artists.

I love J Dilla, R.I.P. Him and Dre. One thing that Dilla didn’t get to do was better songs over his beats. I got an Usher joint coming and I hope it pushes me. I’m always in the mix. In some form or fashion someone has kids here [Atlanta.] Someone has peoples here. I may meet Redman in the mart. I might stop and get directions from Akon. If we can keep good artists in the game then anyone can grow and become big.

What are you excited about?I’m excited about DJ Drama’s album.

My record with Outkast for The Art of Storytelling Part 4. Drama’s album got them back together and brought it out of them. I got one with Young Joc. He rhymes like he got bit by a quotable.

Jadakiss. Our first artist: Willie the Kid. His lyrical game is crazy. Alicia keys Project. Hopefully that hits the light.

Cassidy. Busta. All bricks building a house of great music. I got a 50 Cent joint with keys by Detroit Red. He makes beats and can rap his ass off.

Early last year I was with G-Unit and I hit them some with some beats. Fifty called me like: “I really like this beat and I got a whole song over it and it’s on my album.” We got one with Beanie Segal and Cassidy; No Rules. A lot of good music is coming. Producer’s Edge thanks Don Cannon for talking the time.

“I like the people who constructively criticize what I do because it makes me better. Anybody could get mad at criticisms that come up when they have an album -whether it’s bad or good. We use that as a tool. It will be used to help my next business venture.”

HAVOC

Words by Will Loiseau

The Kush and more.

H

ow much of yourself is injected into this album?

Audio: Sample the Kush

Havoc: I felt that being the producer myself and lyricist...it’s a lot; I did everything. It’s me. I didn’t feel that I needed help [guest appearances] to make it what it is.

Some people have said that after the release of the Murda Muzik album you went to an inspired lyrical phase. What caused you to be noticed more for your lyrics?

As an MC I always pushed myself.

I’m my own worst critic so whenever I rhyme I always had to be good. It kind of surprised me that people did say that. At the same time like I know what kind of work I’m throwing myself so it’s sort of expected.

When can we expect another Mobb Deep album and how will your solo projects affect the chemistry?

I don’t think it’s really going to affect future records like that. If anything, it’s going to be affected positively. Know what I mean?

For this Kush album, you decided to go solo with the production duties- although you make tight tracks, why not follow the trend and load it with all-star producers?

Because I’m an all-star cat myself.

I have confidence in my music so I took on this project…all me.

Why Koch/Nature Sounds as opposed to staying under the GUnit umbrella?

That decision was made because I wanted more focus on my own. This is me and what I do. Major labels are busy. If you want hands on then you have to go the independent route. This isn’t something manufactured.

What tools were used to make this album? I like software, it’s good.

It’s almost the same thing as using hardware, keyboards and all that.

But you know I’m still stuck using the MPC and the keyboards that I use. Of course Pro Tools with a little bit of that analogue touch. I still mixed through the Neve board.

In putting together the songs…Was it beats first, rhymes second or did you come up with a topic and then make a bunch of beats and match the verses? It’s half and half for me.

Sometimes I come up with the idea or sometimes I come up with a track first.

So it’s like there’s no method to it. It’s like either or.

What do you feel is your trademark or your overall contribution to the production world? What’s different sound wise for the production on this venture? They will say I’m pretty much stuck in the same vein; that original dark gritty sound. People say it’s my trademark.

Do you get input from Prodigy or just work in isolation? All the time.

He previewed the album. He’ll listen to my music and be one of my harshest critics.

Every great artist strives to create that indisputable masterpiece. Do you feel you’ve grown as a vocalist and a producer? I always try to outdo myself. I feel every time that I lay it down that I’m outdoing myself. If I’m becoming better…at the end of the day, the fans are going to decide.

Out of all the tracks you’ve laid down over the years, what’s the one you’ve always liked best?

I don’t know. I listen to all the music old and new. But one favorite that I always listen to…”Shook Ones Pt II”. That could be taken as a benchmark for what I’m doing in the future, you know what I’m saying? It’s good music when we build from our foundation. We love what we do. I want timeless music.

Any new tools out there you might have your eye on? I got my eye on a few pieces. I can’t say I have favorites, but I am definitely seeing what’s new [in production].

MPC 2500? That’s great- they [AKAI] should keep on coming up with more gear like this so we have more choices for production.

What did you learn from this album?

Is this meant to take your awareness to another level worldwide or set the

121 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

stage for another business move?

I’m looking for the responses, good or bad. That’s how I approach this whole situation like. You know somebody comes at you like, “That was like this.

It was like that.” I don’t get mad at that.

I like the people who constructively criticize what I do because it makes me better. Anybody could get mad at criticisms that come up when they have an album -whether it’s bad or good. We use that as a tool. It will be used to help my next business venture.

Is there anything from your Free Agent stage that taught you about dealing with pressure in this industry?

I had to use the same format I’ve always used. I stick to the idea of good music and deal with the rest day by day.

You guys have been doing this since you were kids. What keeps the passion going? Love for music. I love music. It just puts me in a certain mood.

So I love to make it and I’m going to make it until I can’t anymore.

You’ve had your share of the industry beef and you’ve always chosen to stay on the business side even when other rappers have been able to capitalize off the buzz. Why do you steer clear?

Because at the end of the day that’s what it’s all about. It’s not about who can beat who up. It’s about who can make you feel a certain way with the music that they make. That’s what we’re doing. We make music. It will put you in a certain mood. I’m not going to cook beef for this rapper or that artist.

For me personally, my beef is with the music. Can I make a dope song. Let the music…beat me.

I heard you recently completed a software product deal with Voxonic.

Do you think in some ways it’s easier to communicate through music with fans overseas even if they might not exactly understand the concept of what you’re saying?

It depends. But I can tell you this one thing, when you go overseas, it’s because you’re not over there all the time that they tend to kind of appreciate

the music more. Here? It’s in front of our face so we take this for granted.

It’s in abundance. So we take our artists for granted. We take the music for granted. They don’t get it as often.

You go over there they love it because they’re not producing those kinds of artists over there.

What do you define as your production day? Start with sample digging or you just work on beats?

Sometimes I start playing the keyboard or I’ll play the drums that’s in there already, or I’ll go to the records, put the record on and see if anything bubbles.

I may listen to a record a hundred times, but I may still come up with a new idea.

You keep a pretty tight group too.

Like you don’t do too many collabos, so how do the guest appearances with a M.O.P. or a Tribe Called Quest happen?

Those are like our favorite artists, you know what I mean, so we going to make things like that happen. We’d always reach out to people that we consider our friends. We get up with them- especially with Tribe being from Queens. You know what I mean, like they was right there.

I know your original reason for getting into production was a lack of worthy tracks. You knew that if you didn’t do it yourself, no one would see where you were trying to go. Did that transition help your beatmaking skills...knowing you can’t just lay down a track that’s nice to listen to and can’t be spit over?

It definitely has! If somebody else gave me a track and it was bad, I don’t want to be on it. So if I’m making it for myself, of course, I want to make it hot. When I’m making the track, I’m making it not only for me, I’m making it for the world to listen to it has to be…utterly crazy.

Ever been intimidated by one of your old tracks and froze up? Like you need three weeks to write to it?

All the time. [Laughter erupts]. All the time! I just recently made a track and I can’t come up with hook! It’s too dope

122 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

to me so I called Prodigy to come up with the rest since he’s so dope. The track was just too retarded.

Is there still internal competition between the two of you? Like he comes up with something sick and you got to come back?

All the time because - -Imagine rhyming along side Prodigy as your partnerhow hard that’s going to be. That’s what made me a better lyricist. I’m trying to go at someone who’s the best lyricist in the world. Do you understand what I’m saying? A lot of people don’t have that level of competition.

So now who do you think is on your plane lyrically? Who do you say out there is tight?

A lot of people, I can’t just pick on one person. I don’t see myself as the nicest lyricist in the world. But I do my job. I like Jadakiss, The Lox, Fabolous gets down.

Who musically? These days I’m looking at the old school producers. I met someone recently who is related to Gamble and Huff, I was like…wow [pauses and looks out the window thoughtfully]. I like the producers that are out there now like Swizz Beatz and such. I love them to death, but I’m looking really deep to come up with that sound.

What do you do to give back to that new cat trying to get on? He bought that first module, he’s messing with something. He’s trying to get that sound. He’s trying to get to that level. What would you give that guy as advice to get to where he wants to go? All I say is work on music 24/7.

Make beats in your sleep. I make 5 to 10 a day…from scratch.

Do you get producer’s block? Doing the same thing over and over again and you need to take a break for some fresh ideas...

Yeah, I’ve been in the studio many times. When I’ve thought I can’t make anything. I don’t try to force it if it doesn’t fit.

You’ve matured in this game. Are you thinking more about the legacy

behind you and the message you’re sending with your lyrics?

I’m just into making music. Whatever people get from it... I’m not trying to be a preacher, but I do want them to see my work ethic. The title Kush is about inspiration. You don’t have to smoke, But you’re definitely gonna zone out with this one.

What’s next for both you and Prodigy- business wise and also creatively? The Mobb Deep album.

You can’t really look to the future like that. It’s something that’s not in the making but we’re not going anywhere.

A lot of your fans would feel that the association with G-unit might water you down or change you. Could all that money make Mobb Deep go Hollywood. Was there a risk?

Any business move that you take in your life is always full of some kind of risk. It has some kind of risk or it wouldn’t be a business move. When we did that with G-Unit, I felt to this day it was a good move on my behalf. I love it when critics criticize us good or bad.

They might have said “Oh, we loved Mobb Deep better before…” Whatever it is they are going to say, say it. I aint mad at you. I know that we’re making this music with good intentions. This album is a breath of fresh air. “Blood Money”. The only difference was we had extra elements that we didn’t have before. Whether you like them [50 and G-Unit] or not, that’s on you.

Also, you started out being so young, how do you guys stay level headed, how do you still maintain- you’re not in jail, you’re not strung out on drugs, you don’t look like you’ve aged. How do you survive?

Being humble, I mean you got to be humble. I feel like I’m not better than anybody, no matter what’s his situation is.

“I’m just trying to be me at

the end of the day. Like, I know I should be selling the product but at the same time I’m selling me, me as a person. I’m conscious of

In the end, what do you feel like you learned from that association something creative you didn’t have before, maybe you rediscovered something that you lost earlier?

You know what I learned from it, it’s learning how to work with other people.

For a long time we worked with just me and P and a collective few. We don’t work with other people. 50 is a smart brother. Aside from just music; sitting down with him was like a learning experience. I like being around people like that as opposed to people that’s not good. Company rubs off on you.

what I say. When people read it I’ll let them get me, not just Havoc. That’s how I talk. That’s it.”

How has being on Nature Sounds affected your outlook? It’s a record company at the end of the day so you got to stay on top of whoever that you sign to. It could be Loud Records, Koch, whoever. You can’t trust anyone more than anyone else and take your business for granted. You got to really

stay on top of it.

Why still live in New York if you could live anywhere?

Because I’m a New Yorker, born and raised in New York. I can’t see myself moving across the water to Jersey. I’m a New Yorker!

I’m digging in the archive for this one. When the West Coast beef kicked off, why were you the only group that stood up?

It is what it is and like I said, I’m a New Yorker. I love New York. I’m going to stand up for New York. I know that I had to go to Cali but we still did that song. Stand up New York and make a statement. We did it. They criticized us but where were you when New York was getting kicked on?

How is Prodigy’s health right now?

P is doing good, you know what I mean? He’s more conscious of his health. He just loves life.

Where do you expect yourself and the Mobb Deep name to be in a year from now? One year, twelve months, you can count it. I know obviously you know what’s coming out. You know what videos will be released.

What’s your projection in a year?

Projection in a year, all the way to the top. That’s how I always think, all the way to the top.

Can we have one production related gem? Man, that’s hard. No secrets.

Something you used before and don’t now? No. I know you got something dusty in the rack and you haven’t plugged inin a minute. C’mon admit it. [laughs] Alright. I still got my EPS plus. Every now and then I plug that joint in. That’s it! [nods head] Make sure you pick up the next Mobb Deep album and thanks for the support Producer’s Edge.

Thank you Havoc and continued luck with the Nature Sounds release Kush.

123 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

S

ometimes a talent may play many roles before discovering a production calling. Such is the case with Cali transplant Kevin ‘KHAO’ Cates. He’s been a radio personality, underground rapper and business owner. He was honored at the 20th Annual ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Music Awards 2007 for T.I. “Why You Wanna”

What do you consider your main tools?

The MPC 2000XL hands down. I know some people are using the 2500. It’s more convenient for storing stuff, but if it aint broke; don’t fix it. The other piece I use is the Motif rack.

What about the organ sounds on “The Undertaker” with T.I.? What I urge up and coming producers to do- is to take the sounds from these keyboards and make them yours so when you hear my organs it’s three different kinds of organs stacked [layered] together to make one strong organ. It’s an organ from the Motif with an organ from the Fantom Rack. The organ is just one of my instruments where if I can put one in, I’m going to make it happen.

Sample based and moved to playing original music?

Before I started making beats… I felt I needed to know all about it. I studied music for a year and listened to Classical music and followed the sequence and arrangement. It would start soft and then climax…into solos…growing into something big.

I would listen to jazz, Al Green and focused on the drummer going from rim shot to snare. From there I reached a point where I was able to use samples.

I used to loop and throw drums behind it. It got to a point where I could dig in the crates and look at the record and it’s year and be able to tell what kind of sound it was. From 67’ to 76’ it was melodic, a crazy cover with a cat riding a unicorn with a skull head that would be the chop where I could make it mine. I came in wanting to take just the pieces and use the 16 pads to turn it into something else.

In the Lil’ Kim track “I Know You See Me”, you broke the drums around the sample. If I’m going to use sample and it’s just that crazy, I have to make it mine and make sure those drums sound like they could have been on the record in the first place.

Business wise, you have a record with Reuben Studdard called “The Return.” Any reservations working with him versus your placements with Jeezy and T.I.? That’s where studying music helped me. I play the keys by ear…fluently. I couldn’t tell you what the notes were, but I could replay anything. I’ve been doing R&B, but I didn’t have any windows to get it out. I do ballads to Neo-Soul. It’s a side that hasn’t been exposed because of my strong ties with Hip Hop. Reuben was like I want to do something more youthful…hard, but still cats could play in their cars.

I’m thinking it’s got to be hard, but still Reuben. It can’t sound unbelievable. So I went back to the old days when DJ Magic Mike would play records because of the bass and floss.

124 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

What about the talking bridge?

Harold Lilly wrote the record. He wanted to run with that. I even have a mix where I do a rap verse…Speaking about Reuben’s accomplishments in the game.

And the layers of backing vocals?

They followed the track. He did the vocals to compliment the track Are you aware of virtual instruments?

Actually I am and everybody I talk to is trying to get me to go that way. Traveling so much it would be convenient to pull the laptop out and start making a beat, but it’s something about touching those MPC pads instead of using the mouse.

I’m passionate about what I do and it’s all about feeling with me. I make my music off of that vibe so I prefer to use hardware.

minute it’s usable it’s gone. Sometimes I’ll get a little bit of time to touch it up- with my bass player Joel and it’s shipped out.

Any new bit of gear coming you’re interested in? I’m one of those types that if it’s too new and it requires me reading a whole manual to figure it out…then I usually…. won’t use it.[ laughter]. I just need my channels multied and then I have to go. [Open labs] neKo- that’s pretty cool. I just want great sounds…new sounds. Even a new Korg still has recycled or similar sounds now. Good synths, that old feel.

Like the [Oberheim] Matrix. Solid bass.

I don’t follow equipment like that.

The creative process. Humming melodies…listening to other records or maybe just sitting down at the keyboard?

I can sit down and you can tell me you need a record. With Studdard’s “To The Crib,” Reuben came to me and said he needed a record fast. Something the ladies and the hood will love, but it’s hardcore to close the album out. They said they need it by tomorrow morning.

Ten, fifteen minutes later I had the record. If I need a ballad I am going to sit down and make one. Boom Bap, I could do that. It’s because I don’t think about it when I go in…it has to flow.

Do you get input on the vocals too?

I prefer that. When I make a track I can already hear where the vocals can go. I think it makes a match made in heaven. I give them a vision. I need to produce the vocals too.

And working around egos?

What I usually do…I’m a humble dude and I work off of a vine. If I sense someone is going to be difficult. I approach it like a business and come up with ways to get what I need without talking down to them. Some artists want to feel like they came up with the idea. “Yeah, I came up with that; it’s tight.”

Who do you appreciate?

Timbaland, Hi-Tek, Premier, Pharrel, Battlecat, and DJ Toomp, we chop it up a lot. He gives me advice in certain situations.

Who do you want to work with?

I had a wish list that I spoke into existence and have been checking people off this list. The last one was Jay-Z and just recently on this T.I. album I produced a song with Jay and T that’s real crazy. Mary J Blige. I want some of this pop money so…Justin Timberlake. My top list is Michael Jackson someday.

How close is a track to finished before an artist can listen to it?

Usually it’s one of those things where they grip em up before I’m finished. I don’t have time to sit on records. The

What about R. Kelly’s “Double Up?” Kells did his part at his house and I did mine in Atlanta. Kells writes so fast ..

Oh man when I heard R Kelly wanted it I…put money down on a house.

What was that first record that pulled you in? I was an artist way before I started making beats. It was more about trying to get the right records I wanted to rap over myself. Rick Rock (Mariah) was in Montgomery. He used to make our tracks for my group and I used to stand over his shoulders all the time. Doctor Fingers too. They were like: “You should learn to do this yourself.” Once I started, I felt I was pretty good. I saw it was in me.

[laughs]. There was a sample on it.

Sanzo and Chasin Cash brought the sample for me and it was a Tweet record. I figured when I did the track and sped it up – no one was going to pick this track. They have their own production company. Kells ended up picking up that song. I was in the studio with Snoop and telling him about Kells wanting a track. Snoop said he got a song on the Kells album and he was like the beat is so crazy he hasn’t even written to it- he was just jamming to it.

And it turns out it was my record he was talking about. We were just together the other day laughing about that. I wanted to bring in a guitar player and recreate the vibe, but Kells liked the original better so we rolled with it. Is what it is.

Any advice for an up and coming producer? You can burn yourself out running behind all these hot artists.

Those artists are sometimes set in their ways and don’t want to try out a new cat. There’s also that inner circle that block off the artist and make it harder to get in. I would find a hot local artist on the verge of breaking and give them free tracks and get them to rep you. For Grand Hustle, I was giving tracks to T.I. before he blew. On the strength of that he is where he is and I’m at where I’m at. Fuck with Digiwax.com. You can get that remix out while the real record is still spinning. The artist may come to your area and hear that remix. The last thing would be the drum sounds. I tell producers to layer sounds to make a powerful drum. Sometimes it’s a few kicks, but you can mix other sounds in there too.

It’s like selling a car. You don’t want the customer to hear the price and suddenly see how little there is to the car. Too many miles, scratches… dents. A record summed up as just a Triton string, a clap and an 808 is worth what? You want it to sound full, be real music and a composition with undeniable quality.

We thank KHAO for sitting down with PE Mag.

125 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

This is an easy one. Sometimes there is a difference of opinion, but at the end of the day, it’s the person picking the track that ultimately decides. It’s like DJing. You have to please the crowd.

You have songs that you love, but it’s about the audience.

YOUNG WORLD

Music Group

Mayhem, Hookman & Carlisle Young

M

an, she looks crazy. There’s nothing like being seduced by the silky movements of your next wife in a club. The song in the backdrop was probably the Swizz Beatz smash “Money In The Bank”.

Would it surprise you to know one of the most notable producers in the game used production from another team for his monster? The Young World Music Group is also responsible for Juelz Santana’s “There It Go” [aka Whistle Song] and Mariah Careys’ “Joyride” [The Emancipation of Mimi]. It’s a triple threat with execs Carlisle Young, Grey ‘Mayhem’ Taylor and Hookman.

What are your responsibilities during production?

Mayhem: I come from a creative background. It could be initiating or finishing something. The Hookman might send the song in a different direction; sliding from R&B to pushing back toward club banger. My background was A&R for a number of years so it’s a search for a hit record.

It’s good music first that inspires us and then we say we want the label to get it. It becomes an easy one, two slam-dunk.

What about the mindset. Do you have to be in a particular mood. A club zone where you close your eyes and see if it makes you want to get down to it?

Not really, at this point we get a vibe. You get used to hearing stuff instinctively…what will work on the radio and in the club.

Tempo locks?

Hookman: No way. Music has to come from nothing. It has to be from the head. Structuring it would be bad. If it’s forced it’s going to sounds forced. If someone requests a track at 90 bpmsthat we can deliver, but we don’t start that way.

Suppose you track sounds different the next day? What if you disagree on a track looking back from older eyes. How do you all find agreement?

126 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

What about the hook? How do you create a track surrounding a hook melody you might have come up with first?

Hookman: I don’t want to be vague here, but it is different each time.

Mayhem may come with a hook concept and the melody too and I might have to work off that. We just can’t use a pattern for anything. It’s magic every time. Carlyle may have the beats first and then I create the hook. It might only be an idea we have to talk about.

What do you do when the vocals don’t live up to your expectations?

Or the artist goes a way that’s not right to you?

Mayhem: We’ll tell you off top. We make sure we have producer control on a record. We know the magic comes from the studio so we don’t leave an artist alone to fend for themselves and just hope that they come up with it. We make sure we do the vocal production.

It’s dotting the Is and crossing the Ts. We just had a situation where the artist thought it was done. He was shooting a movie and we insisted he finish the record and got it right. He flew back in to the studio and we talked it out over the phone. We are very concerned with the vocals.

With such different music, do you find artists have trouble getting their vocals down over the music and flowing to the tracks?

Mayhem: Swizz was sharp in terms of how he wanted his vocals to ride over the track, but he said it took him a while to get into the melodic groove. We hope to make the track so hot it sticks so they are willing to put it out. It has to cut through the industry and draw in the attention of the public. If your stuff sounds like everything else that’s outit’ll be easy to get it out there, but hard to stand out and really make a mega,

“A lot of people don’t understand the intricacies of the politics. We’ve been in the business since 93. That experience tells us where to apply the grease to get the wheels turning. You might have the right beats, but a new producer won’t know the politics and see how to massage a situation to get the tracks to stick and get pushed through. It’s a very tricky game that’s not as simple as making a hit and getting it placed. On top of all of that it’s a lot of background business. Part of being a producer is knowing your game, knowing your industry.” - Mayhem mega hit record. You’ve got to motivate the artists to keep working on it until it’s successful.

What are your production tools?

Everything. All of us have MPCs, Reason, Pro tools. Motif, Logic. We’ll use a bag of spoons if the vibe is right! [laughter] What was early?

TR 505! Roland R-70! Ensoniq Keyboard that-- [response cut off as they begin to argue about who had the ASR first] Sampling? Kool and the Gang. We like originals. Our background is digging.

Carlyle and I are DJs. So there is an appreciation for older music. We find a hot piece we are going to go crazy and do it. We can do both. It has to creatively make sense.

Education?

Hookman: I have a degree in performance. Classical Music for years and switched to Jazz when I moved from St Louis to Jersey.

Mayhem: I went to NYU Carlisle: I graduated from IAR [Institute of Audio Recording].

Did that help train your ear for music production?

Carlyle: The years of listening helped overall as a DJ. So you MUST stay in the club listening to the records.

It’s all singles and that’s only one aspect of it, but it does add to you…

Who do you want to work with?

Hookman: I would love to work with 50 cent and Jay-Z Carlisle: A loaded question…I mean we’ve come across them in other

production related means. A&R… engineering.

Production-wise…Oh, Jay-Z is a good answer.

Mayhem: There’s a dude from France named Booba [check out “Boulbi”, and “Ouest Side”.] and a girl from London called MIA [Maya Arulpragasam; not the Asian Artist].

What do you feel about music production in 2007.

Now it’s more of a team effort. It used to be one cat doing everything or really one cat getting credit for everything.

In light of our new interest in producers, do you feel the attention is robbing the shine from the rappers who in turn have outshined the DJs for two decades?

Hookman: I think so; I think it’s time they get their credit. Labels are relying on producers to come up with hit records. The A&R is still active, but they are looking at us.

Who do you appreciate?

Timbo and underground [producers] like Alchemist all the way to the polished pop stuff.

And early influence: Mayhem: I’d say Pete Rock, DJ Premier. Marley Marl.

Hookman: Timbaland.

[Mayhem says Quincy!] Oh yes, as far as accomplishments go that’s major.

How do you deal with egos and internal conflict?

Carlisle: No one’s on some bullshit.

We have to work it out as grown men.

Mayhem: We’re friends first.

How do you deal with writers block?

Hookman: Each producer has to find

what inspirers them and go there. You have to find that spark. It could mean going to the beach.

What holds producers back?

Mayhem.: A lot of people don’t understand the intricacies of the politics.

We’ve been in the business since 93.

That experience tells us where to apply the grease to get the wheels turning.

You might have the right beats, but a new producer won’t know the politics and see how to massage a situation to get the tracks to stick and get pushed through. It’s a very tricky game that’s not as simple as making a hit and getting it placed. On top of all of that it’s a lot of background business. Part of being a producer is knowing your game, knowing your industry.

What drives you through the dark times?

Mayhem: The times we thought we had the record placed and the deal falls through- we had a record on the last TI project that didn’t happen. You have to look forward.

Hookman: I’m looking forward to retiring. [laughter erupts] It’s the only moment I can see myself relaxing.

Looking back and seeing what I’ve been able to do. I can’t get excited about the moment because I’m working. All I know is work.

Carlisle: It’s about seeing something come from nothing. To see a song everyone can enjoy and you can take pride in your efforts and accomplishments.

YoungWorldmusic.com

127 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

me knowing absolutely anything about him. The first song that I heard from him was [judged] basically from the quality of the recording. I just didn’t take him seriously.

What caused the turning point?

When I looked at his MySpace and really saw what was going on then I started listening with a different ear.

Mr. COLLIPARK

H

ow nice do you have to be at what you do to take the name of your city and rock it as your stage name? Enter Mr. Collipark, the Atlanta based Florida export, who dropped heavy with Miami Bass and lifted Crunk. Collipark has settled into a production family setting in these years following his great success with the Ying Yang Twins. Oh Snap! He’s also sharing his insight in Music Powers, a book and production resource aimed at music business education. Let’s go in.

What made you to decide to go with a camp idea as opposed to going it alone, production-wise?

Mr. Collipark: Well, I have always been alone and actually I just started finding myself being surrounded by other producers who enjoy working with me, so instead of fighting that, I just embraced it and with the help of my brother Derrick, we formed ‘The Package Store’. It was time for me to get my own studio and everything, timing wise, worked itself out.

What are you doing as far as picking producers for your camp? What would it take to actually become a part of The Package Store?

I’m not really looking for any more producers, because I wanted to notice the talent that I have now. I have four very talented guys and I have learned not to take home more than I can handle. For me to keep adding on

producers right now… I would have to neglect the ones that I have and I do not want to do that.

Do you feel any need for separation between the different gear everyone has access to? Are you worried about producers leaning on the same sounds?

Everybody pretty much has their own stuff. We have two separate rooms in my studio, and two of the guys work in one room and me and one of the other guys is working in another room and then Tom Slick, he kind of bounces back and forth. So when everybody works alone, they use their own stuff, and when we come together we kind of share stuff.

In regards to ‘Soulja Boy’, what did you first hear about him?

I thought it was some silly shit that some kid was doing, that was my very first impression and that was without

128 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

So now you are actually saying the profile site is what clinched the deal?

Yeah, the MySpace page when I saw that, and then when I talked to him… the first time I talked to him the charisma and just how he came off to me was like I got this and that kind of impressed me. I usually get a lot different response when I meet people like that and he kept his cool man and he was very confident, and very secure in where he was and what he was doing. That made me want to bring him in even more.

Why the direction of ‘Feel Good’ Music, of all the kinds of music you could be making or might desire to make, why “Feel Good” music?

Well I come from a bass music background, so that’s all that was, but what’s crazy is another advantage of having a production team such as “The Package Store” and a lot of people don’t know… when I am in my zone and not worried about pleasing the industry, I do a lot of different kinds of stuff and I don’t have an opportunity a lot of times to get that out but through ‘The Package Store’, I will get to introduce that side of me through them.

Unfortunately, once they get stuck on something, you have to give them what they want; but I am kind of marketing “The Package Store” as sort of a separate entity.

I see! Now, what about keeping the egos in check among the camp?

There is no ego, none. I probably have got the biggest ego and I don’t have an ego. For real, everybody that’s around me right now really truly loves what they do. When you truly enjoy and love music and you are really talented at it

AND you get paid… no egos man.

Who would you consider an early influence on your production style?

On my production it was like a lot of Magic Mike, Mr. Mix was very, very influential, the way they were putting their songs together because it was scratches and stuff the DJs would do. So, I was a DJ in the beginning.

That’s what brought me in and got me interested in what they were doing.

50” and I haven’t done a record like this since “Ying Yang” and it just had that sound man, and when I play it for women, you just know it when you hear it. Probably the last record I did, that moved the club like this is “Ms. New Booty”, because I haven’t really been inspired to do those types tracks since “Ying Yang” but I originally did it for “Hurricane” and my “Ying Yang” sound that I had with them, kind of, came from New Orleans and Miami Bass combined.

Motif and I still use it.

Are you interested in after processing like using eternal Rack Units, vintage pieces?

Old school man, I leave that to my guys; now they are more into that kind of stuff, but me I am still a drum machine and keyboard man.

No software going on, no plug-ins?

I do a lot of stuff with Swole, and he does that. He will get in there and start messing with all of that stuff, but me personally I don’t get into it.

What would you consider your So, when I got with Hurricane it number one or main production tool?

Probably Motif, no, no; it used to be the SP-12. I “...these rappers . have transferred my drums from the They are getting , like SP-12 to the MPC, but all my drums out they can’t even make records by themselves. [now] are the still the ones -- the basis of They can fill in songs. They need a beat with a hook, all my production still comes from and that’s how they get down. See, when I came into those basic sounds I started producing the game, if you can write a song, you run the with back when I was rapping. I still use f*****g rapper. the same 808 that I used on “Whistle Today, you have got people getting deals off While You Twurk” on something that I how they look... you could be a street dude, do now.

How does your production day work? I don’t have a set any more man, most of stuff that I have done that you guys know of I did at home by myself. The luxury of doing stuff at home is I could start on something today and leave it alone and if I want to and get back to it when I’m inspired to mess with it. When you are in sessions with artists or when you are working with other people, you just have got to go in and do what you do. That usually starts with a bottle of Patrón and we just go for it, we just bang it out.

can’t even write songs

deals off swag now

but be a real artist...”

How does your MC background and also the DJ adjust how your production style comes out?

Really, I produce with the end in mind meaning that my ultimate goal is going to always be to move people like in a dance manner, because that’s where I come from. So if you don’t move people, if you don’t move me, then it’s just there- I am not moved.

So you are basically seeing the record being played in the club and hearing it in that mentality as you are creating the track.

Right and that’s the sound that you get man, like there is a record that myself and Swole out of ‘The Package Store’ just did for Mike Jones “Drop & Gimme

kind of brought that back out and we originally did it for him but we called up Mike Jones and gave it to him, and it’s featuring Hurricane so it’s Mike Jones’ first single.

What about the Yamaha Motif Sound or the tone that attracted you to it?

I think the live instruments, that’s the keyboard that I did “Track Star” on. I wasn’t really into playing stuff when I got that. I used a couple of old sound modules, but I didn’t really take it seriously but when I heard the live instruments, the horns, the flutes and stuff like that, it just caught my ear, I guess from the band background I have, and that’s what got me into the

What about writer’s block or being stuck on an idea, how do you get around that?

Aww shit, if it ain’t there man, you just call it a day and move on man.

With producers like Kanye West and even the Neptunes turning back to rapping, what about you turning artist over your own production?

The only reason I can see is to just put my idea of how I see the music game out there for people to see. You have got the Kanyes and the people who listen to “Kanye West”, then you got

129 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

but a lot of producers are trying to emulate that sound and not getting it right. What advice do you have for someone who really wants to explore sparse music, but doesn’t quite have the tools in place yet?

Stop copying. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Most of the time people are trying to redo shit that’s already been done. When you diddle with sparse music, you only have four sounds to build from. You can’t go take the same four sounds or take three of those four sounds from another popular song and try to make a whole new record, it just don’t work like that.

Soulja Boy, you got people who listen to the “Soulja Boy [sound], but there’s not very much in between any more. I would want to be the bridge in that gap.

Not necessarily trying to be the artist so much as just doing the music and putting the song together.

With all of this going on, what are you doing to keep grounded?

I have my people around me, my family; I am very family oriented, that’s first. See, I don’t drive a Bentley not yet anyway. But it’s my choice; I don’t do those kinds of things, because with that kind of stuff comes bullshit. I have been able to survive in this game for as long as I have, and especially when you work with real people everybody can’t have that stuff. Everybody strives to be the man. But that mentality causes shit to get thrown in your face, and the game makes you play second, third, and fourth fiddle behind people with the egos, it’s kind of hard and that’s why you see crews breaking up all the time. It’s hard to maintain when you are on that kind of bullshit.

Who would you like to work with in the future?

I am more interested in just doing my own shit right now, but I do like working

more like I will get a musical idea, and lay that down. It’s like a DJ thing with me. If I get a good music loop, a basic music loop then I could put the drums around it perfect. So when I work with other producers, they usually just do the music. We collaborate on the music, and I usually do the drums,

“Stop copying. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.

Most of the time people are trying to redo shit that’s already been done. When you diddle with sparse music, you only have four sounds to build from. You can’t go take the same four sounds or take three of those four sounds from another popular song and try to make a whole new record, it just don’t work like that.” with other people and I want to get into more pop projects, but nobody in particular.

Let’s go back to the production game. It begins with the drums first?

Yup, when I was doing Bass records I used to start with drums, but now it’s

because that’s my thing. Making the drums beat around the music.

We are now in an era of music being simple and to the point and I mean being as effective as possible where there is little going on as possible,

130 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

That’s why I stopped doing it. Like, if you know this, I have really kind of just chilled and laid back on producing that stuff lately, because I am not even a real big fan of that style anymore, because at a point, once you do a record like “Wait” and then you come back with a record like “Play”, and then you come back with a record like “Ms. New Booty” …okay cool. Like, we done that and then it’s cool to have somebody like “Soulja Boy” to come, and do his own idea of what that is. But for me, I can’t just keep taking those same sounds and making records out of them. You hear me?

I hear you. So what’s next production wise, there is going to be a new tool that’s going to come in or are you going to take -I want to go back to breakbeats. For me personally, There ain’t been nobody from the south to do that. So, I want to sample all my old breakbeat records, because I used to produce hip-hop records back in the days. Like when I was just on the SP-12, before all these keyboards and shit, I had these back in the day if I played them right now…I was doing this shit, speeding up samples back in f’in ‘97, the stuff that Kanye is doing now. That stuff wasn’t acceptable here [South] back then, but I used to just do it just for the fun, I want to go back to sample them breakbeats and combining them with the 808 stuff that’s going on now, and just trying to mesh together and make a new sound

Today, you have got people getting deals because of how they look. I don’t want to get into too many specifics, but to me you could be a street dude, but be a real artist, like TI and even Jeezy study the craft enough to come from the street and be a real artist. Jeezy goes into the studio and he gets to it.

You don’t need three writers in there for hooks and all of that shit. That’s bullshit to me. So, my advice is if you are a real artist, I ain’t talkin about a Dough Boy who came up with a catchy record. People could talk all they want to about Soulja Boy, but he knows how to make songs, complete songs. You don’t need people in the studio telling him the hooks or to write his lyrics for him. I am not saying that one should never have this done.

But if you can’t complete your album without having a writer come in and write hooks for you then I don’t know, man. I don’t get down like that. I will never sign an artist like that.

Wow! What else would you like to share in closing with the production community?

and going back to sampling more.

That’s what I see myself doing.

That sounds like a very promising direction. Now, what about rappers, what advise do you have for the rapper that’s coming up - who is watching all this happening and wants to find a new way to get in?

Man, be a complete artist man, like for real. One of my favorite artists right now- ain’t because of the type of music

he does it is just because of the talent.

Check T.I. and Jeezy. I was just with somebody in the industry last night, and we were saying how these rappers can’t even write songs. They are getting deals off swag now, like they can’t even make records by themselves. They can fill in songs. They need a beat with a hook, and that’s how they get down.

See, when I came into the game, if you can write a song, you run the f******g rapper.

For someone trying to get in the game; I think following anybody who was hot last year, the year before last- trying to emulate them, you are playing yourself because people are really, really looking for that next. Producers: don’t out-price yourself in the game, because right now these budgets are getting smaller and smaller, and these labels aren’t paying that money like they were two years ago to try to find their big record anymore.

Well, Mr. Collipark I thank you for sitting down with Producer’s Edge Magazine and we will be listening for new music from your camp.

131 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Writers’ Block: The Police State I was a youngin’ when hip-hop formed and went from being on the corner and parks to the first mainstream hit from Sugar Hill Gang. Growing up with HipHop watching it start as an infant and growing into the experimental stage, it felt like you were getting information regarding a wide array of different topics. If I wanted to know what life was like and what struggles were being experienced on the West coast I could throw on some Ice-T or N.W.A. For the east there were established pioneers with “The Message” like Melle Mel; and also the original new generation of emcees i.e. Kool G Rap that brought the streets to life on wax.

Suppose I was tired of hearing violence or negativity and felt like laughing, I could easily swap out my cassette and pop in Biz Markie; and hear “Pickin’ Boogers” or “The Dragon”. The first time I heard Biz say: “Now what I’m emceein’ might not seem kosher to you, but it’s still something’ we all have to do. So go up your nose with a finger or two, and pull out one or a crusty crew”. And if you could imagine being a kid and hearing that on a record? Hilarious! Slick Rick’s “Indian Girl” (An Adult Story) had me and my crew laughing for days.

There was time when I felt like hearing an emcee kill a verse and be lyrically creative. For those occasions when I wanted to hear that next level new flow I could play Big Daddy Kane or Rakim for classic lines like: “Standin’ by the speaker, suddenly I had this fever, was it me or either summer madness?, cause I just can’t stand around, so I get closer and the closer I get the better it sound. My mind starts to activate, rhymes collaborate, Cuz when I hear the beat I just had to make…”

Words by Fine Print

However, there were times back then when I yearned to gain an updated perspective of what was going on and how black people fit into the situation, not only in America, but the world. I never got that direct connection from listening to Martin Luther King Jr. nor from Malcolm X speeches; and definitely not from school textbooks.

That is where Public Enemy and KRS1 came in and gave us all information, not only about being black in America but also in respects to all of humanity, globally. From “911 Is a Joke” and “Black Steel in The Hour Of Chaos” to “Self-Destruction” and “Stop The Violence”.

My question to YOU the reader is; where has the versatility, the need to inform people, and the backbone of hip-hop and M.C’s gone?

No doubt hip-hop and our culture have come a long way from the days and times when the fore mentioned hip-hop legends dominated our tape decks and on the shoulder boom boxes. However, the need for information and innovation never gets old.

From one perspective it seems that the more popular our emcee’s got the more involved big budget labels were. It felt like they almost controlled what we were hearing. When “Gangsta Rap” got a lot of heat, the pro-black movement came to the limelight. If you rhymed “Gangsta” you couldn’t get a deal.

On the other hand, labels can only put out what we present to them and they magnify it from there.

Hip-hop is a reflection of our culture and us. There has never been a time in history when it was actually cool to be perceived as uneducated and still, somehow, rich from some anonymous hustle. And this is shown in today’s music. Since it seems that we don’t want to laugh or be informed through

music anymore ( or that’s at least what major labels think) I guess we won’t be blessed with raw creative hip hop presented and supported by THE INDUSTRY on a mainstream level for a while.

Artists like The Roots, Common, Talib Kweli, and Kanye West are not enough. Although they are needed, they are a handful of artist that represent that type of perspective and/ or genre that has always been with hip hop. But where are the other factions?

There are vast amounts of emcee’s that have innovative flows, are lyrically/ musically creative, and are informative from every angle. My question is who doesn’t want their voices to be heard?

THE INDUSTRY or US? Recommended listening for further Gems and Jewels/Discography The Sugar Hill Gang: (Rappers Delight) 12” Released 1979 Grand Master Flash and The Furious Five: (“The Message”) 12” Released 1982 Produced by: Duke Bootee Slick Rick: The Great Adventures Of Slick Rick (“Hey Young World”) Released 1988 Produced by: Ricky Walters

Ice-T: (“Colors”) 12” Released 1988 Produced by: Afrika Islam Kool G Rap & D.J. Polo: Road To The Riches (“Poison”) Released 1988 Produced by: Marley Marl

Public Enemy: It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back (“Rebel Without A Pause”) Released 1988 Produced by: Hank Shocklee and The Bomb Squad Boogie Down Productions: Criminal Minded (“9mm Goes Bang”) Released 1987 Produce by: Ced Gee, DJ Scott La Rock, and KRSOne

Catch me on the forums for my full list.

133 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Fine Prints’ Lyric Selection

Fine Print Lyric Selection Artist: Public Enemy

Artist: KRS-One Album: Return of the Song: Sound of Da Police

Boom Bap

Chorus: Woop-woop!

That’s the sound of da police!

Woop-woop!

That’s the sound of the beast!

Verse One: Stand clear! Don man a-talk You can’t stand where I stand, you can’t walk where I walk Watch out! We run New York Police man come, we bust him out the park I know this for a fact, you don’t like how I act You claim I’m sellin’ crack But you be doin’ that I’d rather say “see ya” Cause I would never be ya Be a officer? You WICKED overseer!

Ya hotshot, wanna get props and be a saviour First show a little respect, change your behavior Change your attitude, change your plan There could never really be justice on stolen land Are you really for peace and equality?

Or when my car is hooked up, you know you wanna follow me - Your laws are minimal Cause you won’t even think about lookin’ at the real criminal This has got to cease Cause we be getting HYPED to the sound of da police 134 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

Album:

Fear Of A Black Planet Song: 911 Is A Joke - Drayton - Shocklee - Sadler Hit me Going, going, gone

Now I dialed 911 a long time ago Don’t you see how late they’re reactin’ They only come and they come when they wanna So get the morgue embalm the goner They don’t care ‘cause they stay paid anyway They teach ya like an ace they can’t be betrayed I know you stumble with no use people If your life is on the line they you’re dead today Late comings with the late comin’ stretcher That’s a body bag in disguise y’all betcha I call ‘em body snatchers quick they come to fetch ya?

With an autopsy ambulance just to dissect ya They are the kings ‘cause they swing amputation Lose your arms, your legs to them it’s compilation I can prove it to you watch the rotation It all adds up to a funky situation So get up get, get get down 911 is a joke in yo town Get up, get, get, get down Late 911 wears the late crown

911 is a joke

Writers’ Block: The Digital Rhymebook

Words by ScarPen

W

you will find one of those combinations This is much cleaner than an old-ass hen you think of change in will stick to your ribs. Since you are notebook with paper falling out and hip hop we automatically on a PC you should have the internet trying to find that one verse you wrote think of change in rhyme style, which is like the measuring tape on six months ago.

You will be surprised evolution of beats-making, the your tool belt. at how you and flip the flow of your direction the music is going and a rhymes better in Microsoft word than classic fundamental in the progress With the internet you can maximize you can with a trapper keeper. of the song quality. But how can the potential of your resources for you evolve the music without references in your rhyme. Let’s say I personally have trouble with trying modifying the tools? I see hip hop somewhere in that verse you have to switch combinations of words using DVDs of MC still using the same a line that goes “I’m hungry for any paper.

For instance, if you want to old reading off the paper method, amount of money, yo I’ll battle son”. switch a few lines around in the rhyme stumbling over their verses in the And to rhyme with it you think of that to see if it sounds better, you can’t booth while holding their notebook, actor Woody Harrelson.

But you don’t undo or cut and paste with paper.

If and bumping into the mic. In my remember the movies he’s been in. If you don’t like the way it sounds you experience, it’s almost guaranteed you were to look up all the movies that have to either rewrite it or scratch it I’ll have to give it a few takes to he’s been in you might see “Natural out, and this limits your creativity. drop that verse due to the paper Born Killers”, and flip the next line like Now let’s go back to that day that you I’m reading off of is illegible with “Murderer, I’m a natural born killer like are spinning your wheels trying to flesh ridiculous scratch marks, or eraser Woody Harrelson”. You also have to out that new heat you’ve been trying traces. Or how about you go to the realize that this is a more studio to drop a verse for efficient way to organize your “Conventional methods of writing rhymes have your album, and what do rhymes. ya know, you left that verse very grave limitations in today’s technological at home. Let’s focus on Conventional methods of the fundamental “Pen and writing rhymes have very society. Some say the backpacker era isn’t Pad”, and try to modify the grave limitations in today’s most important tool for all technological society.

Some dead but the retail sale of back packs should MC’s, the rhyme book. say the backpacker era isn’t Picture yourself in the dead but the retail sale of back typical zone listening to your have decreased since the start of the new packs should have decreased instrumental, smoking your since the start of the new haze, while brainstorming on millennium. We should not be hauling around millennium. We should not be a song. You ready to concoct hauling around a pocketbook that next shit but you seem a pocketbook full of notebooks.” full of notebooks. We should to be having a little writers be carrying around laptops and PDA’s. to conjure up. If you go to your PC block. After 3 days, 7 hours, and 12 Let’s begin to change the face of the and jot down some of those scraps note books later you are officially a rhyme book. First thing is to put down you have in your waste basket or the wrap. All you got left is an ashtray full the pad and pen and log all of your survival scraps that actually remain of roaches, an instrumental CD that rhymes neatly into your laptop or PC. in the rhyme book you may be able just started skipping, and a scratch It would be wise to create folders and to piece together a hot verse. Switch marks all over an old rag. Where did file your rhymes by category however the arrangement around and see if that you go wrong? Your writing style is you feel fit. You can have a folder for combination sounds better than the stale, and smoking another L is not of completed songs, a folder for 16’s, a first. For example, cut and paste lines gonna cut it his time but a Microsoft folder for unfinished verses, which 2 and 4 and paste it in between line word document will. could all be sub folders inside. For a 6 and 7. Spit it a few times out loud, more advanced approach to organizing and if you’re not feeling it, you can Instead of the old pen and pad you can your rhyme book, you can use paste it back. You can try this with any start typing out you rhymes in Microsoft Microsoft Access or Microsoft Excel combination of lines and I am confident word [or any other text program- DS].

135 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08

to organize your songs in a database.

I’m not going to go into a course about how to do that but if you are curious there are many sites that can instruct you through tutorials on exactly how to do that.

Now let’s go back to that day when your stuck writing that hot 16. Once you pick up your laptop, and start the juices flowing, within a few hours you should have that hot sixteen written and practiced. Now your ready to hit the studio, the first thing you do is grab that same old back pack and get ready to stuff your hot new written with all those same wrinkled up verses.

Instead let’s go into your email account.

Compose an email using your own personal email as the recipient, attach the hot verse to this email and send

it to yourself. A flash drive may be better since you can file and carry you verses around without worrying about whether or not the studio will let you use there internet. Once you arrive at the studio, go to you email, download the verse and print it out right at the studio. A greater advantage is now you can change the font and size of the text so you can see without holding it while you rhyme. Since this is a new verse it is probably not memorized. Yet his new method will allow you to spit this verse like it was memorized due to how legible your verse is.

This new tool box should give you a new found inspiration and creativity to write rhymes. The more you get used to using this method, the easier it is and the more convenient it works with your lifestyle. Even if it normally takes you two weeks to write your best material, this will cut your writing time down by at least 40% since the verses will be easier to read it should reduce the amount of time you take to finish the song as well. Take some time to apply these techniques and don’t forget who put you on.

“I’d rather be a flawed original than a perfect copy.”

A

new year has just arrived and all of us have had a chance to be reflective of what we have (Thanksgiving), what we want (Christmas) and what we want to do next (New Years’ Resolutions). For the producers I’ve talked to it’s been thanks for my skills, the nice gifts from x-mas and a promise to hustle harder/network and get more records (placements). I’ve also heard a lot of complaining about the music industry, the radio and rap politics.

I ask you on behalf of the staff at Producer’s Edge magazine to do something about it. We don’t need any more talk. Artists with concrete plans, filled with logical steps, have the best chance of advancing and making a difference. We all need to have realistic and definable goals since our resolutions will only be met when backed up with physical action. Don’t make a list of vague ideas and situations. Create a blueprint for your career with a list of things to do and how you will get them done yesterday.

-Darius ‘Big Heav’ Hubbard

-Producer’s Edge

H

ardware or software, analog or digital, CD-R or MP3, singles or the mixtape, an EP or an LP, collaborations or solo efforts, Mac or PC, laptops or the desktop, mono or high-resolution stereo, presets or tweaked sound-patch designs, reverb or dry sound, self-programmed patterns or drum loops, 85bpms or 120bpms, sample based or original production, classic techniques or modern toys, follow the leader or trail-blaze a new path (that’s a whole subject for another issue)…These are all questions that eventually flow through the minds of anyone thinking of making a musical odyssey this year and beyond. Whatever direction today’s beatsmith decides to take, one thing is for sure, the mighty consumer has already begun to speak with their waning support for easily accessible, uninspired music. Our genres have become stale. It’s time to come with radical and creative twists that can power a new generation of producers. If you’re out there; the floor is all yours, go get em’! - Proof Editor Will Loiseau

137 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter 08