ELASTIC FANTASTIC
Mar 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Bill Murphy
JOURNEY INTO SOUND
“When you listen to a good drummer,” RJ continues, “they're not gonna play the exact same fill in a song. So usually one of the very first things I'll do is get a groove going, and then I'll program five or six different drum fills. And you can get even deeper. Let's say I've got a 16-bar verse; I can take one of those middle bars and just put a slight variation in it, like take out a kick or put in a snare accent. The more you do these kinds of things, the less chance your ear has to get numb to the loop. Then your brain starts to think, ‘Whoa, man, maybe I'm hearing a real drummer.’”
As is normally the case with any RJD2 production, a keen attention to detail with synth and keyboard sounds in particular is what gives the music a large part of its spaced-out, kaleidoscopic appeal. Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer, Farfisa, Clavinet and a stately Hammond M3 organ all find their way into The Third Hand, while an array of vintage synths that includes everything from a Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 to an Oberheim OB-Xa helps bolster the alien weirdness of songs like “Work It Out” and “The Bad Penny.”
“I spent a lot of time on this record getting sounds out of some of the older keyboards,” RJ says, citing such instances as the glockenspiel-ish opening to “You Never Had It So Good,” which is actually a Clavinet that was sustained and overdriven through the Fender Twin. Inspiration for the sound came from the work of the Italian prog-rock group Goblin, known for their scores of classic Dario Argento horror films (Suspiria being one of the more legendary, as well as the George Romero-directed zombie staple Dawn of the Dead, which is one that Argento produced).
“One of the things I hate about Clavinet is that auto-wah disco sound,” RJ scoffs. “What's incredible about Goblin is that they use Clavinet in a very un-Clav way — it's like they're playing riffs. That part was one of the few things on the record where I listened back and I was like, ‘This doesn't sound anything like what a Clav is supposed to sound like.’ And that's what I was after.”
True to his hip-hop roots, RJ's devotion to harnessing grittiness in his production style is what comprises the alpha and omega when it comes to matching the sound of vinyl. And ironically, he found that one of the things he'd downplayed — one of the processes that takes place in the later stages of the signal path — would come back to haunt him.
“You know, just this week, I bought an Apogee Rosetta 800,” he sighs wistfully, “and for the first time I realized how semi-dull everything was in the input stage, where I was using the Digi 002 for A/D conversion. I still went to a nice studio to mix, so I feel that made up for it — but damn, with the Apogee, I cannot believe the difference. I'll put it this way: I'm mixing a song now that's gonna be a B-side, and there were background vocals there that I was hearing for the first time. It was like going from black-and-white TV to color.”
Even the most seasoned of pros will admit that studio engineering is a constant learning experience, but RJD2 seems to take that a step further by acknowledging that's it's not enough just to be content to learn your way around the gear — you have to will yourself into unfamiliar territory as an artist in order to map out new worlds of sound. “Even after mixing this album, I feel like I still could have pushed it a little bit,” he admits. “I'm still figuring out exactly how hard I can push a preamp, for example. There's shitty distortion that you don't want that sounds like crap, and then there's the good amount of fuzz — and that's the fuzz that I want on everything. But I'm getting there. It's just a matter of trying different things and not getting too hung up on some mythical, magical piece of gear. I mean, we're all musicians, right? That's really what it should be about.”
MIX MENAGERIE
Step into the sprawling North Philly loft complex known simply as The Studio, and you're bound to run into founder and producer Larry Gold; he might be sawing away on a cello, swilling coffee or holding forth with The Roots, Jazzy Jeff, Jill Scott or any number of Philly-based artists who happen to walk through his doors.
“Larry's a real cool dude,” RJD2 raves. “It's a trip how much he knows about indie music. He pays attention to me, he knows what cats like Diplo are doing — it's crazy how he's so tapped into what's going on in Philly.”
Gold paired RJ with mix engineer Jim Bottari (The Roots, R. Kelly, Brandy) on an SSL 4000 series console with access to a short stack of vintage outboard pieces. One such piece was a Lexicon 480L digital effects system, which figured prominently in treating virtually every vocal pass on The Third Hand.
“I wanted the record to sound cohesive,” RJ explains, “so when we mixed, we used the same reverb setting on the 480. Initially, I wanted a plate reverb or a nice echo chamber, but I gave up on that after we set up a chamber and the Lexicon still sounded better. I was adamant about using one reverb [setting]. Most of my favorite records were made when you only had one reverb choice — plate or chamber — so it seemed sensible to do that here.”
HELPING THE THIRD HAND
Computer, DAW, recording hardware
Apple PowerBook G4 1 GHz computer
Digidesign Digi 002, Pro Tools|HD
Console
SSL 4000 Series console [for mixing phase only]*
Synths, plug-ins, instruments, amps
Ampeg B-15R Portaflex bass combo amp
Casio CZ-1000 synth
GMedia GForce M-Tron plug-in
Farfisa Professional Piano
Fender Rhodes ca. 1973 (2), Twin guitar amp
Hammond M3 organ
Hohner Clavinet E7 electric piano
Ibanez electric guitar ca. 1979
Moog Rogue synth
Nomad 49B combo organ
Oberheim OB-Xa synth
Rickenbacker 4001 bass
Sequential Circuits Prelude, Prophet-5 synths
Yamaha CS-40m synth
Vox AC15 and AC30 guitar combo amps
Wurlitzer electric piano (2)
Mics, effects, EQs, preamps
AKG D12E mic
Electro-Harmonix Octave Multiplexer, POG, Q-Tron and Small Stone effects pedals
Lexicon 480L digital reverb *
Microtech Gefell UM71, UM75 mics
Neve 33115 EQs *
Pultec EQ-P1 *
RCA BA21 preamps
Realistic cardioid mic
Royer R-121 ribbon mic
Universal Audio LA-2A compressor/leveling amp *
Urei 1176 compressor/limiter
Monitors
Alesis M1s
Yamaha NS10s
ProAc near-field monitors *
* property of The Studio, Philadelphia, Pa.
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