Live Wire
May 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Bill Murphy
SAMPLED DELIGHTS
Of course, even though Shock Value is rife with live instrumentation, by no means was it ever implied that Timbaland would check his sampler at the door. The anthemic album opener, “Oh Timbaland,” makes that immediately evident, jumping off as it does with a piano figure and chorus taken from Nina Simone's classic “Sinnerman.” What's especially crafty is how, with a little creative Pro Tools editing, Simone's line “Oh sinnerman” becomes “Oh Timbaland,” and the underlying beat becomes a slinky, cut-time lope that's light-years away from the original.
“I first heard that song in [the remake of] The Thomas Crown Affair,” Timbaland explains. “I can identify with Thomas Crown because I love how he carries himself — that's why I took the name for my studio. And when I heard that song, I knew we had to use it. It was incredible that you could almost hear my name in there. I redid the sample for the hi-hat, too, so some of that is me playing along with it.”
Timbaland's fascination with samples naturally extends to musical exotica — a trend he helped kick-start back in 1999 with the warbling high-pitched flutes lifted from a song called “Khosara” by the late Egyptian singer Abdel Halim Hafez, which comprised the main melody to Jay-Z's hit “Big Pimpin'.” This time around, India's Bollywood style lit Timbaland's fuse, but instead of digging for vinyl — or surfing the Web, which raised a small (and still-pending) legal ruckus last year when he grabbed an 8-bit C64 synth demo for Furtado's “Do It” — he went directly to the source and recruited a native singer to voice the lead for “Bombay.” Fusing hints of bhangra and hip-hop into a lo-fi homage to Hindi film music, the song is so true to the Bollywood style that the vocal seems hidden behind a thin veil of analog distortion.
“I just captured that old vinyl sound with a little EQ,” Timbaland reveals. “When I do effects with [my engineer] Demo, we just sit there and do it right on the spot.” Demo hints that a liberal amount of analog EQ and compression — perhaps at the hands of a Drawmer 1961 and a vintage Universal Audio 1176 — may have been the secret. “For the most part, everything on the album was recorded digitally [to Pro Tools],” he says, “but we'll pass through a lot of analog equipment to give a vocal some depth. That might mean mic pres or old tube compressors; for that track, it was definitely some old analog gear.”
Regardless of what he does in the studio to create a certain sound, Timbaland's encyclopedic knowledge of music in general — and his need to challenge himself by working in new genres — seems to be equally vital to his production stroke. In the same breath, he'll list artists as far-flung as Bollywood film composer R.D. Burman, Hindi singer Asha Bhosle and Nigerian funk godfather Fela Kuti among his key influences.
But he's also well versed in rock history, which explains why he branched out to work with Elton John, Fall Out Boy and The Hives for several tracks on Shock Value. The Hives' take on “Throw It on Me” in particular is a refreshingly different uptempo booty-shaker with an unmistakable TR-808 kick (a reminder that Timbaland manages to dust off a few choice drum machines on the album, including the Roland CR-78 that gurgles machinelike through “Kill Yourself” with Attitude and Sebastian, aka Garland Mosley, Timbaland's younger brother).
“I'm just going for something new to do,” Timbaland explains. “I mean, with Elton John, I know that we both wanted to work with each other, and we just made it happen. With Fall Out Boy, it's just their sound mixing with my sound. I feel like I have to go for different things; otherwise, I might as well stop making music.”
ONE STEP BEYOND
Although Timbaland foresees a not-too-distant day when he'll retire from beat-making altogether, he doesn't anticipate slowing down any time soon. Waiting in the wings is Björk's next album, Volta (One Little Indian/Atlantic, 2007), which at the time of this writing is slated to feature two tracks co-produced by Timbaland, including the single “Earth Intruders” — yet another manifestation of Timbaland's newfound junkyard sound. “Danja and I worked on that,” he reveals. “Most of it happened in New York, and then Björk went back over to Iceland to finish it up.”
As he continues to stretch his talents into evermore-uncharted waters, Timbaland acknowledges that hip-hop will never be far from his immediate field of vision. Whether as a continued part of his own sound or in the torch he passes on to his successors, the boom-bap is here to stay.
“When I do stop doing it, I hope the world will pick up on Danja,” Timbaland says proudly of his longtime production co-pilot. “I know the legacy will still go on through Nate. I mean, everything comes back again, and I think hip-hop will always be here in that way. With what I'm doing — bringing in different styles from different countries — that's just what I do. I'm just an innovator. Years from now, I don't know if the world will take it and run with it, but as long as I'm having fun, I'm good.”
CROWN JEWELS
High-end studios from coast to coast have felt Timbaland's heavy tread, and while the Hit Factory in Miami (relocated from New York in early 2005) remains one of his favorite spots, lately Timbaland has logged his most extensive hours at Thomas Crown Studios — his home base in Virginia Beach.
Assembled with creative input from Jimmy Douglass — Timbaland's key engineer for many years, on many albums — the main Studio A is outfitted for 5.1 surround mixing with a Neve VR-72 console, Digidesign Pro Tools|HD and custom Augspurger monitors. The interior of the two-story complex was designed by Walters-Storyk Design Group in New York, and emphasizes full-frequency response with state-of-the-art acoustics. Now if only those walls could talk.
“At one point, we were in the same cul-de-sac where Pharrell [Williams] and Chad [Hugo] had their studio,” Demacio “Demo” Castellon recalls. “So you go outside to get some fresh air, and you look across the way, and you're like, ‘Damn, I wonder what he's doing.’ This was before The Neptunes opened Hovercraft Studios, but it was cool because it gave us both some edge for a while there.”
With an impressive array of outboard gear that ranges from Empirical Labs Distressors to a Lexicon 960 reverb unit, as well as all manner of microphones ranging from the stalwart Neumann U 87 to Audio-Technica's AT4060, Thomas Crown is tricked out for the ultimate in recording efficiency, and it's built to accommodate the endless permutations of creative experimentation that can redirect Timbaland's mood at any given moment.
“It does depend on the vibe of the record and what exactly we're trying to accomplish,” Demo clarifies, “but the main thing is we don't really ever try to repeat ourselves with what we do, so usually it's more experimental than anything. And I think that's something that's been a part of what's happening in Virginia Beach for a long time. With Tim and Missy and The Neptunes and Danja — and even before them, with Teddy Riley and new-jack swing — without a doubt, this place has been a major influence in modern music and in hip-hop and R&B as we know it.”
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