Protect and Defend
Feb 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Will Johnson
OG producer Pete Rock preserves and progresses the boom-bap and champions the lost art of dynamics on NY's Finest
ENTER YOUNG GURU
“The main difference in working with a cat like Young Guru versus some of the other engineers I've worked with is [that] he actually knows my music,” Rock says. “He's like a true hip-hop head. So rather than me having to explain what things are supposed to sound like, he just gets it!” To Young Guru, a longtime Pete Rock enthusiast, grasping Rock's mixes was second nature.
“Being the age that I am, [34], I'm obviously going to know his sound,” Guru says. “I used to study him when I listened to his music, and so when I came in to work [on NY's Finest], it didn't take eight years for me to get familiar. I knew what he was going for.”
One of Guru's key techniques for emulating Rock's brand of '90s New York street-hop was replicating the sound of the SP-1200 with outboard gear and plug-ins. For tracks like “PJs,” a syrup-thick, bass-driven track featuring Raekwon and Masta Killa, Guru used one of Pro Tools' factory bit-distorter plug-ins to bring out the crunchy warmth of the RZA-esque track. “You gotta understand, the SP-1200 is a 12-bit sampler that samples at a rate of 22 kHz,” Guru says. “I used those parameters as a reference point and crunched it up like it would've sounded going through that machine. I know that machine; nothing's gonna sound exactly like that machine, but the parameters can be replicated. The track already sounded like an old Wu-Tang joint, so my job was to just finish what Rock started. I reduced the bass line to 12 bits and brought the sample rate down to 22 kHz. I also colored it with some of the API 2500's harmonic settings.”
One difference between “PJs” and most of Guru's concoctions is the subtlety of the drums. Accustomed to mixing street bangers for Roc-A-Fella acts like Jay-Z, Freeway and Beanie Sigel, Guru took a different approach here. “Whereas I usually try to get the drums more knocking, the bass was the driving element here, so I just let the drums sit in the mix once the bass sounded right,” he says. “Producers pay a lot of attention to their drums, but I've learned sometimes it's not the drum that drives the song.”
When Guru was focusing on the drums, however, he relied primarily on his API/Empirical Labs' Distressor compression combination. “I never read the manual on the API until recently. When I did, I learned some of the proper preset settings. You can pretty much copy any old compression unit on the API,” Guru says, referring to the unit's two primary settings: “feed back” for old-style or “feed forward” for newer models. “I ran all the drums through there and really got that snap from the snare. I also copied some of the tape-compression settings to get the feeling of the original recordings that Rock might have sampled from.” In combination with the onboard equalizers and compressors from Manhattan Center's Neve VR mixing console, which Guru mixed on, “there wasn't much more to do,” Guru says.
Guru credits Rock's source material and method of working as inspirational for the whole process. Seeing the producer's concentrated ability to work within a single machine, entirely from samples, reminded the mix master of Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth's sophomore album cover. “When I got to Rock's home [studio], it looked exactly like the photo from The Main Ingredient. He was still working in the same environment: He recorded most of his vocals for this album in that room, not in a booth, just standing up next to the mic, going into a Focusrite [Octo Pre] preamp.” Guru insists this type of vocal recording gives the album “that raw, basement-tape feeling.”
Guru, who also produces, was equally impressed with Rock's ability to self-contain his sound before the mixing phase. “Watching Pete's mind at work is crazy,” he says. “He would sample three different records and get it sounding like a mixed, single record. I've never really seen a producer do that and work so quickly. Sometimes he'd make beats on the spot, as many as three or four a day, and to his credit, each of them was already mixed within the machine.” That made it easy for Guru to focus on creative rather than corrective engineering.
HAPPY MEDIUM MIXING
Rock, who is now becoming more comfortable mixing his records from his home studio with a newly added Digi 002 setup, appreciated Guru's ability to not overmix in the final stages. Both the producer and engineer agreed that today's mixes tend to sound squashed — usually the result of too much compression at different phases. “You got the producer adding compression, the engineer adding compression and then the mastering guy adding compression. At the end, it sounds like a loud, squashed track. I don't know where this comes from, but people today just like loudness, not dynamics,” notes Guru. Rock sees it as the producers' growing estrangement from the mixing process. Because of that, engineers — especially those who don't have an ear for hip-hop music — don't know which direction to take the final mix. Rock cites his Ghostface Killah collabo, “Be Easy,” as proof. “They kinda did too much to it. They were taking out kicks and maybe didn't focus enough on the horns,” the producer notes when referring to one of the few tracks that he wishes could be remixed. “Me and Ghost's people are cool, and we've resolved the issue, but it just goes to show you the producer should always be present during the mixing phase.” Guru agrees, noting Rock's involvement as crucial to his decision-making.
Regarding his overall production savvy, Rock's learned a lot from listening again to music that predates hip-hop. Having secured a partnership with the soul flagship, Stax, Rock has acquired several multitracks from some of the label's rarer sessions. By having the ability to solo, mute and sample tracks within Pro Tools' interface, Rock's taken a closer listen to techniques in the age of analog production. In many ways, that has expanded his compositional vocabulary. “Producers from the Stax era paid a lot of attention to stuff like hooks, choruses, building bridges and drum breaks. When you listen to it track by track, you start to learn how to break away from the loops and add to the dynamics. I'm trying to bring that to hip-hop producers.” On “The Best Kept Secret,” a track featuring New York's Lords of the Underground, Rock uses a marching band-like brass section to conjure up the feeling of a well-conducted 20-piece orchestra. Here, the beat conductor demonstrates his growing understanding of song forms, creating several crescendos from stacked samples that play the same melody, eventually inviting a decrescendo, and then the hook erupts into a roaring climax — a climax few producers could reach even with live instrumentation.
For Rock, these are the type of dynamics that are missing from hip-hop today. “Everyone wants to sound this one particular way. It's like they don't realize that's the curse of hip-hop; once you start sounding like everyone else, your timer starts ticking…faster and faster. Eventually, you're not in it anymore.” Though Rock promises his basic elements — street and soul — will always remain present, he's vowed that he will continue to think progressively about his production. “It's easy for me to feel nostalgic about music — like me and Preme might just sit back in D&D and complain some days — but I can't stop. I really love what I do too much to stop. Hip-hop music has always been about changing and evolving. I've always been dedicated to that. The industry can pigeonhole me all it wants, but I'm at a point where I just need to be making music, and that's what keeps me going; that's why I'm not stopping.”
FINEST GEAR
Akai MPC2000XL sampling workstation
Alesis Monitor One MK2 monitors
API 2500 stereo compressor
Apple Power Mac G5 computer
Digidesign Pro Tools 7, Digi 002 interface
E-mu SP-1200 sampler
Empirical Labs Distressor compressor/limiter
Fender Rhodes keyboard
Focusrite Octo Pre preamp
Genelec 1031 monitors
JBL LSR325P monitors
Neve VR console
Røde NT1000 condenser mic
Sony C-800G mic
Technics SL-1200 turntable
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