Wu-Tang Clan: Shaolin Secrets
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Wasim Muklashy
Watch the Wu Tang Part 1 video interview here.
LAND OF HARDWARE
In addition to using different vocal-recording techniques, the RZA draws a few new pieces of gear, among them the Roland MV-8800 drum machine. “I had a lot of beats already on the 8000 because I had the 8000 for almost three years now,” he says, “but the 8800 I had for a couple of months, and it had some hot new kicks and some hot new sounds in it that I wanted to use. With the MVs, you can record the vocals right into there and do a whole song…mix it, master it and put it out.”
RZA also uses the Roland V-Synth quite a bit. “You can actually plug anything through it so you can make your whole beat and put it into the V-Synth and elastically stretch it out,” he says. “Just plug into a MIDI keyboard or plug a mic directly into it and do your hooks and alter the sound or add an extra voice on top of the chorus. It's also like a vocoder. It has great vocal cards in it, so you can have the flute sound like a vocal.”
If you've seen RZA's mug in the Roland ads lately, you'll know that he's got a little sponsorship love from them, but he wasn't always a believer. “I've been using more Roland, but I actually hated Roland growing up. To me, their equipment wasn't user friendly…their interface wasn't proper, but now, I think they got it. Also, now I'm smarter, so I can figure it out.”
The most expensive keyboard kit used on 8 Diagrams was a Korg Oasys, on a track called “Tar Pits.” “I made a beat that I liked and recorded my guitar directly into the Oasys,” RZA says. “I could be programming beats and have a live sound all coming out of one thing. Also, the preamps inside the Oasys are much better than the preamps in the Digi 002. Sometimes I even dump the MV tracks into the Oasys because it has a better preamp.”
Meanwhile, RZA also found himself pulling out older gems such as the Yamaha VL7. “If you plug it into an MPC, for some reason, MPC modulation causes all the notes to stutter, so it sounds like an Isaac Hayes type of delay, which I actually discovered accidentally, but once I found it, I ran with it. I did recently bring out the VL7 for this album for a song called ‘Wolves.’ I used it for the horns, and it has one of these kinds of flute synths.”
TRIFECTA OF SOUND
A guy like RZA can afford any piece of equipment he desires, but it's not always what he thinks he needs, it's what is readily at his fingertips. While the majority of the production process employs Pro Tools, RZA uses it all because, “I'm just a scientist of sound like that. I even used a GarageBand sound for one of the characters in Afro Samurai.”
RZA has also dabbled in Apple's more pro DAW, Logic. “George Clinton came in and bugged out, and I was like, “You know what? There're a few good bass loops in Logic that we can drag-and-drop, and I'll just take out some of the notes, but the sonics are going to sound good.” So I started the session in Logic. We started smoking some weed, started getting into the groove, and to switch back over to Pro Tools was going to take a minute. I already had a spirit going on, so I wound up recording the song ‘Land of My Dreams’ in Logic, which I didn't know I was going to do for this album.”
While the grimy, gritty and we-like-it-raw style still provides the foundation of everything Wu, the most surprising and unexpected element of 8 Diagrams was RZA's decision to use live instruments for the first time. “He's redeveloped his skin,” U-God offers matter-of-factly. “That's what basically everything is. You got to shed skin and redevelop. RZA surprises me every time because right when you think he ain't got nothing, you swear he ain't got nothing, he got something.”
“It was something I wasn't used to back in the early Wu-Tang days, but since I have become a Hollywood composer, I had a chance to work with 80-piece orchestras,” RZA says. “So now I know. It's actually something I've always wanted to do…to put those two worlds together.”
Inspectah concurs that the timing was right: “I think that's a brilliant idea in 2007. With a live band, mixed with certain samples, it gives it a classic sound, but more up-to-date, more crisp, more clean. It's crazy, man: I'm from the school where he's on the [Ensoniq] ASR, the Korg Triton, the Kurzweil, and now you got the dude in there hittin' the violin strings at 100 mph, you got the dude on the drums — it's different.”
This is evidenced best in what is possibly the biggest “WTF?!” on The 8 Diagrams: the group's cover of The Beatles' “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” RZA, the last person you'd expect to ride the Yellow Submarine, can't hold back: “I love it! I love the progression; I love the five chords they're using up and down. I always wanted to record that song.”
The story goes a little something like this: A music executive friend of his told RZA that not only was it one of the few songs George Harrison wrote, but that he personally knew Dhani Harrison, George's son. So “I get on the phone with Dhani, and not only does he know all the Wu-Tang songs, he knows the samples of the kung fu movies that I use,” RZA marvels. “So we had a chance to eat, meet, hang and I just said, ‘Yo, I want to do this song, and I want you to play acoustic on it. I already got John Frusciante to play lead guitar. And when I finished doing American Gangster last year, as a wrap gift, Russell Crowe gave me a 1961 Gretsch guitar — mint condition. So I told Dhani, ‘I want you to come in and play acoustic guitar on the song, but I want you to play on the Gretsch.’ Eight months later, we did it.” Employing an army of Fender and Line 6 amps, producer George Drakoulias (The Cult, The Black Crowes, Tom Petty) stepped in to support, and RZA got Ghostface, Method Man and Raekwon to do verses.
“I think I did good job of incorporating electronic hardware, software and live instruments on this album, and that's a war,” RZA insists. “The software people act like you don't need hardware, and the hardware people act like you don't need instruments, and musicians don't like all that electronic shit because it takes away their jobs.”
THE STAGE AND BEYOND
Once the toils of production come to a close, the cathartic experience of the live show enters the picture. When you walk in and see 60,000 W's up in the air, you know it's going down. And surprisingly enough, there's not much more on the stage than a posse of killa bees, their mics and a modest DJ setup. In addition to two Pioneer CDJ and two Technics turntables, DJ Mathematics uses a Rane TTM 56 mixer and 360 Systems Instant Replay, a device with hot keys that enables on-the-fly, instant playback of sound effects.
“Basically, when we do a show, it's the instrumentals from the albums,” Mathematics says, referring to the 100-plus instrumentals he juggles throughout a show. “Some of them I do certain things to; I may add an intro or a little breakdown or make beats to try to beef some of them up with an 808 or some hats, but basically it's the instrumentals.”
Fortunately, with RZA constantly changing things up in the studio, Mathematics can easily distinguish track from track as he supports the MCs onstage. “One thing that may not be a good thing about the RZA,” RZA says modestly, “is that I strive not to repeat myself.” But his Wu-Tang brethren have his back.
“Sometimes it takes a minute to hear what he got,” U-God emphasizes. “Sometimes you got to have an ear for the future. Like, right now it's 2007. He got shit in stash for 2012.” You heard it, Wu fans — stay tuned for the next five-year plan.
8 DIAGRAMS OF GEAR
Computer, recording hardware, DAW
Apple Mac G5, Logic
Digidesign Digi 002, Pro Tools|HD
Samplers, drum machines
Akai MPC4000
Roland MV-8000, MV-8800
Soft synths, plug-ins
Propellerhead Reason, ReCycle
Sony Oxford EQ, Dynamics
McDSP Filterbank
Waves Platinum bundle
Synths, guitar
Gretsch 1961 guitar
Korg Oasys
Roland V-Synth
Yamaha VL7
Console
SSL G Series
Mics
AKG C 12
Neumann U 67, U 87
Shure 55 Unidyne
Mic preamp, EQs, compressors, effects
dbx 160 compressor
Eventide Harmonizer 3000
Lexicon D-Verb
Neve outboard EQs, 1081 preamp, 9080 compressor
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