PRIVATE EYES
May 1, 2004 12:00 PM, By Tony Ware
Los Angeles MC/producer Evidence is aware that high production standards play an integral part in the success of a hip-hop act. And one of his studio methods is not only a useful trick but also the modus operandi for his streetwise trio, Dilated Peoples. “I stack bits with different frequencies on top of each other to create a new frequency,” Evidence says. “It's important that the parts that make up Dilated Peoples tracks pop out.”
Like with their sandwiched sonic tones, it's when Dilated Peoples' three members — Evidence, MC Rakaa (Iriscience) and DJ/producer Babu (also of the Beat Junkies) — work together that their sound gels the most. “I guess you could look at the way we assemble tracks as a way to describe our group,” Evidence reflects. “We're definitely each on our own frequencies but have that much more impact put together.”
Evidence has fueled all of his recent studio efforts into the group's latest release, Neighborhood Watch (Capitol, 2004), the follow-up to Dilated Peoples' sophomore full-length, Expansion Team (Capitol, 2001). Everyone in the trio brings a different strength to each project. “Rakaa is definitely the most concept-oriented as far as lyrically and overseeing the bigger picture,” Evidence says. “He wants to make sure everything is right and, more than right, [that] it all ties in. He doesn't do anything just to do it. He makes our projects concentrated. Me, I'm all over the place, which makes us less rigid, which is good for our balance. Plus, I'm more technical. A lot of the time, I'm the last person leaving the studio to make sure it's all where it needs to be. Babu, he's the one-man band. Onstage, especially, he has to keep us on point. He's every other member of the band. And we have someone to reflect on who is in the middle. He can step back and say whether we're tripping or right on.”
According to Babu, Neighborhood Watch is the result of the latter. “Even though we come from the ‘filthy’ background of sampling, I look at that more as a mentality and sound than a technique,” Babu says. “I feel we can make gritty music, but our shit can bang just as hard as any electronic, hip-hop, Top 40, rock or pop music. There is a standard of sound apparent.”
Since Expansion Team, Dilated Peoples has assembled a home Digidesign Pro Tools — based studio for laying down basic tracks. Evidence and Babu handled much of the production, along with extended East Coast DP member The Alchemist and help from producers Rob “Reef” Tewlow and Joey Chavez.
For Neighborhood Watch, the group ran vocals through a Neumann M 147 mic and a Manley VoxBox for de-essing and compression to keep the verses “buttery,” Evidence says. He also likes to cut the lows and highs just enough to remove boom and keep the vocal thin enough to punch it in loud and still fit it to the track.
Although their Pro Tools software, Korg Triton synth and Ensoniq ASR-10 sampling workstation are capable of making their tracks robot-perfect, Evidence prefers to hand-construct rather than sequence, especially after he got word that the legendary Prince never quantized. All sessions are then fine-tuned by Dilated Peoples' trusted engineers Richard “Segal” Huredia, Troy Staton and Manny Marroquin (using an SSL board) and then recorded onto ½-inch tape.
“I don't trust myself enough,” Evidence admits. “I like to try different things. So my mix engineer [Huredia] is my security, making sure I don't fuck up and touch things in the wrong way or other instruments don't touch my track in the wrong way. He's very realistic. And I try to push things a little further. Audio stimulation is what we're doing, so you have to keep the listener entertained, and if that means overproducing a little to yourself, it might be perfect for [your engineers]. So, now, I sometimes go a little bit past what I think is good to make it perfect for everyone else.”
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