The Madlib Sound...???

[iG9]

i know ML's the king & all but props to that engineer...

[Paulj]

Engineers are very underrated. I've got a friend who's doing a degree in that stuff and he is nothing short of a genius, it's sad they don't get the props they deserve.

[balazs]

Engineers are very underrated. I've got a friend who's doing a degree in that stuff and he is nothing short of a genius, it's sad they don't get the props they deserve.

true, but the average person doesnt understand what an engineer does so they will never get proper recognition. i think they usually get thier name on the record though-and as long as you make good money thats all that matters in the end.

[Paulj]

Engineers are very underrated. I've got a friend who's doing a degree in that stuff and he is nothing short of a genius, it's sad they don't get the props they deserve.

true, but the average person doesnt understand what an engineer does so they will never get proper recognition. i think they usually get thier name on the record though-and as long as you make good money thats all that matters in the end.

Yeah thats true.

[Hot Sauce]

exactly sound engineers and good mastering engineers are in very high demand.

but talking about how madlib gets his sound leads me to another point, sometimes in hip-hop because they're are/were technical limitations it led to people finding work arounds and we now associate this particular sound with something good.

the MPC 60 doesn't sound better than the 2500. FACT. it's just that some people are after a more classic sound that classic machines give.

blah blah blah blah

[Euclid Ov Oåklånd]

Engineers super dope. They make anything sound good to the human ear.

[HxC]

There was an article in Remix Mag a few months back featuring a segment with the Stone's Throw engineer who mixes down a lot of the Madlib stuff.
He talked about some different methods he used to bring out the bang in Lib's rough beats-

i think i read this article (or a similar one)
the engineer said that because Madlib doesn't track out channels individually (just records one take) he had to set up a dummy channel, replicating just the kick drums. this dummy channel was sidechained against the main track, to get a bit of knock in there

I couldn't find the article but yes it was something like that.
The engineer even made stereo snare sounds from within a mono loop where the snare was not isolated. Some ninja stuff where he would make a whole track with a constant frequency that matched the element he wanted to bring out- then sidechaining the original loop so when that sound came around it 'opened' the dummy channel and let the frequency peep through to essentially create the isolated kick or snare.
Amazing stuff- I always thought Stone's Throw Releases sounded brilliantly mixed and engineered.

[Euclid Ov Oåklånd]

Yeah, there's a lot of sound knowledge in that label.

[Rob P]

Madlib usually records as raw as he can get then they go see Joe Cooley(the engineer) and tell him what they think the sound should bump and he works accordingly but a good engineer is paramount especially to a guy like Madlib who doesn't use a computer whatsoever just plain ole' hardware!!

[Vynal Duss]

Dave Cooley is the cat that did the further adventures joint, and probably a lot of stuff after that.

I think engineers are like the lineman in football. They never get as much recognition as the quaterback, or runninback, but everyone knows that without em, no one shines.

Its a completly different art, and I would suggest that anyone serious with this music utilize a proffesional engineer. Not so much for the recording and what not, I think all of us can handle that, but after you've recorded it, send the tracks over to get mixed and mastered proffesionally. Depending on who you get to do it, it can be the most costly part of the album process, trust me, I;ve done the math. Mixing is always more expensive than getting your album mastered, but they are both so important.

Once an artist finds an engineer he likes, they usually stick together for whole carrers. Like Premier and that Sanchez cat. And I was watching a special on Stevie Wonder and they got all of the old school cats together from the recording of songs in the key of life album, and its amazing how the engineer still remembered all of the little tricks he used all of those years ago, on the same ole massive mixing board.

Okay fam, I just typed my first novel, my bad, but yeah, Peace

[J.Daniels]

Actually i think dave cooley makes madlibs shit too loud. Its hard to listen to after awhile coz its just so ear splittngly loud. Listen to the unseen which was mastered by gene geraldi and that shits perfect. Still bumps and has dynamics, and is really much easier to listen to after a long period of time. Especially that latest beatkonducta in india - thats just ridiculously loud...

[Paulj]

Im actually inclined to agree with J on this, I find the beat konducta stuff to be really flat, that kinda compression takes a bit of life out of things if you use it all the time, I dunno if that guy Cooly mixed a little bit differently on Madvilliny but that one doesn't sound quite as severe IMO...

[Rob P]

Dave Cooley is the cat that did the further adventures joint, and probably a lot of stuff after that.

I think engineers are like the lineman in football. They never get as much recognition as the quaterback, or runninback, but everyone knows that without em, no one shines.

Haha,love the linemen comparison,it's so true.But I agree,Further Adventures of Lord Quas is really loud but almost every new release is loud,I wonder if
Pro Tools has something to do with it?

I read that some engineers use the Ipod headphone as a reference and this could result in awful sound quality.