By Kylee Swenson
Remix, Nov 1, 2003
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Despite how sketchy it feels to be hanging out in San Francisco's Tenderloin district in midday, at times, it's more comical than dangerous. Hyde Street Studios, where the eight-man tribe Hieroglyphics has operated its studio since 1991, is in the heart of it. But unlike behind most closed doors in “The Loin,” where dirty bars and massage parlors are the standard, Hyde Street is a haven of creativity rather than seediness. It's where Hiero is politely but passionately talking about everything from synth tweaking to the challenges of melding eight artists' musical visions.
It's easy to get embroiled in the conversation, but the parking meter next to this Remix editor's car is in the red outside. So during a rare lull in the discussion, it's time for a momentary escape to the grimy sidewalk, where homeless people and other street folk loiter about. Instead of a face-off with a meter maid, there's a dubious character monkeying around with the trunk of the car. Looking up from his pursuit, the man in question says, “Is this your car? I wasn't going to pee on it!” and scampers away.
Fortunately, back in Hyde, the scene is similarly clownish, sans the desperation. Four Hiero MCs are now in the vocal booth, mugging for the Remix camera and singing off-the-cuff melodies à la Biz Markie. Meanwhile, Del is perched on the ground like Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, pouring over the contents of his backpack, which include a Yamaha QY-100 beat sampler and books about music composition. Cell phones ring, and the longtime Oakland friends — Del, Tajai, Domino, A+ (and his 2-year-old son, Adayus), Casual, Pep Love, Opio and Hiero engineer Matt Kelley — mill around. (Phesto is missing in action.)
It's a big space with several workstations. But with so many MCs and producers in the mix, it's awe-inspiring that they manage to effectively run the business of a label (Hiero Imperium), solo careers, a four-member group (Souls of Mischief) and an all-encompassing crew. Most of all, how do they come up with an album of material that they can all agree on? Fortunately, the field of creativity for the group is so fertile that each gets to have his own solo vision if he wants it. “We have our separate projects where we're not always working together,” A+ says. “So that cuts some of the chaos down — not as many heads per project. Also, it's in conjunction with a record label that we own. When we keep that in mind, it helps us get over smaller issues that we probably would be trippin' off of if there wasn't a business side to it, as well.”
Coming down the pipeline from Hiero Imperium are solo albums from members Del the Funky Homosapien (Eleventh Hour), Tajai (Power Movement), Pep Love (Reconstruction) and Casual (Smash Rockwell) and Hieroglyphics' second full-length, Full Circle. Despite so many cooks in the kitchen, the album doesn't sound like a messy gumbo or a disjointed compilation, but 16 cohesive tracks. “Make Your Move” glides with vibes, easygoing bass and the warm alto voice of Hiero friend and R&B newcomer Goapele. Then, there's “Classic,” which includes rhymes so deep, they beg to be studied and a classical sample that shows hip-hop's widespread roots. Meanwhile, “Flutes” is proof that with a melodic hook, any instrument can be perfect production fodder.
GET-ALONG GANG
Even though different Hiero members break off to do separate projects, Full Circle isn't a rare occasion in which the crew is suddenly reunited. A Casual solo album, for example, might include production from A+ and Domino and guest raps from Pep Love. The group's studio is like a clubhouse, and everyone's invited to hang out and get in on the action. “This isn't about [MTV's] Making the Band,” Casual says. “We're all friends, so I don't mind just sitting in the studio while Plus or Pep has the floor. If somebody else is working, then I can chill out.” How much each member gets involved is, in part, up to studio attendance. That way, no one can feel excluded. “It's kind of based on presence,” Pep Love says. “Like, if me and Cas came up with a song because we were both at the studio at the same time, then, sometimes, it'll just be the people who were present.”
A+, Domino, Casual and Opio are the producers for Full Circle, but other members have samplers and setups; for example, Del has two PC recording rigs at home. But having more producers on hand doesn't necessarily make things easier, especially when the group has to distill eight visions into one. “With a Hiero album,” Domino says, “it's a little bit of everybody, where everyone pulls back on the reins as far as what they individually feel. Everyone is one-eighth of a puzzle.”
THE EGO BALANCE
For Full Circle, all of the Hiero guys rented a house in Venice Beach in Los Angeles. They ate together, slept in the same house and sometimes had to bunk, as Tajai laments, “literally, in the same room.” But it's a much different situation than in MTV's Making the Band II, in which a bunch of random people come together Real World-style to form a hip-hop group. “Them fools are gonna be apart as soon as their record comes out, 'cause they really don't like each other,” Casual says. “It's actually showing the downside of making a band: how they gonna cut on your ass unless they get signed up to the contract.”
But there's something deeper to Hiero's bond other than a long history together. One reason that the group has made it this long is that they know what each member is up to musically. “Even if Plus comes out with a song and I can't see his vision at the minute, I can still know that he's going to come up with something tight so that I can get on the song,” Casual says. “It's not like I'll be like, ‘That sucks,’ unless it really sounds like a horrible idea. But other than that, it's like, ‘I can't see it now, but I'll see it when it's done.’”
That's not to suggest that Casual or the rest of the crew have low standards. They all push each other to do their best work. “None of us want to feel less about any of us in the area of whatever we're doing making music,” A+ says. “If I thought my friends thought I was weak, I'd be like, ‘I gotta make some heat 'cause I heard the beat he played for me over the phone.’”
CORRALLING THE VISION
When it comes time to plot out the theme for a group release, Hiero puts some thought into it before the first beat is laid down. The main ethos is that the eight friends don't want to pigeonhole themselves into one style. “We didn't grow up with hip-hop being all on the radio, all on TV, all on the videos,” Tajai says. “There weren't even no videos. Hip-hop is an amalgamation of all these different music styles put together whereas these youngsters are coming up on just rap. They're like, ‘This is white,’ or, ‘That's not hip-hop.’ We have fans who are like, ‘I only listen to trucker-hat, Triple 5 Soul-backpack, Diesel-jeans rap. That's all I listen to.’ You're not hip-hop if you say something like that.”
For Del, a bookworm, his inspiration often starts with something he's reading. Sometimes, it's on the technical tip, as with Composing Music by William Russo. “I'm like a scientist,” Del says. “I like breaking stuff down and seeing how it works.” Then, there's the more philosophical side of Del; the books that he reads on that end of the spectrum feed into his lyrical themes, but those themes springboard from personal events. “Say something is bugging me one day,” he says. “I might start thinking of different aspects of that, whether it's a solution or fighting against it. From there, I start thinking of a musical theme. I might start walking around humming something, like I did this morning. I was humming a melody, so I got to the QY and played it out. Then, I was humming variations on that theme, so I wrote some variations down, too. At the end, I bumped up the whole key of the song to a higher key. My father used to say they would call it ‘take them home.’ It's the like the big finale, the big finish.”
Although Del's reading frequently inspires him, for Casual, it's often what he hears. “One of the things I get most inspired by is when people say things that they don't realize are poetic,” Casual says. “Like, you might say something, and I'm like, ‘Oooh, she ripped it. I gotta say that.’ But you won't even look at it that way. You might be just expressing yourself.”
FROM BRAIN TO HARD DRIVE
Many artists talk about writer's block. But what about when a person has an amazing idea in his or her head but can't get it out remotely the same way he or she imagined it? “I'm a musician, but I can't do 90 percent of the things I hear in my head,” Domino admits. “So that's why I started collaborating with a lot of, for lack of a better word, ‘real’ musicians, like Amp Fiddler, who's a brilliant keyboard player. A lot of times, I'll hear something; I'll hum it or whatever; and I'll be like, ‘Try it like this.’ And sampling, to a certain extent, is limiting. You gotta find ways to express what's in your head, whether it's fooling around with a keyboard for an hour. Some cats, like Cas, are adequate enough to get out what they hear. But for me, it's frustrating.”
Even if it's not coming out right, it's a good idea to at least keep the channels open for when it does flow. “You might just say, ‘Fuck it,’ and turn it off,” Opio says. “I got this far with the beat, but this ain't really coming together, and I can't find the piece that I want, so just turn that shit off. But for us, we love to do music. So even when I make a beat and it's weak to me and I turn it off, I still have a good time doing it.” “It's like exercise,” Casual adds.
Knowing when to give up for the day is tricky because the musical jackpot could be just around the corner. “Regardless of whatever I'm feeling, I just need to at least sit in front of that machine and give myself a chance,” Domino says. “Because I know that I'm going to snap out of it at any moment. Especially when my equipment is at home. I'll be like, ‘I don't feel it. I'm just going to sit here and watch TV.’ But I know that even if I sit here for 10 minutes, something is going to happen.” However, there's also the danger of forcing things too much. “If you can't think of nothing,” Pep Love says, “I think you're digging a hole for yourself, sitting there trying hard: ‘Arrrgh! I need to try harder!’ No, that's not how it works. If you're going to think of something, it's going to come to you.”
SYNTHS AND SAMPLES
Whether you're sampling a record or sculpting your own synth sound, samplers and synths go hand in hand. To make a sound your own requires tweaking beyond the raw vinyl groove or keyboard preset. “The average cat who picks up a keyboard is probably just going to tap on the keys a few times and not really go too far into the capabilities of the machine,” Opio says. That's because his knob tweaking goes far beyond the starting preset point, blurring the lines of a synthesizer versus a sampler. But tweaking a synthesizer can be like walking through the labyrinth in The Shining, only a little less scary: It's easy to take some wrong turns and forget where you started. “You gotta be down for the tedious part of that,” A+ says. “And you gotta remember your steps.” If you're really onto something, it wouldn't hurt to write it down, because, sometimes, you'll record that magical sound and then won't remember how to get it back to play live.
“I'll sit and play with a Moog,” Casual says, “and I'll be like, ‘Man, I cannot find the bass how I had it yesterday.’ It's like, you've got four knobs, and they're not accurate knobs, and the sounds change as you turn them.” But even with the more predictable modern synths, it's still easy to get lost.
With sampling, bigger problems than just overtweaking exist. For the song “Let It Roll,” Domino incorporated a sample with timpani, bass and guitar as its main theme. But he wasn't the first to do it: Björk did the same for her song “Human Behavior.” “I got called by our distributors in Europe,” Domino says. “They're like, ‘What's up with this? Do you have clearance to sample Björk?’ And I'm like, ‘I didn't sample it from her.’” Domino keeps the sample origins off the record and for good reason. “If we cleared everything that we do, we wouldn't be able to put out a record. But when people do contact us — and this has happened — we say, ‘Yeah, we did it. We're sorry. Let's work it out.’ And we pay them.”
“A lot of people who get sampled aren't into hip-hop at all,” A+ says. “But, now, they have to be aware of it because it's a multibillion-dollar industry. They think that everyone who samples is a multimillion-dollar artist on some big executive label. So when people like us sample and try to clear some shit, they're like, ‘Okay, $500,000 and 85 percent of the publishing.’ And that's just approaching them. But if they get back at us, they gotta look at it based on the sales and punitive damages to a certain degree. And that way, we protect ourselves much better.”
THE HARD TRUTH
It's always a little nerve-wracking when your album leaves your hands. The bigger the pressing, the bigger the risk of recouping, let alone making a profit. The good news is, when an album is finally out there in the world, many of the nonmusician, layperson ears won't even notice an engineering glitch here and there. “You can get caught up in worrying about the production too much,” Domino says. “Most people aren't going to think about that snare being off. It kills me, but most people don't notice.”
But then, there's the bad news, albeit a good reminder for anyone about to embark on recording an album for mass consumption: Rushing your production process can be slow career death. “Some people just appreciate music and aren't necessarily crafting it themselves,” Opio says. “And they don't care about the effort and the time you put into it whereas you could be like, ‘I spent all night in the studio!’ They just want to hear the end product and judge it just on that, and they can tell when things are forced.” To sum it up to the studio stress-casers out there: Slow and steady wins the race.
EQUIPMENT EMPORIUM
After a dozen years, the members of Hieroglyphics have accumulated a ton of gear for their Hiero Imperium studio. The following is an abridged list:
Alesis ADATs (3)
Akai MPC2000XL (3)
Apogee AD8000 A/D converters: “They have a really warm sound and really thump on the low end,” Hiero engineer Matt Kelley says.
Apple Mac G4/500MHz dual processor w/1 GB RAM
ARP 2600 synth
Bomb Factory 1176, LA-2A, SansAmp plug-ins
Clavia Nord Lead 2 synth
Digidesign 888 24-bit I/Os (2)
Digidesign ADAT Bridge I/O
Digidesign Pro Tools|24 Mixplus system
Digidesign USD (Universal Slave Driver) sync
Empirical Labs Distressor limiter/compressor
E-mu SP-1200 sampler
Ensoniq ASR-10 keyboard sampler
Ensoniq ASR-X Pro sampler workstation
Esoteric Audio Research 660 compressor/limiter: “This is fashioned after the Fairchild,” Kelley says. “It's basically the same audio path, but it has a hot-rodded power supply.”
Focusrite Red mic preamp
Hafler TA-1100 100W power amp
HHB CD burner
HHB PortaDAT
Hohner Clavinet keyboard
JBL LSR28P monitors
Korg Triton 88-key synth
Korg Triton LE 76-key synths (2)
Line 6 Amp Farm plug-in
Manley Variable Mu limiter/compressor
Moog Liberation synth
Moog Minimoog synth
E-mu Planet Phatt sound module
Telefunken V72 preamp: “This is the same kind of preamp that they used in The Beatles' console,” Kelley says.
Pioneer CDJ-1000 CD turntables (2)
Roland JV-2080 sound module
Roland VS-1824 digital studio workstation
Seagate Cheetah ultrawide SCSI drives (for 200 GB of total hard-disk space; all are 10,000 rpm except one, which is 15,000 rpm)
Soundelux U95 mic: “It's kind of patterned after the Neumann U47,” Kelley says.
TC Works Master X TDM plug-in: “When I'm done with the mix,” Opio says, “I'll just use it on the whole track just to see if it helps it, and if it does, then I'll use it.”
Technics SL-1200MK2 turntables (2)
Waves Renaissance 4-band EQ plug-in
Yamaha QY-70 beat sampler
Yamaha QY-100 beat sampler
THE ADVANTAGES OF STEREO
For “Let it Roll,” which contains the same sample that Björk used on “Human Behavior,” Domino varied the loop by taking in and out the guitar side of the sample and adding a piano playing the same line. “Since it was cut in stereo, I sampled just the right side, and that was one piece,” he says. “And then, I sampled the left side. So I mono'd both sides of the stereo sample. A lot of old records, if you listen to them in your headphones, you'll hear the guitar on one side, and then you'll hear the percussion and the bass over here a little bit more, and, then, there are some things that are in the middle. On that one, the guitar was over on the right side, and the low end was in the middle but also on the left side. And it was just the percussion and the bass over on the left. Then, I had Amp Fiddler come in and play a piano part over it in the vein of the song.”
Remix, Nov 1, 2003
Print-friendly format E-mail this information
Despite how sketchy it feels to be hanging out in San Francisco's Tenderloin district in midday, at times, it's more comical than dangerous. Hyde Street Studios, where the eight-man tribe Hieroglyphics has operated its studio since 1991, is in the heart of it. But unlike behind most closed doors in “The Loin,” where dirty bars and massage parlors are the standard, Hyde Street is a haven of creativity rather than seediness. It's where Hiero is politely but passionately talking about everything from synth tweaking to the challenges of melding eight artists' musical visions.
It's easy to get embroiled in the conversation, but the parking meter next to this Remix editor's car is in the red outside. So during a rare lull in the discussion, it's time for a momentary escape to the grimy sidewalk, where homeless people and other street folk loiter about. Instead of a face-off with a meter maid, there's a dubious character monkeying around with the trunk of the car. Looking up from his pursuit, the man in question says, “Is this your car? I wasn't going to pee on it!” and scampers away.
Fortunately, back in Hyde, the scene is similarly clownish, sans the desperation. Four Hiero MCs are now in the vocal booth, mugging for the Remix camera and singing off-the-cuff melodies à la Biz Markie. Meanwhile, Del is perched on the ground like Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, pouring over the contents of his backpack, which include a Yamaha QY-100 beat sampler and books about music composition. Cell phones ring, and the longtime Oakland friends — Del, Tajai, Domino, A+ (and his 2-year-old son, Adayus), Casual, Pep Love, Opio and Hiero engineer Matt Kelley — mill around. (Phesto is missing in action.)
It's a big space with several workstations. But with so many MCs and producers in the mix, it's awe-inspiring that they manage to effectively run the business of a label (Hiero Imperium), solo careers, a four-member group (Souls of Mischief) and an all-encompassing crew. Most of all, how do they come up with an album of material that they can all agree on? Fortunately, the field of creativity for the group is so fertile that each gets to have his own solo vision if he wants it. “We have our separate projects where we're not always working together,” A+ says. “So that cuts some of the chaos down — not as many heads per project. Also, it's in conjunction with a record label that we own. When we keep that in mind, it helps us get over smaller issues that we probably would be trippin' off of if there wasn't a business side to it, as well.”
Coming down the pipeline from Hiero Imperium are solo albums from members Del the Funky Homosapien (Eleventh Hour), Tajai (Power Movement), Pep Love (Reconstruction) and Casual (Smash Rockwell) and Hieroglyphics' second full-length, Full Circle. Despite so many cooks in the kitchen, the album doesn't sound like a messy gumbo or a disjointed compilation, but 16 cohesive tracks. “Make Your Move” glides with vibes, easygoing bass and the warm alto voice of Hiero friend and R&B newcomer Goapele. Then, there's “Classic,” which includes rhymes so deep, they beg to be studied and a classical sample that shows hip-hop's widespread roots. Meanwhile, “Flutes” is proof that with a melodic hook, any instrument can be perfect production fodder.
GET-ALONG GANG
Even though different Hiero members break off to do separate projects, Full Circle isn't a rare occasion in which the crew is suddenly reunited. A Casual solo album, for example, might include production from A+ and Domino and guest raps from Pep Love. The group's studio is like a clubhouse, and everyone's invited to hang out and get in on the action. “This isn't about [MTV's] Making the Band,” Casual says. “We're all friends, so I don't mind just sitting in the studio while Plus or Pep has the floor. If somebody else is working, then I can chill out.” How much each member gets involved is, in part, up to studio attendance. That way, no one can feel excluded. “It's kind of based on presence,” Pep Love says. “Like, if me and Cas came up with a song because we were both at the studio at the same time, then, sometimes, it'll just be the people who were present.”
A+, Domino, Casual and Opio are the producers for Full Circle, but other members have samplers and setups; for example, Del has two PC recording rigs at home. But having more producers on hand doesn't necessarily make things easier, especially when the group has to distill eight visions into one. “With a Hiero album,” Domino says, “it's a little bit of everybody, where everyone pulls back on the reins as far as what they individually feel. Everyone is one-eighth of a puzzle.”
THE EGO BALANCE
For Full Circle, all of the Hiero guys rented a house in Venice Beach in Los Angeles. They ate together, slept in the same house and sometimes had to bunk, as Tajai laments, “literally, in the same room.” But it's a much different situation than in MTV's Making the Band II, in which a bunch of random people come together Real World-style to form a hip-hop group. “Them fools are gonna be apart as soon as their record comes out, 'cause they really don't like each other,” Casual says. “It's actually showing the downside of making a band: how they gonna cut on your ass unless they get signed up to the contract.”
But there's something deeper to Hiero's bond other than a long history together. One reason that the group has made it this long is that they know what each member is up to musically. “Even if Plus comes out with a song and I can't see his vision at the minute, I can still know that he's going to come up with something tight so that I can get on the song,” Casual says. “It's not like I'll be like, ‘That sucks,’ unless it really sounds like a horrible idea. But other than that, it's like, ‘I can't see it now, but I'll see it when it's done.’”
That's not to suggest that Casual or the rest of the crew have low standards. They all push each other to do their best work. “None of us want to feel less about any of us in the area of whatever we're doing making music,” A+ says. “If I thought my friends thought I was weak, I'd be like, ‘I gotta make some heat 'cause I heard the beat he played for me over the phone.’”
CORRALLING THE VISION
When it comes time to plot out the theme for a group release, Hiero puts some thought into it before the first beat is laid down. The main ethos is that the eight friends don't want to pigeonhole themselves into one style. “We didn't grow up with hip-hop being all on the radio, all on TV, all on the videos,” Tajai says. “There weren't even no videos. Hip-hop is an amalgamation of all these different music styles put together whereas these youngsters are coming up on just rap. They're like, ‘This is white,’ or, ‘That's not hip-hop.’ We have fans who are like, ‘I only listen to trucker-hat, Triple 5 Soul-backpack, Diesel-jeans rap. That's all I listen to.’ You're not hip-hop if you say something like that.”
For Del, a bookworm, his inspiration often starts with something he's reading. Sometimes, it's on the technical tip, as with Composing Music by William Russo. “I'm like a scientist,” Del says. “I like breaking stuff down and seeing how it works.” Then, there's the more philosophical side of Del; the books that he reads on that end of the spectrum feed into his lyrical themes, but those themes springboard from personal events. “Say something is bugging me one day,” he says. “I might start thinking of different aspects of that, whether it's a solution or fighting against it. From there, I start thinking of a musical theme. I might start walking around humming something, like I did this morning. I was humming a melody, so I got to the QY and played it out. Then, I was humming variations on that theme, so I wrote some variations down, too. At the end, I bumped up the whole key of the song to a higher key. My father used to say they would call it ‘take them home.’ It's the like the big finale, the big finish.”
Although Del's reading frequently inspires him, for Casual, it's often what he hears. “One of the things I get most inspired by is when people say things that they don't realize are poetic,” Casual says. “Like, you might say something, and I'm like, ‘Oooh, she ripped it. I gotta say that.’ But you won't even look at it that way. You might be just expressing yourself.”
FROM BRAIN TO HARD DRIVE
Many artists talk about writer's block. But what about when a person has an amazing idea in his or her head but can't get it out remotely the same way he or she imagined it? “I'm a musician, but I can't do 90 percent of the things I hear in my head,” Domino admits. “So that's why I started collaborating with a lot of, for lack of a better word, ‘real’ musicians, like Amp Fiddler, who's a brilliant keyboard player. A lot of times, I'll hear something; I'll hum it or whatever; and I'll be like, ‘Try it like this.’ And sampling, to a certain extent, is limiting. You gotta find ways to express what's in your head, whether it's fooling around with a keyboard for an hour. Some cats, like Cas, are adequate enough to get out what they hear. But for me, it's frustrating.”
Even if it's not coming out right, it's a good idea to at least keep the channels open for when it does flow. “You might just say, ‘Fuck it,’ and turn it off,” Opio says. “I got this far with the beat, but this ain't really coming together, and I can't find the piece that I want, so just turn that shit off. But for us, we love to do music. So even when I make a beat and it's weak to me and I turn it off, I still have a good time doing it.” “It's like exercise,” Casual adds.
Knowing when to give up for the day is tricky because the musical jackpot could be just around the corner. “Regardless of whatever I'm feeling, I just need to at least sit in front of that machine and give myself a chance,” Domino says. “Because I know that I'm going to snap out of it at any moment. Especially when my equipment is at home. I'll be like, ‘I don't feel it. I'm just going to sit here and watch TV.’ But I know that even if I sit here for 10 minutes, something is going to happen.” However, there's also the danger of forcing things too much. “If you can't think of nothing,” Pep Love says, “I think you're digging a hole for yourself, sitting there trying hard: ‘Arrrgh! I need to try harder!’ No, that's not how it works. If you're going to think of something, it's going to come to you.”
SYNTHS AND SAMPLES
Whether you're sampling a record or sculpting your own synth sound, samplers and synths go hand in hand. To make a sound your own requires tweaking beyond the raw vinyl groove or keyboard preset. “The average cat who picks up a keyboard is probably just going to tap on the keys a few times and not really go too far into the capabilities of the machine,” Opio says. That's because his knob tweaking goes far beyond the starting preset point, blurring the lines of a synthesizer versus a sampler. But tweaking a synthesizer can be like walking through the labyrinth in The Shining, only a little less scary: It's easy to take some wrong turns and forget where you started. “You gotta be down for the tedious part of that,” A+ says. “And you gotta remember your steps.” If you're really onto something, it wouldn't hurt to write it down, because, sometimes, you'll record that magical sound and then won't remember how to get it back to play live.
“I'll sit and play with a Moog,” Casual says, “and I'll be like, ‘Man, I cannot find the bass how I had it yesterday.’ It's like, you've got four knobs, and they're not accurate knobs, and the sounds change as you turn them.” But even with the more predictable modern synths, it's still easy to get lost.
With sampling, bigger problems than just overtweaking exist. For the song “Let It Roll,” Domino incorporated a sample with timpani, bass and guitar as its main theme. But he wasn't the first to do it: Björk did the same for her song “Human Behavior.” “I got called by our distributors in Europe,” Domino says. “They're like, ‘What's up with this? Do you have clearance to sample Björk?’ And I'm like, ‘I didn't sample it from her.’” Domino keeps the sample origins off the record and for good reason. “If we cleared everything that we do, we wouldn't be able to put out a record. But when people do contact us — and this has happened — we say, ‘Yeah, we did it. We're sorry. Let's work it out.’ And we pay them.”
“A lot of people who get sampled aren't into hip-hop at all,” A+ says. “But, now, they have to be aware of it because it's a multibillion-dollar industry. They think that everyone who samples is a multimillion-dollar artist on some big executive label. So when people like us sample and try to clear some shit, they're like, ‘Okay, $500,000 and 85 percent of the publishing.’ And that's just approaching them. But if they get back at us, they gotta look at it based on the sales and punitive damages to a certain degree. And that way, we protect ourselves much better.”
THE HARD TRUTH
It's always a little nerve-wracking when your album leaves your hands. The bigger the pressing, the bigger the risk of recouping, let alone making a profit. The good news is, when an album is finally out there in the world, many of the nonmusician, layperson ears won't even notice an engineering glitch here and there. “You can get caught up in worrying about the production too much,” Domino says. “Most people aren't going to think about that snare being off. It kills me, but most people don't notice.”
But then, there's the bad news, albeit a good reminder for anyone about to embark on recording an album for mass consumption: Rushing your production process can be slow career death. “Some people just appreciate music and aren't necessarily crafting it themselves,” Opio says. “And they don't care about the effort and the time you put into it whereas you could be like, ‘I spent all night in the studio!’ They just want to hear the end product and judge it just on that, and they can tell when things are forced.” To sum it up to the studio stress-casers out there: Slow and steady wins the race.
EQUIPMENT EMPORIUM
After a dozen years, the members of Hieroglyphics have accumulated a ton of gear for their Hiero Imperium studio. The following is an abridged list:
Alesis ADATs (3)
Akai MPC2000XL (3)
Apogee AD8000 A/D converters: “They have a really warm sound and really thump on the low end,” Hiero engineer Matt Kelley says.
Apple Mac G4/500MHz dual processor w/1 GB RAM
ARP 2600 synth
Bomb Factory 1176, LA-2A, SansAmp plug-ins
Clavia Nord Lead 2 synth
Digidesign 888 24-bit I/Os (2)
Digidesign ADAT Bridge I/O
Digidesign Pro Tools|24 Mixplus system
Digidesign USD (Universal Slave Driver) sync
Empirical Labs Distressor limiter/compressor
E-mu SP-1200 sampler
Ensoniq ASR-10 keyboard sampler
Ensoniq ASR-X Pro sampler workstation
Esoteric Audio Research 660 compressor/limiter: “This is fashioned after the Fairchild,” Kelley says. “It's basically the same audio path, but it has a hot-rodded power supply.”
Focusrite Red mic preamp
Hafler TA-1100 100W power amp
HHB CD burner
HHB PortaDAT
Hohner Clavinet keyboard
JBL LSR28P monitors
Korg Triton 88-key synth
Korg Triton LE 76-key synths (2)
Line 6 Amp Farm plug-in
Manley Variable Mu limiter/compressor
Moog Liberation synth
Moog Minimoog synth
E-mu Planet Phatt sound module
Telefunken V72 preamp: “This is the same kind of preamp that they used in The Beatles' console,” Kelley says.
Pioneer CDJ-1000 CD turntables (2)
Roland JV-2080 sound module
Roland VS-1824 digital studio workstation
Seagate Cheetah ultrawide SCSI drives (for 200 GB of total hard-disk space; all are 10,000 rpm except one, which is 15,000 rpm)
Soundelux U95 mic: “It's kind of patterned after the Neumann U47,” Kelley says.
TC Works Master X TDM plug-in: “When I'm done with the mix,” Opio says, “I'll just use it on the whole track just to see if it helps it, and if it does, then I'll use it.”
Technics SL-1200MK2 turntables (2)
Waves Renaissance 4-band EQ plug-in
Yamaha QY-70 beat sampler
Yamaha QY-100 beat sampler
THE ADVANTAGES OF STEREO
For “Let it Roll,” which contains the same sample that Björk used on “Human Behavior,” Domino varied the loop by taking in and out the guitar side of the sample and adding a piano playing the same line. “Since it was cut in stereo, I sampled just the right side, and that was one piece,” he says. “And then, I sampled the left side. So I mono'd both sides of the stereo sample. A lot of old records, if you listen to them in your headphones, you'll hear the guitar on one side, and then you'll hear the percussion and the bass over here a little bit more, and, then, there are some things that are in the middle. On that one, the guitar was over on the right side, and the low end was in the middle but also on the left side. And it was just the percussion and the bass over on the left. Then, I had Amp Fiddler come in and play a piano part over it in the vein of the song.”
