H&R
DJ Nice // Crack City
ill o.g.
http://www.dabeat.com/rza-wu-tang-interview
^^^ 2 Interview vids on the site
RZA - Shaolin Secrets
RZAWhile hip-hop was gaining credible steam in attempting to prove itself as more than just a passing fad through the ’80s, there was a clan of cats from the streets of Staten Island, N.Y. who were honing their craft, paying each others’ bail, fine-tuning a style, dodging bullets, stealing electronic equipment, street hustlin’ and spiritually evolving all at the same time. They embraced the culture that they lived in, immersed themselves in the movement and locked themselves in a chamber. What they emerged with grabbed the music world by its horns, turned it upside down and shook the hell out of it until any semblance of doubt fell from its pockets. Embraced by everyone from computer geeks to Australian pop-rock bands to every hood this side of the prime meridian, Wu-Tang exploded with a five-year plan to take over the hip-hop world — masterfully crafted by its de-facto ringleader Robert Diggs, aka RZA. And the plan worked.
OFF-KILTER COOL
Watch video interview - Click Here
An important aspect of RZA’s unique production prowess comes not from something he’s learned but from something he was born with — an innate ability to trust his own instincts. “If you go listen, I may have a slight off-beatness to my music, and I realize it’s me,” he says. “Forever may have been more quality than 36 Chambers, but it still never met the quality of what Dr. Dre’s doing…I still never had that wide-EQ produced quality. I got the same SSL they got, the same big speakers, the same system. I just don’t hear it how they hear it. I hear it how I hear it. Although some producers will tell you that the rhythm section has to lock together, RZA sees it differently. “Most producers want their bass to hit with their kick,” RZA demonstrates with an impromptu beatbox, “but I don’t think you need to. The bass can be wherever the **** it wants to be, as long as it has a space of operation. Sometimes my bass note isn’t even the same key as my kick note. A long time ago I realized music isn’t only a note and a melody and a harmony, it’s also a pulse.” “A lot of people are straight 1, 2, 3, 4,” Inspectah Deck chimes in. “They’re so formatted, they think the snare has to come here. With this dude, the snare may come in on an off-beat, but when it come in, it come in with a smack. It come in and announce itself. That’s the difference between him and a lot of other producers. That’s why we sound the best when we rhyme with him.”
BATTER UP
Watch video interview 2 - Click Here
RZA’s certainly come a long way in the 14 years of recording and adjusting to the nuances of 9 — and often more — MCs, each with their own subtle quirks requiring different approaches and levels of attention. “In the old days, it was more like I knew whose voice would go on which beat, but over time, everyone’s talent has grown and expanded and voices have changed somewhat,” RZA says. “In my opinion, no producer ever mixes Ghostface’s voice the way I mix his voice. I always had his voice warmer. A vocal only sleeps between 70 Hz and 10 kHz. Between that range, you got to find that perfect balance for your artist that takes away some of the nasal high, while still keeping the warmth of the mid and a little bottom.” For 8 Diagrams, RZA used Avalon and Urei preamps, as well as the dbx 160 compressors with Pultec EQs. There’s enough to go around. “Each Clan member had his own compressor, so when he came to my house or studio, his compressor was always set to his voice,” RZA says. “I had a preset channel that I would never touch.” I recorded the vocals in two to three mics at one time. I put a mic right at the chest, one up close to the throat and one right in front of them,” he says. “It’s a mess for the engineer. You have like 20 tracks of vocals for Raekwon alone, but I wanted to have a new vocal sound. I wanted to be able to catch a nigga’s chest ambience, his throat ambience and maybe his nose ambience.” For this process, he used Neumann U 87s as the main sensor, with AKG C 12s and a Shure 55 Unidyne (“the mic that Elvis used to record his ****,” he says), and the positions were slightly altered depending on the MC up to bat.
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.” 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.”
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.” “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 **** in stash for 2012.” You heard it, Wu fans — stay tuned for the next five-year plan.
GEAR
-Apple Mac G5, Logic
- Digidesign Digi 002, Pro Tools|HD
- Akai MPC4000
- Roland MV-8000, MV-8800
- Propellerhead Reason, ReCycle
- Sony Oxford EQ, Dynamics
- McDSP Filterbank
- Waves Platinum bundle
- Gretsch 1961 guitar
- Korg Oasys
- Roland V-Synth
- Yamaha VL7
- AKG C 12
- Neumann U 67, U 87
- Shure 55 Unidyne
- Eventide Harmonizer 3000
- Lexicon D-Verb
- Neve outboard EQs, 9080 compressor
^^^ 2 Interview vids on the site
RZA - Shaolin Secrets
RZAWhile hip-hop was gaining credible steam in attempting to prove itself as more than just a passing fad through the ’80s, there was a clan of cats from the streets of Staten Island, N.Y. who were honing their craft, paying each others’ bail, fine-tuning a style, dodging bullets, stealing electronic equipment, street hustlin’ and spiritually evolving all at the same time. They embraced the culture that they lived in, immersed themselves in the movement and locked themselves in a chamber. What they emerged with grabbed the music world by its horns, turned it upside down and shook the hell out of it until any semblance of doubt fell from its pockets. Embraced by everyone from computer geeks to Australian pop-rock bands to every hood this side of the prime meridian, Wu-Tang exploded with a five-year plan to take over the hip-hop world — masterfully crafted by its de-facto ringleader Robert Diggs, aka RZA. And the plan worked.
OFF-KILTER COOL
Watch video interview - Click Here
An important aspect of RZA’s unique production prowess comes not from something he’s learned but from something he was born with — an innate ability to trust his own instincts. “If you go listen, I may have a slight off-beatness to my music, and I realize it’s me,” he says. “Forever may have been more quality than 36 Chambers, but it still never met the quality of what Dr. Dre’s doing…I still never had that wide-EQ produced quality. I got the same SSL they got, the same big speakers, the same system. I just don’t hear it how they hear it. I hear it how I hear it. Although some producers will tell you that the rhythm section has to lock together, RZA sees it differently. “Most producers want their bass to hit with their kick,” RZA demonstrates with an impromptu beatbox, “but I don’t think you need to. The bass can be wherever the **** it wants to be, as long as it has a space of operation. Sometimes my bass note isn’t even the same key as my kick note. A long time ago I realized music isn’t only a note and a melody and a harmony, it’s also a pulse.” “A lot of people are straight 1, 2, 3, 4,” Inspectah Deck chimes in. “They’re so formatted, they think the snare has to come here. With this dude, the snare may come in on an off-beat, but when it come in, it come in with a smack. It come in and announce itself. That’s the difference between him and a lot of other producers. That’s why we sound the best when we rhyme with him.”
BATTER UP
Watch video interview 2 - Click Here
RZA’s certainly come a long way in the 14 years of recording and adjusting to the nuances of 9 — and often more — MCs, each with their own subtle quirks requiring different approaches and levels of attention. “In the old days, it was more like I knew whose voice would go on which beat, but over time, everyone’s talent has grown and expanded and voices have changed somewhat,” RZA says. “In my opinion, no producer ever mixes Ghostface’s voice the way I mix his voice. I always had his voice warmer. A vocal only sleeps between 70 Hz and 10 kHz. Between that range, you got to find that perfect balance for your artist that takes away some of the nasal high, while still keeping the warmth of the mid and a little bottom.” For 8 Diagrams, RZA used Avalon and Urei preamps, as well as the dbx 160 compressors with Pultec EQs. There’s enough to go around. “Each Clan member had his own compressor, so when he came to my house or studio, his compressor was always set to his voice,” RZA says. “I had a preset channel that I would never touch.” I recorded the vocals in two to three mics at one time. I put a mic right at the chest, one up close to the throat and one right in front of them,” he says. “It’s a mess for the engineer. You have like 20 tracks of vocals for Raekwon alone, but I wanted to have a new vocal sound. I wanted to be able to catch a nigga’s chest ambience, his throat ambience and maybe his nose ambience.” For this process, he used Neumann U 87s as the main sensor, with AKG C 12s and a Shure 55 Unidyne (“the mic that Elvis used to record his ****,” he says), and the positions were slightly altered depending on the MC up to bat.
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.” 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.”
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.” “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 **** in stash for 2012.” You heard it, Wu fans — stay tuned for the next five-year plan.
GEAR
-Apple Mac G5, Logic
- Digidesign Digi 002, Pro Tools|HD
- Akai MPC4000
- Roland MV-8000, MV-8800
- Propellerhead Reason, ReCycle
- Sony Oxford EQ, Dynamics
- McDSP Filterbank
- Waves Platinum bundle
- Gretsch 1961 guitar
- Korg Oasys
- Roland V-Synth
- Yamaha VL7
- AKG C 12
- Neumann U 67, U 87
- Shure 55 Unidyne
- Eventide Harmonizer 3000
- Lexicon D-Verb
- Neve outboard EQs, 9080 compressor
