Rock's studio formula, a bipartite mélange, self-described as “part-street, part soulful,” was conceived as a teen in the midst of the Reagan years. Informed by his father — a Jamaican DJ with an immense record collection — Rock sought to imitate the music that he felt pumping through his veins. The influences were vast, from Johnny Mathis to the Doobie Brothers, but one thing that remained throughout was soulfulness. “Soul” as defined by the self-proclaimed Soul Brother No. 1 is a musical characteristic that “takes over your body and sticks to you. It's a force,” Rock says. He first experienced it with hip-hop when listening to KRS-One and productions by his early mentor, Marley Marl — music that despite its reliance on technology managed to capture the essence of the human soul.
But the other element in Rock's formula is street savvy. Rock's ability to re-create the energy of New York's streets earned the producer recurrent dap from his core audience of hardened urbanites. A native of Mount Vernon — the predominately black and West Indian community that lies just north of the Bronx — Rock learned from the characters that populated his community. Feeding into their taste for steep bluesy melodies and concrete, hard cadences, Rock would drive around Mount Vernon with fresh productions, conducting impromptu listening sessions. “If people on the street feel it, then it's good,” he says of his unorthodox hot-or-not rating system. A tastemaker for New York's infamous brand of razor-sharp boom-bap, the OG producer has recently become a liaison for artists like Ghostface Killah, Talib Kweli and The LOX.
NY's Finest is Rock's attempt to do the same. With an emphasis on forgotten samples, chopped and spliced to make new grooves, the album marks Rock's latest attempt at bridging the gap between soul and hip-hop. But unlike previous releases, this one was made entirely on Rock's MPC2000XL, a machine that Rock calls “the upgraded SP-1200.” With his new MPC swing, some exclusive Stax sampling rights and borrowed ears from engineering wizard Young Guru, it's fair to say this old dog's learned a few new tricks.
FEELING THE FREQUENCIES
The 15 tracks that comprise NY's Finest were created in between Rock's 2001 solo effort, Petestrumentals (BBE) and late 2007. For the prolific PR, they represent his favorite few among the several hundred he's created since purchasing the MPC in 2001. Unlike Petestrumentals, made entirely with his prized SP-1200, this release strays from filtered, ethereal washes and aims for a pristine, distinctly MPC sound. For the forward-thinking producer, that was an intentional decision.
“When I started putting this record together, I found myself listening to [hip-hop] radio a lot more. I wanted to get a better sense of today's sound so I could hopefully mix that with my own. It's important, especially when you're associated with a certain era, to update your sound.” Chief among Rock's observations about today's hip-hop is the attention it pays to the higher frequencies. For Rock, this resulted in the music's newfound presence. “Hip-hop today sounds bright, like it's right in your ear. It's clean.” Rock sees the change as, in part, attributable to the Akai MPC's predominance in the world of bits and bytes.
“The main difference I noticed when I switched from the SP to MPC was the MPC has a thin, clean sound. The SP's gonna give you that raw, gritty hip-hop feel. The SP just makes your sound fat.” For the erudite E-mu scholar, one who admits to once downgrading sampling rates for the sake of increasing sample time, adapting to Akai's model was a mixed blessing. While it gave the producer a superfluous three minutes of high-rate sample time, it also meant parting from his signature bandpass filters that yielded famous horn lines like the opener for “T.R.O.Y.” “It's a tradeoff; you gotta give up some of that boom-bap-buh-boom-buh-boom-bap,” Rock says as he breaks into a deep-voiced beatbox pattern. But, in response to the MPC's less warm, slightly dead sound, the producer implemented two strategies that preserved the boom in his boom-bap.
“Before I sample anything into the MPC, I always EQ my sounds first,” Rock says. “I just use an old GLI Pro mixer that I got hooked up to the sampler. It's not a great mixer, but it has three basic bands that I can equalize on. If you want your sound to be heavy on the MPC, you need to EQ. For kicks, I have [tape] markers that I leave on the EQ knobs. The markers give me a range that are gonna make the kick boom. I have the same type of markers for the hi-hat and the snare. Every time I sample anything, I use those markers as a reference.”
On Rock's lead single, “Til I Retire” — the producer's three-round lyrical knockout atop a tough beat that flirts with Southern minimalism — the difference shows. The kick, hat and snare/clap each occupy distinct frequencies, and though Rock peppers the mix with scratches; a dampened, reverberating horn stab; and futuristic analog tones, the textured sounds never compete with each other, resulting in an overall brightness hitherto unknown in Rock's compositions. While part of the solution is Rock's “pre-Q“ strategy, another part of Rock's new brightness can be attributed to his newly acquired engineer and Roc-A-Fella affiliate, Young Guru.
SOLID STATE LOGIC AND ALICIA KEYS
GO TO NUMBER ONE !
Duality Console Gets Into the Mix for
Chart-Topping, Multi-Grammy Nominated New CD
NEW YORK, NY - Solid State Logic’s Duality, the fastest selling console in SSL’s history, continues to make its mark in the recording/music industry — Duality was instrumental in helping Grammy Award-winning recording artist Alicia Keys’ newest album, As I Am, reach the recent Number One position on Billboard’s 200 Chart.
Since its release in mid-November 2007, the latest offering from R&B superstar Alicia Keys has been well received, enjoying critical praise; multiple Grammy-award nominations; several months at the top of the Billboard 200, R&B and pop charts; two number one singles and sales in excess of 2 million copies thus far.
The success of As I Am is in no small part due to the superior sound quality of the recording; 11 of the 14 songs on the new CD were mixed on SSL’s Duality console by Grammy Award-winning engineer Manny Marroquin at Keys’ privately-owned New York studio, The Oven. The lead engineer on the project was The Oven’s Grammy Award-winning Ann Mincieli, who has worked with Keys since her 2001 multiplatinum debut CD Songs in A Minor.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled with the results we’ve been getting from the Duality since we first added it to our mix studio last year,” says Mincieli. “The 48-channel Duality offers so many creative and audio options, plus it complements the SSL AWS 900 Analogue Workstation, which we’ve had since 2005. We truly feel that the outstanding quality of the Duality has helped create this exceptional new Alicia Keys CD.”
Marroquin says. “Since we started using Duality, the results have exceeded our expectations. The console has some great features we came to rely on like the sound of the EQ and the Variable Harmonic Drive™. The Duality played an integral role in creating just the right sound for Alicia’s new album.”
Since its debut last year, Duality has been featured on a number of projects from major recording artists, but As I Am marks the console’s first number one multiplatinum U.S. hit. With Duality, SSL has combined the analogue sonics of its SSL E, G & K Series consoles with extended Digital Audio Workstation integration capabilities.
Phil Wagner, president, Solid State Logic, Inc. comments, “Our sincere congratulations go to Ann and Manny for the results on Alicia Keys’ latest success. We are proud they chose Duality to be a part of their hit-making process.”
Designed specifically to integrate well with any workstation, Duality has a split channel path that enables channel processing to be placed in the input or monitor path of the workstation. In addition to a SuperAnalogue™ mic amp, each channel features a Variable Harmonic Drive™ input stage designed to add analogue character to sterile workstation outputs. A 2nd to 3rd harmonic drive control provides a range of tones, from the warmth of 50’s tubes to the ‘edge’ of 70’s transistors.
Duality features an engineer-familiar hardware control surface and adds TFT display across all channels to provide comprehensive visual feedback on signal levels, channel settings, system configuration & routing to deliver highly efficient multi operator Total Recall™. Duality is the analogue console for the digital age, all at a price point that’s roughly half of its equivalent K-Series sister console.
