By
DOVESKI
Wed Oct 08, 2003 5:47 pm
This year, Madlib picks up speed with a spate of new joints on fellow DJ and producer Peanut Butter Wolf's Stones Throw imprint. The latest is a team-up with Detroit producer and MC Jay Dee, who is best known for his work with The Pharcyde; Busta Rhymes; and his own group, Slum Village. Recorded under the name Jaylib, Official (Stones Throw, 2003) is a chopped-up, fractal, freestyle swingfest with both artists building loops for the other to rhyme over. It's the perfect vehicle for what Madlib jokingly refers to as his “caveman method,” in which the main ingredients are a Roland/Boss SP-303 Dr. Sample and a Roland VS-880 digital 8-track.
“I think Madlib pretty much just invents his own rules,” Peanut Butter Wolf muses. Studio engineer Dave Cooley claims that holds true even when a different setup is needed. For “React,” Jay Dee's beat and 'lib's turntable cuts were flown into Digidesign Pro Tools from separate stereo and 4-track masters. Madlib then tracked his vocals on an Audio-Technica 4033A and a Shure SM7, from there going into a Neve 1099 preamp, a GML 8200 EQ, a Universal Audio 1176LN limiting amplifier and finally a dbx 902 De-Esser. “We usually de-ess maybe 4 dB off of the vocals and then compress with a ratio of 8 to 1, which is pretty high,” Cooley explains. “But Madlib likes his shit loud, and it's mixed loud to begin with. He has a really cool ‘angular’ mixing style: Something is always sticking out.”
In the end, what remains most important for Madlib is that the soul within the sound is preserved. “Even though we elevate to do other types of music, we still have what we've done in the past: the raw stuff, the essence of how we started,” he says. “Some people might think you go to the next level and leave the other stuff behind, but it's always right there.”
Jay Dee uses the 3000.