Doom and malib talking about beqat making from Wax Poetics 8 (for those that aint seen it)
DOOM: The chord changes and shit? That challenged me lyrically.
MADLIB: And the shit fit. That dude rapped over a jacked-up Joe McDuphrey keyboard solo. And it came through! Sometimes I listen to the beat, sometimes I listen ro the words, sometimes both. It's going to take a while for some people to catch, but that's some shit right there. He has a crazy ear. That's how I know we can get along. Music knowledge-you have to have that ear. That's the main thing. I expected a lot from him, but he surprised me. I knew he'd have a lot of good wordplay. It all came together well. We just have to get on the next one.
Doom, talk to me more about your own production, starting all the way back with KMD.
DOOM: [Subroc and I] did the majority of the KMD album. The SD50s might have done one or two songs. All of those joints-"Peachfuzz," all that-we'd pre-recorded [those] as a demo that we'd submitted. Once we started doing the album, it was really spontaneous. Like, book an eight-hour session, and we didn't even have a beat yet. Catch some records on the way to the stUdio-on the meet, like, "Oh, he got records? Yo, grab like ten!" Go in there, "What do we need? A loop? *****, you got drums?" "Peachfuzz" came about like that.
You were stumbling upon some deep source material. I remember when you flipped the Pazant Brother's "Chicka-Boom" 45, the same track Large Professor sampled for "Looking at the Front Door."
DOOM: Yeah man, I probably can't even remember. All them shits is gone, yo. I had to start from scratch. I just started back. I maybe have aboUt three hundred [records] now.
MADLIB: You're crazy, man.. .flippin' shit.
DOOM: But I'ma get back. **** with y'all, I'ma have my shit in a second, in a second.
How about your gear you were using in the KMD days?
DOOM: Mmmm hmmm, a lot of the stUff they have now,
they didn't have back then. I think that contribUted to the sound too. We used the MPC 60 to sequence. And the FZ-10, the Casio rack-mount version of the FZ-I. We had that, the keyboard version, before we got the MPC. But it didn't have any sequence capabilities. The MPC sequencer was the illest one, since the Alesis., the joint that come with the drum machine, the HR-I6. That was first. What am I talking about, O? The HR-I6, the plastic one You had the one with a drum machine on one side, and you could sequence on the other side. But you had to buy both of 'em though.
MADLIB: Damn, that's some crazy shit right there.
DOOM: That was the best available sequencer at the time. The sounds in there was bananas. You know what I'm saying? But the MPC? To have that as an oUtboard MIDt trigger? The sampling aspect of that machine wasn't as ill as it is now. It wasn't even stereo. The filtering was straight-ahead. And the time wasn't that much. BUt the FZ? Crazy! Like thirty seconds, filtering all crazy. The combination of the two was whar made that Black Bastards album so retarded.
How about the first album?
DOOM: Mr. Hood? That was the FZ-I keyboard version with the HR-I6 drum machine that you bought with it, that worked together.
How did your production style evolve by the time you reached the MF DOOM days? We're talking about over five years here-did your attitude change?
DOOM: It's the same way-a gradual progression. You learn, grow in all aspects. Get more matUre, of course. It all affects the music as well. Music just goes like that. It's part of the whole life energy force thing.
Subroc's death must have affected you.
DOOM: Yeah, no doubt. It was crazy. Man. That particular incident affected the music in that I was like, "Man, my partner is not physically here. I have to readapt." We were a group. It was always a collaborative effort. I never really did anything by myself. We always relied on the other person-"What do you think about that? What drums can go with that?" So in that way of just the production, I had to find new ways to do music. Step my game up. Still meet the mark, 'cause Sub had a mark., he would just put a finishing touch on [a project] whereas I'd never go and do that. Put rhe hi-hats in a certain way. Or take the time to tWeak them shits. That's something I had to start stepping up and doing.
What gear were you using, by the time you got to Doomsday?
DOOM: Doomsday? That was a cross. That album took a long time to record, so it was over a span of time where, you know, every year the gear got iller. I know you can agree with me on that, O. BUt I remember to a "t," it was recording onto ADATS. It was the illest way to record. Sampler? And the sequencer? At that time it was the MPC 3000. Stereo samples. Filter effect was on there. Same ill ass sequencer. They didn't change the sequence on that **** and they didn't need to. You could throw it on, off... I know you know what I mean, 0...
MADLIB: That's how I do all the time!
For real, y'all don't quantize at all, do you?
DOOM: You don't need it. Record that shit, do the beat. I learned that shit from this dude right here...
MADLIB: "Sloppy Joe" style.
DOOM: Sometimes [the beats he sent me for Madvillain were] short, and 1 needed to hear 'em longer, to rhyme. And I'm trying to loop 'em and I'm like, "How this one is different than this one? It had to be nothing but live!" That inspired me to say, "**** that, 1 don't need the machine to count it. I know how to count it."
MADLIB: Exactly.
DOOM: Use the machine as a drum, like to play it.
O, what machines have you been partial to over the past ten years?
MADLIB: I did the SP 1200 on Lootpack and Quas. When I was working on the Declaime album for Groove Attack I moved to the MPC. Then I got away from that and moved to the 303. The MPC I just can't feel the pads. It's dead, [I feel like] a robot or something. The 303, you know, you feel it. Like the SP. Now I have the MPC 4000, though, that's dope. I just want to make it so in the next five years you won't know what I'm using. I want to surprise people. 'Cause in the end I want to make each one sound the same.
BTW, O=Otis=Maldib
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