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Dope DJ Muggs Interview on Business, Strategy, and Work Ethic

2009-08-23T21:25:24-05:00

Source:
http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/features/id.1224/title.producers-corner-dj-muggs/p.all

It has taken the Los Angeles collective Cypress Hill five years to get their nod at the Vh1 Hip-Hop Honors. If you are on point with your Hip Hop 101 and albums including Black Sunday, Juxtapose and Soul Assassins Chapter 1, you should recognize the irony there.

DJ Muggs’ Rock infused, gritty production has been interpreted by the likes of Alchemist, requested by bands such as the Beastie Boys and U2 and has been used for movies including The Last Emperor and Training Day.

Muggs has stood the test of time; the industry hasn’t been able to outwit him nor his brethren. For 20 years his forward thinking and ability to emulate the same formula effectively has equated to longevity. His self prescribed dosage of business acumen has undoubtedly helped too.

On the verge of releasing Pain Language with Planet Asia, Muggs spoke to HipHopDX’s Producer’s Corner. Critical of the funk-faking tattoos, cocked brims and “Pop rappers,” Muggs says that it’s nothing for Cypress Hill to make a million dollars a month touring, and why his dark, gritty gangster music is forever respected.

HipHopDX: You produced House of Pain’s “Jump Around;” what did that track do for your career?
DJ Muggs: That was one of the biggest records of its generation, and it did a lot of things for me and took me to a lot of places. It didn’t do things like change my career or anything, but to have that record on your discography, it was a boost.

DX: From that, you went on and did some serious remixes during that time too for bands like U2, was this all off the strength of that track or had people been talking to you before then?
DJ Muggs: Everything came after the first Cypress [Hill] [self-titled] record really.

DX: Do you feel with Cypress Hill’s Rock-infused sound gets overlooked as a ground breaking Hip Hop sound and group?
DJ Muggs: Yes I think a lot of really good stuff gets overlooked and I don’t know what it is, as people only focus on the moment and what is hot right now. I never got into the business to be hot for the minute or just have a couple of hot records. I am an original; I am in it for the long haul. Cypress Hill has been here 20 years, successful as ever right now. We might not be all over TV these days, but as far as our careers, as far as records sales and as far as the money we make, we are better than ever and do what we do.

DX: How do you balance the business versus the creativity?
DJ Muggs: I learned as there was a learning process as I was strictly creative and then I go so into my career where I knew if I really wanted to be successful I had to learn the business too. So I had sat in enough meetings with enough lawyers and had read enough contracts so that it was like on the job training for me. I just went along and paid attention and asked a lot of questions, read books and now I am on top of my game.

DX: Back then when you guys came onto the scene there was a lot of people getting jerked, was this what encouraged you to take care of your own stuff?
DJ Muggs: Well I was in a band before Cypress, and I learned from that and I watched enough and heard enough stories of bands losing everything from the ‘50s and ‘60s. It happened to a few of my friends too, and I refused to be a statistic. I just went out of my way to educate myself. At that time there was no Internet, there was no Making of the Band on MTV, it was a lot harder to get an education and understanding of how this business worked and the inner dealings of it.

DX: Touching on the internet, how has its importance over the last decade been for you?
DJ Muggs: You know at one point it just wasn’t important to me at all, but I think it threw a wrench and it hampered a lot of things for a lot of people and it cut into a lot of people’s record sales; but now it is at the point where it is a positive tool and because I have put a lot of time and effort in to traveling the world and carrying that flag, building myself an international fan base where now I can touch them. I can go to my computer now and log in to SoulSessions.com and I get 10,000 kids coming through there every day and I can reach them. It is good for me as I don’t need to go through a label or a distributor; I can go directly to my fans all around the world. I don’t have to go through a middle-man or through magazines, my fans know what I am doing every day and they get my music like that. Using it is something positive and a tool and it will be a great thing for the whole movement.

DX: Soul Assassins albums were a great meeting point in Hip Hop, you have always shown diversity, do you think Hip-Hop will ever get to those sorts of projects again?
DJ Muggs: I come from a time, where I think if I was a kid growing up today I don’t think I would be listening to Hip Hop, I would be listening to something else. When I came up it was something brand new and it was about being different. You couldn’t look like nobody, sound like them or act like them. You had to be good. You were either good or wack and if you sucked you had to get the fuck off the stage. It was about being unique and different and I still believe that as a musician. I try to show kids, “Look you don’t have to follow the Hip Hop formula to get on the radio.” I have always had the N.W.A. mentality: “Fuck video, fuck radio, don’t play my shit and still be successful.” It is rebel music and I show kids how they can do things on their terms, paint your art the way you want to paint your art and still be successful, some years you might not sell millions, you might sell thousands and so you hit the road a little more that year. Some years I am in the studio, some I am on the road more. I just scored a movie Street Kings, so there is always something to do and it is not always the same thing.

DX: Do you think people expect everything on a silver platter now?
DJ Muggs: Yes and the labels too, everybody wants everything to be the same. It’s all cookie cutter, it’s Pop music. It is everything that rap despised at some point. You know it despised everything it has become; it is R&B;now. It is watered down and everyone wears their hat on the side, everyone has the tattoo on the forearm, all the same shit.

DX: With your history in the game, do you just ignore this all going on around you and just keep doing you?
DJ Muggs: You have to man. Of course we can sit around and talk about it with your friends and have your frustrating moments, but don’t hang on to that frustration man and let it tear me down. I just do what I have to do as I have a whole new vision. I have no problem.

DX: So what is your whole new vision?
DJ Muggs: It is all materializing as we speak. What we are doing now is introducing ourselves to a lot of the youth. You know there are a lot of 16 year-olds that might not know who we are which is understandable. So me doing [an album] with Planet Asia [click to view] and there are a lot more verses coming that will re-introduce me to the kids. It is still uncompromised, avant-guard, straight to the left, a la Salvador Dali type of art. I am very unorthodox and that is how we move. There is a whole world that loves us, that hates Pop music, it’s for those people. See I never liked Pop music; I liked Led Zeppelin, not Britney Spears so I am not going to make Britney Spears music. I have sat in the studio a few times and I haven’t been happy. I would start to think, “Who am I doing this for now?” When you start feeling like that, that you are a puppet, your real fans start to leave you alone and those Top 40 fans are only there for the moment, they are fly by night fans and all of a sudden, you are left with nothing.

DX: How did you avoid falling into that trap which some producers have done?
DJ Muggs: I would take six months off and go to Europe and deejay; fuck [making] records right now. Everything comes back around. My sound that was so cutting edge and so unique that it is about to be the brand new sound again because nobody does it.

DX: With filtered mics on tracks like “9 mm” you are still going to new places with your production, how would you describe the phase/style you are in now?
DJ Muggs: You know it is constantly experimenting but my sound is real dark. I am a fan of Led Zeppelin, I am a fan of Black Sabbath, I am a fan of Massive Attack, a fan of Tricky and there is just a dark sound that I enjoy making and it comes out naturally for me. It is grimy and it is gritty and you really feel it. That is what I do. Did I expect it to get on the radio? No. Did I think any of my tracks were going to become great hits? No. I thought that they were good records but when you look at what was on the radio at the time of “Jump Around,” it wasn’t that.

DX: There are quite a lot of people now who are infusing their music with Rock as if it has never been done before; as someone who successfully pioneered that fusion….
DJ Muggs: Right now I am in Vegas with Alchemist [click to read] and I was saying to him, “Al, do you understand, everyone is thinking they invented this rock shit and that it is something new?” I was a skater and that was our life. I grew up around black kids, white kids, Latino kids, kids that skated, gangsters on the beach and all this that it has become is the shit we have been doing for 20 years. I am looking back like it is right on time for us now. We fit right in; it is funny to me yeah. You know we would get a lot of slack for doing shows with Rock bands like Metallica and taking Rage Against the Machine on one of their first tours with us. I truly believe we are visionaries and that we are able to see ahead. Sometimes we might be a bit too ahead of the curve.

I have a difficult time dealing with A&Rs;who have no vision and I don’t think there are many music inspired people in the industry running it. I think there are a lot of people in it for the glitz and the glamor and who like music but there are no visionaries at the helm of the music business anymore, well very few. It is difficult to try and translate a vision to these people so I decided to go independent and go underground with my shit. That is where the Internet helps me as now I don’t need Sony to get my music circulated to the world.

DX: Do you think getting music out there to fast prevents fans from becoming familiarized with artists and their music?
DJ Muggs: Well that is the other side. It becomes easily disposable and there is no value to it anymore. You would play a whole album for the whole summer or for a whole year. Now you listen to an album a couple of times and you are on to the next thing because it is so disposable. It is all a big part of the puzzle and Soul Assassins is a lifestyle; we have cartoons, there are graphic artists, photographers, producers, we are a well rounded crew and we sell our lifestyle to people. It is more of a brand at this point as we have an international clothing company. Cypress can still go on the road and make six million dollars in six months no problem.

DX: The Rolling Stones of Hip Hop...
DJ Muggs: Well we might not be the new boy band or pop phenomenon and we understand that we can’t go back and be that and we don’t want to, we just know who we are and what we have to do. We go to our shows and you have 40 year-old people and 13 year-old kids just like you would at a Stones concert. It’s like people introduce their younger siblings explaining that they need to know about this and know about that. Then you get your supporters around the world and when you are feeding them you know they are going to turn up for the meal. We continue to do what we do and it all comes back around.

DX: Well it is like with the Hip Hop Honors, various people have commented that you guys should have been recognized before now, do you feel like that?
DJ Muggs: I thought we would have been recognized for a lot of things before now too you know but if you read your history, people have done a lot of incredible things but didn’t get recognized for it until years and years after the event. It is just the way it is with us; we are blue collar and we are always going to be the underdog and even if we were to win the championship four years in a row, we are still going to be the underdog as it is in our cards. We understand that and we are cool with it. We just keep working hard.

DX: You were very present in the documentary Rhyme and Reason. What do you think seeing you, Dre and RZA in the labs did for young producers in the late nineties?
DJ Muggs: I hope it inspired them to want to do their own thing and want to bring creativity rather than trying to be like everyone else because all three of us, one thing we all have in common is our uniqueness in sound and refusing to sound like anyone else and always looking to find the next sound or the next new thing. If I had the money, I would wait six years [like Dr. Dre] to put a record out you know to work on it but we don’t have the cash to be doing that.

DX: Do you believe Hip-Hop was more pure in the nineties when you look around you now?
DJ Muggs: I think it was brand new and it hadn’t been exposed to the masses. I traveled the world and people didn’t always know about it. Even when I moved to L.A. from New York City when I was 14, there was a lot that people weren’t aware of, but like I said earlier you can go on the Internet now and find out about anything you want to. Hip Hop took over the world from being a sub-culture in the corner.

DX: You have contributed to an endless list of soundtracks, how does that creative process differ for you?
DJ Muggs: I usually go in and watch the movie and see if they need anything that is inspired by the movie or inspired by a character or something inspired by a scene. You talk to the director and you talk to the music supervisor and they can clue you in and from there I go and make something for them.

DX: Do you have a preference over that or straight music production?
DJ Muggs: I can’t say more or less as everything has its time and place. I like getting away from the studio and doing that and then from there I like to come back into the studio and make records as I get bored. Then I get bored and I head out on the road and if I am on the road too much I get sick of it. It is all part of the process.

Producer LROC on getting paid

2009-08-21T19:03:44-05:00

http://remixmag.com/artists/hiphop_R&B;/remix_producer_lroc/

Selling beats is a starting point. Building the tracks and then writing more of the whole song is the goal. As far as other revenue streams and uses for the music, there are new ones coming along every day. I write stuff that we make into records. We also write product commercials that sound like records. Our music is recycled with kid-friendly lyrics, which is another use, and then there are film and television uses, ringtones…. The beat, the track, the song all become worth money, which is why you want to take care of the business side so that when the stuff blows up, you can get paid for it.

Alchemist interview from ‘04

2009-08-21T19:01:20-05:00

source unknown:

Alchemist

April 13, 2004

Through my business, and general networking, I’ve had the opportunity to build with a lot of successful cats. Any freelance writing I may do for a website or magazine is out of love and a desire to help. I’ve never had goals in journalism. My main order of business is always shoppin tracks. But beyond that is a wealth of information available from cats who’ve been through the industry machine & not only sustained their career but thrived. Alchemist is no exception. We sat down at Woo Lae Oak, a fly asian restaurant in Soho, not to interview, but build on specific information in the interest of producers comin up. Over table top barbecues & shrimp, Alchemist kept it real on persistence, grindin, and overcoming a shady industry.

KIRK-T: Who introduced you to makin beats?
ALC: DJ Lethal. We’d make beats together, I was nice on the ASR I was showin him techniques on the ASR, I was still young and learnin & **** he seen I was nice with the ASR, and we’d hook it up with his SP12 and do drums on that.

What was your 1st piece of gear? Did you rock any drum machines prior to the ASR?
ASR. I used to peep the SP a little bit, I came up with Soul Assasins - Muggs was like the father of that whole click na mean… & um.. everything was SP driven at that time. Muggs’ whole sound was stacked and mad gritty. A lot of soul ****. I was a rapper first. Every rapper loves beats. That’s a rapper’s best friend. **** playin Premier beats back in the day… I really wanted to learn how to make beats one day, know what I mean?

How much did you sell your first track for?
Damn.. $500 if that.

Some around the way type artist?
Yeah, the first official record I produced was Dilated Peoples. 3 MC’s, 3rd Degree it was called… Defari on it. I had did a bunch of secret little **** under the table with XXX & whatnot.

Did you ever produce anything you didn’t get credit for?
Yeah.

A lot of stuff?
Uh huh.

Payin dues type ****?
You know like different degrees you gotta go through, like a karate **** in training, I had to go through certain degrees. With XXX, being young learnin the ropes… It’s just part of the game man, I was gettin paid. I was in high school, I had cash in my pocket every day, **** eatin ill food. Restaurants like this **** when was I was little w/ XXX. This how I got into this ****. He used to take me every day, hangin out with XXX during the making of the XXX album. Know what I’m sayin… Just living that lifestyle.

Has any company or artist outright done you dirty?
The whole industry. You gotta be careful when you’re a producer coming up. The whole reason I think the game is **** up, why the music ain’t hittin. Nowadays we got all these A&R;’s and they only handin out production work to their peoples. Their man who makes beats. It’s all relationships. Everybody’s got these albums based on whoever the A&R;’s down with and all that. So be careful of that. Don’t think your music ain’t hittin, cuz some A&R;is putting on so and so. And they’re gonna rep his beat.

All politics.
Yeah. I don’t want to blow up any A&R;’s and all that. But yeah.

I know the royalty network tracks down your money, do they also help with placement?
To a degree. But being an independent network I don’t know how much strength they have in that. All those good gigs go to the publishing companies who have real cheddar.

Do they do a good job of makin sure you get your royalties?
I **** with the royalty network, I got nothin but good things to say about them. Constant paper. There’s money that artists don’t even know about. They got those relationships with the people necessary to collect your money. A lot of people don’t know. But that’s what it takes. Right now you’d never see your royalties otherwise. A lot of these artists don’t know that. So in the mean time before I feel like I’m gonna get my big lick or put out a real big record, I might shoot for a publishing deal or something. I reserved the option with the royalty network to do that. Just got to give them a certain amount of time, it’s in my deal like that.

How do you go about shoppin tracks now? Manager? Attorney? Do you make standard beat CD’s just like someone comin up?
Lately I been workin on my own album, so I stopped really grindin it out. For a while when I was first makin a name, I was goin to all the studios, makin the rounds.

Did you have any success that way?
Yeah definitely. Being competitive, just goin hard. When I did that for a period of time, I’d bump into a lot of different producers doin the same thing I was. That’s how you knew who was on their grind. I’d see Scratch, I’d see Buckwild, Diamond, Rockwilder. We’d always bump into each other. Who ever was on the grind tryin to get off tracks. That’s how you build relationships. Sometimes cats would be like, “we in the studio tonight come through”. You keep those relationships. Sometimes it ain’t even the artist callin you, might be their man who’s like, “come through you got the right beat” and you get work. Might not even be planned. It was on the humble a lot of times. Just comin through, havin a beat CD in my pocket, play em joints. Still gotta do that ****, it never ends.

When someone picks a track, do you drop scratch vox at the crib so you can produce **** and program drops and flip **** around the MC before actually going into the studio?
Yea, and the vocal setup I have is good enough that we use it.

So someone drops vocals and leaves and you do your thing after that?
That’s how I do it, always. And I like to work with artists who understand that. A lot of artists they want that beat to be ready with drops and hook and breakdown and it’s screamin hit, and all you gotta do is drop a vocal on it and wallah. I don’t waste my energy like that cuz it’s a **** waste man. I like to vibe with the artists and we build on it together. That doesn’t always mean that I gotta give them direction on what they write about or how they do their vocals. That might mean that they can do their own thing and they don’t need no guidance like that. It might mean I build with them on “Let’s add this to it, we can chop this here, let’s reorganize this”. Restructure it. Sometimes it means takin **** out. Or just letting it rock. I approach every song differently. But the artist who lays his vocals and leaves to go do his thing, we get the best **** from them. The artist who’s got demo-it is, and they want the **** to sounds exactly like it did when they rapped on it. Weak ****, that **** never comes out hot.

At what stage are you gettin your first check for the project? 1/2 up front, 1/2 at mixdown?
The 1st half before we even get busy. The 2nd half comes after the album drops. The 2nd half is like waitin on babies. The 2nd half is a joke. I try to be happy with my 1st half so if for some reason the 2nd half doesn’t come in, I won’t be tight. There will be reasons like, “Oh, some sample didn’t get cleared on the album and all royalties are being held up”. **** like that happens. You never know.

Would you say cats comin up should be flexible on prices in exchange for shouts etc.?
It would be gangster if you could put that in a contract, but that goes onto the relationship with the artist. Right now the game is so producer driven, you almost have to say your name in the beginning of a beat or they don’t know who did it. I feel like my hand’s been forced to do that. I got this little Alchemist sample, a little logo like a Nike swoosh I stamp on all the joints now. When I was putting different Mobb joints I was givin to Kay Slay & Clue. I was throwin it down there to make sure I knew where it was comin from if it got bootlegged. Got my fingerprint on it. People was sayin they liked it, so now I use it all the time.

Have you ever asked for too much for a track and lost out on what you considered a good opportunity?
Never because I’ll always come down. I’ll always work with ****. But if I really DON’T want to do a project, a polite way of sayin no is to say “I’ll do your **** for 150k, or for a million” or somethin. We’ll do strategic **** like that like hit em so hard it’s like they CAN’T **** with us. I might not even want to but if they gonna pay like that, I’ll hit em with an outlandish number and do it. What a lot of people don’t understand, when it comes to getting paid good cheddar for a beat… You hear all the time “Yo Eminem don’t charge for beats” like he givin up all that paper. But what people don’t understand is, he’s forfeiting his advance. He’s definitely got all his points on that beat. They gotta recoup all that money that’s advanced before you get paid on royalties and mechanicals. By not taking that up front money that just means that first check is HEAVY.

These days a lot of kids’ first experience with production is downloading cracked software and diggin for samples on Kazaa and other file sharing sites. Do you think this is gonna have a negative impact on the beat game in general?
As long as the finished product is hot I don’t care, whatever. I heard about that ****. It’s definitely a new style (of doin it).

I see you using a Voyager now, is that mainly for supportive elements in the track or are you playin main melodies?
I **** with the Voyager, but I just dip over into it when I’m bored. Twist the knobs and enter new territory. It’s not tried and tested with me for makin real beats though, mainly experimental.

Is everything slaved to the 002’s master clock or the ASR’s when you’re programming a song?
I lock everything to MIDI clock and track everything. Once the basic track’s in there, I program everything in Pro Tools, drop **** down etc.

Do you find yourself doing more recording and engineering these days?
Totally. Everything except mixdown. I just need a visionary for the final mix. Can’t do a mix by yourself.

Are you the type of producer that speaks up when you think the MC **** up? How often do you ask an MC to do a verse or line over?
Got to. You’re not a real producer if you don’t. I had to hold my tongue a lot of times, and I regret it every time. No reason to hold back. We’re here to make music. There have been situations where I just sat back and let **** slide and later on I knew I should have. I think Premier put me on to that when I did something with Big Daddy Kane. At first we did a song together a couple years ago when I was first comin up. It wasn’t the one we put out, it was something else we did together. It just wasn’t it, and I didn’t know what to say and ****, first time in the studio with Kane and all that, know what I mean? I saw Premier the next week he was like “How you like that **** ya’ll did?”. I was like “It’s cool, thought we coulda did better”. He’s like “You need to tell him”. He kinda dissed me like “Yo you ain’t a real producer if you don’t tell there ****, straight up. They not **** with you just because of your beats. If they’re in the studio with you they got enough respect for you that they respect your word. You ain’t gotta be right all the time but you at least gotta speak up”. I was like “You’re right”.

Are you recording in 16 or 24 bit in the crib?
I record at 24.

Have you released anything recorded and mixed out of this lab?
I don’t mix at the crib. I’ll spend like 2 weeks at one song everyday, adding, subtracting, just workin on it every day. Wake up, work on it every morning till it’s perfect and every drop and automation wise, everythin is perfect. Then I don’t waste no time in the studio. No more than 8 hours in the studio to mix. I used to be excited to get in the studio and add the little **** you can do in the mix, now I add that **** at home. Not feelin that pressure. When it’s time to mix all I need is my man’s ears. I’ll leave the vocals up to them and the overall cohesiveness of the song.

Any advice for upcoming cats tryin hard to get their beats heard? Cats on the grind?
Don’t let nothing break your spirit. Let the things that might break your spirit, add fuel to your fire. You know what I’m sayin. Feed off the competition. Don’t worry about getting fronted on. If you’re getting fronted on and you know you got something hot, you’re doin the right thing. EVERYBODY who came up got fronted on at some point. So, if you’re getting fronted on, you should feel good about it. Learn how to nurture that energy, and make it positive because it’s still energy. You get fronted on and mad, you can punch a wall or you can punch the keys and make a **** hit. That’s what I choose to do, take all that **** out on the beats. At the end of the day it’ll be in the form of music.

Stephen “Spliff” Hacker, Professional Beat Shopper

2009-08-18T19:27:00-05:00

Source:
http://allhiphop.com/stories/industryspotlight/default.aspx?p=9

By Melanie Cornish

Back in the day, the days when Hip-Hop was raw and untouched, the leading roles were designated to lyricists and DJs. Producers were part of the supporting cast. But as time has marched on, lyrics have been replaced by infectious hooks, outlandish dances and dominating beats; the stars of today’s show are the producers.

Recognizing this and using his abilities to work his way up the ranks Stephen “Spliff” Hacker has impressed plenty of Hip-Hop’s best. With a roster of producers and relationships with some of Hip-Hop’s most prominent, his company Spliffington Management is showing up on some of the most talked about projects this year.

Age isn’t an issue to Spliff, but knowing the right people is a big thing in the life of any entrepreneur. Here he gives us insight to how he got to where he is, who has helped him along the way and how one of his producers tracks is going to stir up a hornets nest with a couple of A L-ist rappers.

AllHipHop.com: How did you get into doing what you do?

Spliff: I guess it was really a natural progression. You know you get involved in different things that you are interested in and you start climbing up the ladder to go further and further. I worked at a couple of record companies and had a college radio show and I was involved in the mixtape scene a few years back and things like that. One thing led to another and here I am, it’s original and there are not many people out there doing what I am doing.

AllHipHop.com: You were at Diplomat Records weren’t you?

Spliff: Yeah, I was an assistant A&R;for the Diplomats and if I hadn’t worked for them I don’t think I would be in the position that I’m in or doing what I am doing now. I went out on my own initiative to start working with producers and getting music out to these artists. I took a liking to playing a role in the creative process and being in touch with new producers; being able to get them work and really get their music placed on reputable albums. Being able to do that put things into perspective and working with a lot of high profile artists allowed me to expand to new levels. Once I realized I was able to do that with Cam’ron, Juelz Santana and Jim Jones, then I realized the world is bigger than just them and there are a lot of checks out there to get, so why not get them.

AllHipHop.com: Do you think with the way the music is today, it’s easier to manage producers over artists?

Spliff: I think it is all relative. I think right now with the market the way it is, I think it is really difficult for both. People aren’t buying music the way they used to. So when you try to guage a deal for an artist to a record company to get them signed or when you are trying to sell tracks to an artist or an A&R;for a producer, it’s just really hard because it is so saturated. Along with people not buying anything makes it doubly hard. I chose to work with producers because I don’t think they are as emotional as artists. I mean I just got extremely stressed out with one of them yesterday, but I don’t have to deal with their problems. They deliver the music on the creative side, give it to me, then I place it in the right hands and work on the business negotiation side and that is basically the scope of it.

AllHipHop.com: How important has networking been at getting your company off the ground?

Spliff: I mean it is all networking. Unless someone walks you in or you are the son of L.A. Reid, you only get to where you are at because of your hard work and networking. That has everything to do with it especially as things are so saturated now. It is not even about who you know, but about how well you know them. With The Diplomats, if I didn’t work for them I doubt I would have been able to get as much success if I wasn’t in their inner-circle. You have to link up with a certain groups of people and build a relationships with them, as many as possible, and try to have them in your favor over so they will take you seriously.

AllHipHop.com: But it isn’t just about networks when it comes to your profession, it is also about homework…

Spliff: 100%, and that is an excellent point as I find myself sometimes immersed in this Hip-Hop world and I hate it sometimes because often it is really meaningless. But you have to know what is going on, who is recording, what labels artists are on, which A&Rs;are the right A&Rs;in order not to waste time. You have to be up on things early to be able to win.

AllHipHop.com: Being that you are quite young, was there ever a point where people didn’t take you as seriously because of your age?

Spliff: I have to say yes. Number one, I still look young and get called on it all the time. Not so much now, but the fact that I stand out a little bit as well. Hip-Hop is a Black/White industry but primarily a Black industry and being that I am a bit younger than average and happen to be Jewish; it is not the typical look for a person who is trying to get in the deep depths of the business.

AllHipHop.com: What attracted you to the roster you are working with right now?

Spliff: That’s a good question. A couple of the producers I have been working with since I started doing this and I really believed in their music early on. I want us all to become succesful together because we came into this situation together. I think they all complement each other with different musical styles and can do different things whether it be original tracks with a lot of instrumentation or sample tracks which are a bit more street oritented. But again, I think they all compliment each other and they all add great elements to the team. I always try to align myself with people at the head of their class and even though they might not be a Timbaland yet or have an image to where people know what they look like, the music is really what speaks.

AllHipHop.com: Do you think producers need to be marketed?

Spliff: Yes they do, as record sales continue to fall; labels are looking for anything to grasp hold of to sell their artists. You never used to see an advertisement in a magazine for an album where saying, produced by and names of five or six different producers, and now you see that all the time. The labels are using the big name producers as credibility to boost the quality of the artist’s project so that the consumer should be interested. Timbaland is a brand, Kanye West is a brand, Alchemist is a brand. So the labels are trying to press an image upon you that in addition to the artist being so hot, these producers track record should make it even hotter, so you should be buying their album. You didn’t have to do that before but now you are adding all these other pieces to the puzzle to try and win over the consumer. I am not saying it is a good thing or a bad thing; it is just a sign of the times. Producers are bigger than ever now, they never used to be this big. In the ‘80s, the pioneering era of rap, you didn’t even hear about producers. They stayed behind the scenes and artists were the ones that were raking in all the money and the fame. Producers are a commodity.

AllHipHop.com: You are heavily involved in branding your producers then?

Spliff: I try as best as I can. It is important. I always try and big them up in meetings and talk about them, but if you don’t see somebody face-to-face or have a personal connection with them, it is difficult. I try to take the necessary steps as it is all relative to who you deal with in these situations. Some people understand it and others you have to try and make it work for them some other way. Sometimes when I play music from the producers, I might not say who the producer is because these A&Rs;look at me and trust me enough to bring them hot music. So it’s not very important to them, the name of the producer or the image of the producer, they just want the hits. It doesn’t matter if it is produced by Streetrunner or by Freebass for some of these people. But many others are all about what an album looks like on paper like a stat sheet with the highest scoring players getting the most playing time, but personally I think an album has to be about creating the best music possible. They won’t always tell you that but you know when you walk out of a meeting, your CD could very well be in the trash because you are not established. There are a lot of things involved and a lot of factors that go into being successful as a producer. It is not just about the music.

AllHipHop.com: One of your producers has produced this Lil’ Wayne diss track aimed at 50 I believe?

Spliff: Yeah it is the first single off The Carter III and it is an incredible record, produced by Streetrunner from Miami who has a bunch of tracks on The Carter III in addition to that record. Wayne is not directly saying 50 Cent’s name in it but when people hear it they can make their own judgment and such. It is called “Gossip” and should be out in the next couple of weeks. It is crazy.

AllHipHop.com: What other work have your producers got on right now?

Spliff: We are working with a new R&B;artist by the name of Razah who got signed to Island/Def Jam who is incredible. He was signed to Virgin previously. He should be coming out around October I think and his album is called A Breath of Fresh Air. Juelz Santana, we have been in the studio with him a lot and I have been pushing tracks on him hard, he is a workaholic who keeps getting better and better. His album, if it doesn’t come out this year, will be dropping top of 2008. We have been working with him and Lil’ Wayne a lot. We have a record on LL Cool J’s next album which is a single. I just gave some stuff to Rick Ross and we have a record on Petey Pablo’s album. I am also working closely with Alchemist We are wrapping up the album now, which is about 90% done. We have a studio session today with Nina Sky to do some stuff for the record. His album is incredible and I will be receiving A&R;credit for that. He [Alchemist] is inspiring to me. I looked up to him before I got involved in the business side of things in the music industry. Just being with him on a regular basis and seeing him work and how serious he takes it all motivates me; he is well aware of what I do with my producers and works to further my cause as well. It is a blessing as he continues to work with some of the best in the business. That helped me out a lot being around him.

AllHipHop.com: Is it important to have someone to look up to?

Spliff: It actually makes me work harder because you see someone like that and it drives you. He has the ability to open doors for Spliffington Management which gives me another edge. He is a legend and you can’t not respect him. Originally I had actually done an article on him for Ozone years back and were in touch off an on. I was pressing him for beats for when Cam’ron was working on his last album. He started giving me stuff hesitantly and I would give them to Cam. One of the tracks that he gave me ended up being “Wet Wipes,” which was a single on Cam’s last album. Once Al saw that I was able to get that into Cam’s hands, things started coming together. It was a natural progression; you see a lot of similarities in people and what they can do and you just start gravitating towards them.

AllHipHop.com: What’s your future? --Editors Note: Laziest Fucking Question Ever

Spliff: We just want to keep expanding and work with bigger artists; you know have the walls filled with platinum plaques.

Semantik’s “Favorite Techniques”

2009-04-07T05:07:56-05:00

http://www.cratekings.com/favorite-techniques-to-program-drum-kits-loops/

Favorite Techniques To Program Drum Kits & Loops

I had another brainstorming session on the way home from work today and decided to think of all the ways that I know to program drums. Again the list was pretty big, but at least this one was somewhat manageable.

1. Simple looping of drums
2. Chopping a drum loop into a bar or half bar and playing partial loop individually.
3. Deconstructing and chopping drum loop completely into kicks, snares, hi hats, etc. then reprogramming any way you like. (My most commonly used technique)
4. Manually layering pre-chopped drums over a sample with drums already contained on it, so they match perfectly. Usually a sample with a live drummer will be slightly off beat, so much of the time, it is necessary to turn off the quantize feature.
5. Using a program such as Propellerheads Recycle to take a drum loop and rearrange the bpms and instrument placement.
6. Layering different kicks, snares, high hats, etc to produce a unique drum sound.
7. Turning off quantization to get that live off beat feel.
8. Using the swing feature of Akai�s MPC series to slightly move drums off of the quantization mark.
9. Adding a tiny bit of silent space in front of a sample to artificially throw the sample offbeat
10. Time stretch a drum loop beyond the normal timing to get yet another off or on beat sound.

M-Phazes.

2009-07-31T17:37:24-05:00

SD: Sup M, pleasure to have you answering some questions here for the Beat Society fam. For anyone new to M-Phazes, would you be able to introduce yourself?

M: I’m a 26 year old producer from Australia, been producing for a little over 10 years, and am still a broke ass.

SD: [laughs] Well, if you met someone new to hip hop, and were really keen about getting into it and came to M-Phazes first, what record of yours would you tell them to check out and why?

M: That’s a tough one, I would defiantly tell them to check out “Step it up” by Supastition. Supa is the foundation of my professional production. He pretty much put out my first commercially released production work. “Step it up” is basically my style, it’s soulful, melodic but with a gritty twist, early 90’s feel but also current. That sounds mad corny but I guess that’s what I try to do. Though that is kinda old I have changed a lot since then. Another standout would be Kenn Starr’s “Back at it again” where you can hear where I got my little tag line from! Shouts to Median!

SD: Of course! “M-Phazes, good gracious!” Moving on from that, one thing Beat Society is heavily known for is their beat competitions. You took place in a competition that had some superstar producers judging your beats. Can you talk a bit about that experience and
how beat contests have essentially paved a greater way for you?

M: That competition was a huge thing for me, just to have those judges
who I look up to like my stuff is a huge compliment and very humbling.
Basically it put my name out there to a huge array of big names at once
and got me my biggest placements yet, which would be Amerie and a movie
placement with a track from Joell Ortiz. I couldn’t ask for anything more
to come from that competition; it was amazing!

SD: Going back once again, what was it about your work on Supastition’s Chain Letters that kind of got you out there a lot more? Were more people hollering at you or did
you feel like you had a solid credible name on your resume (along with
your contest win) that you could use to shop yourself around?

M: I owe a hell of a lot to Supa, even though he might not say that. He
put faith in me, I know he is mad picky with new producers so he took a
chance and listened to my shit, and he liked it and ended up using my
work. We formed a kind of musical alliance and I did a lot of work with
him back then, I thought of it like a Guru/Premo type of thing, even
though he worked with a lot of other guys, I still felt like our shit
meshed the best. And even though we stopped working together as much I
still want to do a solid M-phazes/Supastition record. We are both
insanely busy people and he has a family to handle as well so I guess when
the time is right it will happen hopefully.

I never felt like working with Supa was just to gain a rep, I just loved
the music we were making, every song we did I got mad excited about, but
it defiantly helped me get a little buzz going.

SD: I asked this because plenty of new producers may have that one track
with a fairly known artist or that contest win in their back pocket and
just aren’t sure how to use that to their advantage. How do you break out
from doing one or two tracks with an artist to doing records with people
that they are affiliated with, etc? Is it all about the music speaking for
itself or do you really have to grease some wheels and get personable?

M: It’s all about persistence, don’t think cause you did a track with a
bigger name people are going to drop everything to get a track from you,
you gotta get your hands dirty and work with people for free. But yeah at
the end of the day, if your music is wack, or isn’t “timeless,” then your
limiting yourself to a very short career. Just throw your music out there
and take feedback, use it, work for free, be prolific with quality, and
don’t just chase a “hit” because people can hear that watered down shit
and will dismiss it straight up.

SD: We spoke previous about your contest win and the affect it had on your current career, DJ KO recently held a contest that had producers all over remix your produced joint, “Best to Do It.” Did you get a chance to hear some of the remixes
M: I have only heard Marco [Polo]’s remix of that joint, I would love to hear
them though! Send some through KO!!

SD: How important to you are remixes in hip hop and how have they changed from when Pete Rock was creating remixes that were most of the time better than the original?

M: I started out remixing; there was no one to work with so I would just
remix tracks. I love remixes as long as they take the track in a whole
different direction. Pete Rock’s remixes were incredible but that’s
because he is an incredible producer, not just a beat maker, he knew the
feeling he wanted or thought a track needed and he could pull it off to a
T. That’s what I try to do with a remix, if I feel the original is
something I might have done anyway; I’ll switch the remix up on an R&B;tip, or a grimy hip-hop tip. If ya’ll seen the remix of “Lollipop” by Wayne
I did, I tried to make that track listenable to an average hip-hop head.
That’s what I think a remix should entail, to give the audience an
alternative to the original so you please the other side of listeners!

SD: Recently, KO also told KevinNottingham.com in an interview a story about how he
was the first one to get Elzhi and Royce in the same booth, a feat he
takes great pride in. Is there ever a fear in a producer’s mind that when
two lyrical giants like that come aboard, the production gets pushed to
the back burner and may even risk getting “outdone?”

M: Not really, I mean El and Royce are sick, but they are also artists,
and I feel like they make “songs”, if they think they should be super
lyrical and it won’t jeopardize the track then they will do that, or if
they think they need to tone down on the high tech lyrical stuff they will
do that, it doesn’t mean they are watering down anything I think it just
shows that they are great artists. I honestly think Royce’s verse isn’t
his best lyrically but it fits like a glove to that beat and I think he
intended that.

SD: It doesn’t get much more lyrical than Pharaohe Monch. Your rise has
led you to the upcoming Pharaohe Monch album, W.A.R. First off,
congratulations. It’s not everyday that a producer from Australia gets to
say that they’ve worked with one of the greatest rappers to pick up the
microphone. But, Pharaohe in an interview said that you challenged him.
What is it about your music that you think challenged him?

M: [Laughs] I have no idea! Pharaohe is a complex dude, not so much when you
talk to him or anything, more so when you see him listening to a track and
he likes it, he goes into his own head and starts brainstorming/rhyming,
thinking. I remember playing him a track he picked for the first time,
and he was just silent with his eye’s closed, I started to worry and asked
his manager Guy, “Yo, I don’t think he likes it I’ll skip it” and Guy was
like “NAAAH!!! He is rapping to it right now!!” [laughs}. I guess the
melodies and vibe of my beats might be something different for him, I am
known to overproduce a lot and add a few too many layers to my tracks, some
rappers shy away from that shit but I guess Monch likes that stuff. Maybe
that’s the challenging part.

SD: I think one of the most surprising things about you is your
geographical location, Australia. Being from Oz, did you feel limited in
your approach and inclusion into Hip Hop? Similar to how your beats
challenged Monch, certainly the “American style” of music would challenge
you too, no?

M: I’ve never tried to follow the “American style” of music, but I just
mimicked my favorite producers from the Bomb Squad, to Prince Paul to Pete
Rock, Dilla, Premo etc, and because I grew up in a place that was
literally secluded from all forms of hip-hop pretty much, I didn’t have
any peers to bounce off creatively. It was a challenge to get heard
though, but the internet played a huge role in helping with that. Sites
like ungergroundhiphop.com and beatsociety.com were very helpful in
getting my music out there. I’ve always felt like more could be done with
my career if I lived stateside, and I am in the process of moving there,
Visa’s and immigration and so forth, but it’s yet to be seen whether it
will help my career or not, I believe it will though!

SD: Are you influenced by your Australian heritage at all when you are
producing?

M: I am now, I live in Melbourne now, and it’s basically the music capital
of Australia so I am in the thick of it. There are so many talented
(and not so talented) musicians here it’s hard not to be influenced by
your fellow Aussies. But Australia is a rock country, its music has
always been rock and roll, so I find I like a lot of rock guitars and live
bass in my tracks, not sure if that’s the Aussie influence but it’s what I
grew up on a as a little kid so maybe!

SD: How important is a community like Beat Society to producers both
established and up and coming? You mentioned in one of your M(-Phazes)TV
pieces that you listen to every beat CD you get from other producers. I
think people forget that producers have their own fraternity as well. What
does being around other producers do for you and your beat making?

M: It’s great! I find with producers, the ego’s get left out, even if
someone I meet who produces is wearing sunglasses inside and 8 gold
chains, they are generally a lot less cocky then rappers. I do listen to
every beat CD. I love music, I love hearing other peoples ideas and it’s
inspiring to me! I remember hearing beat’s from people I would have never
even heard of if I just brushed them off on some arrogant bullshit, people
like F Major from Cali, Vohnbeats (who is 11 years old!!!) to guys in
Australia like Daphi and Squared. And I tell new producers, don’t just
focus of sending your tracks to artists, send them to producers, because
most of the time they are working with a group of up and coming artists
and will shop beats they like to their people. Like 9th Wonder gave one
of my beats to his new dude Big Remo, and the track is sick! So don’t
sleep on connecting with other producers!

SD: I mentioned the MTV blog you have got going on. Has that helped you
promote your self and get the M-Phazes name out there a bit more? The
beat-making videos seem really popular these days, are you a fan of those?
Similar to the last question, isn’t it almost like educating other
potentially great producers?

M: Yeah my YouTube game is getting fierce! [laughs]. Nah, I mean it’s helping
people get to know me a bit, as far as answering questions left on my
blogs, people can see me and interact rather than just hear a beat and see
my name in the credits. Though it’s not crazy important, it’s just
something easy to do; to post a YouTube video. I’m not trying to pull an
88 keys or a Kanye and be a superstar. I like beat making video’s, new
producers, if they are persistent, will learn shit somehow, and no one can
sound like me, no matter how hard they try, and I can’t sound like S1 or Illmind by watching their video’s. I like to help people and if they want
to see me making a track I’m going to show them.

SD: We’ll wrap up the interview right here. Thanks for your time M, we
really appreciate all the great music you deliver and all the time you
contribute to your fans and students. Any last words? What’s next? What
can we expect?

M: Thanks to Beat Society! I speak for a lot of producers when I say your
services are appreciated. And I want to be in a Beat Society showcase
soon!! Next up I’m trying to get to the states in September, hopefully
have a show in LA then hit NY for a while. Hit up the blog
http://www.mphazes.com and get at me with any questions or general comments! Love
is love love love is love love! [laughs]
peace!

Exile talks shop @ Oh Dang!

2009-07-13T07:30:06-05:00

Source: http://www.ohdangmag.com/archive/features/exile.html

Oh Dang: Take us through your creative process of making music, what do you think about?

Exile: I think about music that I like, and I try to find inspiration in that. It’s kind of like, either I force myself or it comes naturally, but sometimes when you force yourself, it comes out just as natural. I usually start with drums first, and then just build it from there; I do what the drums tell me to do. Sometimes I’ll do a sample. Or sometimes I’ll even have a melody in my head, a bass line in my head and then just use the keyboard and come up with it and make it happen.

Tell us about your origins and evolutions as a producer. What are your earliest memories with music and when did you begin producing?

It all started with beat-boxing, just trying to emulate people I like. I remember I recorded myself rapping over a beat box. I took a hit of a helium balloon and rapped like Quasimoto, and I did a song about my friend’s mom because she would always go out to the clubs and bring home dudes and shit. [Laughs] So we wanted to clown her so we made a song called “Club Kathy.” [Singing] “Club Kathy, Club Kathy, it’s the place to go.” [Laughs] … And then from there, I got a Sanyo stereo system with the tape deck on the bottom, the radio in the middle and the phono up top (the turntable). I used to hold down the tape button and use that to transform Star Wars records: “I’m your father, Luke” or whatever and scratch. I learned how to scratch pretty good like that, and then I moved up to using speaker buttons to scratch … Once I got a mixer, I had two tape decks. I recorded on one tape deck and on one turntable I would have like, time, time clubs, silent plays, [mimicking sounds], silence, for like five minutes. And then I played that tape while recording on another one to fill in the gaps so it created a loop, and then from there I can keep on adding and adding to it and I had infinite tracks. Later I figured out I could simplify the whole process with the four track … [and] then moved on to a Roland MS1 where you have to manually do all your loops and change up the drums and everything … From there I got an MPC. I was releasing stuff, the four track stuff, when it was just a push button sampler. Some of that got pressed to wax actually, [through] a fan of our tapes because I used to sell tapes with a mixtape on one side and then me and Aloe rapping on the other side. A fan of that pressed up a vinyl of ours, and it got played on Friday Night Player and it kept on snowballing.

The legend goes that Biggie had to have fried chicken in the studio. What is unique about your studio experience?

It depends on what I’m doing. It definitely varies but usually I just like to make beats in my room and I like to do it either alone or do it along with somebody who enjoys watching me who will give me input and shit. That, and if I’m doing songs by myself, I like to just be by myself. Or, if I’m writing—actually, I have a rap album too—but I also love making group songs with other rappers and trading verses, writing stuff for each other and shit like that. Basically, if I’m going to work with an artist and do their whole album, we really got to be there, build it, build with each other, with music and just with ourselves as humans too.

You sampled the radio on your album, can you explain to us about how that process was?

I knew I wanted to make an instrumental album and I just thought of the idea to only sample off the radio. It came up because I was in a tour van driving to Miami with some cats and I was hooked up to the car stereo, making beats. I was like, “Oh that would be dope if I made an album called Road Trip or something.” I just sampled and made beats all off the radio in the car. Eventually I scraped that idea and just decided to make it LA-based radio and that’s what it is. I sampled everything—the drums, bass lines, everything. I just thought it would be a good way to challenge myself and a good way to do what hip-hop is supposed to be: sampling stuff, making music out of stuff that you’re not supposed to. I knew that I would be able to sample vocals from the radio, and there’s some pretty conscious radio in LA, and I knew that I would be able to capture the voice of what humans are going through in the world too, and that’s what I kind of did with the album and I showed what the world’s going through, but I also showed my biased opinion of love and shit like that, and spirituality.

Dawaun Parker on the making of ‘Relapse’ and what he’s learned from Dr. Dre

2009-05-28T06:06:10-05:00

Source: LA Times

Under the aegis of legendary beatmaker Dr. Dre, Dawaun Parkerhas spent the last four years in a residency of sorts. But with first-week sales of Eminem’s “Relapse” estimated at an excess of 600,000 copies sold, it may signal that the Berklee College graduate is ready for board certification. After all, the 26-year-old multi-instrumentalist received co-producer credit on 14 of 15 tracks on Slim Shady’s comeback, including lead singles “We Made You” and “Crack a Bottle” — the latter of which shattered records for most first-week downloads sold.

While most producers spend years shopping beat tapes or forming groups in the hopes of catching a break, Parker’s path has been relatively bloodless: Scooped up a mere two days after graduating from the prestigious New England conservatory, he went straight to aiding the Aftermath honcho, as well as Busta Rhymes, T.I., 50 Cent and Jay-Z.

Self-effacing in the wake of Aftermath’s continued Soundscan domination, Parker spoke to Pop & Hiss about the making of “Relapse,” what he’s learned under Dr. Dre’s tutelage and Eminem’s penchant for drawing comical sketches in the studio.

How did the recording sessions for “Relapse” differ from previous albums that you’d worked on?

Most of the time, me, Dre, Mark Elizondo and sometimes a guitar player will just sit together and jam, and eventually we’ll come up with loops and ideas. With Eminem, he’d be constantly running in and out of the room and whenever he’d finish recording his tracks, he’d let us listen. We usually stuck with it. I was amazed by the level of complexity of the stuff he was writing, even at the beginning stages.

Em’s a funny guy — he’d draw all kinds of pictures of crazy cartoons and people flying and tape them to all the doors to keep things lighthearted. He was just on a tear — every time he’d leave the room he’d say something more mind-blowing. As a long-time fan, it was an incredible experience.

Dre’s a notoriously tough critic in the studio. Is he a difficult boss to satisfy? Does the competitive environment make you a better producer?

I don’t feel like I’m anywhere near his level, but just being around so many talented people is exciting. It’s about trying to make the best music I can. I imagine other people could get frustrated but I relish the fact that I get a chance to work on such interesting material.

Dre’s got an insanely sharp ear. He’ll describe a drum sound to me and work until we get it just right. It’s that diligence that makes him so successful and critically acclaimed. I feel the pressure to deliver my best every time. It’s not necessarily about being perfect or about pleasing Dre. He’s all about creating the best and most fun environment around. We try to keep it organic but at the same time we’re not going to settle for a 7 either.

You guys have been finished with the “Relapse” album for several months. What are you working on now?

We’ve been working on 50 Cent’s “Before I Self Destruct” and “Detox.” I’ve also been slowly putting stuff together for my own group, GodBody. But working with 50 and Dre have taken up a lot of time.

What’s the status with “Detox?”

There’s been a lot of progress. Every day we create more sounds and [see] what decisions Dre makes. Whenever he’s ready to put something out, we will. I think we have some great material, and he sounds excellent on the microphone. In all likelihood, 50’s album will be next to drop, then the second installment of “Relapse.”

Sonically, how does the music you’ve created for “Relapse” differ from what you’re creating for “Detox?”

Eminem’s sound is dark with big drums and a lot of space for him to fill with rhymes. I think he can rhyme over anything but he had ideas in his head where he was trying to come and create. I’d have to guess what he wanted, and I knew that I couldn’t repeat. One day you’d create things that were green, the next you’d have to create things that were blue.

Judging from the records we’ve made for “Detox,” Dre wants things that are more soulful. Eminem’s progressions and sounds tend to be rock-oriented, while Dre’s influences are more rooted in R&B;, funk, and soul.

izotope’s Vinyl VST (truly badass) effect is now a free download

2009-05-15T20:12:33-05:00

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/vinyl/

Amen and right on. Worth playing with, hundreds of uses, sounds lush as fuck. izotope is by far the coolest VST studio going, no offense to the folks at Waves who make all our work possible.

Master Class on Mastering Audio

2009-05-15T20:10:23-05:00

http://www.izotope.com/artists/dave_moulton.asp

^^THE GOODS.

Three articles:

General “Tips and Tricks” for mastering...read this last, obviously:
http://www.izotope.com/artists/dave_moulton.asp?id=1

Changing How You Hear Stereo Sound (awesome):
http://www.izotope.com/artists/dave_moulton.asp?id=3

Sermon about loudness wars and taming insanely loud levels:
http://www.izotope.com/artists/dave_moulton.asp?id=2

Bill Moulton’s personal site:
http://www.moultonlabs.com/

DOPE article on kick-bass mixing and theory for hip hop:
http://www.moultonlabs.com/more/kick_bass_revisited_a_new_dimension_is_added_by_rap_and_hip_hop/