GOOD VIBRATIONS
Frequencies are funny: there are frequencies that I can play to you that will make you sick, there are frequencies that I can play to you that will make you feel a level of comfort, there are frequencies that I can play to you that will make you feel a level of stress. It’s all a matter of what I’m tapping into. Once again, frequency is nothing but another form of energy. Matter is nothing but another form of energy as well. So we’re all frequencies. Everything that we see is all frequencies, it’s just vibrating at different speeds. (He modulates his voice for effect.)
This frequency is denser than skin because its vibrating at a slower frequency than our skin is. That’s how you can take something like water, you change its frequency, it changes its look or its characteristic. For example, you heat it up which means you’re speeding up the frequency, it will evaporate and turn into a gas. You slow it down it will freeze and become a solid. That’s the beautiful thing about life, life is all frequencies.
I see there are some flowers here. If you take frequencies and throw it AT THAT FLOWER, that is what we would call non harmonic frequencies, basically creating a level of disjointedness, disorganized noise. You feed that flower noise all day long and you feed another flower more harmonies and comforting sounds, you are going to see a difference in the growth of those two plants. And that’s not theory; that’s fact.
RED LIGHT SPECIAL
The other thing that we wanted to make sure of, you know tape has a nice compression when you hit it hard. If you go back and listen to a lot of the old record company tapes, they would always record their levels, you know, like before it hits the red, which means that the volume – and Sony didn’t even let it hit the red at all – Sony would bring it back maybe two or three DB below before it reaches zero. So Sony would basically have all this hiss on the tape. You’d get music but you’d get a lot of tape hiss. So one thing I wanted to do is I wanted to saturate it. I wanted to hit it hard. (He pounds his hand into palm for emphasis.) I learned that from being with Steve Ett in the studios at Chung King. When I recorded with Steve, he was recording in the red. If you’re in a recording studio all engineers always want to make sure that they’re never distorting. Tape distortion is like the biggest no-no in the business when you’re an engineer. So they always would be very cautious to make sure they were not. And Steve Ett was pushing it into the red.
GROOVE THEORY
You listen to those Def Jam records, those records where not only great from the beats and the rhymes but sonically they were louder than every other record on the market, aight. And it was louder for two reasons. Back then mastering--we can go for days, you got to stop me if I get too far off—mastering, there are two types of situations. There is the recording process and then there’s the mastering process. And those are two different scenarios. For instance you can have an incredible sounding cassette or tape when you’re coming out of the studio but it can get messed up in mastering if its not mastered properly. This is what I learned from Rick [Rubin]. Rick would always say he doesn’t want his records over 2 minutes and 30 seconds because he’s taking two minutes and thirty seconds and putting it on a 12-inch vinyl, which is enough space to record an album. What happens is something unique. Now the groove in the record becomes bigger. The groove in the record is now bigger, your bottom end is bigger. Your bottom end is now tighter. The overall loudness of the record – the dynamic range increases, alright. If you listen to those Def Jam records you used to sit there and say “Damn how are those Def Jam records so incredible?” First of all they were minimal, meaning they didn’t have many instruments playing and they were compressed and they were just louder than anything else. That’s why when you were a DJ and you have a pair of headphones on and you have a record and the turntable is on and you’re trying to bring in turntable two…The first thing you notice with Def Jam is the firs hit is always (smacks his hand for emphasis) solid! Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom. So it made fun when you’re a DJ you could always do a little diggety-do, diggety-do. And when you’re hitting that you’re getting a lot of that compression from that kick.