Don't Question These Answers

if you walked down a random street in Jamaica, Queens, in the late ’80s, there’s a chance you would have seen “Duro” spraypainted on the wall—possibly flanked by “Trap” and “Enuf”. Though he’s grown beyond bombing, 31-year-old Ken “Duro” Ifill’s tag has stayed with him. Instead of illegally adorning the cityscape with his D-U-R-O, his assumed name now adorns the inner sleeve of records by major artists who demand the best mix in the game.
Note: the pioneering engineer is as comfortable birthing beats and deading deals as he is mixing behind his Digidesign Icon console. He is also blessing Scratch with his presence, helming our Q&A column in coming issues. On a breather from perfecting forthcoming material by everyone from T. Waters, SunN.Y., and Mariah to the Beastie Boys, Joe Budden, and his longtime partner-in-crime Clue, Duro took a moment to introduce himself…

Story Noah Rubin

How did you first get into music?
Back in my neighborhood, a couple of my friends had some keyboards and some drum machines and they used to make beats, and I started trying to work with beats. Then when I was 12, I met Clue. We always had some kind of little business, and we’d take our money and go buy music, or make little demos. Originally, our crew name was Clue, but Clue was always hustling tapes, so all the vendors started calling him Clue. At some point, the mixtape thing was more Clue’s passion and I was more interested in the technical side, so I started to pursue engineering.

When you decided to pursue engineering, what did you do?
I called this studio, Platinum Island, and spoke to the owner, and he put me on the schedule. They had me on the schedule two days a week, but I would go every day just trying to learn. There were tons of people that used to come through there—Bomb Squad, Beatnuts, Tribe, Puff. And I was a studio intern—just cleaning bathrooms, running to the store, shit like that.

For making beats, how do you feel about the MPC workflow versus the computer?
I hate the computer unless somebody else is programming it. I mean, you have more options, but I think the way that Scott Storch uses it is the best. He does all his programming in the MPC and he uses the computer like a module—that’s it. I mean, are you a fucking computer programmer or are you gonna be creative? To me, it just takes away. You just gotta know so much computer shit to make a track.

That’s funny, because on an engineering side of things, you’re of the school that’s leaning more towards a computer than staying with outboard stuff.
Even with engineering, I think the reason why I ended up mixing in the box is ’cause now everything’s done in Pro Tools. Anything to make it simpler, I’m for it. It’s getting out of hand—you got to be like a super computer wizard to do anything now.

Tell me about your label projects. How do you feel about that side of the industry?
I love making records, working on projects, getting them out there, getting them in people’s hands and seeing people’s reactions. I just like helping artists get their shine and growing artists. I say all that to make the point that artists are people, they have lives, and you could really fuck somebody’s life up. I’ve seen so many artists come and go. Engineers, though, are like plumbers, you always need them.

Speaking of an engineer being in demand like a plumber, how do you feel the explosion of home recording has affected your business?
Home recording has definitely affected it. People are becoming more savvy, they know more, and there’s cheaper equipment. But I think people who understand what I do and respect what I do know that it’s important.

What are the biggest mistakes you see people making when they try to go the home-recording route?
The vocals are hot, but shit sounds like garbage. I usually don’t talk about other engineers, but when I get bad vocals, I absolutely do. When I first started recording, that’s all I did for four years—record vocals and track beats. You should be able to get that right, it’s not rocket science. Just use a mic that fits and a good mic pre [-amp]. But people usually distort the input of the mic pre. I don’t know why they don’t hear it.

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