Fade
The Beat Strangler
Administrator
illest o.g.
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.
Who introduced you to makin beats?
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 & shit 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 shit. I was a rapper first. Every rapper loves beats. That's a rapper's best friend. Fuckin 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 shit 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 shit?
You know like different degrees you gotta go through, like a karate muthafucka 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, fuckin eatin ill food. Restaurants like this shit when was I was little w/ XXX. This how I got into this shit. 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 fucked 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 fuck 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 shit, it never ends.
When someone picks a track, do you drop scratch vox at the crib so you can produce shit and program drops and flip shit 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 fuckin 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 shit 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 shit from them. The artist who's got demo-it is, and they want the shit to sounds exactly like it did when they rapped on it. Weak shit, that shit 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". Shit 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 mutherfuckas. But if I really DON'T want to do a project, a polite way of sayin no is to say "I'll do your shit for 150k, or for a million" or somethin. We'll do strategic shit like that like hit em so hard it's like they CAN'T fuck 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 shit. 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 fuck 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 shit 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 fucked 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 shit 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 shit, 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 shit 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 muthafuckas, straight up. They not fuckin 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 shit you can do in the mix, now I add that shit 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 fuckin hit. That's what I choose to do, take all that shit out on the beats. At the end of the day it'll be in the form of music.
For more info on the Alchemist, visit http://www.alchemistbeats.com
