The Chicago Tribune recently ran an article titled “The New Faces of Chicago’s Hip-Hop Scene”.  Much to our delight, 3 of the 10 featured artists work right here at Studio 11.  The article pays tribute to local hip-hop artists who are making a lot of noise not only here in Chicago, but on a national level as well. 

King Louis

King Has been recording at Studio 11 since 2005, and has recently enjoyed a boom of popularity and recognition.  King’s catalog is dauntingly massive as he is one of the most prolific artists this studio has ever seen.  His combination of utter cleverness and freestyle ability has helped him complete a staggering amount of cool tracks, so its no doubt that his name is buzzing.

Rockie Fresh

Although Rockie is no newcomer to rap, he is a fairly new client at Studio 11.  Rockie started work up here with his extremely powerful and impressive “The Otherside” mixtape, which did amazing numbers online.  Rockie is currently working on a new project up here and a few leaks are already floating around the web.  Be on the lookout for “Driving 88″ coming soon.

YP

YP is another long-time client of Studio 11, having blazed the booth since 2005.  YP has recently acquired new management and has since been killing it in the streets, on the stage, and on the radio.  This past fall saw the release of his most solid mixtape to date, “Still Awake”.  Without missing a beat, YP started work on his next project the day “Still Awake” was released.  YP has teamed up with some well known producers and is collecting some features from huge artists, so there is no doubt that his next project will make some serious waves.

It seems as though the hip-hop scene in Chicago is finally coming together to form some sort of movement.  I feel like there is more support than there has been for quite some time, and artists of vastly different styles are coming together for the cause.  I for one love being at the boards through it all watching and helping the artists come one step closer to their creative aspirations.  As always, thank you for your continued loyalty!

See the original Tribune article HERE

Steve Anderson

Engineer

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This week Studio 11 was visited by east siders Saint Nick and D. Brown, of Street Fame Clique Ent.

St. and D have done multiple projects through Studio 11′s B room over the years, and their material seems to keep getting stronger and stronger.  Both artists have done some maturing in recent years, fine tuning what their voices are capable of, with Saint gaining confidence as both a rapper and singer, and D finding his dominating tone as a rapper.

Here we get to see Saint working on his new joint “Its Nothin” for an upcoming project. The track has a huge energy and a massive “call and response” style hook.  Saint’s music always challenges me as an engineer, and this song was no exception.  Nick really likes his punch-lines to shine, and I often find myself digging deep into my bag of tricks to accommodate him.

This song was recorded with our typical all tube vocal chain used in Studio B, and mixed on our Pro Tools HD system.  Creating headroom on a track this massive was a bit tough, but some delicate side chaining really made the vocals stand out and sit out front.  Some cool sound effects from my collection were used, as well as a Transformers sound that Nick found online.

All in all it was a short, but fun session and we wound up with a banger.  Check out more from Street Famous on their Facebook.

Steve Anderson

Engineer

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Every now and then we at Studio 11 get to work on some stuff outside of our norms. Recently I got to work with longtime Studio 11 client A-List on this short music video promoting home-town hero Derrick Rose. The video, containing tons of slick D. Rose highlights was cut together with an original track by A-List, and the results were quite uplifting!

A-List is always on the grind working on cool projects and has had weekly segments on 3 major cable networks.  Check out his you-tube channel for more of his work.

Steve Anderson

Engineer

We recently had our boy Kris Warren in the studio workin on some tracks.  Kris has really stepped up his game this year and has been busy making videos and traveling to promote his music.

Kris works with producers from all over, but recently has been working on tracks produced in Los Angeles and Chicago, hence the name of his upcoming project “From Chi to LA”

Here we get a peak at Kris working on a joint called “Run Tell That“, a track riddled with classic Chicago pimpery.  As you can hear, there are some female vocals performed by one of Kris’ go-to girls Amanda Cameron.  The beat is produced by once Chicagoan, now Angelino, Jomekka.

This was a simple record to record and mix.  Kris likes his stuff pretty natural sounding, so we kept his voice pretty dry, and saved most of the vocal effecting for Amanda’s parts.  Both vocalists were tracked through the Audio Technica At-4060 and the Manley VoxBox.  Amanda’s voice was wet up with the Waves Supertap Delay and some Sony Oxford plate reverb emulation.

Check out more from Kris at his website

Steve Anderson

Engineer

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In the studio this week was Green Light Gang, a west side Chicago collective of rappers and singers.

GLG has been coming to Studio 11 for years, sometimes solo dolo, other times with fellow west siders The Dutch Boys. Collectively their catalog is huge, and continues to grow.  These guys have a knack for finding cool and abnormal beats, which is really refreshing for us here considering how Soundclick has changed the game.

Here we get to see Taka, working on his new joint “Blow Minds Away“, to be released on GLG’s next project.  The song features a spaced out beat, a melodic hook, and a particularly “smokey” tone on the verses.  The half sung vocals on the hook  and uplifting feel of the beat help make this one a classic Chicago Lake Shore Drive ridin’ song.

Since the beat is still building in the beginning, we decided to start the song with an un-stacked hook to give listeners a taste of what is to come.  Once the drums enter, Taka starts his verse with a direct flow, working around the beat’s interesting rhythmic aspects, with the clap only falling on the “2,” similar to a lot of Dub Music.

On the vocal mix I used some of the newer Waves pluggins from the Hybrid Line, utilizing a variation on the tape delay preset from the H-Delay.  Taka’s vocals have a lot of life and dynamics on this track, and the beat had plenty of headroom, so I didn’t need to compress much…and the compression used was in parallel, using the Waves H-Comp.

Taka also has very present upper harmonics in his voice, so not much hi-shelving was needed, but I did have to do some low mid dip using the Sony Oxford GML eq.  In front of the eq is a Waves R-De-esser to tame the sibilance.

The goal on this mix was to achieve a laid back, un-aggressive sound while still capturing the energy and animation.  Be on the lookout for GLG’s next mixtape, coming soon.

Steve Anderson

Engineer

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For the first Studio 11 release on the Free Music Archive, we have featured James Curd of Greenskeepers and Ziggy Franklin: (Read The Full Story)

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Hot Mix 5 - WBMX - Chicago - From left to right (back): Scott "Smokin" Silz, Ralphie Rosario, Farley "Jackmaster" Funk; (front) Kenny "Jammin" Jason and Mickey "Mixin" Oliver.

Chicago has always been the hub for balance within dance music, best known for House and Industrial styles. While House music was the disco of the streets, Industrial followed and brought rock n’ roll to the dancefloor. The new era of Kompute kicks Chicago’s legacy up a notch with a strong regard for both.

“Disco Fresco” features dance music pioneers Alexander Robotnick and Scott “Smokin” Silz (Hot Mix 5) alongside Kompute visionary Matt Nee in a spicy blend of nouveau electro. Alexander Robotnick, heralded as the grandfather of italo disco lends his disco antics with his snaky voice and winding keyboard leads. To bring the whole track together we had some work cut out for us in the studio mixdown….

Here’s a few session notes:

For the wild and untamed voice of Mr. Robotnick, the Waves De-Esser was just the ticket. The vocal part, while deliberately slathered with sibilance warranted the objective of maintaining said sibilant EFFECT, without the associated ear-splitting sibilance. Our de-esser, Waves RCompressor, API 550 EQ, and the Oram-Trident (Console) EQ proved the perfect combination to tame unwanted dynamics while retaining desirable breath and air on the vocal.

Alexander Robotnick

Our big pow wow on mixdown landed on the keyboard break through the solo. Scott and Matt wanted the solo to stand tall in the mix. For sonics, I started with a DIGI delay to get a nice tail of ambience going. The solo has nice spacing between the notes thereby making delay an excellent choice. From there I cut to my trusty Fatso compressor for leveling. At the board I sprinkled a little aux out to the Sony R7 plate for a nice distant long tail. After some battling with the equalizer at the board we determined that something just wasn’t working. The track was too busy at the break. After pulling a few instruments, desired space was achieved and solo restored to towering stature.

All in all, the track sums up a classic 2011 Chi-Town Sound with a nod toward the classics that made Chicago great.

Stay Warm Chi-Town!
Clifford Notes
VISIT:
http://www.kompute.info
http://www.hotmixentertainment.com
http://www.robotnick.it

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Last Friday Studio 11 got a visit from one of our favorite clients, N.E.P.H.E.W.

NEPH is a real grinder who has put in a ton of work up here since 2005. I can recall a line from one of his earlier raps that went something like “I coulda bought a house the way I’ve been recording.” Its always a pleasure when NEPH rolls through, not just on a musical level, because a session with NEPH is sure to bring talks of politics, religion, the rap game, history, and a general look at life.

In this video blog, we get to peep N.E.P.H.E.W. working on a commercial joint called Pumpin’ That Bass. The track was produced by Florida hit maker Wreck Wregular, and as you can hear, its a banger. The hook came with the track, and features some really cool chopped and screwed vocals, some chants, and some high pitched vocal chops.

I tracked NEPH through the Audio Technica AT-4060 and the Manly VoxBox, which is an all tube signal path. On the vocal mix, I stuck to my old standbys, Renaissance De-Essers before hitting the Eq-3D night-pro, a unit famous for its high frequency “air” band. Once the lead vocal was tuned in and tamed, I added some filtering and delays on the ad-libs, and did some pan automation. Usually I use a heavy handed limiter on hip hop tracks, like the Waves L2, but it sounded a bit harsh on this record, so I ended up making it slam with the Sony Oxford limiter.

All in all it was a short, but really fun and productive session with a high energy track. NEPH’s music is available on itunes, amazon, and his website.

Follow N.E.P.H.E.W. on twitter @NEPHEWFROMTHEGO

Visit N.E.P.H.E.W. on the net at:
http://www.nephewfromthego.com/

Steve Anderson – Engineer

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Whats up Studio 11 Fans?

With all the hype around Rockie Fresh’s new mixtape, entitled The Otherside, it only makes sense that it was done right here at Studio 11.

Rockie’s whole project was produced by longtime Studio 11 clients, The Cartoonz, who have been more than busy up here lately, check back often for more of their gorgeous work.

The above record, “A.C. Green” is the intro to the mixtape, featuring a scratched Kanye West sample on the hook. The rest of the production is nice and eerie, with some low pass filtered drums, and lots of LFO swept pads. Considering its position on the mixtape, we went for a crystal clear, un-stacked lead vocal for Rockie. No doubles were used, nor does he have any ad-libs. To add some space to the vocal we threw on a darkened 1/8th note delay, and some Sony Oxford reverb. To tame a vocal mixed this loud, 2 de-essers were used at tuned frequencies to handle the sibilance.

Upon last checking in with Rockie and his management, “The Otherside” was approaching an amazing 30,000 downloads! I can say with confidence that this project was done the right way, top to bottom, with top notch production, perfected performance, stellar internet promotion, clean artwork, and of course, our engineering!

With the buzz started by this project, Rockie is sure to be out soon with a follow up, look out majors!

Follow Rockie on twitter @ROCKIEFRESH

Download the mixtape HERE

Steve Anderson-Engineer

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