Jimmy Douglass
Jimmy Douglass actually commenced his studio career while still attending high school, securing a job as a tape duplicator/editor at the Atlantic Records facility in New York. There he was able to observe legendary figures such as Tom Dowd, Jerry Wexler and Arif Mardin apply their skills to some now-historic recordings. Not a bad education for a novice. During the studioās downtime he also taught himself how to work the custom-made 16-channel console. Whatās more, when Douglass asked Wexler if he could use the facility to demo a band that heād discovered, he was given the green light. From Aretha Franklin, and Roberta Flack, to Jay-Z and Timbaland, heās come a long way since then, learning new techniques and adapting to widely contrasting approaches while flipping between R&B, rock, rap and hip hop. Sit down with a master of his craft at the 2005 Red Bull Music Academy.
Hosted by TOBY LAING Weāre very lucky to have him here today. Heās a busy man. He seems like he hasnāt stopped working in about 15 years. Heās taken the time to come over here and talk to us and we really appreciate that. Thank you. I guess what weāre here to talk about is that youāve been working in the industry for a long time, and what youāve experienced in that time. You started in the mid ā70s. JIMMY DOUGLASS [begins to talk but mic isnāt switched on] Oh, look at that. TOBY LAING Not the industry, you have to experience working in the industry, but more just working in the studio. JIMMY DOUGLASS Weāve got a few minutes, right? If you want to we can start by playing a few things. Is that alright? [āYeahā from audience] TOBY LAING Of course. JIMMY DOUGLASS Ahhhh. Thereās nothing new here, by the way, itās just the way itās put together thatās interesting. Iāll move along as I go, but for those of you who donāt know, Iāll just do this. People still let me do this by the way. [music doesnāt play] Aw, this sounds like nothing to me. (music: Missy Elliott ā āGet Ur Freak Onā) (music: Aaliyah ā āWe Need a Resolutionā) (music: N.E.R.D. ā āLapdanceā) (music: Nelly Furtado ā āTurn Off the Lightā / applause) JIMMY DOUGLASS That thing goes on for another hour actually. I just wanted to play a bunch of stuff because one of the things thatās really rewarding to me is that Iāve done all kinds of music. The world thinks I appeared suddenly with hip-hop, and Iāve been making records for a long fucking time. And Iād be willing to bet that Iāve made records that a lot of you probably were born to, if you catch my drift. Like your parents were digging the records and you guys came along. Get it? Itās a joke. [laughs] Thereās a group called Slave, back in the day. Are there any DJs here at all? AUDIENCE MEMBER Slave!? JIMMY DOUGLASS Yeah, I produced all that stuff. So Iām saying, I know some of yāall folks was rocking to Slave, and here you are. I donāt know what the interest of everybody here is, really. Itās probably very varied and diverse. And itās an international group, right? Thereās not a lot of, um, I guess, Iāll call āem boring old Americans. So I donāt really know what it is. I can speak to anything. Thatās one of my other traits. I know everything. And even if I donāt know about it, I can talk about it like I know about it. I would like to just be able to offer something that you guys could really latch onto. If anybody hears anything they really dig, say stop, go back, rewind, tell me more about that or whatever. I can talk about me if you like, I can talk about⦠TOBY LAING Well, yeah, I was going to start by talking about how you got into engineering but the thing is that you just played us all this hot music. So, how do you make hot music? I mean, itās from a long experience working in the studio, thatās what youāre drawing on. JIMMY DOUGLASS Itās from my background in the studio and itās funny, I kind of donāt talk about it that much anymore because it was in an era when things like this could happen and they donāt happen that much anymore. Technologyās changed, the whole worldās changed. But I started doing this when I was in high school in the ā70s. I kinda ended up at Atlantic Records [smiles bashfully], you know, Atlantic Records! I was going to school and I knew somebody in there and they were like, āJimmy, you got to be ready to go to college and youāre going to need a job, so letās get you this job now.ā And at that time, I didnāt even know what a studio was. And when I say studio, I donāt mean the little studios we have upstairs here, a little home joint. Iām talking about a studio. If there wasnāt a real big tape machine, and there wasnāt a big board and somebody with a lot of money, there was no studio. There was no such thing. So, it was a magical place. It was a magical time. When you walked in the doors it was like ā magical! When you walked in, youād look and youād just go āWow!ā I say that because now when Iām working Iām mixing, Iām mixing with my hands on the faders and somebody walks in theyāre like, āHey man, whatās up [mimes getting surprised and knocking the fader down]?ā Iām like, āYo man, Iām mixing!ā They donāt get it. They think youāre just there. They donāt understand youāre working because it doesnāt mean anything. Because now you can do it at home, so thereās not the same, I guess, urgency is the word. Thatās what I really miss, the urgency. No messing about. A magical land. You walk in and thereās somebody doing a vocal, and theyāre going to get it because theyāre not going to get a chance to come back and re-do it. Theyāre not going to get a chance to come back and recall it. You got to do it now. You got to get it right now. It kind of made, I guess, the artistry and the awareness of everybody involved, everybody was more on their toes and everything really meant a lot more. I think people cherished the moment more as well. In the studio, you really cherished it because you just couldnāt go in the studio. It was a lot of work to get into the studio, a lot of energy to convince a lot of people, or you had a lot of money. Anyway, that being said, I was just a kid doing my thing. I lived in the suburbs of New York City, and I played everything. I played guitar, I played keyboards, I was a player. [gestures at a turntable] This didnāt mean anything back in the day. A turntable meant nothing. A turntable was some place you played records, come on, letās face it, you know? And in terms of creating music there were no sequencers, so either you played or you didnāt. If you didn't play, you didnāt have music. It was a real simple concept. So you worked a little harder at practicing your craft, whether it be guitar, piano, whatever. If you liked music you had to play something. And a little singing. So anyway, I was doing that a with a lot of the local bands I was working with. So that was the music part. What it seemed like is whenever I worked with these bands, it always seemed like I was the guy that theyād always be asking all the questions to. As if I knew anything. I don't know, whatever it was, they would just always be asking questions. And I always knew how to make it sound good. You know, in America the gospel churches are a big reference for kids growing up. Especially the black urban kids. Itās like the gospel church. Every Sunday, we go. We sing, we jam. We get down, we have fun. You know, and we actually increase our music ability. So maybe all that was inside of me. I donāt know what it was, but anyway, when I got this gig, my job was to do one of two things. Atlantic Records was very big, they had the whole era of Aretha [Franklin], their golden era.And suddenly, you had the three owners, Ahmet Ertegun, you may have heard of him, he was in the āRay Charlesā story. Ahmet and his brother, Jerry Wexler. These were old guys; these were the pioneers of the record business. Up to that point, they had been doing all the stuff themselves. They listened to the records, they quality-controlled them, it was a handful of records. Then all of a sudden it got really big and they couldnāt do it, they needed a kid to do this shit for them. And one of the other things I did ā itās done differently now, you got all kinds of ways to do it now ā the internet and so forth. But when they made a record, pick any record... Anybody know who the Cream is, by the way? Letās pick the Cream. We had the Cream on that label. So what would happen is that Cream would have a record out over here, in America, and then in order to make a record you had to master them. I donāt know how far I can go with this? TOBY LAING Keep going. JIMMY DOUGLASS Really? OK. Anybody know what a piece of vinyl is? [laughter] OK. Seriously, because I came into this game when all this stuff existed and this was the state of the art. I knew how to do all this great stuff. I learned how to cut discs, to actually cut on a lathe, because thatās how you did it. Thatās how you got it out of the studio. Thatās how you got it to the consumer. When I learned all this stuff, I was like, āWow, I can cut a record.ā I could cut the actual acetate, which they would take to the plant and press and do all that shit. But there was a point to this and I lost it. I do that a lot by the way. AUDIENCE MEMBER The Cream. JIMMY DOUGLASS The Cream, there you go. The thing with the Cream was, you have Atlantic Records here, theyāre selling all these records here, but they need to come out in Italy, Germany, England and all the other countries, right? So what they did was, they couldnāt send them back because once you make a master out of the acetate, itās burnt, itās gone. So what they would do is they sent the actual tape copy of it over to those various countries and theyād make their own little acetates and send them to their own plants. So, my job was basically to send tape copies to all these countries of all their big hits. It was an interesting job because Iād come into work after school, and Iād put on all the fucking hits. Because they were making hits. And Iād be sitting there, this is my job. And Iād sit and listen to these hits and make a tape copy and get paid. And I liked that. That was very, very cool. And I got to hear also, the ones that werenāt the big hits. I got to hear Atlanticās catalog. At any record company, thereās a lot of records that donāt sell. You just never know about them, but there are. So I got a good learning experience with that. And the process of doing that ā Atlantic was very interesting. Back then, they had the whole office, I mean everything, there were a lot of people. And then in the back door, there were like two studios. And in this back door, Iāll never forget the night I got singed for this thing. I was doing the tape copy, and then I was like, āYo, they got this shit going on in the back. I donāt know whatās going on, but whatever it is...ā And I went back there, and there was Aretha singing. I mean, it was like the fucking band, everything. They were recording. And I was like, āThis is crazy.ā And the thing about doing a tape copy is, they came with two sides. You know, records have two sides? Well, the tapes were on two sides, so there was only so much physically you could fit on a tape. About 20 to 30 minutes. Twenty-five minutes. So you had to do side one and take the tape off and do side two. And so, in my task ā and remember I was supposed to be doing my homework ā that was the whole reason for me to be doing tape copies, so I could put the thing on and do the homework. But they didnāt tell me the part about all the shit going on in the back! So I was like, Iād put the tape on, start the copies, and Iād go āOk!ā And Iād run down the back. And Iād be there for 25, 30 minutes. Then Iād run back, change the side, and go back. And thatās what I started doing, you know? Iād do it every night. Put the tape copy on and go and see all these great sessions that were going on. And there was a guy, his name was Tommy Dowd. I donāt know if you know who he is. Thereās a movie out, I think itās called... āSomething About the Musicā Do you know what itās called? TOBY LAING Yeah, I know the movie, I don't know the name. JIMMY DOUGLASS Yeah, Tom Dowd. If you ever get a chance to see this, itāll blow your fucking mind. Iām serious. If you get the chance to see this movie, itās really dope. Itās about Tom Dowd, and he was so different. And matter of fact, Iām not saying this because I knew him. Iām saying this because when I saw the movie I was like ā I knew him, and I thought he was crazy. I thought he was on another planet. I saw the documentary, I was like, āWoah. This dude was in a whole ānother league.ā But anyway, he was the guy back there. And Iād go back and hang with him. You know, itās funny, we never really said much, Iād just watch him. Everybody would leave, and heād be left with the mixing or doing whatever he was doing, and Iād just sit and watch him. Iād just sit and watch him every night, just watch. And I never said a word, never wanted to be in the way, and eventually, I got to the point where I could almost tell what he was going to do. I could tell what he was going to use next or whatever. I started jumping up, Iād give him a patch cord. You know, they didnāt have assistants in those studios back in the day. It just wasnāt on that level yet. Everybody, you did what you had to do. Anyway, to fast forward a little bit, it became very nice and Tom was like, āThis kidās pretty [good], we got to give him some more shit to do.ā So they did. And like I said, I donāt really tell that story very much anymore because I think that opportunity doesnāt exist for a lot of people because everybody has everything now. Everybody and his brother make beats. Everybody and his brother make records. Everybody can do everything so itās kind of like the word has gotten out, and everybodyās standing at the barn door trying to beat it open so itās harder to get a break that way. So thereās that, and Iāll fast-forward to something thatās really interesting, it would be the fact that... Oh, I have a good one for you. One of the things I would do, I would actually go into the studio before I went to school in the morning because I saw Tom working the boards, and I wanted to know how to do it. But I didnāt ask him. You know, it was just one of those things. It didnāt seem right for me to ask him because I didnāt know enough, and I thought, āThis man doesnāt have time to tell you that shit, you just have to figure it out for yourself. And that way you can ask him the really good questions.ā And I did. Iād teach myself a little stuff, Iād see him, and then when I asked him a question, it was a question of quality and heād be like, āOh!ā And Iām like, "Thatās how itās supposed to be. Iām not wasting your time. I got this, I want the good shit now!" So anyway, we were doing that for a while, and they still never recognized me. They wouldnāt let me in. I was a kid in school. You know how they treat you up there. Theyāre just like, āYouāre just a kid in school.ā And then one day, all the quote-unquote big time engineers in the house ā now Iād been going in every morning and messing with the stuff and I figured out how to do it and I could do it pretty good. And they let me use all their demos in the house, so I was getting pretty good. But they still didnāt trust you. They donāt trust, you know, when youāre young like that? People donāt trust you, they just think that you donāt learn. Kind of like how I do with kids now. [laughs] So this one day all the engineers had gone, I donāt know where the hell they had gone and all of a sudden a Jimmy Page shows up and he wants to do something, and thereās nobody there. Just me. So you have what you have, you have the record company, all the big honcho heavies and theyāre all freaking out because Jimmy Page showed up. My god! And he wants to do something and they donāt have anybody and theyāre like, āOh my god! Listen, hereās what you do. Can you just like go in there with him, and just watch until the real guys come back, donāt worry about it. Weāll bail you out.ā And Iām like, āCool, I can do this, man.ā See thatās the thing. I could do it. So I was like, I wasnāt even sweating like that. And one of the reasons I wasnāt sweating it was because I loved Hendrix. I thought Jimmy Page was alright but I thought Hendrix was better. So I was like, āOK, it aināt like Hendrix walked in the door.ā You know what I mean? [laughs] So we were in there, were doing this thing, and he had like ten reels of solos on two-track tape. Thatās what he had, like ten reels. And I was like, āThis is crazy!ā And theyāre just like solos. And weāre sitting there and he goes, āI want to make a solo out of this.ā And Iām like, āYou want to make a solo out of this?ā And we sat there, and we ran through these reels and we were just chopping little bits out. Little pieces. And putting them there. And we had it done and it was a solo. But it was a solo that was collected out of, he went in the studio and just went nuts. Instead of actually trying to create a solo for a song, he went in the studio and just had tape running, and was just doing all kinds of great ideas. And I actually thought this was brilliant. A brilliant way to put something together. And we snipped them all together, boom. And we stuck it in the middle of āHeartbreaker,ā that was the record. And one of the reasons thatās really interesting to me, Iāll never forget this because I was excited as hell. So I go back to the hood, to my whatever, and I tell my boys, āYeah man, I got to work with Jimmy Page, the whole nine,ā you know? This was an era, when you did a record, it could be out the next week. It wasnāt the same traffic jam you have now. Now you do a record and it wonāt come out until next year or something, right? It was like the moment you did a record, they could literally have it on the radio the next day and out on the street like that. So the thing is like a week later or two, I think the album came out. It came out and there it was. And what was really funny, was all of my friends was copying the solo. But when I did this solo, I made this one edit. It went [mimes playing guitar fret board] da na na, da na na TICK. The little tick was there and it was a bad edit. And I said to Jimmy, āAw man, want me to do it again?ā And he goes, āNah man, leave it, itās great.ā And I was like, āOK!ā And the thing that was really funny was that all my friends who were listening and trying to copy the solo were going [hums and mimes guitar playing] ba na na na da na na na TICK! And I was like, āThatās a fucking edit!ā [laughs] Anyway, I thought that was funny. TOBY LAING Can I just ask you out of interest, tape editingās something thatās completely foreign to us, you know? Iām interested to know how you actually do that stuff in time. How many bits of tape were strung together for that solo? How many little bits? JIMMY DOUGLASS [laughs] I donāt remember. TOBY LAING A lot. JIMMY DOUGLASS Well, the thing about tape thatās interesting ā and this is what makes it interesting for me now. Because with the digital technology, which is available to you, thereās non-destructive editing, right? You can do what you want to do and if you donāt like it, you take it back. When youāre working with tape, when you cut the tape, if you were wrong, one of two things would happen. Youād have to re-cut it again ā or, if you happened to cut it too short, you got to find the piece on the floor that belonged there and put it back and stick tape there. And the thing is, you had to do this and you had to put the pieces back, and every time you cut tape, it actually would physically make a little noise because it was taut and youād take a razor blade and youāre actually cutting the magnetism and something happens at that point. Tape was really difficult, but it was the medium that you worked with. But it gives me such a different outlook on the digital editing. I donāt know, I canāt describe it. TOBY LAING You just wind the tape over the heads until you found the place? JIMMY DOUGLASS You wind the tape over the heads. Well, itās like this [gestures at the CD deck] Imagine if you would like when you... [cues the CD in the deck, rubbing the cue point back and forth]. Thatās all you had. Youād see the meters and youād go, āThatās a kick drum.ā And Iād go, āOK, thereās a kick.ā And Iād cut it, or Iād put a little mark, and then Iād go to the next section where I wanted a kick drum, and Iād do the same thing. You scrub it, and you go, āThatās a kick drum.ā And you cut āem together ā pull the piece out the middle, stick them together, put some tape on it, and you sit back and you hope that it works. We had a little trick too. We did edits. Sometimes, youād do an edit and youād mess the tape up a little bit, like if it crinkles the edge of the tape or something, it would always make a little noise that wasnāt really, really clean. Like, you probably couldnāt hear it but if you really worked on it, you could hear it. So I had this thing, like if you did it enough times, and it wasnāt going to work and you just knew it wasnāt going to work. If it was close enough, youād make a little edit, and during the playback when everybodyās in the room youād just go, āYeah.ā [nods head to imaginary beat before making sudden coughing noise] And theyād be like, āYeah, that was good!ā [laughter] Youād use these little tricks, you know? TOBY LAING After the point when you did the session with Jimmy Page, did things change for you? JIMMY DOUGLASS After the session with Jimmy Page, I retired. I said, āThatās it. Iām never doing this again. Iām done.ā [laughs] No, nothing really changed believe it or not. People are just so weird. It changed for me because it felt good. Itās great, but life went on. The thing was, I was still going to school. They had this issue with that. A year or two later, I switched over to college, but they were still dogging me. They wouldnāt just let me do my shit. One of the things that happened for me was groups would come and find me. To go in the studio and do a multi-track recording, it was really, really [hard]. You had to know somebody or have a lot of money or whatever. I was just out there waiting for people to come. This group from Boston came down. They heard about something, they found me. Nobody in the record company would talk to them. And Iām around, and I lived across the street. I had the keys to the studio because they just let me. When they found me, they were playing this stuff, and I was like, āThat shit is crazy, man!ā First, I saw this group on the street and they were playing acoustic stuff and they sounded like Crosby, Stills & Nash. They were really dope, so I took them in the studios and we did a demo. And I was producing the demo, and it was all good. The stuff was really good and the stuff was really great, and I got an answer from the record company which really⦠I learned a lot by being in the studio and working at a record company because the answers I got were record company-related as well as studio-related. And the record company said, āWow, it sounds really good, and theyāre alright.ā And I said, āTheyāre alright!? They sound like Crosby, Stills & Nash.ā And they said, āWe have Crosby, Stills & Nash.ā To me, it was like, āWhat are you talking about?ā But I understand today, itās like, they have the real guy. Why would they sign an imitator? But they kept saying, āGeez, this stuff sounds really good!ā I wanted to be a producer, thatās my thing. Fast-forward, I found another band, and once again, the same thing. āThis stuff sounds really good. We like the songs, the band we donāt care for much at all.ā So basically, at some point, they decided that, āWow, this guy gets some good sounds.ā And my thing was like, āWhatever it is that allows you to pay me to come in, Iāll be that.ā I knew what I wanted to do, but if that was a way to get there, then so be it. A lot of the bands that would come in ā not the bigger acts, but a lot of demo bands, they had no producer. You know, the producer back in the day, like I was saying, you were in this room where it was magic. When you saw a big console and there was no Mix Magazine or EQ, whatever the hell you read that tells you, āOh yeah, he did this, he does this.ā It was just, there was a room with some microphones and a big ass board, and what do you do? You depend on the guy thatās running it to take you through it because otherwise youāre not going to get anything done and thatās kind of the way it works. So a lot of bands would come in, and theyād be doing their thing and theyād really rely on you. The man behind the seat was really in charge. I mean, you could really screw a record up. Really badly. And thereās nothing anybody could do about it. If you were terrible. I used to think I could really make it work, or if you were a real dick you could fuck it up really bad for people. And I always thought, āWoooow, thatās important.ā But at the same time, one of my things that Iāve always maintained ā because I play everything and I sing a little bit ā I always thought, āIf you come in here, in this studio, and you canāt play better than me, and you canāt sing better than me, then you probably donāt belong here.ā This is just my attitude about things. Iām not trying to put people down, but I worked hard to get this, to do this, and I donāt think Iām good enough. I donāt think Iām the shit to be an artist necessarily. So if you walk in that door, I think you should have done a little more work than I have. I shouldnāt be able to pick up your guitar to show you a chord that you said didnāt exist because this happens a lot. I go, āWhy donāt you play a dissonant version?ā And they go, āOh, thereās no version like that.ā āOhhh, no you didnāt say that...?ā And I walk out there and I go, āWhat about a dissonant version?ā And I pick it up and I play PLONGGG [and they react] like, āOh! See, you donāt belong here. I canāt get the best out of you if you canāt do more than I can do because I can do this and I can do this really well and I can help you do what you do even better if weāre all on the same wavelength and weāre all professional and weāre going to go to the next level. Back in the day, there was this guy named Chuck Rainey. Heās the guy on bass⦠[to audience] You ever hear of Sanford and Son? Youāve never heard of Sanford and Son? [imitates bassline] This guy Chuck Rainey actually invented that style of playing. The last thing I was officially was a bass player before I decided, āIām going to be head engineer now.ā But I remember walking into Atlantic Studios, and he was playing the fuck out of the bass. And I was going, āHoly shit! This dude is unbelievable!ā And all I remember thinking to myself, I was like, āYou know what? I can work and try to get as good as him,ā and I thought, āYeah, but by the time you get there, heās going to go to the next level. Youāre always going to be chasing him.ā Thatās what I thought. Thatās one of the things that led me to think about being behind the glass instead of in front of the glass. But it also set my mindset for what I thought a musician was. I mean, I think if youāre going to call yourself a musician, you really need to work hard and you need to do your homework. Thatās what itās really about. And I can fast-forward you on that. Today, I have a definite view on that with modern technology. I mean, if people arenāt playing instruments, thereās still homework to be done. You got to know your shit. OK, if youāre going to be a beatmaker, you got to know your samples, you got to know your references. You gotta! You canāt not do it. You canāt just be walking and go, āAwww [mimes fiddling with buttons]. Hey, Iām a beatmaker!ā Sorry! You got to know some stuff. You got to know that when I say, āThatās really cool but I need something really, I donāt know, from Chuckie D or something.ā You got to know what Iām talking about. We got to know where weāre going; otherwise weāll never get anything accomplished, you know what I mean? Iāll go further on that. But I really believe that whatever you do, I donāt care what youāre doing, I donāt care if youāre the turntable master, you got to be the master. You got to do it well. Toby Laing Youāre talking about, the role of the producer has changed. Back, it was about getting a good sound. You got a bunch of great musicians and you made them sound good. And I mean... Jimmy Douglass Well also, no, and also, you would insert into what theyāre doing ideas that would make their whole concept sound better. Like, āHey, gee.ā Vocals is another good example. Right now everybody is one track, one vocal, you can do it forever. Everybody has a thousand vocals on their records, and itās like, āJesus Christ, it just sounds like a thousand vocals on the record. Thereās no life in it.ā But when the technology had it that you were limited. Thereās a formula, by the way. One of the formulas works like this: One of the worst things that can happen to you is if you have an album that has no budget, and no time limit. No, not no budget, unlimited budget. If you have unlimited budget and no time limit, youāre dead. Thatās like a Michael Jackson scenario, and thatās what he does. The guy, he goes in and he makes 15, 20 albums, for five years, because thereās no restraints of anything. Itās kind of the same thing. If youāre in a studio, and you have X amount of dollars, and you have X amount of time, and everything is ticking, and suddenly youāre doing a background part, and thereās four people there, itās like, āWeāre going to do this all together, right now.ā You know what Iām trying to say? Because we have to, and it has to come out right. Toby Laing The creativity just thriving on the limitations, and the parameters that are set by it. Jimmy Douglass And itās creating another way of doing things for that reason a lot. A lot of the things that I would do is like, people would do stuff, and theyād leave, and it would just be in a very basic form. Then when I was mixing it, I would do all kinds of little tricks. Iād play around and throw stuff on this, and throw stuff on that, just to make it come to the next level. It seems that Iāve learned to see that, because everything is so available and so easy, people expect you to do that all the time. Just to do it. Quite honestly, half the stuff that I hear, the effects and stuff, Iām like... Maybe because Iāve worked my ass off to be able to create effects. The thing, to actually create a flanger. Which, I made a flanger happen. I got to tell you, it sounds so different than that crap you buy as a plug-in. Theyāre day and night. I canāt even tell you. What happens to me is, I listen to this stuff, and I go, āWhy is that on there?ā AUDIENCE MEMBER How do you make your flanger? JIMMY DOUGLASS How did I used to, you mean? Because right now I use an MXR box. But, back in the day ā I think this is very interesting. Nobody knows what a flanger is, do you? Nobody even knows what tape is, so you couldnāt possibly know what a flanger is. So Iāll give you an example. So back in the day ā [takes the two slipmats from the turntables] these will represent two metal plates. Youāve seen tape, right? Like this, the two metal things around it, little holes in it and the tape goes around. But, when I came into the game, to buy it in that form with the screws in it, it costs more money. So when you bought it from the manufacturer, you bought the actual piece of tape. With no flanges on it. So you had to hold it like this [mimes pinching together the reel of tape]. Because if you held it wrong the shit would fall out of your hands. And then, when you put it on the tape machine, youād put one flange down, it was called a pancake. Youād put the pancake of tape there. You put the fuckinā thing there, and there you go. You clamp it down, and now you got a reel of tape. OK, these things are called flanges, right? [waves a slipmat] Theyāre metal. Pay no attention to the fact theyāre bending; itās really metal. So, what you do when you do flanging? What flanging is, when you send two signals out together and theyāre running side by side, they create a sort of a phasing sound, right? Like even with turntables, you run them together, you hear that. But itās digital, it doesnāt sound nice. But you do it with tape, it sounds nice. It just does, itās just the variable. Now what you do when you have flanging, you have the original source here, right? Then you send it to another tape machine there, and another tape machine here. So now we got three tape machines, thatās what we had. Tape was the medium we had. I sent the signal through both tape machines, equal level, and then I put them both on playback. So, as Iām sending it through, youāre listening to the playback of the tape machine and I receive it on another tape machine. So Iāve got four tape machines running to do this thing. And basically, what you do is, as itās running, the way you vary it is by touching the flange. And as it changes speed it goes wahhhhhhhh. And you can stand there all day. And what comes out, comes out. Itās really like that. Itās so variable. One record I did, a group called Foreigner, you might know them, theyāre from back in the day, a rock & roll group. Foreigner had āCold As Ice,ā I know you guys have heard āCold As Ice,ā right? āJukebox Hero,ā et cetera. They had this one record where they had mixed it before I came and redid it again. And in the middle, there was this one flange section for the toms, and man, I tell you it went BOOM. And it really went low, and really went high. And it was just so lovely. And when we were doing it, I had to try to recreate that one. I didnāt get that exact same thing, I got something else, but I stood there, it was like four hours. I tried. We stood there for four hours. And thatās the beauty of a real flange. Itās so⦠whatās the word? Unpredictable. AUDIENCE MEMBER What did you think about the original reverb machine, where they had the steering wheel? And I guess they turned it like that? What is that? JIMMY DOUGLASS Youāre talking about, that would be like a plate, an EMT plate or something. And what that steering wheel represented was a way to change the decay time. Like, inside of the reverb thing youād have the big box. You have the plate, and then you have the microphone and the speaker inside. So all theyāre doing when theyāre turning that wheel, theyāre moving the distance, that changes the reverb time. It looks impressive but thatās all it was. It couldāve been a knob. AUDIENCE MEMBER Do you think that way of reverb is better than a plug-in reverb? JIMMY DOUGLASS Oh, hell yeah. Are you kidding? Whenever I go back in the studio, if I can get a real plate, I definitely use it. And even if I donāt use that, Iāll use a nice expensive⦠Sony has a reverb thatās really thick and really lush. Itās the 777, which you can sample. Those plug-ins, theyāre alright, theyāre good, but they just sound so clean. Audience Member I notice what sounded to me like tape bleed on some rap records that youāve made. Maybe you could talk a little bit about using tape on the rap stuff, and in a modern setting. Jimmy Douglass Actually, in the last two years I stopped using tape. On a lot of those records I was playing I was using tape right up through the... I was doing things like, for the tracking, I was definitely using the tape. Thatās how I was getting that thick, fat kind of sound. People use compressors and stuff to get bottom-end, but if you go to tape, you get natural tape compression. Once again, this is one of those things I didnāt know, because I didnāt read it in a book. Itās just something I found out because I would do it. Because the thing is, nobody taught me how to do it. Everything I was doing, I was just kind of doing to get through my job. Suddenly, the guy is playing the kick, and itās fucking hitting the tape hard. Iām going, āAh, I donāt know what to do about this.ā But it was all right, it got away with it this time. After I while, I was like, āOh, I like it when itās like that.ā Later on, as time went on, people started reading and telling me, āYou know, what youāre doing is tape compression.ā Iām like, āOh, thank-you, I didnāt know.ā I really didnāt know. Iām one of those engineers thatās ignorant by textbook. A lot of the stuff I know, a lot of different microphones I know what they sound like. I know what they sound like because I had the choice of using them and having them in front of me. Audience Member So youāre tracking with drum machines and tape, or you were. Jimmy Douglass No, I was definitely tracking that stuff to tape. If you want the real secret, Iāll tell you the real secret. I aināt shy. A lot of that stuff is really an ASR-10 through a Neve console, through tape. Just pounding the shit out of it. Seriously, just hitting it so hard, right before distortion, and it comes back sounding just, it comes back sounding like that. Because Iāve taken it off, and Iāve tried, and it just doesnāt sound the same. AUDIENCE MEMBER Iāve heard a lot of different stories about the relationship between the songwriters and producers. Particularly in the projects that youāve worked on, what has your relationship been to somebody whoād come and say, āYo, I have this rhyme, letās make a track,ā or do people bring you tracks? What is your role as a producer? Are you generally very, very involved in the sound, or you like to be very involved or it depends on who brings you what? JIMMY DOUGLASS Well, you know, itās interesting. Iāll get into the producer thing right about now because one of the reasons I have a really successful relationship with Timbalandjust is the fact that I spent a lot of years producing records because there was nobody else there. And I work with great singers. Thereās no doubt about it. You know, itās funny, every time I mention somebody Iām like, āOh, you guys donāt know these people.ā This was years ago. Thereās a singer called Donny Hathaway...[lots of people call out āYeahā in recognition] AUDIENCE MEMBER Aw, come on... give us a little credit. [_laughs _] JIMMY DOUGLASS Well, I donāt know! But you asked me about one of the earlier things I did. Donny was signed to the label. They decided, āYou can work with Donny.ā I was working with Donny all the time. So me and Donny was working together. You know, heād work with the band and weād been doing overdubs and our mixing and that was what we were doing. But I didnāt really get it like that. It was like, he was cool. It was great to hear him sing, the guy was a genius. No doubt about it. Working with him, people like Roberta Flack, Aretha. Your ears get tuned to this great stuff, no doubt about it. These people were not playing. They didnāt take a long time, they didnāt do a thousand takes, they didnāt punch in a million little things. They did their thing. And you got to hear what doing your thing sounds like. And once you sort of reference your ears to what that is, when you work with other people, itās a little easier to help them to try to get on that particular track. So, I spent a lot of years producing records for people simply because there wasnāt a producer there. And I knew better, and I could do it well, and it sounded good. What happens is, fast forward to the hip-hop era, you have an era where you have a Timbaland and a Missy, for instance. And Tim makes great beats, and he knows what sounds really good on vocals and stuff, but he doesnāt have the patience to want to sit in there and do the vocals. But Iāve done this all my life because Iāve produced records. So I do that. So he does his thing, or Missy will write the song, or even Aaliyah is a good example. āOne in a Million,ā letās take that specifically. Timbaland did the beat, we did it in Detroit I think and it was just a demo. And the beat remained in the sequencer, it wasnāt to tape yet. When the deal went down, they said, āThis will be great, weāll do this with Aaliyah.ā So we go in the studio, we track it out, we do all the great stuff to make it really thick and really fat and really warm, and then Missy, of course, had written the song. And when Missy writes a song, she will write the song with all the parts perfectly executed. We were up in this place called Rochester for a lot of years before they broke out, weād be doing demos all the time, and she would sit there for four or five hours on a vocal. Iām going, āMissy, whoās the song for?ā [Sheād reply,] āI donāt know, it aināt for me!ā āThen why are you fucking spending all this time making everything so perfect?ā I get it! I donāt feel like spending all this time sitting here pushing buttons because it was analog. I donāt feel like sitting here punching in all day. But thatās how she does her work. Fast forward to Aaliyah. So now, Missyās already laid all the parts, how every single thing should go. And then Missy disappears because she doesnāt want to deal with it. So I sit there with Aaliyah, we sit there and we match her parts. Thereās an art to doing it. Obviously, itās got to be done well. Thatās the kind of stuff that I would do that they didnāt want to do. They would have me there while they would be doing whatever they do. Thatās kind of how that relationship works. With a rapper, itās more like, āHereās a beat.ā If you want to talk about Jay-Z, Jay-Zās cool. He just walks around the room and just starts⦠Heās crazy, man, I love him. Mad respect to this dude. Heās probably one of the best out there. But also as a human being. Heāll walk around the studio and just start talking. Heāll just start saying a word or two, just kind of walking around the corners and stuff. And then heāll go, āOK, Iām ready.ā Heāll just start spitting a verse or half a verse, heāll just start doing it and youāre like, āOh god.ā And heāll go, āPlay some more,ā and youāll play some more and heāll do the same thing. Then he says, āIāll come back tomorrow and do the rest.ā Itās not like he sits and laboriously writes it out. He vibes it. And thatās how that relationship goes. I donāt know. Was that interesting? [laughs] AUDIENCE MEMBER Do a lot of people hang out for the sweetening and the little things that I would say are the work of a producer? The little things that make a track have power. JIMMY DOUGLASS Do they hang out? AUDIENCE MEMBER Are they with you in the studio side by side? Or is it a lot of people just say, āAlright, have fun, go and finish the trackā? JIMMY DOUGLASS It depends on who you are and what level of the chain youāre on. At the level of the chain Iām on right now, no. [smiles] Visitors are not welcome. No, really! Because itās a distraction, and I mean itās just weird. But you know, itās such a hard question because you never know when people are actually contributing or detracting from the actual process. It is so difficult to know. So, in general, weāve decided that people who arenāt a part of it really shouldnāt be there. And youāll hear it when itās done and weāll listen to your comments then. Otherwise, everybodyās got something to say about something. Audience Member Hello. You were discussing the difference between analog and digital processing production. Recently, I was doing music with a friend, and he was like, āI have this new Native Instruments reverb,ā or DC Native reverb. I donāt know. Jimmy Douglass OK, I canāt really hear you. Audience Member I was telling him I was doing music with a friend, and he goes like āI have this new DC Native reverb.ā Jimmy Douglass Oh, Native? Audience Member Very good, and he plugs it, and it chugs up like 20 percent of the processing from the computer. And at that time I tell him look, whatās the purpose of the reverb? You know, give space. Make it spatial. Spacious, whatever. Iām like well, you have this shitty reverb here that doesnāt take 20 percent, so you were talking about the difference between analog flanger being warmer and all, and I can really get that, but most of the times, isnāt this supposed to be just like aesthetic and understandable as an effect? You know what Iām saying? To what extent is it really important for you to be using all the best sounding technology all the time if the purpose it serves is just like to give details, not actually the whole idea of a song? Jimmy Douglass Iāve got a rack of all kinds of shit, and lately Iāve been using a lot of plugins, but Iāve still got great vintage gear. You know, Iāve collected it, and itās really nice, but Iāve also got an Alesis Qudraverb. You know the old Quadraverb, that old little shitty box? I use it all the time, especially if I want some chorus. No other box for me will do. Itās something about the way how crappy it sounds. Itās just so ... The bittage, itās low bittage. Itās like low resolution, and to me it kind of, maybe it acts as tape in my head. I donāt know, against the digital. I donāt know. Maybe thatās what Iām thinking, but that resolution is what I want. And then on the other hand, you get a vocalist that want to be heard very clearly, and you canāt use that on the vocal. Itāll make it sound kind of muffle-y and dull-y perhaps. Every one them has its own particular purpose depending on what youāre doing, and I donāt think that you can say what you said would always be the case. What I would do in that case, if I really wanted the good reverb like you said, and it was using up all the power, Iād print it and then take it off the plugin, and then now youāve taken care of that problem. Audience Member Yeah, but weāre not producing Donny Hathway or anything like that, weāre just doing a track. Jimmy Douglass Youāre talking about simple stuff. Audience Member Yeah. Sometimes thereās just no need. I donāt know to what extent you agree with this, but it all depends on what youāre trying to do, right? Jimmy Douglass Absolutely. Audience Member You donāt have to take such an existentialist stance, defending vintage and all that, because sometimes you just donāt need to. Also, another question I have for you. Do you think that it is possible in digital technology and digital producing, that as long as you have the least required quality of sound, you can work on it enough until it gets to a point where itās good, or do you think it will always be cheaper? Toby Laing Thatās a hard question. No, thereās no such thing, because when you listen to records and you listen to what sells and what doesnāt sell, thereās no such thing. People have a damn 808 and theyāre selling records, so whoās to say anymore. I mean, the one thing thatās really happened for me listening to whatās going on is, like, there are no rules, and you know what? Itās always been that for me. Iāve always worked that way. Iāve always said thereās no rules. Whenever somebody walks in the door and tells me whatās got to happen, weāre going to have a problem, because maybe thatās what they want to happen, but maybe I donāt see it that way. Maybe I canāt deliver it today. Maybe I canāt deliver what you want. Maybe what you want is not really right for that. How about if we just like have an open mind and letās see where the journey takes us? To me, thatās when creativity happens at its best, so I donāt know. I donāt think so. AUDIENCE MEMBER Iām just curious because Iām a big fan of Donny Hathaway, and Iām curious as to how he worked in the studio. JIMMY DOUGLASS You know, if you talk about those people, itās not very exciting at all. I mean it in a real sense, it was real simple. Hereās a man with a golden voice, hereās a man who plays, he plays great. You got that left hand on that Rhodes, that heavy gon-ka-ka-ka-kon, you know? He had a style, he sang great. They bring a rhythm section around him, sometimes some strings. He also arranged a lot of his strings and horns by the way. He was an arranger. The guy was ridiculous. When you say exciting, it wasnāt exciting like that. What was exciting was to watch Donny in the studio while youāre recording, do a song for you. And heās singing it while heās playing. Thatās exciting. The take is happening, and youāre going, āThis is fucking great. This is unbelievable.ā At that point, it isnāt about selling records, it feels like this dude came here to entertain me. I mean that. With Aretha, it would be me and her in the room alone, and Iām sitting there and Iād watch her. Sheād go, āLaaaa,ā [imitates Aretha belting out a tune] and Iād sit there and go, āThis is great. She came here to entertain me in my living room.ā You know what I mean? It was a lot simpler. I think because of our processes of recording and all of our choices we have now, all the quote-unquote, clever stuff. People walk in with these preconceived concepts. āWeāre going to do this, weāre going to do this.ā You want it to be such a big event that many times it supersedes the actual creativity, which many times is so simple. Most of the biggest records are the simplest records when you really listen to them. Eras come and go, the funk era, disco, early hip-hop, when you listen to records that really happened, theyāre all simple. Simple bassline, a part inside of it, a simple little line, a simple little hook. Those are the records. I guess itās our nature. And then you have records that arenāt so simple, like āCry Me A River.ā Thatās more of a production. Itās a great production. But thereās lots of records like that which are never going to see the light of day because theyāre just too presumptuous of how great theyāre going to be. You know, one word says it all. AUDIENCE MEMBER Do you think expectation is a turn-off for creativity? JIMMY DOUGLASS It is for me. Because youāre trying to tell me what I have to do. And you know, this is just individual. Thereās engineers I know that could do this to the tee. Itās almost like sampling, and knowing all your samples on record. [adjusting microphone] Thereās engineers who listen to records and they go, āHe used the 480.ā And Iām listening and going, āI got to be honest, I canāt quite tell you what he used. I donāt know, I canāt hear it like that.ā But then I see beatmakers and stuff, they do the same thing. They listen to a record and they go, āHe used a snare from Mary J Blige!ā Iām like, āAhhhh, I donāt know how to hear it like that.ā I only know how to hear very linear-ly. I go from here to there, and I can hear it. I donāt really pick out pieces and go, āThatās on that record.ā There are people that are really good at it, and to me, thatās an art. Itās an art that I donāt really understand. Iāll give you a good example. Thereās a record called āMoney Aināt a Thingā by Jay-Z and Jermaine Dupri. [sings the bassline] Thereās this thing with me and Timbaland. Heās got his thing going on, and I have my day making beats or working with the band. With Slave and stuff. But we have these little things, like, āYou know! You donāt know!ā kind of stuff. Heās always like, āThat shit was cool but it aināt hitting like that stuff now.ā Whatever. So, I remember when that video came on, and it was him and I donāt remember who else was in the room, and Iām listening to the track and they had the claps and stuff, and theyāre going, āThis is dope here.ā And Iām listening and I think, āThat sounds like some shit I would do, I donāt know why you say thatās dope. That sounds just like the shit you say is boring with me.ā Fast-forward, I donāt think about it. And then one day, heās going through records and he goes, āI got it! I found the āMoney Aināt a Thingā record!ā And he goes [mimics playing the sample on a drum machine pad], āBa-doom, makes you weak at the kneesā¦ā And it was my fucking record! I couldnāt even hear it, inside of that, because I wasnāt listening for that. I was listening to the merit of what the fucking record was. And then when I listened I was like, āYouāre such an idiot.ā And then, of course, I checked it, and everything had been cleared, everything was done and it was mine, but I donāt hear records like that. I just donāt have the ability. I hear a record that goes from here ā give me four bars, thatās what I hear. I hear a piece of creativity. I donāt hear a speck of a particular sound. But that to me is the same thing as adding different reverbs and adding different stuff like youāre saying. And Iām quite impressed when people can do that. Because thatās what I call homework in the new era. If weāre using these instruments, these samples or whatever. You know, the turntableās now an instrument. Letās face it. At first, I balked. At first, I laughed. Hereās a guy who plays. I can do all this stuff. I can do this. You didnāt bother to do any of that stuff and your instant gratification! I got over that, I was realizing you know what? They dig up some pretty hot stuff, man. Theyāre digging up some pretty hot little pieces, and theyāre working them around quite nice, and thereās some people that have really good⦠Actually Timbaland is a great example. He has a really great ear for old records and picking the good shit out. He really, really does and I canāt front on him. Like I said, thatās an ear that I would love to be able to have. Toby Laing Musicianshipās changed a lot over the years, but new skills have come about. Thereās different techniques now, and also like working quickly, editing quickly are just as important now in the modern studio. I mean, you got to work faster, or you got to ... Jimmy Douglass No, you donāt have to work faster, and you know, itās really interesting. The adage when I was coming up was. The word adage means like you know the phrase: āYou never write in the studio.ā It was too expensive. You couldnāt have a band come in, play your stuff, and then sit around and write the song. It just was too expensive, so there was like you donāt write in the studio. Flip it to now. You write in the studio, because the studio is. Your demo is now your master, if you do it right. And to me thatās one of the pluses of modern technology. It really is a great plus that you can always go back and put the stuff together. You know, thereās a period like in the early ā80s when this all wasnāt together yet, and they had ... I had moved. I think I had got an eight-track in my crib where you can work at home. āYeah, I have an eight-track, wooh!ā And they had little reverbs and stuff. And then they had this thing called a Portastudio, and what it was was it was a cassette deck, and it had like four tracks on it, and so this is as close as you could get without having to use a big eight-track and all that tape, and all that other stuff, to just putting ideas down. And the only thing about that that I look at as like if⦠Because what I would do is Iād play a couple ideas and Iād go thatās a good idea. When I get to find a band and everything, Iāll make it better da, da, da, and then I have different melodies running. I would just run by the rehearsals basically. I wasnāt able to really cut them together, because Iād have to go into the studio, put them together, edit them, and a couple ideas, but by that time it became very laborious, so a lot of the great ideas and stuff that I have, itās still sitting there, whereas when you do it now in digital medium, Logic, whatever the hell, Cubase, whatever you use, you can do it instantly. You have one idea? You have another idea? You put them together instantly. Right away youāre moving along to the next level. I think thatās what makes it great now. What I donāt think makes it great is the fact that nobody bothers to take the time to really think about what theyāre saying, because they donāt have to. AUDIENCE MEMBER Youāre talking about ProTools and stuff like that. Well, where Iām from, in St. Louis, you can go to a studio with your stuff dropped down in ProTools, some of them may not even take it. Theyāre like, āOh man, you already got it dropped.ā They wonāt make enough money. They make sure they take super long even if you already got it dropped. Just real trickery-type stuff. Were there a lot of slick cats doing stuff like that back then? JIMMY DOUGLASS When you say dropped, what do you mean by that? AUDIENCE MEMBER Say, for instance, I had a song and I dropped it into a ProTools session and carried it to the studio, some engineers wonāt even take it because I guess they feel like itās a waste of their time. Iām not wasting enough time for them to make money. Thatās just how it is. JIMMY DOUGLASS Do you have a ProTools system? AUDIENCE MEMBER Yeah. JIMMY DOUGLASS So why are you going to the studio? Youāre in the studio. AUDIENCE MEMBER Because I want their sound. JIMMY DOUGLASS So basically, youāre going for the show? AUDIENCE MEMBER [laughs] I donāt know. Youāve got to explain that to me. JIMMY DOUGLASS This is something, I go through this with my cohorts or whatever. You got all the equipment, you got yourself a nice little near field set of speakers, you basically got it going on. But I notice when we, I call it wasting money in the studio, weāre paying some guy all this money so we can hear the speakers loud. And Iām like, āI own everything that he owns, I can do this at home.ā I donāt have the ability to have the circus and the show. And basically, people come for the circus and the show. And that is really the truth. Do I lie? Do I lie? [mic gets passed through the audience] JEREMY HARDING My nameās Jeremy Harding, Iām Sean Paulās producer and manager, and Iām speaking here tomorrow at three oāclock. [applause] JIMMY DOUGLASS Tell them, Jeremy, tell them! JEREMY HARDING Jimmy Douglass mixed the new Sean Paul single āTemperature,ā which comes out on December 5th so thatās the plug! [laughter] I had a reaction recently in dealing with Atlantic Records records where they seem overly concerned with turning all their songs into ringtones. Thereās a very big market for them. So you just finished your album, it took you one year to do it, you spent all this money, you rented all these big studios, bought your ProTools, you agonized over it forever. Go home, take all the songs, chop them into 30 seconds each. MP3 them to me, because weāre going to make lots of money selling ringtones. So you kind of feel like youāre working in a manner contrary to the way the business is going. Youāre working so hard, to try and make better quality recordings, whether using vintage gear or digital gear, youāre pushing the boundaries. You know, frequencies and sample rates, and all that stuff that youāre doing, yet the format in which youāre listening to the music seems to be dropping as to what the consumers want. You understand what Iām saying now? Like people are more excited about buying a 30-second ringtone on a phone for three bucks, and theyāll buy ten of them before theyāll buy your CD in the store. So Iām just wondering, for you as an engineer, as a producer ā I know how it makes me feel ā does it make you feel any different about what youāre doing when you realize at the end of the day the labelās more concerned about the 30-second ringtone than they care about the quality of the CD that you actually made for them? JIMMY DOUGLASS No. You know what it does for me? The first time around, I donāt care what youāre going to do with it, I give it my 100 percent because thatās what I know how to do on everything. When you call me back again and tell me you want to do it a second time because of something minute and silly, Iām not necessarily going to agree but Iām going to do it. When you call me a third time, but now because you want me to send you the MP3, which is almost what youāre saying, Iām like, āYou know what? I have to get paid but youāre wasting my time, because what youāre talking about is not going to make a difference.ā When it comes down to how theyāre listening to it and the basic consumer. I donāt believe itās going to stay that way. I believe, between surround-sound and all that kind of stuff ā Iāll give you a great example of something. This is called stepping into the new world. Thereās a drummer called Omar Hakim, he played with all the great English rock guys, great drummer. So there was a period before ProTools was really accessible, it was really expensive. There was a thing called the Synclavier, a post-production Synclavier. They had like eight tracks of digital recording. It was a big deal. And I was doing this album, and I got to be the master of this particular machine. That machine cost about a quarter of a million dollars. Stevie had āem, Herbie Hancock, all the big dudes had them, but I got to be the master of that. This was digital editing before ProTools made it simple for everybody. So I paid no attention when little kids came in and were like, āOh, I can do the same.ā I was like, āGet out of here. ProTools, get the fuck outta here.ā So here I was with this big great machine and Iām recording all the great stuff in the studio with Hakim, Iām recording the samples, Iām recording the drum samples, unbelievable. Because the sampling rate was something stupid. The bittage wasnāt up there but the sampling was. Weāre talking in the ā80s, the late ā80s? It was great. So Iām like, āYeah, this is dope.ā And I got snares that were just like bop! So, fast forward, I did a record with this group called the System, āDonāt Disturb This Groove.ā And it was, you know, a great record. And we had all this stuff and it was great. Next act Iām doing was a guy Steve Arrington. Hip-hop, the word didnāt really exist, but he wants to go back, he wants to go home with the stuff, you know? And Iām producing this with him, so Iām creating as well. And weāre trying to get great snare sounds. And Iāll never forget this. This killed me. There was a guy I got, a musician and a programmer, Bernie Worrell, and he had himself a Roland D-50. Real, real low-key, the bit rate was real lazy. But he used to laugh at me. Heād go, āThis is my baby Synclavier.ā Because it sampled. But it sampled like shit, you know? Like that small. And he would laugh every time I did something, heād go, āMy baby Synclavierā and go ping-ping-ping [mimics Bernie playing the keys], and weād laugh. Back in the day, people looked to you to make things happen. Itās like, āWeāre all here, you make it happen. If this day isnāt happening, itās your fault because youāre the producer.ā And thatās really the truth, thatās what a producer was then. So, I remember we were trying to get someplace, and we were trying to get excited. Iām giving it the best shit I got, man, I really am. My top shelf shit from my Synclavier! And they were all kind of like, āEhhh.ā And Iām like, āCheck this out.ā So I gave them this one kick and snare. Boom! Plap! It was so clear. It was unbelievable, and I was like āWow.ā And they were like, āAhhh, I don't know, man.ā When they walked out the room they were like, āYou keep working, weāll come back in a minute.ā So my boy in the corner, he said, āYo Jim, shoot me that snare, man.ā I sent him the same snare, he put it in his little S50, it sounds like shit.ā But he goes āPowā. And they came back and they were like, āWhat was that?!ā āOh no, no noā¦ā And that was an education for me. It really was. Thatās what they wanted to hear. The other shit was just too good for them. And whatās funny is that now, when I learned that lesson and I learned to go down into the ASR-10, this low sampling rate stuff and so forth? Now that Iāve done that, people come to me and they go, āHave you heard of da da da? Itās got a sampling rate of whatever!ā And Iām so bored. Iām so over this. I mean, you want me to go down, now you want me to come back up and get excited? I canāt do it, you know? [laughs] Audience Member Just another question for you, what for you is the best playing format? You donāt seem to get out of this studio that much but you still should be interested in what format your works comes on. Is it vinyl? Jimmy Douglass Oh, you mean what do I listen on? Audience Member Yeah. Jimmy Douglass CD. I havenāt really made the transition to iTunes yet really. I just havenāt done it. I donāt know. I donāt know why Iām holding back on them. Audience Member Donāt you think thereās more warmth? Jimmy Douglass The iTunes? Audience Member No, no. More warmth in an LP probably than on CD? Jimmy Douglass Where am I going to get an LP from? Audience Member Just get out there. Jimmy Douglass Well, yeah but they cost a fortune and whoās going to cut them? Audience Member [inaudible] Jimmy: Huh? Audience Member [inaudible] Jimmy Douglass What is? They donāt do vinyl on everybodyās records. Audience Member Not everybody. Jimmy Douglass Well, so there you go. You got the needle. You got the needle. I canāt put it in my car. There are certain things that have happened that you have to go along with. Like I said, Iām holding out on iTunes. Iām just holding out. I donāt know why Iām holding out. Iām still happy to have a thousand CDs in my bag and do my thing but iTunes is definitely the way to go. Thereās no doubt about it. Itās a digital medium, everything is accessible. You go to your computer, etcetera. I think I might give it up this Christmas actually. CDs would be the way to go for me right now. Audience Member I just thought first of all to do a small comment on one what you were saying. I read recently Future Shoc by Alvin Toffler and thereās a part where he says, āOne of the things that characterize current society or a futuristic society will be the sharpening of periods and why you can enjoy an object.ā You eat a McDonalds burger and you throw away the box. The number of things that go through your hands are thousands a day sometimes. When it gets to music, itās your personal object. I guess what Iām talking about all of this DJ producers here and our love for vinyl is about that. Now if you go to iTunes and you download something, you get a virus on your computer, and your money down the drain. Of course, you buy a vinyl, itās a cherishable object. All of us, our collection, weāll never sell it. Thatās why for as many iTune MP3s you can download or you can burn as many CDs as you want but you donāt have the source material. Thatās what I think regarding format. Of course, itās crap to see CD DJs. The sound is not the same. Jimmy Douglass Well, I will inform you one thing. If you really, really want to break it down like that, a couple of things have happened. One of the things is I donāt mix the tape anymore. I stopped doing that years ago. Part of my new history is how I met Timbaland and Missy and Ginuwine and those guys. We were stuck in this place up in Rochester, with DeVante Swing from Jodeci. We were all stuck there for like a year. And they were just people. I mean, theyāre still just people, you know what Iām saying? They had no names attached to them. He was a kid who could do this crazy shit, and I thought, āWow, heās really good in all of the above.ā But in that period of time, we were up there, we mustāve done about four hundred records. In about a year and a half, four hundred records. One of them was āPony,ā actually. We did āPonyā one night, just as a demo. Actually, that record was the demo. We didnāt have the multitracks anymore. I just took the demo, and we got a deal. They put that out and the rest is history. But one of the things they didnāt have in the studio up in the woods was they didnāt have a tape machine, a two-track tape machine. So when I was mixing the stuff, I would always mix to DAT because I just didnāt have a tape machine. Now, what the DAT afforded me, it afforded me the converters going analog to digital into the DAT. As time was going on, and I worked in a lot of different studios, and everybodyās so in a hurry. You know, like the assistants. Iāll be like, āOK, so burn me a copy of that mix,ā and theyāll go, theyāll suck it out of the machine, and Iāll go, āNo, do it off the DAT. I want to hear how it converted to whatever.ā [And they replied,] āWhy would you want to do that? It takes so much longer.ā And you know, after a while, every now and then it would slip by me because I wasnāt watching somebody and they would do it anyway. And after a while, you know, I really couldnāt tell the difference. Maybe I didnāt take the time to tell the difference. So after a while, itās like Iām slipping into the same, "You know whatā¦?,ā [leans over to one side] and somebody calls you and goes I need this and I need that! You know what, youāre going to get it off the computer because it is faster. And before you know it, Iām listening and Iām going, āI donāt know. I donāt know if you really do hear the difference.ā I mean, I do hear the difference between a MP3 and tape. Like he was saying. But that kind of stuff, I donāt know. But the vinyl thing, thatās like a whole ānother world. AUDIENCE MEMBER When you go to a club, youāll see the difference, of course. JIMMY DOUGLASS In the club? Yeah. I mean, how many DJs are here? [a few audience members raise their hands] Itās a DJ house! AUDIENCE MEMBER Anyway, another question. Did you produce Aurra, the other project from Slave? JIMMY DOUGLASS From who? Aurra! I didnāt do Aurra, that was Steve Washington, he was my co-producer. But Aurra started from Slave, yeah. AUDIENCE MEMBER I was just thinking about what you said earlier about the whole situation when you were at Atlantic, and you were listening to a lot of demos that never actually made the release. But as such, would you be able to put Timbaland up on some shit to sample that never made it as a release, as in demos? JIMMY DOUGLASS There are some records, Iām not going to tell you which ones. [laughs] AUDIENCE MEMBER [smiles] Yeah, thatās what I was thinking because essentially itās a goldmine, right? You know what I mean? JIMMY DOUGLASS Hell yeah! AUDIENCE MEMBER Yeah, heās at a great advantage over all of us here, because heās got your ears and his own! Yeah, thatās all I had to say. Toby Laing Can I just ask you about random things making it on to your records? Jimmy: Random things. Toby Laing Just accidents that you leave on there. That seems to be a way that this clean digital world can actually get a better life pick into it when you allow maybe something wasnāt meant to be on like a track or something that made it on to the mix and you donāt get back and polish up the accidents. You just leave them there. Is that something that you think about? Jimmy Douglass Thatās an interesting thing. Iāll tell you what. There is one record that me and Tim did actually. It was called, āSame Olā G.ā I really remember this. I had a very, very clear vision in my head about this. What we would do is weād have our stuff and as we were tracking it out, we got so⦠One of the ways I track out, when you have a multi-output sequence or whatever, I donāt use the individual outputs because I donāt think they sound the same as the outputs of the stereo. The stereo output is something. It sounds totally different. We would actually sit there and do a pass for every single instrument. It takes a long time just to get it on tape but itās like thatās part of what that sound was and a part of what that sound is. After a while, we got pretty good like watching the meter and not having to listen. Getting cocky, right? Weāre listening to some other records while the pass is going down. Weāre just listening to the other stuff. I remember he went back to the keyboard and he did something. Think as strings were playing, the string pass, which is live out of the keyboard. I think he did whatever. When I played it back, I was like, āOh, shit.ā I was mixing it and halfway through, sure enough it goes [makes whining keyboard sound]. I thought, āYou know what? Letās just leave it. I think that your record making right now is to the level where thatās not going to be it. Nobodyās going to return the record to the store because they hear this thing at the end of the record that does that. On the other hand, the converse side of that is people get bent out of shape over stupid shit thatās never going to make a difference to anybody. They really do. Itās a fine line trying to accommodate what you really believe is really, really, really, really going to make a difference and when people are getting totally crazy. Because people get crazy making records. They believe itās the last record theyāre ever going to make, which is a good idea to think like that but on the other hand, I always say you can make another one. If youāre that talented, you can always make another record. Toby Laing Do you manage to distance yourself enough from the crazy industry side of things and just work in the studio and make those people leave you alone, or is it an ongoing problem? Jimmy Douglass Itās ongoing and I lose a lot. I lose a lot of battles because I say the wrong things to the wrong people. I tell them this stuff and thatās not the answer. Thatās not what they want to hear. They want to hear what they want to hear, which is, āYes this is the most important thing in the world,ā and Iām like, āIām sorry. I canāt go with you on that.ā Theyāre like, āOK. Then we wonāt call you anymore.ā Thatās like, āOK, fine. Iām going to do something else.ā Take your little ball away. Go on, take it away. Toby Laing Whatās ideal situation for you? What do you want to go with your music now and the future? Jimmy Douglass Iām working with two acts right now that I really actually believe in a lot. One of the person that is actually very close to me is something like Iām thinking that one, that particular act is one that I want to do. I think that regardless of the outcome, Iām very happy doing it because Iām supposed to be doing that particular one. Thereās a million people making music. I get stuff all the time from everybody and his brother. Now like I said, because technology is easy, everybodyās stuff can now even close to even done. The playing field is more level. Itās really hard to judge. Earlier it was easy to judge because a lot of the stuff around this stuff would be really wax right away. Now, they can get some pretty impressive tracks, some nice beats, the new word āproducerā or āproducer beatmakerā we should call it to do stuff with them. Somebody just sitting at home with the little ProTools and do a couple of things and put some reverse and a couple of delays and make them sound nice. Itās really a lot harder to discern what is possible and what isnāt anymore. Itās really, really, really gotten very much harder. Toby Laing Any more questions for Jimmy Douglass. Jimmy Douglass Youāve got to have questions. Come on. I flew a long way here. Inquiry in the back. Inquiry in the back. Audience Member You might think my question is a tricky one but Iām still a bit confused about your lecture. Basically, are you hi-fi or lo-fi? Jimmy Douglass Am I hi-fi or lo-fi? Audience Member Yeah. Jimmy Douglass No. Iām hi-fi. Iām just saying that but I recognize Iāve gotten over. What I was trying to say was Iāve gotten over fighting the big battle for hi-fi because obviously Iām going to lose the battle. Iāve learned how to incorporate. You have to understand one thing. Think about this now. Maybe when you go back, you can listen to some of the earlier records I did and listen to the sound and quality of those records. I think theyāre great. I think sonically theyāre just like that. Then youāve got to think, I start working with people. One of the things I did for this transition in my life was I started having kids come over my house and I have a record collection thatās really speaking to this DJ. I got this shit like itās real. Itās like when I was a kid. These are my records and they walk in there like fucking going nuts, apeshit. Iām like, āItās just records guys.ā To them it represents that whole thing from the era. They put the stuff on and theyāre like, āOh, yeah.ā They start playing stuff and they start grabbing shit out of it and they have this grimy stuff and they start putting it down thatās a little grimy and Iām like, āThat sounds like shit.ā To me, it did. It was like, āThis is offending my ears,ā but they were getting off on it. See what Iām saying? What is it about this that makes you get off? Itās like, I call it retuning your ears because Iāve done a lot of rock & roll, Iāve done a lot of R&B, a lot of funk. Whenever I do any of those things, when I do like the⦠Do you guys know Rob Thomas at all? Yeah? No? I mix that this last album, the last record that he had and thatās a far cry from this other shit I just played for you. Totally. But when I mix that stuff, what I tend to do is I spend a week or two just listening to music in that particular genre. I do what I call is called is tuning my ears. Basically, just getting the reference of what that particular box holds in it and what the world expects of those sounds today. Thatās kinda what I do. Same thing. When the kids were doing this stuff and they were putting this really lo-fi stuff on my ears, Iām going, āWoah.ā From what Iām used to listening to, that is really not acceptable. But it has become acceptable and I learned how to listen with those particular ears, the hip-hop ears because a lot of that stuff is really grungy, itās nasty. Itās dirty. Thatās part of what it is. The thing is, Iām trying to answer your question as best as I can. That thing is like, no, I recognize really, really good sound when I hear it, but at the same time, I enjoy having records being played that I did because what it is, this is the ultimate statement. Music is meant to communicate with people. And thereās nothing like when youāre a part of something that makes people go, "Oh man, I love that!" That ā besides money or royalties or whatever you could possibly get ā that moment means everything to me. I mean, thatās... [applause] AUDIENCE MEMBER If you were now to work with a band that really wanted an old-school sound, would you be willing to go back to your old machines and everything? JIMMY DOUGLASS I did this! Itās so funny. Thereās a group called the Rapture. Do you know the Rapture? Yeah, I was working with them, I was going to produce their new album for them. And we went to a studio in Virginia, where I just came from, a studio that me and Timbaland built. It sounds freakinā amazing, it sounds like right out of the ā70s. All the gear, I brought them in, we started doing it, it sounded like just amazing ā70s rock. I mean, it was unbelievable. And they were so bored. It was unbelievable, I couldnāt believe how bored they were. And this sound, it was so clean and ridiculous. I was like, āOh, man.ā And they were just like bored, bored, bored. You know what they wanted to hear? They wanted to hear that garage sound where a guy records in a little garage, and because he has a garage he puts all this crap on it, so everything sounds small. Thatās what they wanted. Iām just saying, itās the same thing again. I loved it and they hated it. And I was like, āJeez, I canāt catch a break here.ā AUDIENCE MEMBER Would you still say you adapt your work to the artistsā work, in the sense that you give them the kind of mix [they want] or you use different devices depending on the artist? JIMMY DOUGLASS Absolutely, yeah. Itās really important that when you work with people, you have to see their vision and you have to share the vision. If you donāt share the vision, itās just never going to happen. AUDIENCE MEMBER What for you was really the first track or even the producer was really an epiphany for you? Like, āWow, that is the power of what a producer can do or can bring to musicā? JIMMY DOUGLASS āJust a Touch of Love.ā [sings] āJust, a touch, of loveā¦ā That shit was dope, man. When that came out I was like, "Oh my god!" And whatās really interesting about that song, I can give you history on that song. The way that song worked was, I was working with Slave when they did āSlide.ā They were just a bunch of kids. They came in with this record demo, whatever the hell it was. And the bass playerās dope, you know, theyāre just a bunch of little kids. And the head of Atlantic, the president, he says, āI got these kids, man. What do you think about it?ā I listened to it and I said, āThis is alright, man, except theyāre out of tune and they really need work.ā And he said, āWill you work with them?ā I was like, āYeah, OK.ā So I worked with them on the album and just did a lot of stuff, and they had their hit āSlide,ā which was nice, very nice, it happened. And then, there was a kid in the band, and I didnāt catch this whole thing. He wanted to be the man. He was George Clintonās nephew or whatever. But he wanted to be the man. But I donāt work like that, because thereās room for everybody to do everything, and I didnāt notice what he was doing. So when I had taken over it had kind of pissed him off, and I didnāt notice. And then there was another guy who was in charge of whatever. Anyway, the way it worked was, I was telling this kid everything about this other guy, but I didnāt realize he was the guy who wanted [to be in charge] but he kept talking to the [executive] and so eventually they got rid of me. That was cool, and the next two albums didnāt really do anything. Iām not saying that I am what I am but it just happened to be that way. So there came a time Iām in my life, doing other projects, Iām doing my rock shit and Iām enjoying my life. And it comes to the fourth album and they went in the studio and they did all this stuff. No, go back. On the second album, all the guys kept looking to me to help them, because like I told you, I could play it. I was teaching them to do picking and all this stuff. But this other kid, he wasnāt liking this because it was like, it was supposed to be his thing, and I didnāt know. I was just doing what I do. I love to see people grow. Thatās my whole thing. If you can grow, if you can sing better after working with me, Iām happy. Even if you donāt sell a record. But anyway, they did their thing, get to the fourth album. They make a whole album. A long diatribe. And it wasnāt happening. And the record company was like, āWeāre kind of done with you guys if you donāt get some help.ā And the president comes to me and he goes, āListen, man, you really got to help me.ā And I was like, āSorry, Iām over it now.ā Iām like, āIām sorry, da da da," heās like, āOh, you got to help.ā I was doing a Foreigner record, actually. I was like, āIām sorry, Iām busy, what do you want me to do?ā Heās the president of the company [saying,] āYou gottaā¦ā [So finally I said,] āOK, OK, OK. Iāll do it if you let me make three new sides. And then Iāll fix whateverās left of theirs and Iāll make that the b-side.ā He was like, āOK.ā So we did that, and the reason that was really interesting to me was, I had gone back into the rock & roll world so hard, I really didnāt know how to make a funk record. I didnāt know in my mind what funk was. Remember what I said about tuning your ears? So, then I started going out and listening to funk records, and I remember at the time there was the Brothers Johnson ā [sings] āWeāre gonna stomp! All nightā¦ā Chic was out with āGood Times.ā [sings bassline] And I was like, āOh man, this shit is crazy.ā So when I went to make the record, I was thinking, āWell, what weāll do isā¦ā I told the bass player and they got this drummer Steve Arrington, who was brand new. He had just come to the scene. And he was the drummer, and he was pretty good too. And we went to the rehearsal room and they said, āWhat are we rehearsing?ā I said, āI donāt know, you guys just keep jamming.ā So I had them in there for like two days. Just the two of them and the guitar player. Theyād just be jamming and Iād go, āA-hah! Great lick! Thatās a great lick. OK, keep that lick.ā Theyād do some more, āA-hah! Great lick! That lick there, Iām telling you, thatās the lick.ā So we just put a bunch of licks together until we had our little jams, and it was very cool. And when we got to āJust a Touch of Love,ā I mean that shit was crazy. It was just nice. I mean, we had the little change, [sings bassline] all that stuff. When we got to the vocals, we did the backgrounds, we just created it, I wrote it with them. Doing parts. Just throwing parts at it. [sings the alto part] āJust a touchā¦ā [sings the backing vocal] āJust a touchā¦ā But Steve Arrington, he wasnāt the vocalist, he was the drummer, right? We couldnāt find anything that was a lead that was any good. He walked in and he went ā and this is one of those cases that as a producer you really ā anyway, he walked in and he started going [sings in slurring falsetto], āKeep me high, just⦠a little bit.ā And I was going, āThat is fucking crazy, thatās the craziest shit Iāve ever heard. I donāt know if this is really going to be cool!ā And everybodyās going, āNo man! Thatās it!ā I donāt know how to judge this. Iād never heard anything like it, so Iām like, āDo me a favor, sing me one thatās straight.ā āNo, no, no!ā Iām like, āYou got to do this because I donāt know what to do.ā So he goes [sings in very plain, enunciated style], āKeep me high, just a little bitā And I was like, āNahhh, weāre going with the other thing.ā And fortunately, it all worked out. Thatās what producers still do, I guess. They make decisions overall for the band; you need another mind especially when youāre recording with groups and stuff. I used to call myself the sixth member of the band. That really was my function. Just to help everybody along. AUDIENCE MEMBER What system do you use at home? JIMMY DOUGLASS Yeah, I use different things, I use Logic at home. I still use my ASR10 a lot for sequencing. And of course in the quote-unquote real studio, I use ProTools. One of the main reasons is because I grew with ProTools. Also, most of the formats of the records that come to me, theyāre already in ProTools. I think most of the pros are using it. AUDIENCE MEMBER So itās the industry standard? JIMMY DOUGLASS It is, it is. AUDIENCE MEMBER Iām just interested to know, in the last maybe three years, if you could run us through all the people youāve worked with. Like, everything youāve done in the last three years or something like that? You were saying Rob Thomas ā Iād like to hear who youāve been working with and how varied they are. JIMMY DOUGLASS Oh, the people Iām working with? AUDIENCE MEMBER Yeah, just to get an idea of how varied they are. JIMMY DOUGLASS [smiles] Well, Sean Paul like he Jeremy Harding was saying, I just did that. Brandy, Rob Thomas. Thereās a guy I just did this thing with, matter of fact⦠if youāll indulge me. [cues up the CD player] (music: Hall & Oates ā āSheās Goneā) Anybody know that record by the way? [applause] Thatās the record which, if you asked me which record I engineered that I thought was the most amazing thing Iāve ever done, that would be it. That was Hall & Oates. That was their first hit. And actually, thereās a story behind this record. Because that is the record that was a hit for them, except when they did it, it wasnāt a hit. Atlantic released the record, and it flopped. That record flopped. And then their manager was Tommy Mottola, thatās when he was just on the bottom. He got pissed at Atlantic and he took the act away to RCA, and they went and recorded this record called āSara Smile.ā [sings] āSarah... smilesā¦ā That was like their first big record, Atlantic re-released the exact same freaking record, and it was a smash. So that was my first lesson in understanding that itās not always about whatās on the record. Many times itās about the way that they promote it or they do it, whatever. Because itās the same record, not even another mix. Whatever happened the first time, it didnāt happen. Thatās a great record. That particular album was one of the first albums where I was really excited because I learned a lot about recording. AUDIENCE MEMBER How many years between the original release and the re-release? JIMMY DOUGLASS I think it was two years. Because they got off the label one year, and when āSara Smileā came out, Atlantic jumped behind them. So they had two records on the charts right behind each other. So maybe two years at the most. AUDIENCE MEMBER Did you do all the Hall & Oates? JIMMY DOUGLASS No, I just got to do that one. [smiles] You know, and itās just enough to put on my resume that I worked with Hall & Oates, itās the truth. [music: Ricky Martin ā unknown] Thatās Ricky Martin. It didnāt happen, actually. They chickened out on that record because itās about him coming out of the closet obviously, baring his soul. And the record company decided that was a little too risquĆ© for him. I think itās a great record. I think itās a great move for him to actually come out that way because the record is a good record. And if you donāt know it, itās just a great record. For those that do know, itās even a better record. It means a lot. Iām still looking for the record that I wanted to play. (music: unknown) This is one of those records that Iām really working to do. Itās a project Iām working on. But this is the one I want to show you. (music: unknown) So that particular artist. What do you think about that artist actually, that guy? AUDIENCE MEMBER Who did the beats? JIMMY DOUGLASS I did. AUDIENCE MEMBER Thatās your beats, yeah? JIMMY DOUGLASS But what do you think about the artist? What do you think he looks like? What do you expect to see? AUDIENCE MEMBER Do you know Cool Runnings? [laughter] You know that film, yeah? When I heard the music I was picturing the intro to Cool Runnings where the guyās doing a sprint. JIMMY DOUGLASS His nameās Matisyahu, and heās a Hasidic rapper, actually. AUDIENCE MEMBER From Brooklyn? JIMMY DOUGLASS From Brooklyn, yeah, yeah. And he looks like the rabbi. Itās crazy man, itās absolutely crazy. Youāve heard him, right? So, thatās one of the projects that Iām working on lately actually, which is very nice. TOBY LAING Iām just wondering how many studios you have around the place? Thereās a couple. Youāve got your own? JIMMY DOUGLASS Yes. I had one in New York City, which I just let go of this year. It was my place, my place to chill. Then thereās one that me and Timbaland built in Virginia Beach. Then Iām in Miami a lot. AUDIENCE MEMBER Hit Factory. JIMMY DOUGLASS Sometimes the Hit Factory. TOBY LAING What takes you āround all these places? Whatās the purpose of all these different locations? JIMMY DOUGLASS You follow the artist, I guess. Miamiās a hot spot right now for hip-hop. You got Pharrell down there, you got Scott Storch. You know who Scott Storch is? Of course. And Timbalandās down there. You know, itās like a hot spot. Miami is just a great place. Could be doing this in Miami instead of here, guys. Itād be warm. Youāre getting the work done, but youād be having a ball. [laughs] TOBY LAING I think thereās a question over there. AUDIENCE MEMBER Thereās actually two little points you briefly touched on that I would love to come back to for a brief second. One is, you mentioned, the whole beat shopping process. I mean, everyone and their mama has seen Fade to Black, and seen Jay-Z and Timbaland going through beats, how that works. Then, on the other hand, now that you mentioned Hall & Oates, how do you achieve a consistent sound in the classic sense of an album? I mean, if you take something like Abandoned Luncheonette, thatās a true champion lover record start to finish, you just put it on and⦠I mean, itās not just because youāve got Purdie on drums but you got one consistent theme going on. JIMMY DOUGLASS How do you get consistency in an album, youāre saying? You know, those albums, I got to say, one thing about those albums is that they had one producer that led the whole album. Even if you listen to Ginuwineās first album, we did the whole album front to finish. It sounds like one piece ā it starts, it ends. Itās like you never left the same environment. Unfortunately, the world is so full of, "Whereās the single, whereās the hot joint?" So, "Letās get him to do a joint, letās get him to do a joint and letās get him to do a joint." And now basically all the stuff comes and itās disjointed because one guy does it a certain way, another guy does it another way. Thatās why people donāt buy albums anymore. Thatās the vinyl answer, too, by the way. Thereās nothing to buy anymore. You want one single off of a record, or two of them. Thereās no love. Thereās no taking you on the journey, as it were. Thatās how Iām answering your question, basically. And I think thatās how you achieve that, by having the same people from beginning to end. If you know that Abandoned Luncheonette, you must know that album, right? And that album, itās crazy, itās got like a kazillion things on it, right? I mean, that was one of the first albums I really learned how to do a lot of shit. But the consistency was it was the same minds from day one to the end of it. So even though it was all over the place, it all still came together the same way. Even if they would mix whole albums instead of turning in singles, it might have some sort of consistency. I believe the Rob Thomas album sounds kind of same-y because I mixed the whole thing. And also they did the same, the producer Matt Serletic did the whole thing so itās kind of all consistent. AUDIENCE MEMBER But on that note, when you were chopping up Jimmy Page stuff, obviously youāre not afraid of bridging the gap in a way. But Hall & Oates probably donāt get a whole lot of kudos for their blue-eyed soul approach. Could you elaborate a little bit about where theyāre coming from, especially at that time. On those two or three albums. JIMMY DOUGLASS At that time, they were two kids that came from Philadelphia, working with Gamble and Huff, I guess theyād been rejected. Not rejected, but they werenāt quite good enough for that camp. You know that whole Philadelphia movement? Back in the day. What was out then. [sings] āBurning infernoā⦠all that? When Philadephia was really on fire? They were two writers, two little kids that knew how to do what they do. And Daryl is a great singer, a really good singer. And they came from that school of blue-eyed soul like you said. They didnāt get any love for it. I donāt know, itās sad. Thatās always a weird question, defining what the world is [ready to accept]. And I never thought about it ātil you just said it, but youāre right. All of their hits really came from being on more of the rock side. But if you listen to their records, itās the rock side, but underneath it, Daryl was a very soulful singer. AUDIENCE MEMBER So what has changed in way? Because essentially, Justin Timberlake is doing the exact same thing, recording with Timbaland. Why is it so much more approachable or acceptable these days? JIMMY DOUGLASS Why is it more acceptable? AUDIENCE MEMBER Yeah, I mean why cana white soul-boy crossover? JIMMY DOUGLASS Well, because Justin had a fan base that was just stupid, you know? He had all these people from the āN Sync thing, and this was something that was really viable ā half viable ā and they loved it! [laughs] And then take the Justin ā alright, thatās a good example. Take a Justin who isnāt Justin and bring him to my door. We may have a Timbaland, we may not have a Timbaland. We may have a Kanye, or we may not have a Kanye. But letās take a Justin without Kanye and never having had a hit. And Iāll bet you thereās probably about 15 of those out there right now that youāre never going to hear because of the timing. And actually, this was a good example too with the Hall & Oates thing. It didnāt happen for them, it only happened because of the other one, the āSara Smile.ā They got love. And once they got love, people could all of a sudden hear the record differently. Isnāt that amazing? [smiles] AUDIENCE MEMBER Mr. Shocklee dodged a question the other day, but he basically tried to do the same thing that you guys were doing trying to revolutionize the R&B game. Bringing something to the mainstream airwaves, as in how far can you push the boundaries sonically? I mean, these days every momma down in the shopping mall is dancing to beats that wouldāve been too harsh in a techno club ten years ago. Youāve been in those meetings when youāve dropped a single and all these A&Rās have been looking at you. Was it a constant slide towards it? JIMMY DOUGLASS I missed a part there somewhere. Start at the mommas in the shopping mall. [laughter] AUDIENCE MEMBER When you go out shopping in the mall nowadays, you hear sonically so many more challenging things than what you heard in techno records ten years ago. And obviously, you had to deal with all these major execs at God-knows-where where you shopped all the Missy Elliott things and stuff. How did all the A&R meetings go? I guess, that was a pretty grim reality. JIMMY DOUGLASS Ahh⦠TOBY LAING I suppose heās saying, how did you get the industry to accept this imaginative music that youāre making? Youāre making it for a commercial market, but itās extremely imaginative and creative music, you know? But I suppose, I could answer that question! [laughs] You want to hear it in the club, and itās hot music that you want to party to. And I think maybe the A&R guys recognize that. Is that true? JIMMY DOUGLASS Thatās it. I think thatās all they really do know. The new buzz word [makes finger quotes] on the table is, "It doesnāt have enough energy." And I got to say, when you say A&R guys, I give no weight to ā and I hope thereās no one in this place [who works as A&R] ā but I give no weight to what they do. They donāt know what the fuck theyāre doing. I hate to say it, and Iāll say it again. They donāt know what theyāre doing. They really donāt. [applause] There are a few, there are those that do, but theyāre under such stress with the way the companies are built and the way the whole chain goes, and the big guy has to sell records. And even if you get a product thatās really good, you got to get five guys to go with you to get them to push it, to get it to get out there to sell. And then youāve got five guys who are sitting there, and everybodyās fighting for their own product. Theyāre just fighting for their jobs, really. And they really donāt know. I mean, I can tell because I get calls from people to do stuff, and I can just tell that they basically looked at my name on the back of an album. They donāt even fucking know me. They donāt know what I do. There was a record that happened and they look and they go, āGet that guy!ā You know what I mean? And thatās what they think theyāre supposed to do. Thatās what I guess theyāre supposed to do, I donāt know. Iād like to see more people with knowledge in that position. Also, a lot of those guys in that position, itās so easy to make beats. What they really want to do? Is to get in a position to be the beatmaker and the producer and make the real money. Thatās really the truth. There was a guy named John Kalodner ā Iāll never forget this, Iāll always remember this because I thought this was really special. He worked with Foreigner and his interesting story is, hereās a guy, he has this long beard, right? And when Foreigner came to Atlantic, there was another A&R guy who was right under the president, and he was like, āI donāt like them, I donāt want to sign them.ā And Johnās like, āCome on man, theyāre going to be hot!ā He was like, āNope!ā There was this ego thing going on. The guy couldnāt even hear anymore, he wasnāt even listening, he didnāt know. So John did this thing, which I thought was very, very clever. He went to the president and he said, āListen.ā And heās grown his beard for years, Iām talking years. It was like down to here, you know? And he goes, āListen, you sign this group, and if this doesnāt happen Iāll cut my beard.ā So, I guess they thought it was funny, whatever, they went ahead with it and the rest is history. Foreigner was like mega huge. So, a couple times heād give me instructions on mixes or something, and they were very intelligent instructions. That always threw me. They were intelligent instructions. So one day I said to John, I said, āJohn, youāre one of the people Iād listen to that really says something that was a good idea.ā When I go back I think, āWow, that was a good suggestion.ā I said, āWhy donāt you produce records yourself?ā And he goes, āIām not a producer, Iām an A&R man. I find the right producers to do this stuff.ā And I thought, what a freaking great answer. Because all the other guys think the opposite. They think, āI can do that.ā Was that a good story? [laughs / applause] AUDIENCE MEMBER Um, Iām just interested. Itās a stupid question. Do you know Claude Nobs? JIMMY DOUGLASS From years back, from Montreux. AUDIENCE MEMBER Yeah, yeah. But did you actually work with Atlantic at Montreux? JIMMY DOUGLASS Claude Nobs used to do the⦠(tries French pronunciation) Montreux? AUDIENCE MEMBER The Montreux Jazz Festival. He still does. JIMMY DOUGLASS He still does, yeah, but that was his thing. He would come over and he would talk to Ahmet all the time. They were buddies. I just know him because I went over there one time. I recorded the first session in the new Montreux. Just so you all know; you know the old Montreux? You know how it went down? It was burned. Anybody know where Montreux is, and you know what song was written out of it? Come on! AUDIENCE MEMBER āSmoke on the Water.ā JIMMY DOUGLASS Thatās it! Yeah, āSmoke on the Water.ā That was written about the Montreux festival burning. AUDIENCE MEMBER So you did also do some engineering for live shows? JIMMY DOUGLASS No, I was doing this Billy Cobham year of the drummer. That was great. Once again, I was on a high, I was just enjoying life, like, "Wow, this is great." I went to London to record his album. In the middle, he had to go to Montreux, so he was like, āCome to Montreux, do the sound for me.ā Iām not going to say I canāt do it. Of course I could do it. [laughs] Anybody else? AUDIENCE MEMBER Iām someone thatās almost obsessed with the sound of some of the records youāre making. Itās like drum machines and things that sound inherently small, they donāt actually move any air. But how do you put so much space in it and make everything sound so big? Does that make any sense at all? JIMMY DOUGLASS It makes sense but I canāt really answer it because I canāt really think like that. Iām not hiding anything; I just donāt know the answer. I just kind of do what I do. You know what I mean? AUDIENCE MEMBER Itās the kind of thing where maybe youāve done it so many thousands of times that you donāt even think about it any more? JIMMY DOUGLASS No. AUDIENCE MEMBER No? JIMMY DOUGLASS I donāt know. Records are so funny lately. One of the things thatās coming back is that 808 thing with the little claps. [claps his hands to imitate the sound] Thatās another thing. Claps are back. Iām like, āOK, explain to me!ā Once we had claps in records, it was really cool, and suddenly theyāre not cool anymore. āWe got a snare. Oh, the snareās nice.ā Now itās a small snare, and all of a sudden, you got claps again. Iām like, āWho said?ā Nobody knows the answer to that one, do you? AUDIENCE MEMBER Lilā Jon. JIMMY DOUGLASS Who? AUDIENCE MEMBER Lilā Jon. JIMMY DOUGLASS Well, Lil' Jon started it, but the people couldāve said no. I mean, you know? Iām just saying, āWho said?ā [laughter] Who decided all of a sudden that itās cool. Itās just a freakinā 808, the same 808 it was 20 years ago when you got bored with it. TOBY LAING I got a silly question. Whereās the music going, do you reckon? JIMMY DOUGLASS Whereās the music going? If I knew that would I be sitting here? Iād be out sucking down them things, laugh a minute. TOBY LAING So itās just a constant surprise? The whole hip-hop thing could just stop overnight, and weāve got to re-learn some skills and go on to the next thing. JIMMY DOUGLASS I donāt know, I donāt think youāve got to re-learn skills. I donāt think itās going to happen overnight. Music is no longer that way. If you look at the funk era, and the funk era did exactly what you said, it was overnight. One day it was cool, and all of a sudden it was like, āIt aināt cool.ā I mean, you can almost laugh about it, but to those that were doing it, itās like, āWhat the fuck? I was cool yesterday, now Iām not cool?ā Because there was something else happening, another movement on the side, which was independent of those that push the shit down your throat, right? It was rap in its infantile stage, people at home with turntables doing their little thing, putting out records and all of a sudden they created a new movement. But that movement had a purpose to it. It had a reason why it existed. It was people talking about how they lived. I donāt see any substance in the music we have now. People are just talking shit about nothing. You know what I mean? Like the bling eraās come and gone, that was cool for a while. Now Pharrellās talking about being in his jet. Thatās great, I can relate to that, "Yeah, OK, great." I canāt relate to that! I donāt think most people can relate to that either. Youāre kind of going above their heads. Hey, going above their heads, the jet, get it? Come on guys, you guys are⦠[laughs] AUDIENCE MEMBER For the second album of Bubba Sparxxx, did you do the majority of that album? JIMMY DOUGLASS Which one? AUDIENCE MEMBER His last one. JIMMY DOUGLASS No, the last album I didnāt do at all. AUDIENCE MEMBER OK, just checking because I think that album is one of his best albums because it seems ā I donāt know, I was listening to that album and I think that was one of the albums that wasnāt really pushed for. Like the label wasnāt. It was a good sounding album to me. Timbaland did a good job on that album, thatās what Iām saying. [laughs] [microphone gets passed along as two people hold up their hands] AUDIENCE MEMBER I beat you to it! Just a final comment. I think out of all the lectures, this was probably the most pragmatic one. Weāve been talking about figures and selling. I guess what sort of makes the lecture a bit weird for us⦠JIMMY DOUGLASS Itās weird for you? AUDIENCE MEMBER In a sense because we have been talking about topics that are perhaps something we donāt really have to deal with. JIMMY DOUGLASS Today. AUDIENCE MEMBER Yeah, today. For example, you were saying the funk era ended overnight, I guess for all of us it was never over and we never lived it. And good acid jazz or whatever, good soul, it never really lost anything. My impression is that perhaps for such a knowledgeable producer as yourself, youāre seeing things from a perspective that is perhaps focused on the present all the time. Maybe you lose track of the fact that the work youāve done before is also vital to all of us here and still as a reference tool. And although you might think right now itās not hot, thereās a record in history of what youāve done. Maybe people here, weāre talking about Donny Hathaway and all that. For us, itās like classical music. Itās sort of a crystal in time, and itāll be eternal and itāll be always a reference for everyone. Same with Slave and all ā much more than I guess the recent stuff youāve been showing us. The old stuff you did in that era is really going to shine forever. Itās not going to last for a month or so, like probably these beats we have been hearing. So this is my final closure if Iām entitled to one. JIMMY DOUGLASS No, thatās cool. I only use that stuff to actually show the reference of the stuff I had the advantage of having that probably a lot of people are never going to have. That puts me in another place. Iām not separating myself from those that I work with now, but thereās certain things. Itās a gift. To be able to witness that? Itās fucking ridiculous. But at the same time I understand what itās worth today. I made a statement about the music before, and this is one thing I really stay with. I believe that music is marked. For every generation that comes along, you mark music with the emotions that youāre feeling in your life. And what I mean by that is, if youāre 15, 16, 17 or whatever, and youāre getting into your shit with the she and the he or whatever it is, those hormones that start to grow inside of us, then the music thatās playing will be burned inside your mind forever. Itāll never ever go away. And Iām adding to what you just said, but Iām just saying, Iām legitimizing the music of the day saying thereās a generation of people that some of this stuff, theyāre going to remember it forever because it had to do with their lives. And thatāll never go away. Those feelings, youāre never going to forget that. The music becomes a sort of soundscape for those emotions. Iāve witnessed that, and I always think to myself, āThatās what will keep music alive.ā Regardless, it could be a club joint. It doesnāt matter what it is. When youāre going through that, whoeverās around is down. TOBY LAING Yeah. [applause] Itās been great having you here today, Jimmy. And youāve given us a perspective that I think what he was trying to say, it hasnāt been weird for us! Itās been interesting to us because everyone here is into underground music and youāve brought a perspective which is bridging both of those things. Commercial music, you can talk about how bad labels are, but man, thatās an important level of our culture. And itās a global part of our culture, and this manās music is traveling āround the world. Itās touching people in New Zealand, itās touching people everywhere. So, I want to thank you very much for all the work youāre doing in the studio, and itās been very nice to hear the things youāve got to say. JIMMY DOUGLASS Thank you. [applause]