I was Bob's assistant for a few years when he booked at the studio in the 90s. He forgot which records I worked on with him, so he gave me credit on all the records including this one.. I ended up with 2 platinum and 2 gold records.. Thanks Bob!!!!!
Me from the UK. That sentence was so deep with strong meaning Bob Power said " There has to be a strong thread of Humanism that runs through everything you do, because if you don't have that you are not really want to help other people " That is so true. This interview was incredible, especially describing his studio experiences with Tribe Called Quest
One more Bob Powers story; Bob had produced, recorded and mixed Meshell N's first album. It sounded great! But Meshell thought it was too polished. I remember that we had a listening party at the studio for Maverick Records, she was one of their first artists. Madonna showed up and Meshell had expressed that she was'nt quite happy. Madonna said to keep going until she felt good.. We ended up syncing her drum machines, synths, samplers up to the master 24 tracks with SMPTE and an SBX80, keeping most of the vocals. She and I mixed a few songs, various producers came in and mixed their contributions with her. in 3 weeks, we finished what was 3 months of production.. The album went gold and I'm pretty sure Bob got a credit also...
Thank you for sharing this gift. Bob Power is the real deal. Inspiring, real, and dynamic. He loves his craft and realizes that sound is as human as everything else.
Sitting at the mpc, drinking, vaping and cutting the sample to fit correctly isn't really a skill imo .. especially when all the cpu daws do most of the work placing drums pattern in right spot.. but it definitely takes a trained ear forsure and some know how.. and then having good taste in samples does like half the work for you.. especially if u get lucky and find a good sample where the drummer and guitar player make something dope n u just chop it to make it sound crazy
I was there.. Not very magical at the time.. They were just in the studio doing what they do.. Bob is an amazing person.. Great ears, good feel, easy going.. Always treated me with respect and I was all of 22 years old, still wet behind the ears...
Tribes Discography is truly special. There fun albums to listen to front to back. All killer no filler. Till this day I have never experienced that with another hip hop album. Midnight Marauders and Low End Theory really Grab your attention for the entire duration and you dont even notice.
Lot's of amazing nuggets of knowledge in this interview. I love how Bob keyed in on if a musician is playing to the new track then the end result isn't the same as if they are playing to the sample source track. He really understands why sampling brings its own unique set of advancements to the table instead of the engineers who simply dismissed sampling as "lazy". This guy gets it!
I love & respect that he loves music... regardless of color of the artist. His passion & knowledge... is incredible & present. It's no wonder why he's respected & appreciated. Great interview.
I remember when Bob A/B’d different clocking back when converters were worse and the difference was astonishing, but if you did it for other people without listening experience they couldn’t tell the difference. He is a great teacher.
Thanks for dat tip, Bob. Berwin Noise Eliminator. I used some software on a Ron Carter set last night. The bass sounds, Magnificent. Once this song comes out, no sample clearance for me. ;)
What he described about studios not recording hip-hop still goes on to this day. My main competition in my city is one of those 'im not doing that' ppl
What did he mean by "I'm not doing that" ??... it's just a studio session, it's not like he's asking to break his neck or smoke crack or nothing serious like that
absolutely fascinating...People's Instinctive Travels and Low End Theory are two of my favorite records and I have always felt like a lot of love and thought were put into the production...listening to this man confirms that.
Thanks for sharing. This has been my go to album since it came out. It's always on my headphones at work. This album next to "live at filmore east" by the Allman brothers.
Main Source Breaking Atoms Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back Pete Rock &CL Smooth Mecca and the Soul Brother All are examples of sampling as an art form
"My man Ron Carter is on the bass" - Q Tip .... The Low End Theory's track "We Got The Jazz".. Pete Rock and Q Tip is the reason why I started making beats in 1994.. very inspirational time of my life.. then I became an engineer by default..
Met him in the elevator at his then workspace in 2018 in midtown Manhattan. Paid him a nice complement about his work. I passed him my business card to which he quipped “how quaint”. I asked him why he was there and his said his studio was on one of the floors and that they actually had space available and needed a renter asap. I asked him how much as I was actively seeking studio space for my company. He didn’t take me seriously tried to blow me off at that point.
First time seeing Bob. Always seen his name. A cool soul. He’s right about the little bit of studio racism. Hip hop was definitely not welcomed. Early 90s was like the first real cultural shift. Run/Beastie Boys/ PE in the 80s was the intro to young white male culture. But Rock was still king. 90s…. Different. The rock world was pissed. Instead of drum rental orders cards swiped for MPCs. Groups like the tongues was getting serious Anglo love. Then the bad boy era came in. Famous rehearsal/equipment houses started seeing the big stage booked by these … new people. It was the end of an era. One year the highest grossing tour was Kieth Sweat. Huh? Things changed. People hate change.
are these clips from a documentary? The last tip was the most profound but my anticipation for what the title of the videos has me anticipate something with a little more depth. But great points from one of the masters!
He's so right about so many things one of the things about the undercurrent of racial issues is that when a lot of the young cats first went into the studio a lot of the engineers were metal heads and tried to bring a metal philosophy to the mixes and it did not work and this is one of the things that made project Studios explode but after a while the engineers at the big studios came to understand and learn what the young cats wanted and then it was golden
I remember Bob from Calliope studio. I bought a drum machine from him I still got. And Shane, I remember him and Ronald the office manager. Anyone know what happened to Ronald? I use to be good friends with him and he suddenly disappeared. Lisle Leete I heard passed away from throat cancer which I couldn't believe, just shocking as F because Lisle was the most health conscious guy I ever met. Never smoked or drank. Doing sessions groups would have their entourage smoking, drinking partying and there would be Lisle literally eating vegetables. He was a great guy and great engineer, really sucks he's gone. I talked to Lisle Greenfield a few years ago he is still around.
IT Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back Was The First Album with Multiple Samples Produced By The Bomb Squad Followed By De La Soul’S Three Feet High and Rising produced By De La Soul and Prince Paul And Then Paul’s Boutique Produced by The Chemical Brothers Produced By The Beastie Boys and The Dust Brothers.
@@COLESEER wasn’t saying it was the first, but they pushed it so hard with the volume and artists they used that it was a catalyst for the industry to take enforcement to a new level. Appreciate the history and post. LET was audio wallpaper for my youth. Respect.
i love smpte! i too was one of those 15 year olds. this local studio had a kawai r-100, which was pretty cool in 1987. they let us in but in hindsight they overcharged us for what we got. i did learn a lot from the engineer and fell in love with TC and smpte. to this day my home suite is all encoded by evertz clock and a MOTU midi timepiece.
I love The Low End Theory, but if you're talking about opening people's ears to what can be done with samples, then you gotta acknowledge that Paul's Boutique came first ('Ma Bell got the Ill Communication). And the Remix to Paid In Full predates them all, but that was a 12" single and not a full album.
The First Album To Use Multiple Samples was Public Enemy’s It takes a Nation To Hold Us Back followed by De La Soul’s Three Feet and Rising Then Paul’s Boutique. All Three are Great Albums however Sonically The Low End Theory is the Best in My Opinion.
Certainly told the truth about not being a hip-hop historian. Not only did LOT not "change the way people thought about putting music together" by using layered sampling, the record was itself mimicking a pioneering album by another band that was Actually responsible for causing the change Rock mistakenly attributes to the impact of LOT - that record of course being the groundbreaking Paul's Boutique, which the Beastie Boys released in 1989, two years prior to LOT. De La Soul, as well, had concurrently done something on this order (though not as richly and cleverly layered) with Three Feet High and Rising. The Shocklee Brothers-led Bomb Squad, to be sure, had been using layers of samples even before Paul's Boutique - but these were mainly musical snippet-based sound/groove collages. Paul's Boutque, created largely by the Dust Brothers and Matt Dike (with contributions from the Beasties), was the first record to feature songs composed almost entirely of the kind of dense, intricate sampling Rock is speaking of.
Three Feet High and Rising was released February 6, 1989 Paul’s Boutique Was Released July 25th 1989 Q Tip Was Inspired By Both albums as well as It Takes A Nations of Millions and Fear Of A Black Planet. To say that the Low End Theory Did not change the way people made music is inaccurate. The Neptunes, Timbaland, Kanye West The Rza were all influenced By That Album. Sonically it sounds better than Every album Before It.
i think it's quite insulting to the guys who worked for years (before college music courses existed) to build up their knowledge of how to record music to now cast them as some "white boys club".. i used to work in studios for years for no pay just to try to learn the skills, it was hard to get experience and I'd have to just sit in the studio and watch and learn and eventually get trusted by the studio owner enough to plug in a microphone and then after months be trusted to press record or play etc and be in charge of the playback of the reel to reel but always doing what the owner of the studio told me and being GLAD to get the chance to learn we worked hard for years with no pay to learn even a fraction of what people can learn in a course at college now and we were very hard working very dedicated very struggling economically unpaid staff for years it was NOT Some "white boys club" in fact the main studio i first learned in was owned by a CHINESE Guy.. not sure how that fits into the "white boys club"anti white racism exhibited by this guy also for him to say most of the Blacks had not even been in a motel is just so dumb, some of those early Hio-Hop guys had, and had been around, BIG Money not just poverty
Bob Power a great producer who got Hip Hop during a time when other engineers were more use to working with Pop, Rock, Jazz, Classical, etc, however he does appear to exhibit a liberal leftwing political bent to his personal retelling of history.
It’s very popular to be anti white these days. Throw a rock out your window, you’ll hit a self deprecating white guy who’s “better” than other white people.
I'm glad Bob admitted... White people didn't want to mess with the music... Until it was profitable and they still destroyed hip hop...look at rap and hip hop now.. It sucks... matter fact a lot of it sucks even back in the day but it was music that changed the world... My brothers were part of the group K.M.D Subroc and DOOM and we didn't listen to hip hop in the house... My brother even said in an interview he did it for the money... So that's why he did Operation DOOMSDAY and shitted on the whole industry... Shout out to GET YOURZ POSSE AND FAMILY!
These kinds of videos on music engineering are the reason so many aspiring producers don't make good music. They think music production is a linear process. In reality it's all about what sounds good to you. What do U like? It's like saying a portrait painter artist 🎨 can only draw one way. And never draw another way. It's asinine. These old heads love to gate keep. And act as if music production is so etching only ppl in the know can do. Lol
I disagree with Bob on the racism thing. In the early days, studios and engineers didn't want to work with rappers because hip hop was considered cartoonish by both white and black R&B/Soul musicians. At first it was like "Oh god, which one of us wants to record that session on Tuesday?" Then it slowly became "Oh those guys are coming back again? They're a lot better than what we heard last week." Once the art of sampling and true turntable skills took off, everything changed. Racism had nothing to do with the initial cold shoulder. It was about QUALITY.
