By the time Mike Dupree sets foot in his LA studio everyday around 11am, he’s already taken care of his own spiritual and physical fitness, dropped his older daughter off at school and caught up on anything else that needs handling. But it’s in the cozy blacklit room where the creative part of his brain begins to blend and meld sounds to create his sought-after beats.
“I try to keep my creative mind unclogged, so I can just start working when I come in,” Dupree says. “I’m always feeling good, but it’s a matter of how I’m feeling that day which determines my creative process. Sometimes I can see what I’m hearing or taste it in a weird way, so if I feel like ice cream, I’ll make a track that tastes like sherbet to me. Other times, maybe I had a conversation with someone, and I’ll just come in and get to playing with melodies, lay the tracks, and get going.”
Aside from a handful of couches, everything in Dupree’s studio is there to create music. From the dozens of knobs and buttons on the interface in front of his computer monitor to the keyboards and speakers surrounding him, it’s all there to help get the best sounds into and out of the Ableton digital audio workstation the producer uses for both hip-hop and electronic music. But after putting in years behind the scenes creating for names like T.I., Trey Songz and his hometown Kansas City mentor, Tech N9ne (which led to even bigger artists like Kendrick Lamar), Dupree’s studio now has a new focus: recording the vocalists featured on his solo tracks.
“I’ll record artists here, but I’ll go to one of the big studios if I’m working with a big artist,” Dupree says, gesturing to the microphone standing just beyond his MIDI keyboard controller. “I’m a fairly big gearhead, but I’m not the biggest gearhead at all. A lot of what you see now is all in the [computer], but if you would’ve caught me back in the day, there would’ve been a lot more. I just recently invested about $12,000 into my vocal chain because that’s my bread and butter now. I can polish a track out so well, but I need the vocals to be so nicely done too.”
Of course, there’s a lot more to putting a song together than just recording some vocals and working out a beat. Over his decade-long career, Dupree can’t even count how many times he’s adjusted and tweaked tracks to get them just right after thinking he was just about done with a song. Whether an artist wants to try everything in a different key or Dupree is simply interested in playing with the tempo of the track, it’s the little discussions, emotions and thoughts that go into perfecting each tune that go unnoticed by most, but can make all of the difference.
“People only hear the finished product, but they don’t see the conversations and the emotions that go into it,” Dupree says. “They might show someone in the booth, but they’re not showing you going back and forth with an artist. I think that’s an inspiring thing for a young producer to see, because if you just see me playing chords and going through these different progressions, you’re not seeing the struggles and the whole formula. In a sense, we’re engineering something here.”
But at this stage in the game, Dupree knows that creating a solid beat isn’t necessarily good enough. With social media and easily accessible audio software giving rise to new names on a daily basis, generic-sounding producers are as plentiful as their rapping counterparts these days. Combine that with the fact that Dupree believes a lot of talented producers get so caught up in their craft that they forget to market themselves and end up “at their mom’s house with the dopest beats in the world,” and originality in the industry may very well be at an all time low and tastefulness is likely right behind it.
“You can do something that’s popular, but you still have to do your own version of it,” Dupree says. “I don’t want a fake version of something when I can get the real version of that. Being original to yourself and being tasteful is what makes a great producer. I think tastefulness is what makes anyone great. If you’re a great dresser, your look is unique to you but everyone can identify it as tasteful. It’s one thing to be skillful, but if you lack taste, people are going to go with the guy whose taste is on point, even if his technique is just alright.”
As for what’s next, Dupree will be on the other side of the curtain as he’ll be performing in concert for the first time ever in the coming days. With the strength of his first single, “Falling Up,” and a pair of new tracks about to drop, the hip-hop veteran is already excited to make a splash in the electronic world as a solo artist — even if DJing in front of a couple thousand people isn’t exactly what he’s used to.
“I’m definitely not a DJ, because I respect the craft of what those guys do,” Dupree laughs. “I’m just excited to get out there on a stage and play some of my own songs for people."
See some more out-of-the-box articles by visiting out Feature page.
from Myspace - Editorial http://ift.tt/2py9ioo
No comments:
Post a Comment