Are those really your handclaps on the OutKast's "Hey Ya!"?
I can't say for sure that those are the handclaps I made and sent to André 3000, but it's entirely possible. I hope they are. When you're a sound designer, you just make the sounds.
How'd you get that gig?
I was the head sound designer at Syntaur Productions, which was my first real paid recording job, after I'd been an intern for a few years. Syntaur is based in New Braunfels, Texas, which is 20 minutes south of where I went to music school, in San Marcos. They were making aftermarket sample libraries for samplers like the Akai MPC and the Ensoniq ASR/EPS. It intrigued me that there was a company in this little Texas town making cool sounds for these cutting-edge samplers and producers; there weren't a lot of people doing that at the time. I applied and got the job while I was still in school. It didn't pay a lot, but I was thrilled to be able to go to work every day and learn more about MIDI, sampling, and sequencing. It was pretty mind-expanding for a kid who grew up playing in punk bands.
Forgive the question, but what's an MPC?
Akai MPCs are like an all-in-one production center: a sequencer, sampler, and drum machine with lots of bells and whistles. They were especially popular in the hip-hop world then, right around the year 2000. There were people out there, like J Dilla, who were using them in absolutely brilliant, creative, and incredible ways. My job was to invent and create sample libraries those artists might want to use, one of which was an all-clap library. Most sampled handclap sounds at the time were cheesy – always the same bad, bright [Roland TR-]808 thing. I thought, "The claps I like are on old soul records, the ones that sound huge and dark, like bear paws." I made a set of big, fat claps that have that huge, round sound. That ended up being one of the libraries André 3000 bought from us, along with another one I made of orchestral percussion.
Can you name any other songs where your samples found a home?
Oh man, those got used by everybody. It's been about 20 years now. I don't know if I could pick one out any more, but I remember hearing songs at the time and going, "Hey, I think that's me!" Those libraries were used by everyone from Jay-Z to U2 to the Spice Girls. It was funny to me that a 20-year-old kid in a podunk town was making samples that big shot producers were using all over the world.
Fast-forward 15 years, to when you and I were working on Shearwater's Jet Plane and Oxbow. We spent a few days in L.A. working with Brian Reitzell [Tape Op #107], who mostly does film and television work now. What did you learn from working with him?
He was who I wanted to be! The records he made with Air [Tape Op #39] are still huge for me. He's on a different level from me, but we're both drummer/producer/ engineer/mixer/synth nerds with one foot in indie rock and another in film music. Brian has this curious, tinkering joy about him that invites everyone around him to bring that same energy. That was inspiring. I remember one afternoon; we'd had lunch, and Brian started bowing a chopstick he was holding against the top of a snare drum, going, "Listen! Listen to this amazing sound!" It was squealing like the most beautiful, insane guitar feedback. That curiosity and openness is important, and it's why I have all the instruments up and running all the time in my studio. All my synths are plugged in and ready. There's always a drum kit mic'd up, a mic on the vibraphone, and a line run to the Leslie. "You got an idea for something? Let's try it now." The problem with working that way, of course, is that you get some pure gold. However, you also end up with a lot of abandoned ideas that aren't quite right, but they might be right for something else. Brian's assembled a massive, unique palette of sounds and samples over years of working on so many different projects. I got much more intentional with my own library after we worked with him. I'm super careful with my file naming conventions now: labeling BPMs and pitch centers so I can find and use them later. Brian also taught me to concentrate on the shading behind the main elements of a song or a piece – all the glorious little details of tiny background sounds that you don't necessarily perceive consciously, but you feel them.
A few years earlier, we mixed another Shearwater album [Animal Joy] with Peter Katis [Tape Op #31], and I remember learning a lot from him, too. Before that, I'd been used to hoping that mixes would shine up a bit in mastering. But when his mixes left his studio, they sounded mastered already.
