Timbaland is irritatingly secretive about how he makes music. This interview in Remix Magazine is the closest anyone has ever got to him. From it, we know that:
1) Boringly, he gets lots of sounds from expensive workstations - a Korg Triton and a Yamaha Motif 7.
2) Like The Neptunes, he uses an old Ensoniq ASR-10 sampler like the one above. They now cost about £3-500 on Ebay, were huge in America, but pretty rare in Britain. Some of the famous Neptunes drum sounds are presets from the ASR-10.
3) Like everyone in the world, he records vocals with a Neumann U 87 microphone, a Neve 1076 pre-amp and a Urei 1176 compressor.
The magic appears to come from inside his computer. He uses loads of VST software synths, but doesn't tell us what they're called. The story says that he uses "Transformer, Votex and Syn Pulse". Transformer could mean Waves Transform - a very expensive bunch of pitch shifting and messing-about-with tools. But as for 'Votex' or "Syn Pulse", there's nothing. Damn him.
CLICK FOR PART THREE
there was also an interview with jimmy douglas (timbs engineer) in sound on sound which is pretty interesting
ReplyDeletematt.
www.soundonsound.com
There was an interview with Timbaland, a long time ago, in The Wire. He talked about Bjork's "Joga" being the greatest song.
ReplyDeleteHe also (dubiously) claimed that he had the guts of an Alesis QS7 put into the case of an Alesis QS6 to throw people off... if they were trying to see what he used.
The interview/write-up were by Sasha Frere-Jones if anyone wants to try to track it down.
If you've ever used an E-mu Turbo Phatt, you probably know that several Timbaland hooks are simply arpeggiators from this keyboard, some of which sound more like they're controlling a Nord. He doesn't use the whole pattern, just the first catchy part. If I remember correctly, the vocal melody on Miss E's One Minute Man chorus is one of these arpeggiators.
ReplyDeleteAs well as the Emu Turbo Phatt he also uses the audition riffs off the Emu Proteus 2000. Nas's Owe You Back is an audition riff sampled straight from a bass patch called Plexy. It was funny at the time because Swizz Beat was getting flack for doing this whilst ole Tim escaped scott free. To this day most people don't realise things like Big Pimpin is a straight sample.
ReplyDeleteMost of the links in this article are dead. Would appreciate it if the MT "faves" like this, Rick Rubin, Giorgio, etc. were kept up to date please? Well send them if I can find replacements.
ReplyDeleteBack when I worked in Turnkey in 2003, I sold him an Access Virus Indigo and a Jomox Xbase 09.
ReplyDeleteTimbaland probably uses everyday stuff, and his arrangement ideas are just how his mind works.
ReplyDeleteOf course he is secretive about how he do his work: that is the best way to hide how he steals from other artists....
ReplyDelete