NI Interviews : Mark Vinten and Lil' Jon

Mark and Lil' Jon

As programmer and engineer of hip hop superstar Lil' Jon, Mark Vinten is directly involved in the success of Jon's famous "Crunk" style, which originated in 2002 with the release of "Kings Of Crunk". Having produced Usher's 2004 hit single "Yeah", Mark and Jon realized every producer's dream of the perfect working environment: For the production of Jon's "Crunk Juice" album, they rented a luxurious house in which they set up a top-class studio as well as a full-blown club PA. In this agreeable environment, they are currently working on the completion of Jon's 2008 album "Crunk Rock". Mark sat down with us to talk about how Guitar Rig helped him shape the edgy sound of the recordings featuring a prominent lineup of rock artists, and how Battery, Kontakt, and Massive inspire him to continously come up with fresh sounds for the protagonist of high-energy hip hop.

Interview: Florian Grote

Mark, what is your role in the production team of Lil' Jon?

I am his engineer. I do a lot of editing and arrangements in his music, basically all the computer work. Basically it's about getting his sounds right, operating the sequencer for recording and things like that.

How did you get involved with Lil' Jon?

I was working at Circle House Studios in Miami, Florida. I had been there for about a year and a half when Jon came through and I was given the session. Jon and I just had a good vibe from the start. He would come back down about twice a month, for three to five days at a time, and every time he came back, he kept asking for me. For his last album, "Crunk Juice", he had the idea of renting a house and putting a studio in it. He called me and asked if I wanted to come out, work the session and do the album with him. I left the studio in Miami and have been with Jon pretty much since then.

For the new album, "Crunk Rock", we started with sessions in Las Vegas, working at the Studio at the Palms. Now we're basically back to the same process as with "Crunk Juice": We have a house in L.A. and put the entire studio in it.

How did you organize the workflow? Do you have one big studio in the house, or do you all have individual setups? How many people are involved and how many are in the house altogether?

There were about five people: Me, Jon, a bass player, a guitar player, and we would have different keyboard players come through and play on different tracks. We all lived there and were just working on the album.

I am just curious because today, so many producers tell you that it's a great advantage to be able to stay in touch on the internet, without actually having to be in the same place, or in the same studio. In your opinion, what is the benefit of staying in the same spot and producing together all day?

I think it is a matter of convenience, really. You could be sitting around the dinner table eating, and you would be talking about a certain beat, then someone says "I think it needs this special thing in there", you know, like a certain sound or a certain bass line or guitar part. You can just go to the studio right then and knock it out. You don't have to wait until you've booked studio time or anything like that. The studio is right there and if you have an idea, you just go for it. We have all lived in the house for a year now, and only take breaks for about 3 or 4 days at a time.

Does it feature nice surroundings, to just relax or to get away if necessary?

The house is incredible. It's a seven-bedroom house, with a full basement that has a theater room in it. That’s where we set up the studio. It has a pool, a bar, and a hot tub. There are all kinds of big screen televisions. It is really very nice.

Are you finished working on the album?

Jon has actually gone to Atlanta for a little bit, to work with some people out there, but it is still in production. It should be done within the next couple of months, though.

What can we expect? How is the sound going to differ from what we know as the Crunk style Lil' Jon stands for?

It is definitely going to be more rock influenced. Crunk music is all about the energy and a lot of rock music is too. So it seems like it's going to be a good mix, the energy of both of them coming together. And I hope that we come out with something great and new.

How would you describe the workflow and the production process of creating that typical energetic Crunk sound?

It all depends on the first step, really. It will happen in one of two ways: Sometimes, Jon goes in and works on his drums and puts a couple of synthesizer sounds in there. Then, we'll try to add the rock elements on top of that. We'll talk to different rock artists to see who would sound good on that particular track. Is it going to be Kid Rock that wants to do this one? Or are we going to get Travis Barker, and have him play some live drums on it? It can also happen the other way around, though: We did a lot of work with this band called Whole Wheat Bread and we had the entire band go in and basically just jam. They would run through ideas all day and we'd go back afterwards and say "Okay, I like this idea from 2 minutes and 30 seconds to 3 minutes and 30 seconds". I would then take that and basically structure a song around it. Then Jon would come back and put his elements on top of that. We basically always worked in one of those two ways.

At the Grammys

How does the collaboration with rock artists differ from collaboration with R&B artists, like say, Usher, when you produced "Yeah"?

It is a lot different because these are sounds that don't normally go together. Usually, you wouldn't have programmed drums that are nice, beefy and round and then add a live drum set on top of that. It just doesn't happen very often. There's a lot of blending to do, trying to get everything to work together. Whereas, if you are doing the regular R&B record like "Yeah", you only have programmed drums and a couple of synths, and then you add in the vocals on top of that. With the rock stuff, you have all the regular Crunk and R&B sounds, plus you are adding in electric guitars, a live drum set, a live bass and so on. This will make your sessions fill up real fast. But if you can blend all the elements together nicely, it makes for a big, big mix which will come out sounding huge.

During which steps and for which elements in the production process did you use NI software like Kontakt and Battery?

I think that Battery is one of the programs that we have used the most so far. Besides Battery, we also use Guitar Rig quite a lot. A producer who is at the top of the music business, like Jon, has a drum library that is just ridiculously vast. He has so many drum samples you wouldn't believe it! Battery has proven to be the best way to keep everything organized. You can make really convenient programs with lots of cells, and I use that to take for example all the kicks and put them into one program. When Jon wants a kick, he just goes to the load menu and pulls up all the kicks. He can go through at least 64 kick drums and find the one he wants. Or, if there is a special kick that he has gotten from someone, like a special 808 or 909 kick, we can drop it into one program and then just pull it out again any time. Being able to tune an 808 or any other drum sound is great! When the kick drum sounds good, but it's just kind of not sitting right in the mix, you can just use the tune knob in Battery and adjust it to where it sits perfectly right in the mix with everything else.

The other software we have used just as much as Battery is Guitar Rig. We sometimes track overdub guitars directly through Guitar Rig and flip through some presets and say "That's kind of close to what we want", and then we can add a flanger or put some delay on it. It's all right there, and we can manipulate it into what we need, which makes Guitar Rig perfect for us.

Entourage

Have you tried Guitar Rig on other, non-guitar sounds as well?

Oh yes! A short while ago, we had a whole mix of Jon's drums, and I bounced them all down to a stereo track and put Guitar Rig on it to get that crunchy, distorted drum sound. We then used this drum loop as a background in a song. It sounded like a sample of an old drum loop, but we had actually made it ourselves. We built the entire beat around that loop.

I have also used Guitar Rig on vocals: I'd either put it across the whole vocal channel, or if I just want a certain buzz to it, I just add a little bit of grit underneath the vocals. Especially for some rock stuff, you don't want the vocals to be too clean, so they might need a little dirt behind them. So in my Protools, I just set Guitar Rig up on an aux-track and route the sends on it. That way, you can't really hear it, but you can feel it. It's a little bit grimier, it has just a little bit more dirt in it. Also, a lot of times I add a delay before Guitar Rig on the aux-tracks. That gives you clean main vocals, but any delays that come through will be distorted or modified in some way.

Do you use Kontakt as well?

We use it a lot to access and edit the sounds we have on our Open Labs Neko. It makes the handling of samples much easier, you just save all the files on the Neko to one folder and use Kontakt's browser to open them on your computer. That basically gives you the exact same sound from the keyboard in Kontakt, only now they are fully manipulable! If I want to edit my sounds from the Neko, I do everything in Kontakt.

Also, we often use Akoustik Piano and the B4. With any of the keyboard players that come through to play just regular keys or an organ, the first thing that we bring up is Akoustik Piano. The Boesendorfer in there is wonderful! The B4 has great-sounding organs and of course they are all completely manipulable. The best thing about having all the sounds in the software is how easy it is to change them according to your needs. If you want to take some of the top-end out, then just go ahead and do it on the screen. It's all savable, you can easily recall it. Just save it as "This is the piano that we used on (whatever song it is)". So if you need the same kind of sound as on another song, you can just open the preset and there it is. You do not have to go through trying to get the mikes just how they were, or get into the same tracking room or anything like that. You can make your sounds the way you want them and then just hit "save" and you're good to go.

When did you start to work with software instruments?

It was probably about a year ago. We didn't have all the NI products for "Crunk Juice", but we've definitely used it on "Crunk Rock" in unbelievable amounts. It's all over the album, really. NI software is one of the mainstays in our productions, the first option when we want to try something. We'll go in and use Kontakt, Akoustik Piano, and the B4, or Massive, which we have started using recently. There are some really new sounds in there, some stuff that has never been heard before! With someone like Jon, who does so much music, it is important to always have new material. All the NI products are updated so frequently that you are constantly getting new material to work with, and that will inspire you to create new things. It keeps everything fresh for you, keeps you moving forward.

Well, thank you very much for your time, Mark! We are looking forward to the new album!