Case Study: These Walls – Kendrick Lamar Ft. Anna Wise, Bilal & Thundercat
- purveshmehta98
- Nov 21, 2016
- 9 min read
Produced by Terrace Martin & Larrance Dopson; Additional production by Sounwave, off Kendrick’s 2015 album, To Pimp a Butterfly. Written by Terrace Martin, Kendrick Lamar, Larrence Dopson, Rose McKinney & James Fauntleroy, Bass player, Thundercat, Trumpet, Josef Leimberg, Alto Saxophone, Terrace Martin, Percussion Larrance Dopson, Keyboards Terrace Martin, Larrance Dopson & Robert Glasper, Guitar Gregory Moore & Marlon Williams, Released March 15, 2015.
‘Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly is one of the most ambitious hip-hop albums of recent years. Derek Ali was Lamar’s right-hand man during its making.’ An in-depth interview with Derek Ali on Sound on Sound goes into how the 25-year-old producer went from self taught mixing engineer to the in house engineer for TDE (Top Dawg Entertainment).
“Kendrick and I later started working at Dr Dre’s studio. He is one of the greatest, and he was super hands-on with Kendrick’s M.A.A.D album.”
““But Kendrick has his own sound, so when it was time to mix that album, Kendrick said that he wanted me to mix it. Dre appreciated that, because he liked a young guy who wanted to learn the art of engineering and mixing, instead of wanting to become a producer or a rapper. So he took me under his wing, and showed me a lot of techniques that you can’t learn in books and that he developed over the years, and that I then made my own. I went from Pro Tools LE with an Mbox to an SSL 4000 overnight, and just watching Dre work and how he got the drums and kick to smack and so on was an inspiration. Since then I’ve always used a board when recording and mixing.”
As opposed to Noah ‘40’ Shebib, Derick prefers to mix outside the box, Derick was self taught using only just an Audio-Technica 2025 microphone and an M-Audio Solo interface, recording into FL Studios. Most of To Pimp a Butterfly was recorded and mixed at Dr Dre’s No Excuse Studio.
The full break down of these walls can be found on soundonsound. http://www.soundonsound.com/people/inside-track-kendrick-lamars-pimp-butterfly
The Pro Tools session has around 90 tracks starting with green coloured tracks that are originally programmed and playing in Ableton Live which included drums, bass, keyboards effects tracks, guitar and trumpets. In light blue are Ali’s aux effect tracks, vocals, horn tracks and brown/green effects tracks. Guest vocal tracks are in dark blue.
Processing used for Instrument tracks: SSL desk EQ, API 550, Neve 2254, SPL Transient Designer, Pultec EQP-1A, Waves Doubler & S1 Imager.
“This is actually one of my cleanest mixes. I didn’t do anything crazy on the drums, just SSL desk EQ, plus the API 550 EQ on the snare, and Neve compressor as parallel compression on the drums as a whole. I also used the SPL Transient Designer on the drums. A lot of Kendrick’s music is really bass-heavy, and the API and the SPL allow me to get the drums to sit next to the bass and vocals in way that gets them to smack and be in your face without overpowering the other elements. I’ll take out some mid-range with the API, around 1kHz or so, and I’ll add high end, to get that high presence, and I’ll then take out high end on the SSL again, so it’s not piercing your ears. I do that a lot on snares in general. The API gives me a really nice top end for that smack, and the SPL gives me that thump. I used that chain on a lot of the drum tracks on the album. I like my drums to be clear and to hit hard and be present in the mix but not overpowering. I try to get every mix to sound both dirty and clean, if that makes sense. The Neve livens the drums up with some added body and mid-range. I also use it on the vocal, the brass and the guitars. In this song I had a Pultec EQ on the bass.
The plug-ins on the synths and keyboards are mostly there to trim things, taking out unwanted frequencies and stuff like that. I don’t like to boost frequencies with the Waves plug-ins, because to me it sounds like they are thinning the sound. I’ll add frequencies on the board and will shape things there until they fit. Below the instruments are a number of aux tracks which I use in the third verse, where I added a lot of crazy stuff. The [Waves] Doubler acts on Thundercat’s bass, so it starts to sound like it’s underwater, giving a real funky effect. I also had the S1 Imager on the bass, to give it more presence.”
Processing used for the vocals: Vocals: Waves Renaissance Compressor, SSL Channel & S1 Imager, EMT 250, Empirical Labs Distressor, Fairchild 670, SSL desk EQ & compression, AMS RMX16.
“There are quite a few plug-ins on Kendrick’s vocal. He has a real raspy, mid-range vocal, so I use the Renaissance Compressor to smooth that out. I have it in manual and opto modes, with the threshold all the way down to -18, so if anything in the mid-range leaps out too much, it keeps that in check. I use the SSL Channel strip on his vocals, just for high- or low-pass filtering, because most of my vocal EQ is done on the board. I also like to use the S1 Imager, again because of his voice being so raspy and mid-rangey, and the Imager opens it up. A perfect analogy is to think of a blanket on a bed which is tied in a knot, and then you open it up and spread the blanket over the bed. The Imager opens up his vocals and allows it sit on top of the track in a similar way. For outboard I used the EMT 250 reverb. The first time the studio took that out, I was like: ‘What’s that? A refrigerator?’ I also like to use the Distressor on his lead, because it adds some grit and presence at the top. So the RCompressor and S1 smooth and widen out his vocal sound, and the Distressor opens up the top end, making it crisp and allowing his vocals to cut through. The aux reverb tracks are mostly used for the vocals in that final section. You can hear I have vocals automated to pan left and right, and the S1 Imager makes them sound almost 3D, with stuff going on behind you. The reason I did that is because the song gives you a really happy feeling in the first two verses, it’s like a wedding party, even if when you listen carefully, you’ll hear Kendrick is singing about, excuse my language, pussy. But in the last verse he’s talking about people in jail, and so I added loads of effects to give you that feeling. As an engineer you manipulate sound to get certain emotions. For that reason I don’t want people to listen to my mixes. I want them to experience my mixes! Anna’s vocals were mainly treated in the box, with minimal stuff done on the board, just some shaping with the board EQ. The same with Bilal’s voice. I did send both their voices through an outboard Fairchild 670, for parallel compression. I didn’t do much to Thundercat’s voice either, it was mainly a question of trying to get it to sound airy, and for that I used a combination of SSL board EQ and reverb from the AMS RMX16. I might have initially done that with an in-the-box reverb, which I removed during the final mix.”
Stereo mix: SSL bus compressor, GML 8200.
“As I mentioned before, we mixed back into Pro Tools, via a Lavry Gold A-D converter, and to half-inch tape. Whether I treated the two-mix depended on how loud my mix was. If it is super-loud already, I probably won’t do anything, but the majority of the time I use the SSL stereo bus compressor, and I also will often use a GML EQ, just to tune it a little bit. The album was mastered from the tape reels. Kendrick had been saying from the beginning of the project that he wanted a vintage ’70s sound, and doing my research I figured that mixing to tape was the best way to achieve that. We tried it, and we noticed how much warmer my mixes came out when they were printed to tape. Kendrick and I loved it. So in the end what we did was a hybrid of new and old approaches. You use the things from the past, and then you modernise them as best as you can. We really want for people to listen to this album from top to bottom, without skipping songs. This meant that the entire flow of the album had to be cohesive, and build in a certain way.
So after we finished all the mixes we sequenced the album in a new Pro Tools session using the Lavry mix prints, and created a kind of blueprint of the album, adding effects and skits and bits and pieces to get the songs to flow into each other. We then replaced the Lavry mix prints in this Pro Tools session with digitised versions of the mixes that were mastered off the half-inch tape, and did some more fine-tuning. We had a lot of help with the entire mastering and sequencing process from our mastering engineer Mike Bozzi, at Bernie Grundman Mastering. So the album is one long piece of work from top to bottom. Listening to the entire album became a whole experience that makes you think about things and the emotions that are there.”
Stereo mix arrangement
Genre Summary
These Walls and the album as a whole is heavily influenced by Neo soul, R&b, funk and Jazz. Neo soul and jazz featuring artist involved in this track are Bilal and Thundercat. Jazz originated from African American communities of New orleans, it is characterised by swing, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. typical instrumentation in Jazz involve live strings, brass, keyboards, piano and other live played instruments. These walls features many live jazz instrumentalists that were recorded using live instruments in the studio.
Track Structure
BPM:108
Time signature: 4/4
Bar count: 95
Key: F minor
Intro: 0:00-0:37
Bridge: 0:37-1:12
Hook: 1:12-1:30
Verse1: 1:30-2:05
Hook: 2:05-2:23
Verse2 2:23-2:59
Hook: 2:59-3:16
Instrumental Break: 3:16-3:34
Verse3: 3:34-4:28
Outro: 4:28-4:45
Poem: 4:45-5:01
The level of complexity behind this track is no surprise as like the rest of the album there are many elements that make up the composition of this track and album. This type of intricate attention to detail is one of the key aspects that makes Kendrick Lamar one of the best artist of our generation, his vocals and his team of engineers, vocalists, instrumentalist are what create this album, without them it would not be the masterpieces it is today.
Instrumentation:
The track begins with Kendrick reading a poem to 2Pac which is a recurring theme throughout the track, accompanied by the poem are panned finger clicks and background noise. After the first 4 bars, what seems to be a woman moaning is actually a saxophone according to genius.com. The intro is based on the break from Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal."
The more obvious moans that follow, with some piano chords being played in the back, is an actual woman's voice, after which what sounds like a processed car driving by, noise builds then dies down. The musical elements come in for the first bridge of the track where the drums, keyboard which sounds like a Rhodes and electric guitar follow by some more heavy ambient keys that fill up the low mids. As for the hook, all elements come together, layering more synths and aux effects as Ali explains, "The plug-ins on the synths and keyboards are mostly there to trim things, taking out unwanted frequencies and stuff like that. I don’t like to boost frequencies with the Waves plug-ins, because to me it sounds like they are thinning the sound. I’ll add frequencies on the board and will shape things there until they fit. Below the instruments are a number of aux tracks which I use in the third verse, where I added a lot of crazy stuff. The [Waves] Doubler acts on Thundercat’s bass, so it starts to sound like it’s underwater, giving a real funky effect. I also had the S1 Imager on the bass, to give it more presence.”
Sound Stage:
For a track of this length (5:01), to keep the listener interested throughout, dynamics play a huge role, if the track is loud throughout without much change in dynamics, it can be draining and cause fatigue, also our ears tend to drown out things that become repetitive but on the other hand, repetition like a hook keep us interested therefore you must have a fine balance. Derek Ali, Kendrick Lamar and the team at TDE have made a name for themselves because of their experience and understanding of Owsinki's key's to a great mix. This is also reflected through the amount of praise and success the album received, Kendrick also winning seven grammy awards for this album and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "These Walls".
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/grammy-awards-2016-the-complete-winners-list-20160215
The above coloured clips indicate the level of stereo width, blue being mainly centred, mono audio, orange being moderate stereo width and red indicating heavy panning of elements.
As for frequency range, Derek Ali and the team at TDE arranged the track in a way where many elements were brought in and out creating even more interest and complexity to the track. Elements were taken away and reintroduced to allow room for certain frequencies and elements to be emphasised in a specific section of the track.
The track begins with simple finger clicks, reverb and pan delayed, coming in around 2K
Kendrick's vocals have plenty of room to be emphasised and can be seen to be filling up the frequencies above 100Hz
The hook section is where all the elements are introduced, filling up the low end and the highs which are then rolled off around 12K
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