I've been meaning to make this thread for a while now, especially ever since I copped Aquemini on vinyl over a year ago and have been re-visiting & studying the crap out of it like crazy! This LP maaaay easily be my favorite all around hip hop album ever and I mean
EVER! at least from a group. There's so much I can rant on about this masterpiece...I just finished reading an interview/article from 2010 breaking down much of the process of the albums making. This thread I'm starting now is meant to share the article, and also serve as a supplement to expand even further into different aspects of Aquemini. I wonder if any of the engineers, producers, studio musicians or artists involved in the making of the album are members of these boards? Please inform us if anybody knows. I'm just going to start off by posting a few of my own personal observations & comments and finish by quoting some highlights of the article, with a link to it also. Here we go :
Initially, one of the first things, that I guess I underestimated or didn't realize exactly...is how responsible Andre 3000 was overall for *partially* executive producing, coordinating, overseeing, guiding and even playing/composing much of the project himself. I had no idea he was almost a "full blow" producer/musician himself on Aquemini really. My assumption was that Organized Noise did most of the work, beatmaking, production & engineering wise...but after reading the credits more carefully and the interview it's clear that without Andre this project would feel quite naked. I mean, aside from his vocal contributions. He played the Kalimba on the intro, brainstormed & started about half of the beats on the album, then often directed all the studio musicians (bass players, drummers, guitarists, horn players & etc...) as to what melodies they should dub. From what I understand he was also responsible for some of the piano we hear at times. Overall this guy contributed so much to this project, to imagine him not being a part of it would not feel right, at all!
Another great point to make is that. How all the production on the album (as with most Outkast albums) blends & flows so well together. All the intro's, skits, beats, and the sequence & ordering of songs is just near perfect. There's a particular mood that carries on from ATLiens into Aquemini....that strange, eerie, mellow-ish, melancholic or even sci-fi vibe at times, but mixed with a cheerful brightness at the same time. It's kind of hard to explain. Musically this album is such a unique blend, but for the most part I think it leans more towards the sombering / melancholic, chill vibe.
There's definitely a heavy amount of processing that's evident throughout most of the album. Especially on the vocals for certain tracks, as well as on instrumental layers such as electric/acoustic guitars, bass guitar or samples. Another consistent aspect of the album is the low end. I think due to Preston Crump playing many of the basslines, this contributed heavily in preserving much of a uniform low end feel throughout the album. It's obvious that some of the bass has been processed somehow, it be great to know what was used to process it through?
The drum kit selections and all the drums in general, including those played live all sound so crisp, clean and clear yet still exhibiting a very small hint of dirt sometimes. The kicks pack punch, hit very nicely, and most times not to subby allowing proper space between them and the bass. The snares are pretty sharp and attack-ish...some of them contain beautiful reverb tails others tend to be a bit more dry. The hats sound very organic, natural and metallic I'd say. Overall, most of the drums seem to be pretty tight and quanitized, aside from a few exceptions where the hats have a bit of a bounce to them. I would love to know what Beat Machines : Organized Noise, Andre & Mr. DJ were all using back then? Beat machines, keyboards, any other external hardware? What type of processing (compressing/limiting,reverbing...) was applied on drums?
I also love the sound effects and obscure backround stuff that was in some of the tracks. Sometimes cinematic type, other times atmospheric sounding or dugeon-ish...they provided much to the overall feel and texture of the album. Where a lot of these effects sounds you guys recorded and manipulated afterwards?
These are some of my main comments/questions for now. I'll reserve the rest for later.
PLEASE everyone contribute any reflections or questions you have based on Aquemini or feel free to share the impact it's had on your life. Bellow I'm posting a link to the article that I mentioned earlier with a few highlighted quotes :
The Making of OutKast's Aquemini - June 24th 2010http://ift.tt/1rYVJILAndre 3000: My biggest [instrument] is my mouth. I'd just lean over to Preston and say: ba-boom, ba-boom. And he'd just kinda go in on it and freak it and make it his own. There's always some improvisation [involved] 'cause I ask for it. I want them to take my idea and make it better. I can't play it [and] at the time I couldn't create it. They're accomplished musicians so you want them around. They bring good ideas.Mr. DJ: [Me and] Dre started learning how to produce together. We would sit around and watch Rico and Ray all the time, and it was just the coolest shit to see them with the cigarette hanging out one hand and just going in on the beat machine - that was an art in itself, not to mention what came out of the machine.
More than knowing what we were doing, we were just imitating what they were doing. We got the same equipment and we were on the road traveling. We eventually learned what we were doing, but for the most part, we were just going through the motions and trying to do what they were doing and finally learned how to start producing. Dre got really into it. Dre doesn't spend a lot of money on a lot of stuff, but Dre spent a lot of money on music equipment.Omar Phillips (percussionist) :
Of course, back then we had the kind of budgets where we could really just live at Doppler Studios. It was just eat, live, sleep, music. We started recording around 8 p.m. and we would come out of the studio at like 6 or 7 in the morning. We were all set up at the same time, which is another great thing about those tracks. There was very little overdub involved. What you hear is what we were hearing. We all tracked at the same time, old-school.Neal H. Pogue: That was the beauty of making all those records - having musicians come in and out. It was almost like a Motown, that's what we had. Or like a Stax Records thing. That's what I loved about it. It brought back that whole feeling of making records. It was organic.Andre 3000: Every story that I've ever told is either triggered by something that I've been through or something that someone I know has experienced. So a lot of times, it's based on something real.Mr. DJ : If you listen to the verses, that's mostly what it's talking about. And the reason we even started talking about that was because that track sounded so combative. It just gave you that whole vibe. When we did music and came up with songs, the titles of songs and the subject matter came from whatever feeling the beat gave you.
Nowadays people just do music to catch somebody's ear. To me that's part of the reason why music today is not as heartfelt and not as deep, because it's starting with a beat that your heart hasn't been put into. So therefore that beat is not gonna pull out that meaningful stuff and those different subjects. You almost can't fault the artists these days for what they write and what they say, because the music that they are influenced by and that they write to is not medidative music. It's not music that will make you feel that kind of way. That's how our music was made, and that's why its as timeless as it is. 
