Everlast: The Hip Hop Star Branches Out
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“Those are great situations,” Gamble adds. “It’s the reason that we are involved in this business, to be around great music. When you’re in a situation like that, you get a big smile on your face. It’s very difficult to plan that. More often than not, that comes out of the blue. You try and make everything happen.”

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Producers Ross and Gamble do have the ultimate responsibility to make sure the studio vibe is right, especially when guest performers are appearing. Davenport, Merry Clayton, Cee-Lo and rappers B-Real, Rahzel and Kurupt joined Everlast this time around. For Ross it was easy to set the right mood. “With N’Dea, you want to enhance the sensuality in what she does a little more, so you want to set the mood a little differently,” he says. “It’s a little more gentle and cerebral. When you’re with some rap cats, it’s a little more amped and you get the energy up. With B-Real or cats like that, those guys are pros when it comes to rapping. So it’s not incredibly difficult. It’s good. I’m lucky like that, because when you work with professionals, it makes your job so much easier.” Reprising his role as Everlast collaborator on Eat at Whitey’s was Carlos Santana. This time, the guitar legend contributed his talents to the song “Babylon Feeling,” tracking his part at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, Calif.

The Campbell string dates at Ocean Way in Los Angeles and the Santana tracking sessions were the only ones that took place outside of Ross’ basement studios. As Gamble explains it, the studio is built around a Mackie Digital 8-bus console and two 24-track sidecars. The room also features an Otari MTR-90 III, three ADAT XT20s and Logic Audio running on Mark of the Unicorn (one MOTU 2408 and two MOTU 1224s). “Everything locks up and anything can be the master or the slave the way I have it hooked up here,” Gamble notes.

Though he’s been happy with his setup, Gamble reports that the Stimulated Dummies studio will soon feature Pro Tools: “I’m sick of synching things up and things drifting and working in different environments and having to remember everything. I’ve done a couple of sessions with people who are using 5.0, and it sounds great to me. I used to have some sonic issues with the converters, but now with the 24-bit, 96kHz 888s, they sound really great.”

Gamble’s vocal microphone of choice is the Neumann U87 paired with an Avalon VT-737 preamp. SDS is also stocked with compressors like LA-2As, LA-3s, JoeMeek SC2.2, dbx 160A, as well as a pair of Danish broadcast compressors, NTP 179-120s.

Before they get to recording Everlast’s parts, Gamble and Ross are responsible for putting down much of the music tracks for the album. They program drums using Emagic’s Notator running on an Atari 1040ST. Other sequencers at SDS include Akai S1000, Akai S6000, Kurzweil K2500 and Casio SV-20. Ross explains, “I’m trying to accentuate the best parts of the song, make sure the arrangements are right, make sure the drums sound cohesive with the guitar and the vocal textures, make sure everything matches. With him, it’s pretty easy; it’s just accentuating what works and making it work a little more.”

Where Gamble used a bevy of adjectives to describe Everlast, Ross has but one: “Intense,” he says. “We worked pretty fast this time. He had pretty good songs. It’s nice to work on records when you don’t have to hold people’s hands and do everything. On this one, he had more of a vision, he was more self-empowered. I thought his vision was correct, so I just helped to enhance it. It’s like he has a painting in his head, and I just try to get it on canvas.”

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