TEDDY RILEY GETS DANGEROUS
Seminal Producer and Songwriter Sets up Dangerous Music Rigs for Worldwide Use.
EDMESTON, NY – December 13, 2011 – Some producers follow artists to their home towns or favorite recording studios. Seminal R&B and hip-hop producer/songwriter Teddy Riley has seen it all during his illustrious career and now finds himself in the middle of a whole new wave of styling in Korea with “K Pop” – a unique variety of music emerging from South Korea. Having produced some music that zoomed up the Korean music charts, he decided to go there and set up a production company. However, his secret weapon in creating beats and mixing and monitoring had to part of the equation:Dangerous Music 2-Bus LT analog summing for mixing and the Dangerous Monitor ST for monitor control and source switching. When in Korea, he set up just such a recording system. And for the 2011 Blackstreet concert tour Riley added the Dangerous Music D-Box compact 1U rackspace integrated 8-channel summing and monitor control to his portable setup so he can keep working on productions and have his ‘sound’ while traveling.
“I came out to Korea because there was a song that was released that I produced,” says Riley. “The company didn’t tell my team what was going on with the song, so I wound up taking a trip there, and it turned into a two-month visit. The first three weeks we were in the apartment making beats. Then we met a friend who became a partner in our company, TRX, Teddy Riley Xperience. He showed us the ropes in Korea and connected us to all the major companies, including SM Entertainment, the largest record company in Korea, maybe in all of Asia.”
“SM Entertainment told us ‘Why don’t you guys stay a week, make some music, we’d like to hear what you’ve got, we want to do business with you,'” Riley continues. “That turned into me wanting to get gear out here because if I’m going to make music I want my sound out here. I already had my computer, but I wanted ‘the force’ behind me, which is theDangerous Music sound!”
Just what does the sound of the Dangerous Music gear mean to him? Riley states, “I can only say that the Dangerous 2-Bus is the closest thing to the analog SSL I used back in the day. That’s a real strong and prominent sound for me. Using the Dangerous gear has gotten me into that sonic landscape. The Dangerous gear is ‘Warm’ – I can make anything have ‘punch’ in the box, but I can’t make it sound warm, and that’s the thing that I get with Dangerous gear. I can also get a ‘grimy’ sound with Dangerous, and I get ‘presence’ as well. It takes me back to Dolby SR with tape where you feel the warmness of it.”
As Riley is making up beats and working on songs, he is always listening through the Monitor ST and the 2-Bus comparing the sound. He likes hearing the benefit of the 2-Bus analog summing while he’s working. “I have to have that,” he says. “What I like about the Monitor ST is that the remote is very easy to use and the system gives me the ability to listen back to what the music sounds like from the actual mix in the 2-Bus and after the converter captures the mix through my Apogee – you can AB both sides.”
Revealing more of his work in South Korea he says, “My goal was to get the music done, go back to America and do my tour with my band Blackstreet, and then come right back to Korea. We’d had a second single come out called ‘Demon’ by the Korean artist Jay Park, he’s like the Justin Timberlake of Korea. He sings in English, and in fact the single is in English. The name of this music in the movement is called ‘K Pop‘ – a lot of people follow this sound. That’s another reason why I’m here – because my music and my style happens to fit in. We have a few more singles coming out pretty soon, I can’t wait for everyone to hear them!”
“Everything I do I mix through the Dangerous gear. I’ve been working with an incredible engineer in Korea, Mr. Yoo Youn Jin, who’s also a producer and singer. I wanted to learn from the people who know the sound in Korea. He’s one of the greatest mixers I’ve ever worked with. I’ve never had my music sound so warm. He uses a bunch of outboard gear and mixes through the Dangerous 2-Bus.”
Riley uses MOTU and Apogee converters in his computer-based recording set up along with a pair of 2-Bus LT’s and a Monitor ST. “It’s been fantastic. When my equipment setup started getting smaller and more compact, and my formula started getting smaller and ‘in-the-box” – I said ‘I’ve got to have something that’s going to give me the analog sound’ – I started working on the posthumous Michael Jackson album titled Michael and I wanted something to give me the feel of an SSL board. So I decided I wanted to check out the Dangerous gear. I had heard that DeVante from Jodeci was using it, and Jean-Marie Horvat told me about it too. I said ‘I’ve got to get it’ because those are the people I respect when it comes to gear. I did a lot of the Michael Jackson mixes on this system, and I did the new Blackstreet album on it too.”
Describing his rig, he explains, “From the output of the laptop I go into a MOTU interface which connects straight to the two linked 2-Bus LT‘s, giving me 32 channels. The stereo monitor output of the second LT goes to the Monitor ST input 1 – my “A” listening channel. The main 2-Bus outputs go to my Apogee Rosetta A-to-D, which goes back into the MOTU interface. Then I can monitor the output of the mix through the Monitor ST using the Apogee analog outputs on ST input 2 – my “B” listening channel. “A” will be the actual mix from the 2-Bus, “B” will be what’s coming back post A/D conversion and after any mix buss processing.”
“I never had the opportunity to write anything with Michael Jackson but what I was able to do was, as a friend, take on the Michael project, mixing other people’s productions. I took the project to the finish line. The album was a success, selling millions of copies around the world. I’m very proud of it,” says Riley.
