In The Studio: Caspian – If The Sky Fell feat. Noble

A hiphop track I recorded & mixed here at Creativ. Caspian kills it on both verses, and Noble brings his usual heavy yet smooth vibe to the chorus and his bridge. The instrumental is produced by Nikoh, and is based around a beautiful string loop… right up my alley.

It was a fun session recording this track. Noble was literally fresh off the plane from Australia, and arrived at the studio right from the airport. Hadn’t seen him in what was probably a couple years, so this was a great “first time back” type of occasion. Noble knew all his parts perfectly because a year or two prior, a rough demo of it had been cut back at the Ephin studios.

Watch video from the recording session:

The Recording Process:

After a couple rye and cokes and some catching up, we were all ready to get cas in the booth. If i remember correctly, his verses went down in just one or two takes each, with full double layers thrown on for an extra thick sound – something that I almost always do with Caspian. He also recorded his parts of the chorus, with the holes left in in for Noble to slide in his vocals.

When Noble got in the booth, the process was just as smooth, again because he had all his parts already worked out. I picked a suitable mic / preamp combination for his voice and we were right into it. We filled in the his chorus layers first to get the vibe going, then took it from there. His bridge leads were done in a few takes, with me slicing it up on the fly and choosing the best lines from each take. Everyone in the studio was excited about how it was coming together, and knew right away we had a great single on our hands. A few adlibs later and we were done the recording. After another couple drinks with the guys and some catching up, we called it a night.

After we wrapped it up, the track ended up sitting for a several months before we ended up mixing it (the video footage is from 2009). When cas gave the go-ahead, i spent an afternoon on it. Didn’t go overboard, just made sure the vocals were sitting right: crisp and clean, and that the beat banged. My main focus on the instrumental was to ensure the string loop floated along, anchored by a smacking snare right in the middle of the mix to create the “head nod” feel. A quick master with my favorite pieces to get it up to volume, and we had our selves the final product you here now.

The Final Product:

Special mentions to Caspian, Noble, Vision, Ephin, Heera, Janet & Wisers Wiskey.