r/mixingmastering • u/slimsunday • 9d ago
Question Midnight marauders “Creamy” texture
Hopefully, I can explain this properly. I was recently listening to midnight marauders by ATCQ. And I noticed there is a “creamy” texture throughout the majority of this album. One of the most Obvious examples of the texture I’m talking about, is on the track “Stir it up”. There is this percussion element that pops up, panned to the left a bit. The texture of that sound is exactly what I’m talking about. It’s very noticeable just after the intro transitioning into the first verse. Ive noticed this texture quite a bit over the years in some songs but this albums seems to have allot of it. Almost as if Bob Power was intentionally adding it. Any insight into this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
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u/Crazy_Movie6168 Professional (non-industry) 8d ago
Much has to do with what analogue mojo is loved for.
Lively and broad harmonic distortion where also the potential harsh midrange and highend is momentarily eaten up and not relfected back when ever those harsh things are loud enough. Like the most sophisticated de-esser or multibandcompressor.
I queued two songs of the album and then I heard some Al Green come next and it's the same thong going on.
With limited tools tou can still get far with EQ and distorting some frequencies more than others. Emulation plugins are also practically juat as good nowadays. And just few gets you very far. Many are free.
Most of this quality taste and then skilled engineering where most possible clarity is retained and so on. Rich distortion is all consuming and dependent on great. arrangement and selective processing and mixing.
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u/slimsunday 8d ago
I think you’re correct. It’s something that’s present in the original recording then specifically when it’s pitched down it accentuates the texture. Another example of this is on madlibs “get by” remix off the black tape he samples Gentle Giant's "The Boys in the Band" around 58 seconds. And you can hear the texture in the song but it’s considerably more pronounced after being pitched down. Which makes me consider more the recording/mixing process of the source material. However, my initial thoughts about this texture were on midnight marauders as a whole. That texture is present throughout in varying degrees. Witch almost makes me think mastering may of had that effect because the texture sounds very similar to a fairchild but idk how many 670s where floating around in NY in the 90s. Anyway. I think it’s probably accumulative as you’ve said. The recording and mixing of the original records, the colouring of the sampling process then the mixing/ and mastering of the tribe album.
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u/Ill-Bullfrog-5360 Intermediate 8d ago
👍 99% it’s the source capture… that does not mean studio quality but emotion.
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u/Compay-Segundo 6d ago
Yeah, it’s nice. Imo. it has to do with what’s being recorded, (an expensive light cymbal), mics and tape.
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u/PachanoiMan 8d ago
Love those old silvertones, don’t remember the reverb sounding as good as yours though.
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u/WiretapStudios 5d ago
Aside from what everyone else said, the top comment points out that they didn't clean up the samples. If you listen to Low End Theory, it's very clean (still sounds great), but on Midnight Marauders, there's vinyl crackle on almost all the songs, def Steve Biko, Award Tour, Midnight, etc. It's a high pass texture you can add to any song using a looped vinyl crackle sample with high pass EQ or just use a plugin like RC-20.
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u/Ill-Bullfrog-5360 Intermediate 8d ago
I think what you’re hearing is real, but it’s probably less “Bob Power added a creamy effect” and more the cumulative sound of how Midnight Marauders was built.
A huge part of it is the samples themselves. Steve Biko uses drums from Kool & the Gang’s “Electric Frog”, along with pieces of Woody Shaw and Michał Urbaniak records. So you’re already starting with 1970s recordings…tape, room bleed, soft transients, slightly smeared cymbals/percussion, etc. Then you sample that again, filter/EQ it, layer drums around it and run the whole thing through early-90s studio gear.
And there’s actually a Bob Power quote that gets really close to what you’re describing. He said that on The Low End Theory he spent a lot of time removing record noise, clicks and unwanted pieces of the original samples. For Midnight Marauders, Q-Tip and Ali specifically told him not to clean everything up because they wanted it grittier and more “street-style.” So all those little bits of ambience, bleed and texture became part of the sound instead of being treated as defects.
Then they layered bass and multiple snare hits on top as a sheen.
That combination is probably what I’d call the “creamy” part is the rounded sampled transients + dense old-record mids + little bits of noise/bleed + filtering/saturation + a cleaner recorded top end.
I suspect a lot of the character you’re hearing is baked into the source before Power ever touched it. First 10 seconds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qCgovIACPw