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The Kenny Beats Recipe: Signature Plugins, Gear and Mixing Moves Revealed
Producer Kenny Beats opens up about his creative process in an in-depth Tape Notes Podcast conversation.
Kenneth Blume III started out as a local music producer and began his rise to fame by releasing on labels such as J Records and RCA. Soon, he started working with none other than Kendrick Lamar and Mac Miller by the age of 19 and grabbed the opportunity to study at the Berklee College of Music. A fellow student, Ryan Marks, introduced Kenny to trap music and ended up forming LOUDPVCK. After numerous collaborations with NGHTMRE and Zeds Dead and remixes for The Chainsmokers and Major Lazer, the duo parted ways for different creative directions. His blend of trap music and hip-hop created his signature sound, which sparked the attention of Ed Sheeran, Gucci Mane, and DaBaby, who were eager to work with him. In a recent episode of the Tape Notes Podcast, Kenny sat down with artist and producer Mark Bowen to talk about his production insights.
The American record producer mentions that his go-to studio gear has constantly changed over the past few years, although he dived deeper into products of Altec. First of all, he started out using Altec mixers as a distortion unit by driving a signal hard into the input. The character it brings to the table makes his sounds stand out even more. As technology improved itself, Altec incorporated equalizers into these mixers. “It became my thing. So if you see an old green piece of Altec gear that says LF on it, that became my kickdrum sound and a big bass thing for me”.
He even showcased 2 Altec 9073 equalizers that are included in his studio up to this day. “I have them right next to my volume knob for a reason because I just use them on almost everything.”
He even built himself a console including the company’s EQs on every single channel.
Mark Bowen himself dived a little deeper into this subject by asking Kenny how he gets his snares so bright and with so much weight, referring to IDLES’ track “POP POP POP.” FL Studio was and still is one of the most used DAWs when producing hip-hop. Most producers used its ceiling as a clipper for the snare drum by running its signal really loud into the ceiling. That became the signature sound of hip-hop. “I’m always fighting against people in hip-hop who were clipping their drums.” A bit of clipping or saturation adds more drama to the snap and punch of the snare drum. His preference goes out to the Venn Audio V-clipper and the Ableton stock saturator, engaging soft clip.
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