Beneath the Cloaks: An Interview with The Doppelgangaz

What’s your production process like? What are your individual talents? Like does one of you lay down the bass and then the other does the synths or something like that.

EP: I’ll set up like a template, a skeleton, but I don’t think there’s a real process. Maybe drums first – I don’t know, not always. But he knows how to just arrange everything, like how to really set up a song, like a structure, and get certain elements where they need to be and where they drop out and come in. But we really just tag team and eiffel tower the beat and the song. And that’s kind of how it comes together. I don’t think there’s like a cool process besides the fact that there’s usually cocaine and hookers involved, but other than that, I just think that it’s pretty similar to anybody else’s process. Aside from the fact that we really do nitpick; he’s not lying about that. We zoom in on wav files and we’re moving stuff over and making sure there’s no pops. We’re just really really big on making sure stuff is put together properly.

MoF: – I done lost sleep over a pop before.

EP: You’ll notice like a little pop because maybe somebody hit the mic when they were rapping. We gotta take that out. It’s definitely a meticulous process.

What are your preferred softwares?

EP: Reason all day. And Pro Tools to mix and edit. And then of course, Final Cut for videos. But it’s Reason all day for the beats.

You guys have been working together for awhile. When did you realize Reason was the one?

EP: For me it was 2001 when Reason actually first came out. We experimented with a couple programs and I just never liked them. What we would do back in the day was take a tape and lay down drums from a crappy keyboard and play it all out and record over it, then play the drums back with a new tape and play keys over it. That was the “beginnings” beginnings. But I had asked myself around 2001 when Reason came out, “Where’s the software with the drum machine, with the synth, with the sampler. Nobody has this?” Sure enough I did some research and found it. I’ve literally been with Reason since the jump, since it came out.

MoF: We still trying to get that sponsorship.

EP: Propellerhead holla at me.

You two are really well-liked in Europe. Do you ever feel that you’re possibly misunderstood by European fans?

EP: They always tells us that they don’t know the lyrics.

MoF: It depends on where we are though.

EP: Not that they don’t know the lyrics from face value. They know the words, per se, but they get lost in some of the slang and things get lost in translation. But they get us, man! I wouldn’t say that there’s much of a barrier aside from like deeper meanings. They may not grasp that, but for the most part, they love us, man.

MoF: It’s crazy because throughout history, if you look at different genres of music and languages and people just gravitating toward stuff, they can just feel it. Maybe in certain cases, they’re not even influenced by – like maybe some people in that states may not mess with somebody because they use a certain kind of slang or something like that. So I think even in the US when people don’t understand something, they just go by feeling.

EP: And that’s good because that’s like the initial thing you feel. And when you play a song it’s more about feeling, so if that translates, that’s good.

You two are pretty good producers, but I’ve never seen your production get picked up by other rappers. Are you two just reluctant to give your instrumentals away? Or you don’t get approached that much?

EP: Well we definitely don’t get approached.

Definitely?

EP: We always knock ourselves, but we get approached, it’s not like that. I think the biggest thing with us is that we don’t want to just send a beat out. We’d rather really vibe with an artist. That’s kind of an old school approach these days because everybody is quick quick quick. But just emailing a beat and seeing what somebody does with it is really just not that interesting for us. And we’re also like control freaks a little bit. We like being able to see the song from the beginning stages and see it out all the way to the end. And I think most people just aren’t into that. But we got a beat placement with Lil B the BasedGod once.

MoF: We can die happy.

EP: Really, who else do you need to work with after the BasedGod? He said the beat cried to him. That’s like the ultimate honor, so we really don’t need any other placements.

MoF: But we’re not against it.

So your beats are precious to you, in a sense?

EP: They’re just sacred in the sense that we want a real song to come out, not some mixtape shit. And then they’re gonna two track it – I want to give them all the elements to do it right, to make the proper edits.

What does it mean to two track it?

EP: To two track it means to just send over the mp3, so when it loads up in Pro Tools it’s just a left and a right stereo file.

MoF: So somebody might want a cutout so they just literally cut the whole beat out and pop back in as opposed to having all the elements where you can take a certain section out and drop the drums or let the drums go out. A lot of people just record with the whole mp3 in there, so you don’t have the elements or nothing, you just got the straight beat.

EP: Not to mention the mix might not be on par, so that means they’re using a shitty mix and they’re recording over that, so they can’t make an customized edits. It’s just not a good look, personally. Other people don’t care.

So it’s like they can’t really explore and understand the beat.

EP: You can’t! You can’t! There’s no way you can solo shit out. I’m not into that, man. I just want it to be official.