Audio engineer and scene curator Devonne ‘Knice’ Knight has been one of many key sonic and group architects of the trendy New York hip-hop scene. As senior engineer of Platinum Sound Recording Studios, Knice’s manufacturing work on breakout tracks by artists corresponding to French Montana, Wealthy the Child, and Desiigner have given a contemporary sonic signature to hip hop’s hometown. Along with his work within the studio, Knice has additionally been a passionate advocate for up-and-coming expertise, producing a welcoming ambiance in his studios and internet hosting vibrant, community-focused occasions corresponding to Move the Aux to encourage younger artists to get entangled. As a part of his mission to offer this new era a contemporary voice, Knice has made the Lauten Audio Eden, Atlantis, and Clarion a key a part of his recording workflow.
The Sound of Perception
For greater than 18 years, Knice’s workflow has been constructed round delivering high-quality tracks to his purchasers at an usually astonishing degree of pace and high quality. A significant part in his recipe for fulfillment has been his concentrate on constructing the arrogance of his artists and collaborators from the bottom up and inspiring them to ship their finest in a really aggressive area. “You don’t need to need to persuade individuals to attend till the blending stage for them to start out believing within the potential of a observe,” he defined. “You want one thing near the top product as rapidly as attainable to get individuals to consider within the file and if you happen to aren’t an engineer, you aren’t used to listening to ‘tough’ variations of music. For me, I’ve at all times centered on delivering the very best that I can from the get-go.”
“Our job as engineers is to encourage artists with sounds to get a high quality efficiency,” he continued. “Now we have lots of affect in that means, and if an artist is impressed on a sonic degree within the headphones, that feeds again into the efficiency you get.”
Inspiring perception in his collaborators additionally extends to giving them confidence in their very own voice by curating a sound that’s each slicing and highly effective on a observe. Having exhausted the usual microphone selections, Knice discovered himself on the lookout for one thing contemporary that might present a brand new sound for his artists. “By the point I used to be working with Brandy and J. Critch I knew we would have liked a brand new sound within the studio,” he stated. “I used to be so bored with the identical microphone assortment and I wanted one thing that might reduce via a observe with out an excessive amount of processing.”
“That was after I tried my first Lauten Audio Mic, the Eden, and we instantly fell in love with it.”
A New Sonic Signature
In his seek for the proper vocal microphones, Knice favors those who match into his high-speed workflow with no need further processing to get the sounds required. In Eden, Atlantis, and Clarion, he discovered a trio of helpful variations on a selected sonic taste that serve that actual goal. “It’s that heat tube sound instantly, but it surely has a reduce that you just don’t discover in different mics,” he defined. “The readability and the diction you get on them instantly cuts via and that issues greater than something when making music like this. Shoppers need to hear themselves sound good and also you get that instantly with Lauten.”
“You get hooked on the sensation of urgent play and listening to the completed factor and also you don’t need to saturate them or use EQ to get it.”
Though he’s discovered himself utilizing much less processing since he started utilizing Lauten, a part of the signature sound has been his strategic use of Lauten’s Multi-Voicing modes on Eden and Atlantis particularly. Not solely has this given him the signature ‘reduce’ that his tracks have, it’s additionally allowed him to offer performers a unique variation of the identical, inspiring sound to go well with alternative ways of performing. “The tone (Multi-voicing) switches provide the capability to get an artist comfy with a mic whereas additionally serving to them to higher perceive their very own voice,” he stated. “‘Ahead’ sounds superb on rapping and provides you all that reduce and readability, but when they need to sing, you simply change it to ‘Impartial’ and it’s that clean, heat sound you need.”
“Having it proper there within the artist’s arms to assist make that alternative brings them into the method much more, and also you’re in a position to be taught collectively whereas creating one thing.”
Creating one thing collectively stays on the core of Knice’s enterprise. Between slicing tracks, coaching artists and engineers, and internet hosting occasions in New York Metropolis that champion new artists, contemporary sounds, and a way of vibrant togetherness, he stays a passionate advocate for the group that’s on the core of New York’s hip-hop tradition. “There’s an enormous ecosystem in New York Metropolis particularly for music and after I say we need to curate the sound of a selected space, I imply that we need to do one thing with cultural significance the place we’re all making artwork with one another and everybody can play a component in it,” he stated. “I really feel very empowered with Lauten merchandise – constructing group, sonic imprints, training, and simply having the ability to excite individuals outdoors of the audio group about all of these things. That’s what it’s all about for me.”
