Busta Rhymes – Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God (Reloaded)

Used on Blessed, as stated by Busta recording engineer Rayshawn Woolard in this August 1, 2008 Electronic Musician interview.

Working with recording engineers Rande Jackson and Rayshawn Woolard (who double as part of Busta's onstage crew), Busta prefers either a Neumann U 87 or Sony C800G microphone. Reporting that “Busta is very loud in the studio” (though he typically sits down to record), Woolard illustrates the rapper's technique of adding accents or “groups” to the main vocal.

(...) “The U 87 is an old faithful,” Busta attests. “But as I had the opportunity to play around with different mics, I came upon the C800 in a session with Pharrell. When he got me on that microphone, I was able to hear my breathing in such a clear way that it almost scared me. The clarity is phenomenal. I could be in any part of the room; I didn't even have to stand up on the mic. I could say shit and the Sony mic would pick it up exactly how I wanted it to be heard. Sometimes if I wanted the ambience in the room to sound like 10 or 20 people, I would just stand in different parts of the room and shout or say shit at low to moderate levels. The C800 mic picked up everything so beautifully.

“I usually leave the vocal the way I record it,” he adds. “The only thing we might fix is a punch if it sounds a little rough. Then we go into Pro Tools and smooth out the punch. If I've done the punch 1,000 times and it's not coming out better, humanwise, then we make the corrections in the machine so that the punch doesn't compromise the performance and the song.”