Wyclef Jean

"'I'll always have the Neumann U67 set up,' says Tsai. 'That's our main microphone. We'll try an 87 or a 251 on occasion, but it almost always goes back to the 67.'"

"'I'll always have the Neumann U67 set up,' says Tsai. 'That's our main microphone. We'll try an 87 or a 251 on occasion, but it almost always goes back to the 67.'"

"'I'll always have the Neumann U67 set up,' says Tsai. 'That's our main microphone. We'll try an 87 or a 251 on occasion, but it almost always goes back to the 67.'"

Shown up in close in Jean's music video for "Hendrix" at 1:10.

Used for Jean's performance of "Gone Till November" for NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series. First clearly visible at 15:11.

Used for his live performance on "A-Sides with Jon Chattman".

Used in Jean's performance of "Borrowed Time" for NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series. First visible at 0:08.

"All you needed was a Linn 9000 and a keyboard. That's where I got my recording style. My cousin Renell bought me and Jerry [Wonda] a little Tascam [multitrack] tape recorder and we started cutting to that with the Linn and an [Ensoniq] VFX keyboard."

Used in this lesson for how to play the Fugees' "Killing Me Softly". First visible at 4:28.

Shown up close at 1:09 in Jean's music video for "Hendrix".

"I'll tell you a secret about 'Killing Me Softly'. I wanted a Fender Rhodes piano on that track but we didn't have one. So I took a sound in an S900 sampler and put a delay on it and detuned the sampler and played it like a Rhodes and it sounds like one. We just had to invent shit as we went along."

"A Studer A827 multitrack is on hand, a remnant of the Booga Basement days, but is hardly touched lately, Tsai says."

Visible in this Instagram post by Jean.

"'The way I learned was with a single format — a Linn 9000 [sampling drum machine],' he explains. 'Kalise Bayon from Kool & The Gang taught me how to use it. It was the fastest way to make music. All you needed was a Linn 9000 and a keyboard. That's where I got my recording style.'"

"The album was among the first to be recorded in Jean's new Platinum Sound studio, whose rooms are split between Jean's work and outside clients. It's located on the second floor of the building that formerly housed Warehouse Studios on West 46th Street, once Manhattan's nightclub row, next door to Joe Allen's bistro and on the fifth floor, three levels up from the New York City offices of Solid State Logic. Small wonder that Platinum's two studios are populated by 9000J and 9000K consoles."

"The album was among the first to be recorded in Jean's new Platinum Sound studio, whose rooms are split between Jean's work and outside clients. It's located on the second floor of the building that formerly housed Warehouse Studios on West 46th Street, once Manhattan's nightclub row, next door to Joe Allen's bistro and on the fifth floor, three levels up from the New York City offices of Solid State Logic. Small wonder that Platinum's two studios are populated by 9000J and 9000K consoles."

"Jerry has a lot of acoustic drums that we recorded sampled to the MPC,' Grassi says. 'It's a good sampler when you go in through the digital input; the analogue ones tend to sound kind of grainy. So I try to get Jerry to record digitally. I also keep an amp head set up in the control room with a cable running to a speaker cabinet in the studio. I always want to try to have things that actually move air on the tracks. Even when we're using digital drums — which is most of the time — I use a few reverb tricks, like very short setting and fast slaps, to give the sense that there's some air around the drums. The [Roland] Dimension D unit is especially good for making a digital kick drum sound like it has four walls around it.'"

Used on Jean's vocals for Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie".

Mentioned on the official product page.

Thanks to its straightforward controls and hallmark sound, the 6176 is the signal path of choice for engineering heavyweights like Vance Powell and Joe Chiccarelli, plus artists including Chris Martin of Coldplay, Norah Jones, Wyclef Jean, and James Mercer of The Shins.

Used on Jean's vocals for Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie".

Used on Jean's vocals for Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie".

"'I'll always have the Neumann U67 set up,' says Tsai. 'That's our main microphone. We'll try an 87 or a 251 on occasion, but it almost always goes back to the 67. It just works for everything. The same for the Pro Tools HD rigs we have. They're big — 24 inputs and 64 outputs. We just use a lot of the same gear for most of what we do. Everything is always plugged in, the MPC for percussion, the guitars, and a DAT machine is always running, to make sure we catch every idea as it goes by. The studio is always in 'ready' mode. Like Wyclef says, the vibe will take care of the rest.'"

"One of Platinum Sound's two studios, the one fitted with the SSL 9000K, was designed originally by Tom Hidley, and his trademark front-wall monitoring system still dominates the control room's front wall, though it's now loaded with TAD components. The second studio, with a 9000J console, was designed by Frank Commentale, who did several other rooms in New York that have appealed to Jean over the years, including Chung King and some of the rooms at Hit Factor. It's fitted with Augspurger monitors, and both rooms use Genelec 1032/1074 and KRK E8 nearfields."