Recording and Production
Spending their own money, N.E.R.D recorded the album at the South Beach Studios in Miami, Florida, and the Record Plant Studios in Los Angeles, California. Williams used a Triton Extreme, Triton Pro and Pro Tools in the production of the album, while Hugo worked in Access Virus TI, Roland JV-1080, JV-2080, XV-5080, TR-808 and TR-909 as beatboxing was provided by Haley. Rock band Spymob further assisted production with guitar and drums. Production revolved around heavy rock, funk and soul music, which was first introduced in their debut album, In Search Of.... Hugo described the album as going back to the band's roots, combining a classic rock sound with a 1970s funk swing. The typical process of recording was described as "Williams arrives at the studio, ideas in full flower, and lays down both a beat (either programmed or played on an assortment of buckets) and vocals." Hugo then would add extra instrumentation. In an interview with MTV, Williams said that the band "didn't care about genres; we're not doing this for the money. We're doing this for people who pledge allegiance to our movement." Hugo went on to say that they "just want to make people move". On the album he said, "We had anger, quiet angst. We had something to get off our chest. And we wanted to show we could do it as a band." Don Was, a musician and record producer, thought that the band was on a creatively fulfilling path, calling their musical style "really innovative".
Williams felt music lacked energy, citing Limp Bizkit's "Nookie" as the last energetic record. Williams suggested his engineer, Andrew Coleman, to "put the drums and bass on the right, keys in the middle, and the mothafucking guitar and backgrounds on the left". Coleman denied his request, saying, "those systems were different back then. If we do that, you'll be in a club and all you will hear on one side of the club is drums and on the other side, just chords."
The Hives' members - Chris Dangerous (drums/percussion), Nicholaus Arson (guitar), Vigilante Carlstroem (guitar), Dr. Matt Destruction (bass) - contributed instrumentals on "Time For Some Action" and "Windows", with The Hives' frontman Howlin' Pelle Almqvist providing guest vocals on "Time For Some Action". On Seeing Sounds they are credited with their real names instead of the pseudonyms they use within the band.
Read more about this topic: Seeing Sounds
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