Subscribe
Studio

Chris Carmouche explains why telling André 3000 he was playing flat made him Outkast’s go-to guy

A Grammy-winning producer and engineer, Chris Carmouche had his breakthrough after meeting OutKast as a young intern – going on to be an integral collaborator with the multi-million record-selling duo. After the award-winning success of Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, Carmouche has built an unbelievable discography, working with Beyoncé, CeeLo Green, Diplo and Tinie Tempah. Carmouche provides a retrospective of his career, of which Waves plugins have been an integral part since he was a young assistant in the studio, fresh out of college.

So while Carmouche’s credits, particularly in the world of hip-hop, are quite outrageous, his breakthrough and ensuing career has seen regular work with Outkast and the solo work of the duo thereafter. 

But as a young intern in a studio with the duo, there was a moment where he chose to speak out while André 3000 was recording – a decision that could have sent his career the other way had it been an artist with a bigger ego or a distaste for young studio hands.

“I remember on the first assistant session, we were recording She Lives In My Lap,” Carmouche recalls of the song which featured actress Rosariou Dawson. 

“There was a section where André plays the guitar at the very end. When he was playing one of the notes, it was kind of flat. I'm sitting in the control room with the engineer, and I'm telling John that it sounds flat. John was like, ‘Tell him!’ 

"I was almost too nervous, but I did say, ‘Hey, Dre, I think that one note is flat’. It made me nervous as shit! But André checked it and said, ‘Okay, yeah, you're right, thanks’. 

"From that point, it kind of relaxed me to be more a part of the session and have this organic, intuitive type of approach to everything.”

I did say: Hey Dre, I think that one note is flat. It made me nervous as shit!

Not only did Speakerboxxx/The Love Below go on to win a Grammy with the single Hey Ya! still being a ubiquitous song to this day, but Carmouche has stayed by the duo’s side to this day. It’s safe to say his gamble paid off.

Other fond memories include his work with CeeLo Green: “He’s one of those artists where he’d pick up the mic and magic would just happen.”

He suddenly recalls working on Bubble Butt with Major Lazer:

“It was fun meeting Diplo, and through him I met Tinie Tempah. I didn’t know what to think of the song, and this was before Bruno Mars [who features on the track] was really big, but it ended up being their first Top 100 record.”

I could tell digital plugins were the way things were going and that Waves were at the top of the food chain.

Big Boi is not one of the only constants throughout Carmouche’s career: Waves plugins have also been with him from the very start as a young intern.

“I learned Pro Tools and a lot of the digital when we were working on Stankonia,” he says. “We had one foot in analogue and the other foot in the digital world, we were transferring 24 tracks into Pro Tools sessions. So it was back in 2000 when I started getting introduced to Waves plugins.

“I just loved everything right away. I could tell digital plugins were the way things were going and that Waves were at the top of the food chain. So I used them on everything. Drums, vocals, guitars, bass, and I’m using many of the same plugins today – the same ones from Waves as back when I was working with Akon, T.I. and Lil Jon.”

Like many of the established engineers who rely on Waves, Carmouche has his main, tight-knit set of plugins that are his go-tos. 

“The L1, the L2, the DeEsser, the C4 and the C6, those have always been in my vocal chain. Recently, when I worked on the Baby Rose album, To Myself, we used a bunch of Waves plugins. The J37 tape was used to get some grimy little dirty sounds out of it. We also used the Manny Marroquin series on that album.

“Then there's the SSL channel — I use that a lot, especially in the earlier days when we were moving away from using the SSL console at the studio. I would use the Waves version all the time, and the SSL Compressor as well. 

"Chris Lord-Alge is another series I use all the time. I did some presets for the Cosmos Sample Finder, and I’ve ended up using that too quite a lot! And more recently, I’ve been using Kramer PIE on a lot of projects too, I love that one.”

Fittingly, Carmouche ends the conversation by revealing that his current project is, perhaps you’ve guessed it, Big Boi of OutKast fame. 

“I’ve just started on the new record with Bigs. But I’ve also been tapping into some of the local acts here in Atlanta and working with them, which I’m really excited about.”