DCat
Right Where He Should BeBy Randy Alberts
OK, so you're an experienced drummer, vocalist, and producer, you were raised by Motown legend Mary Wells and performed with Cecil and Linda Womack, and you've got your kid's group C4, two amazing musicians from Denmark and the singing Womacks on hand. George Clinton just spent two days and nights in your studio, and Snoop Dogg is eagerly waiting to hear the song mix, and you're still not sure the demo will make the album?
"I've got a full reel of hot tracks with hooks from George, Bobby, and myself that Snoop and/or other artists can rap on and take to the majors if they want," says DCat, who knows there's big money in hip-hop songwriting but no sure things. A funk and R&B session player as a teen who brings that to his new hip-hop writing chops, DCat has always made Peak his cropping tool of choice. "You can always use your doors to shoot 'em a track. The only question is if it's strong enough to make the album."
DCat's resume is rich. Before working currently with Meech Wells, DJ BattleCat, and the Big Snoop Dogg, he toured and recorded behind a kit for Natalie Cole and Womack & Womack and was in Trey Lewd's Flastic-Brain Flams — the latter with Tracey Lewis (George Clinton's son) and a big part of the P-Funk — all by the time he was 17. He also lived in Denmark for 5 years while working with Womack & Womack and ScatMan John, 5- and 2-million-copy sellers in Europe, respectively, and says he sees the entire continent having a funky vibe all its own.
"European musicians are classically trained and practiced, but they also have they're own natural funk, too."
Peak Is Da Bomb
Using his recent studio time with George Clinton and their evolving new 4-piece band Da Bomb as examples to get into how he uses Peak, DCat is an enthusiastic longtime user to say the least in those descriptions. He's good on both sides of the board, his many mastering credits attesting to that, and you'll need at least half an hour once you get him started about using Peak for what he's up to these days. It's all good, because his new hip-hop/rock and classic rock 'n' roll demos with Clinton, Bobby Womack, and Da Bomb are bound to make your town paper's entertainment section this year.
He lived with Mary Wells, toured with Sam Cook's daughter and Cecil Womack as a teenager, he's part of the P-Funk Mob and he sits with the Dogg Pound today, but it's nothing more than his trans-global talent and studio savvy that keeps those doors open in the first place for DCat.
"Peak sets up every track I do," he says. "Even on tracks with great finished mixes: I bring those in to Peak to make sure its just blowing everything up and hittin' as hard as it can with just the right compression and master EQ. I do all of that in Peak. When you can see those huge waves up there on the screen, that's just perfect. You hear it, you see it, and it's all self-explanatory. You don't need a full blown mastering studio when you have Peak and a real powerful computer."
DCat uses Peak in his L.A. studio to ensure his levels are spot on, to layer sound ideas over 2-track mixes, and to rip and email rough mix MP3s for approval. He recently had to send a version of a song over the Web but had only a huge 80-track DAW file version of the song available, far too mammoth for even his hefty laptop to open. No problem, he says, he just clicked on the stereo music file of the session and launched it in Peak and, voila!
"Peak actually launched the two dual mono tracks and then automatically opened me another window," DCat recounts. "I looked up and, bam, there it is already and set up for me in stereo! So I just renamed that, selected the first minute-and-a-half of it for them to hear, did my fades, saved it and, boom, I was uploading it instantly. I'm so used to using Peak that I was totally secure in this process, a no-brainer."
Da Bomb sounds very interesting, and Peak is a part of that experience, too. Think Synchronicity-era Police, Snoop Dogg and the Chili Peppers as the house band on the Mothership, and you're close. The friendly DCat says its hip-hop with a touch of rock, and with George Clinton in the band, too, you know something's up.
"It's a band that wants to back up everything that's going on here," he continues. "If DJ BattleCat or J & Sweet or any other pop act needs a core band for a project, for instance, we can play anything."
DCat recently set Clinton up in a 2-week block of studio time near his Canoga Park home. With DCat manning the controls with Peak, even his longest sessions fell far short of George's 24/7 session ethic.
"He sleeps in the studio when he's recording, which is most all of the time. He's got the strongest work ethic I've ever seen," says DCat, who was raised around and spends more than his fair share of time at the mixing board, too. "Anywhere he goes worldwide, man, he finds a place to cut and he just goes! He's always worked like that and he is in his 60s now, and that how he keeps the edge."
New Loops 'N' Beats To Be Found
Not only is Peak the perfect way for DCat to import and work with loops, it's now becoming his most useful tool in finding lots of new beats embedded deeper within those loops. He's been getting into Loop Surfer a lot lately and likes what he is finding with his new beat-hungry friend.
"Peak shows me things I hadn't thought of before. It can analyze and find certain forms, beats, and rhythms within a loop that I might not have otherwise heard and found in the sample."
DCat goes into a great "human drum" mode here to illustrate how he transforms one kick-and-snare loop into another with Peak, before and after Loop Surfer. "Kah-boom, boom-boom" became "kah-boom, kah-boom-kah" with just one click, and he digs that.
"When Peak starts finding those alternate beats on the snare and the backbeat," concludes DCat, a.k.a. Dwayne Cornelius, "and then it starts getting all those dope pickups and start-offs with it, that's when you're goin', 'OK, that's cool!' Now, you start talkin' about some plug-ins and filters that find even more loops and grooves, and you do it all within Peak. It's also my mastering program, everything, and without having to open up the multi-track session and go backwards just to do that, either. And being able to burn in Peak now, wow, that's great. Everyone has their own studios now, so when you have a strong tool like Peak you can do your mix, put it in Peak, and make sure your mix is right where it should be."