Lauren Justice
Joey Vitale listens to a hip-hop track in his north-side home studio. He’s engineered tracks by national acts, but hopes to put Madison’s rap scene 0n the map.
The drumbeat kicks and thumps the speaker boxes inside Joey Vitale’s home studio as he eyes the acoustic details within the visual representation of its sound wave. He clicks the mouse a few times, ups the volume, and then slides the isolated beat back into the master track.
Vitale’s tweaks aren’t immediately clear to our untrained ears. He replays the beat, as delivered by Madison musician Vadar One (formerly of Fair Play Cypher), followed by a replay of his mix.
“The kick drum had too much low-mid,” he explains, like an editor discussing tweaks to a story. “You can hear more punch in it now; and the snare, I took out the low-mid, added some snap to it, and put a compressor on it so it isn’t hurting your ear.”
Each of the composition’s 60 distinct tracks will receive similar treatment. When finished, they will form interlocking parts in a seamless conglomeration known as a song.
“Each song is like a frequency Rubik’s Cube,” Vitale says. “I figure out how to smooth out each track so they don’t sound like they’ve been recorded in different places. The more an artist builds up the tracks, the muddier the song gets.”
Vitale’s industry-standard studio — which he bankrolled delivering pizzas and flipping burgers — is located in an unassuming ranch-style duplex on Madison’s north side. He marvels at the fact he earns money doing what once seemed like a pipe dream.
“I was always the guy who was choosing the music at parties,” he recalls. “I was always bugging people, ‘Did you hear that sound in the left speaker?’ ‘Did you hear that vocal?’”
After graduating from Madison Media Institute, where his passion for adjusting sound through amplification and filtering — known as EQing — was realized, he launched Remedy Born Muzik and, in 2005, began working with artists from a variety of genres, with a special affinity for hip-hop. Now 38, the Madison native came of age during rap’s golden era in the late ’80s and early ’90s.
Prior to becoming an engineer and producer, he worked briefly promoting local hip-hop acts. In 2007, he joined the legions of young Madison talent enticed by bigger cities with better prospects.
For Vitale, that city was Atlanta, nationally known for its rich hip-hop scene. There, he refined his skills, but he returned four years later.
“I missed the Midwest,” he says. “I like the water, the fresh air. I made a lot of connections [in Atlanta], but it wasn’t for me. There is something about the Midwest; it’s where my roots are.”
Since then, Vitale’s portfolio has expanded to include songs by Public Enemy’s Chuck D. and Sean Price, as well as several collaborations with Madison’s own hip-hop luminary, DJ Pain 1. Many local hip-hop artists have come to rely on his ear to mix and master their rhymes or produce the beats.
As a volunteer for Madison’s Urban Community Arts Network, Vitale is one of several boosters who believe in the untapped potential of Madison hip-hop. To realize that dream, Vitale says local artists must honor one of hip-hop’s tenants: Be hometown proud.
“A lot of artists around here claim to be from Chicago when they perform outside of Madison, but how do you get your fans to come out when you’re not representing your city?”
In the meantime, Vitale is putting the final pieces of his own dream in place by scaling back on “food work.” Business is abundant enough that engineering and producing full-time is within reach.
“I still have to make money to finance my career, but I’m getting busier all the time,” he says. “I don’t have a girl, I don’t have a kid, because I gotta have the time to do it, too.”
Suddenly pensive, Vitale wistfully adds: “I guess that’s the sacrifice I’ve had to make to get here.”
Has delivered pizzas and flipped burgers for: Pizza Pit and the Brass Ring.
Philosophy on sound: “You have the high ends and the lows ends, and you pull and adjust as it’s coming at you. Even low frequencies you can’t hear can affect parts of a song you can hear.”
One thing hip-hop can do without: Bling, bling clichés.
