The creation of Beyoncé’s album 4 involved 10 studios and almost 20 producers. The one constant, apart from the singer herself, was recording engineer DJ Swivel.
Jordan Young, aka DJ Swivel, has always had a passion for music. Although by his own admission, not proficient at any instrument, he tinkered with the violin, trumpet, and played bass guitar for a few years before he began to find his niche on the turntables, whilst also working with Cubase at high school — a time which he says, looking back, “laid the foundations to his career in DJ’ing and music production”. Swivel now resides in New York City and works out of a number of major studios as a recording engineer, producer and mix engineer. For the last year or so has been working closely with Beyoncé, engineering her latest album 4, which was released worldwide last month. “Omar Grant, who was A&R for Epic at the time, called me one day and said that Beyoncé needed a fill‑in engineer; she hadn’t started the album, but she was looking to mess around with some ideas,” Swivel says. “He used to work with Destiny’s Child, and of course I was interested in the project right away.”
In May 2010, Swivel started working with Beyoncé at Rock The Mic in NYC, initially recording the track ‘Party’ to see what kind of a working relationship might form. “I pride myself on being a fast engineer, and I was able to execute all she wanted me to do in that first session; thankfully, she liked the job, and the speed that I worked at, and we then started discussing the beginning of the record.”
The creation of Beyoncé’s album 4 involved 10 studios and almost 20 producers. The one constant, apart from the singer herself, was recording engineer DJ Swivel.
Six weeks later, he got the all‑important second call, and the ball was set rolling. After just a few days at Rock The Mic, it became necessary to move to a bigger room, so they decamped to KMA Studios for a week and a half. Swivel was the first person ever to work in KMA when it opened in 2007 and, unsurprisingly, feels particularly at home there. The studio also has his favourite nearfield monitors, Genelec 1031s, which are never far from his side. “The mix room at KMA for a long time was my home away from home; and the 1031s are, in my opinion, the ultimate nearfield monitor. KMA also has Griffin main speakers, which are great; and the room is very clean and honest, which is so important. It translates really well to the real world.” The project then moved to MSR (formerly Right Track and then Legacy), where the bulk of the work was done, although a total of 10 studios were used over the course of the album.
“Near the beginning we did a couple of days with the Fela Kuti band [from the Broadway musical] over at MSR, which involved experimenting with horns, percussion, drums, guitars and keys. We’d be taking loops, like a section of percussion — congas for example — and then using them on a completely different record; and that record might be a completely different tempo or in a different key, so we’d literally be pitching it as we went. I used Elastic Audio [in Pro Tools] to fit and stretch it. Having fun is the best way I can put it; there were no rules. OK, it’s not the most orthodox way of doing things, but it was very freeing, and having the ability to do whatever you want and whatever she wants was a very cool way to start.