channel ORANGE

ocean began writing channel ORANGE in february 2011 with malay (james ryan ho), a producer he'd met in atlanta while both worked as songwriters for the same publisher. they reconnected in los angeles after malay moved west, then spent two to three months writing the album at eastwest studios in hollywood, a complex with 1960s recording equipment. ocean enlisted los angeles producer om'mas keith to help rework the songs, adding live drums and instrumentation to replace the sample-heavy approach of nostalgia, ultra.[05][10][08]

malay built most of the album's keyboard sounds with arturia's v collection software synthesizers because he couldn't afford hardware when he started working with ocean in 2010. he ran the virtual instruments out through a neve 1073 preamp for analog coloring, then tracked guitars himself on a fender stratocaster, gibson les paul, and es-335 through a fender princeton or vox ac30.[10][07]

engineer jeff ellis recorded the string section for "bad religion" in eastwest's studio 1, the same room where frank sinatra cut "my way," by seating only three string players in different positions for multiple takes and capturing them with a stereo pair of coles 4038 ribbon mics to fake a larger ensemble.[10]

ocean released nostalgia, ultra independently in february 2011 after def jam showed no activity on his recording career. the mixtape forced the label to mend the relationship: def jam released two songs as singles and reached an agreement to release a studio album in 2012, which became channel ORANGE on july 10.[05]

channel ORANGE's success earned ocean a reported $2 million advance from def jam for a second album. four years later he released endless as an apple music exclusive on august 19, 2016, satisfying his two-album contract, then dropped blonde independently the next day under his own boys don't cry label, keeping an estimated 70 percent of revenues instead of 14 percent.[02][06]

ocean later bought back his channel ORANGE masters by repaying the advance, calling the endless release "the final move in a seven-year chess game" to exit def jam.[06]

ocean and malay met in atlanta while working for the same publishing company as songwriters, then reconnected in los angeles after malay moved west following work on john legend's evolver in 2008. malay had initially met record executive kawan prather, who brought him to atlanta for the legend sessions where he also encountered ocean, then still going by lonny breaux.[10][08]

ocean brought om'mas keith, a los angeles producer from the group sa-ra, onto channel ORANGE to add live production and rework ten of the album's songs. keith had just co-produced "no church in the wild" on watch the throne, the track that featured ocean's vocals.[05][08]

prince changed his name to a symbol in the 1990s to escape his warner bros contract, pushing out music to satisfy the deal while protecting his future work.[02]