The recording sessions for "4 Minutes" took place at
Sarm West Studios in West London, on a 72-channel
SSL 9080 console. Paul Tingen from
Sound on Sound magazine interviewed
mixing and
recording engineer Demacio "Demo" Castellon, who recalled that he did not attend the first recording sessions because he was working on another project. Over half of the song was already done by the time Castellon arrived, leaving him to do the programming in the intro and the end. At Sarm, Timbaland and Danja used
Akai MPC3000 and
Ensoniq ASR-10 sampling
drum machines,
Yamaha Motif workstation and synths to build the backing track for "4 Minutes". Castellon explained that the recording session took longer than expected. In total 46 tracks were used for drums and percussion and 16 stereo tracks for the bass. The whole session included 100 tracks, and further mixing was done on Pro Tools. was used for recording the song.|alt=An Akai MPC3000 In the case of '4 Minutes', Tim had a vision from the beginning of how things should go, especially sonically... When I opened up the session of '4 Minutes', there was so much going on that I knew right away that the hard part would be to make sure that the vocals would cut through and were right in the pocket. Beginning with working on the vocals was the only way to achieve this. After that I formed all the other parts around the vocals. The other challenge was to make sure that everything in the track sounded clear and that you could hear every instrument, every syllable, every breath. Also, I do almost always work linear in time on a track. It's easier, because when you're done, you're done. So I keep working on section after section, until I get to the end of the track and then I know the whole mix is pretty close. Castellon said that he did not want the SSL's internal automation to interfere with his blending of the music, instead used Pro Tools, with automatic levels. According to him, he "then ran everything through the SSL, on which [he] did EQ, compression and panning." The mixing of the track was made at
The Hit Factory studio, in
Miami on a 96-channel SSL J-series desk. Considering the quantity of recorded backing tracks, Castellon's challenge was to make sure that the music did not overpower the vocals. He accomplished this by first mixing the vocals, then adding the music and the drums, which was an unusual method for him. Minimal digital
plug-ins were employed for the mix as Castellon preferred the sound of
outboard gear. After the mixes were done, Castellon began working on Timbaland's
introduction, and continued with Madonna and Timberlake's vocals. On Timbaland's vocals, he utilized the SSL's EQ to reduce "some bottom end", and he set input levels to avoid
clipping. For Madonna and Timberlake he used SSL's
dynamic range compression, and on Madonna's voice he applied "an eighth-note delay from a
Lexicon PCM42", a reverb from Eventide H3500 for the verse, and
TC Electronic TC3000 for the hook." These digital signal processors were employed to give Madonna's vocals a sense of
stereophonic space. Castellon applied
Waves Audio "Renaissance Compressor" plug-in to control the level of
kick drum. He recalled that "there was one particular kick sound there that clashed with the other tracks, so Tim replaced it with another kick that had a very different note and sound." Using a
Focusrite D2 equalizer let him "match the sound of that new kick drum to the other kick drum sounds". Once the drums and percussion were added, the recording and mixing of "4 Minutes" was finished. ==Composition==