808s & Heartbreak - Recording

Recording

The album was recorded over a span of approximately three weeks from September to October 2008. Recording sessions took place at Glenwood Studios in Burbank, California and at Avex Recording Studio in Honolulu, Hawaii. As implied by its title, 808s & Heartbreak prominently features the Roland TR-808 drum machine. Drawing inspiration from 1980s synthpop and electropop performers such as Phil Collins, Gary Numan, TJ Swan and Boy George, West felt that the 808 is a resourceful instrument that can be used to evoke emotion; the concept was introduced to him by Jon Brion. West utilized the sounds created by the 808 and manipulated its pitch to produce a distorted, electronic sound, an effect he referred to as "heartbreak". He felt the characteristic of the sound was representative of his state of mind. According to West, the fact that Hawaii's area code was "808" was coincidental, as he had already developed the album's title before being informed. The realization inspired him to pursue his direction with the album, however. In terms of musical direction, West's intentions, according to Mike Dean, were to go against the typical sound of hip hop beat, instead evoking the presence of tribal drums. Overall, West maintained a "minimal but functional" approach towards the album's studio production.

The album makes prominent use of the voice audio processor technology of Auto-Tune. West had previously experimented with the technology on The College Dropout for the background vocals of "Jesus Walks" and "Never Let Me Down", but he had not used it for lead vocals until 2008. "We were working on the remixes for Lil Wayne's 'Lollipop' and Young Jeezy's 'Put On' and he fell in love with the Auto-Tune", producer Mike Dean explained. Towards the end, West enlisted T-Pain for coaching on how to utilize the technology. West himself openly stated that he loved using Auto-Tune and was dismayed that the term has been commonly associated with being "wack". He considers the technology "the funnest thing to use" and compared the situation to when he was a child and thought the color pink was cool until someone told him "it was gay", producing an analogy of how the views of society can rob people of their confidence and self-esteem. He later went on to state that he enjoyed the electronic feel produced by Auto-Tune and sought out to juxtapose the mechanical sounds with the traditional sounds of taiko drums and choir monks.

Rapper Kid Cudi, who had signed onto West's G.O.O.D. Music label, contributed to two of the album's songs. Young Jeezy contributed a rap verse on the track "Amazing" while "See You in My Nightmares" is a duet with Lil Wayne. Singer-songwriter Esthero provided the few female vocals found on the album; credited under birth name Jenny-Bea Englishman, she co-wrote three tracks. When "RoboCop" appeared on the Internet, West refuted responsibility and was upset that the leak had occurred as the track was an unfinished version. Mike Dean had previously stated that the track was expected to receive additional treatment by Herbie Hancock before the album's release.