Does anyone know what desk(s) were used to record and mix this record?

It’s really a recording achievement that NIN hasn’t matched since.

This was when he had his studio in a former funeral home in New Orleans.
I think he was using Mackie Digital 8 bus consoles. At some point they put a large SSL in there.
Maybe @ charlieclouser could shed some light?

SSL 4000 G+.

https://www.theninhotline.com/archiv...ard_feb00.html

What a great website! I actually asked here at GS if it was possible to get that Fragile, wide synth bass lead sound on a Peak. Everyone said it was a bass with fuzz. But I have three Nord Leads and it is definitely a Nord. Well read below!

"In my studio," says Charlie, "I basically rely on three synths - the Nord, the Virus, and the MicroWave.

Trent used "a Nord Lead on almost every song," says Keith. And not just for leads or synth bass. "He used it for... it was pretty much all over the map. There wasn't any real definitive synth bass. I mean, we used the Minimoog, we used the Nord, we used the [Novation] Bass Station on 'The Wretched.' There wasn't anything that we always went back to for a specific sound, but if he had a melody in his head, the Nord was always the first synth he'd walk over to.

The Fragile was mixed by Alan Moulder on Trent’s SSL G/E 4k. I believe it was a 72 channel frame with half black and half brown EQs, and I think 8 stereo channels at one end for a total of 80 channels. I believe the console was bought from Larrabee North. Lots of stuff was tracked through the board’s preamps but some stuff, like vocals, always were recorded through Trent’s pair of vintage 1073’s. Of course there was a full complement of nineties outboard (and I do mean FULL) like Pultecs, LA2a’s, 1176’s, AMS DMX and RMX, Lex 480 & PCM42’s, basically all the toys money could buy. Most things were tracked directly into Pro Tools via Apogee AD-8000, then dumped to a pair of Studer A800 for mix, but most songs had more than 48 tracks on playback so it was always a hodgepodge of tape, Pro Tools, and live samplers & synths during the mix. The SSL did have VCA automation and Total Recall but I don’t think it had Ultimation - not too sure about that part.

Mixes were usually printed to 16-bit DAT with an Apogee Mini-Me for A>D I think.

Although I did all of my remixes on a 32 channel Mackie 8-bus (with two 24 channel expanders!), it was only used to track a few elements that I added to some songs, and never for the mix… except on a couple of songs where we used it to sum a few FX returns when we had run out of channels on the SSL.

Our Pro Tools rig in that era was PT/24, with 6x 888/24 interfaces for 48 I/o, and the AD-8000 feeding the first 888 via AES. A Horita black burst generator provided house sync to the Timeline Micro-Lynx unit which locked the pair of Studer machines together and provided word clock to the Digidesign SMPTE Slave Diver and Video Slave Driver peripherals.

Simple, right?

Hi Charlie, thank you for posting! SSL G/E. Got it.

I really feel that The Fragile is the high water mark for NIN. What electronic Industrial record sounds better than The Fragile? FLA doesn’t get mixes that punchy and fat. Nor does Skinny Puppy or KMFDM. The Fragile is a masterpiece. You were really a part of something unique at that period with NIN and electronic music in general. The Prodigy could get that fat and punchy but the mixes never had the clarity.

The drums are so slamming on that record. It’s my go-to to see if my latest mix compares in any possible way. The width, warmth and punch is unmatched. The opening of Where is Everybody is just sick. It’s like the gold standard for punchy wide electro. F k’s sake is it dope. And, for me, The Big Come Down is one of the all time best. I don’t think Trent has come close to the production level before or since. You and I have chatted here before about NIN and our favorite German Softsynth “Avenger!!!” Haha Thanks for being so down to earth, man.

You mentioned both the Apogee AD8000 and MINI-ME. These two boxes have a sound that I’ve mentioned time and again on this forum. I usually get shouted down because they are “old”. I owned both and the mini-me is still one I recommend to people. Well there it is! It’s The Fragile 2-bus!

So it seems like SSL G / E is the sound then? Overall? The tape and the great reverbs.

I have those UAD Verbs in my template. Again, I’m thinking “these sound huge and characterful in that Fragile kind of way.”

In some ways you could build this system with a hybrid setup. Between Softube and UAD and SSL Xracks and maybe some secondhand gear.

This Alan Moulder interview is worth a read http://polymathperspective.com/?p=3286

@ rockmanrock

It is also home to the large SSL G+ Ultimation 72-channel desk, once owned by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, but bought by Alan and shipped over from New Orleans when Trent moved his studio to LA.

The mix studio’s SSL desk is remarkable for being fitted with both the standard G-series brown EQs (featuring a pair of x3 and /3 switches for the HMF and LMF bands), as well as the older black EQs, offering bell and shelf curves for the LF and HF bands.
“I tend to put the drums through the black ones,” reveals Alan. “I just like the punch of the bottom end, which is good for boosting. I still do a lot of cutting but, certainly for drums, I’d be lost if I wasn’t allowed to boost a bit! I just do whatever sounds good, really.
“The Black EQs are like the E-series EQ and have a different bottom end, whereas the Brown ones have the plus/divide by three switches for the mid range. Rather than changing the shape of the curve, it just changes the turning point from 800 to whatever, so I use that more on vocals and keyboards and stuff like that.
“Generally, I’ve found myself adding less top of late because there’s quite a fashion to record on older boards, and those recordings sometimes have more top end when you run them though an SSL.

In the 90s? No. Hardwired was pretty damned good for an electro-industrial act's production, though (Greg Reely usually, right?). Clearly - to me - something like the much later 2013's fantastic Echogenetic sounds "as good" as The Fragile.

The gear/budget on The Fragile, as listed, seems like it vastly exceeded anything FLA could afford - though I don't know what was in the mixing/mastering studio.

We’ll, the most important part isn’t any of the gear I’ve listed… it’s Alan Moulder and Trent Reznor.

What I came here to say…difference between NIN mixes and others is most others weren’t mixed by Alan Moulder.

Wow! That’s a lot of talent working on that record.

Nine Inch Nails

Trent Reznor – vocals, programming and production
Charlie Clouser – keyboards, synthesizers, programming and additional sound design
Danny Lohner – drum programming, synthesizers, guitars (tracks 1, 7, 8, 12, 15 and 19)
Jerome Dillon – drums (track 5)



Additional musicians and production personnel

Steve Albini – engineering
Tom Baker – mastering
Adrian Belew – guitars (tracks 7, 12 and 15)
Roy C. Bennett – guitars
Clinton Bradley – programming, technical assistant to Bob Ezrin
Paul Bradley – programming
Paul DeCarli – programming
Dr. Dre – additional production, mixing assistance (track 8)
Steve Duda – production, programming and percussion (track 9), chorus (tracks 9 and 18), violin (track 23), additional sound design
Bob Ezrin – additional production (album sequencing)
Ken Friedman – additional sound design
Mike Garson – piano (tracks 7, 13 and 23)
Toni Halliday – additional vocals
Page Hamilton – guitar (track 10)
Leo Herrera – engineering
Dan Hill – additional vocals
Keith Hillebrandt – programming and additional production (track 13), chorus (tracks 9 and 18), additional sound design
CherryHolly – trumpet (track 9)
Martin Kierszenbaum – additional programming
John Lewis – piano
Denise Milfort – vocals (track 11)
Alan Moulder – production, engineering and mixing
Dave Ogilvie – engineering
Brian Pollack – engineering
Kim Prevost – vocals (track 14)
Porter Ricks – keyboards, programming and synthesizer
Bill Rieflin – drums (track 11)
Tony Thompson – drums
Willie – cello (track 11)

Well, music by Noisuf-X, Alien Vampyres, synthetic perfectiom, SAM, Soman, Alter der Ruine etc were all slamming. To my ears, they don’t have the creative depth. Although these acts are way more connected to the clubs and scene. I think DJ bent, and Batcave and Jet of Vampire Freaks and Xrix smack of Stimulate etc Ohgre is more likely to hang out than trent reznor.

FLA tactical and caustic are great records at the clubs. Everyone loves it when FLA comes up. It’s a different thing.

I saw Nothing Records at Irving Plaza in ‘94 (coulda been ‘95… can’t remember. 8x11 printouts went up around union square that said “NOTHING. Irving Plaza” so i walked over and asked if it was nin) anyways, it was with Prick and Manson and PWEI and Meatbeat … There was some clubbiness to it at that venue. But not an FLA show. I remember clearly that Trent came out all seething (like a dork) it was Terrible Lie for the opener. He was so busy being a drama on stage he forgot the lyrics. He stopped the set. He laughed at himself and started again without the drama. It was a mental show. When March of the Pigs came on I thought we were going to tear the place apart.

Someone threw a bottle at Manson that night. A guy right next to me. Actually, I knew the guy. He hated the manson make-up industrial thing. I think Manson attacked the next person who threw a bottle at him. These days I look back at Manson and his interviews and really wish someone was around like him.

It’s no ‘The Fragile’ of course, but what about ’The Eyes of Stanley Paine’ by Download?

I use a Mini-Me for everything. It sounds great.

Furnace was better then TEOSP.

TIL Dr. Dre is involved in The Fragile from NIN

That was a great record! Still have the hardcopy in my CD folder.

I’m a rivethead through and through. From Throbbing Gristle to navicon torture technologies to Noisuf-X etc

I’m a little more obsessed with Dais Records and aufnahm + wiedergabe sounds these days. A lot of the Wierd Records acts picked up where 90s costume industrial left off. Swans, Death in June, Neubauten, Genesis P, Adult., Boy Harsher, Xeno and Oaklander, Void Vision and many others.

We had a great party here in NYC for years: the Wierd Party. It was Wierd Records @ Home Sweet Home and then Nikki Sneakers took over when Michael moved on. Jasper bought the bar and Nikki did a fantastic job as “Nothing Changes”. She moved it to St Vitus but then it seemed to fizzle out. The other big industrial thing here was Batcave and The Bank. I don’t know what happened to Batcave but it seemed to evolve into Stimulate by Xris Smack.

Thanks to Rockmanrock, savagery, Jupiter8 and CharlieClouser.

That post was copied and saved! The Fragile. Right up there with the best records of all time … including The Downward Spiral.

I’m not into much of that, but I knew Jet a bit when he lived up in Rochester twenty years ago. We had a decent scene up here for a while.

All of us in the NIN camp were huge fans of Dre and Ice Cube - Amerikka's Most Wanted was one of our most common hype-up CDs in the dressing room pre-show.

At one point the NIN camp were in the mid-album doldrums, halfway through The Fragile, with more than a hundred sketches and half-finished songs on our plate. Genius that he is, Jimmy Iovine suggested that we pry ourselves out of the black hole of our studio in New Orleans and "come out to the coast, have a few laughs" by visiting Dr. Dre, who was in a similar mode in the middle of producing The Chronic 2001. Similar to Jimmy putting Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty together for one of their biggest hits, this was a classic Record Producer move, in the grand tradition of REAL Record Producers. Find two artists that share some common thread that might not be obvious to outsiders, stick 'em in the room together, and see if anything comes to a boil. Both Dre and NIN were on Jimmy's label, Interscope, and so it was a no-brainer.

We came to LA for a few weeks, where Dre was in lockout at Larrabee in West Hollywood, with Mel-Man and Mike Elizondo, cooking up tracks on the classic combo of MPC and SSL. We brought with us some skeletal tracks to see what might transpire, and I think the song "Even Deeper" had the most elements from those sessions make it into the final mix.

All in all, great fun to see how Dre and his crew worked, see some big Urei woofers jumping, and get some fresh inspiration.

Proof below. Me rocking the Korg Triton, with Trent and Dr. Dre, and Danny Lohner lurking in the background. Note the copy of Sound On Sound magazine with the Proteus-2000 on the cover for time-stamping purposes.

So true!

Personally, I’ve been listening the shit out of the track “Just Like You Imagined” lately! I know you, Charlie, used to use some kind of device similar to the Etherwave Theremin when you played the song live. But did you use that during the recording as well? Any kind of insights in general into how you guys went on to make that particular track? ??????

Live, it was definitely an Etherwave Theremin (through a TC Intonator or Antares ATR-1 rack auto-tune unit, and then into a TC Fireworx for distortion and delay), but that wasn't used on the album.

There isn't a whole lot I remember about making the album version of that song, except that I do remember making some super-sub bass booms by running some pitched-down reverb-y kick samples through the Roland JP-8080 module's external audio input, into its vocoder circuit set to filter bank mode. That mode is sort of a graphic eq where each band's slider acts as an infinite kill. So I only left the lowest two or three sliders up and killed the rest. There's something about the JP-8080's filter bank (which is implemented digitally and is not an analog filter at all) that is so amazing at how it dealt with that particular input signal. It resulted in one of the most pure sub sounds I've ever heard. We used it on the playback tracks live and during line check on that song it absolutely shook the arena. Sooooo satisfying. That's the main reason I never sold the JP-8080 - that one thing it did so well saved it from the scrap heap!

Gotta say Charlie I really appreciate you being so willing to participate on this forum and sharing some of your tricks with us, so many artists wouldn't do that but you do and that is cool AF so thanks

Thank you, Charlie for addressing my question and depicting the live vs studio process

The JP-8080 you say huh, so that's pretty what I'm feeling today when I sense that wave of sub-bass attacking me. Shit! It's really powerful man. I didn't know you could use the JP-8080 for that. I even wonder if there are any good virtual versions of that around today. I found this analogue one on Ebay for around 2400-2500 dollars:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/11604396927...BoC62cQAvD_BwE

But how the hell did you guys puzzle all the sounds together? I mean, I guess that Alan Moulder had a similar role back then that Atticus has for Trent today in the studio, but as I've understood it, you and Danny had your own studio booths where you basically produced stuff and shared it via some folder on a server, which then Trent could check in to see what you guys have come up with. The puzzling part must have been a radical process I guess for some tracks. For this one - Just Like You Imagined - there are some really weird shit happening around 2.34-2.39... I can't even figure out if it's a guitar or whatever! Damn... I wish I could have been a fly on the wall during that era....

I think the Fragile is a great record.

But credit for how it sounds has to go to
the players, the arrangements, the mix engineer, and the mastering engineer. It's a super-brickwall limited
extremely loud master..from a time when that was cool.

oh yeah..and the SONGS. Without great songs, you got nothin'.

Not just what gear was used.

Personally, I don't think the mixing desk has anything at all to do with the impact of a record. A great mix engineer can make a great mix on any desk.

Agree 100%. The hardware is obviously important and we all want to know what they used since we are gearslutz. But at the end of the day it’s all about the people who made it happen.

Simply amazing to read all these stories from you Charlie. Your participation here at GS is appreciated immensely. The Fragile is truly a top 3 record for me of all the time, in particular the left side of the album. I remember buying it shortly after it came out at age 14 or 15. I loved it from day one because I wasn’t expecting another downward spiral like most people were due to my age and just not listening to downward spiral beyond the occasional MTV play.


Fragile was my first CD as a kid that I could just never turn off. Then as I grew and became more interested and understanding of music, my appreciation and love for it just grew and grew. Now it’s up there with the best for me. Pink Floyd’s dark side of the moon, radioheads in rainbows, and the fragile are my top 3 in no particular order.

Thank you again for everything. I did have one quick question if that’s okay, and it may be a dumb one but I wanted to hear the answer from the horses mouth because the internet isn’t always right.

What was Trent’s, and the bands overall, inspiration for the album ? It has such a dark, purposeful, driven feel to it. Almost like it had been brewing for a long time and trying to find a medium for release…

I know this flies in the face of GearSpace doctrine, but I’d suggest that beyond any gear or production that made The Fragile, or really any NIN album, a masterpiece, is that they contain a lot of great songs.