I am currently putting together a plan for a home studio to record our next album. Our debut was more rock focused but my true passion is industrial. I hope to take what we currently do and take it three steps further with the inclusion of a big NIN influence.

Check out the band here: Black River Drive | Facebook

My question is, what equipment do you suggest (both soft and analog) for working along the same lines as NIN? I understand of course that the tools are only part of the equation and that Reznor is a genius (and I am not!) but I'd like to at least give myself the best shot at getting somewhere in the vicinity of his sounds.

I will be using an AxeFx for guitars, and we'll be tracking drums and vocals in a conventional rock setting (will probably do a separate thread on this!) but the synths and beats side of things is a bit of a mystery.

I'm using Logic so please keep that in mind with recommendations, if it matters.

Could anyone suggest what I should be looking at in terms of :

Drum samplers (I'm thinking Battery?) for NIN and How To Destroy Angels style beats.

Synth for pads
Synth for leads
Synth for bass

Grand piano soft sampler

Anything else that Reznor is using that would allow me to get "closer" (no pun intended). I note he has some incredible non-musical sounds throughout that I seem to recall reading he had created for him by a sound designer who would send him gigabytes of totally unique sounds, so maybe I'll have to leave that one for now...

Cheers for any advice!

How much are you looking to spend? Trent's work has a lot of distortion all over it, so something like this might be a good start:

a n a l o g u e h a v e n

HTDA used alot of Moog Voyager, Swarmatron, RozzBox Oddulator, Arp Odyssey, Korg ms-20 and oodles of modular stuff, and I think they used the Metasonix tube drum machine. Also a Ukelele.

I'm quite sure that all drum hits were programmed, nothing live.

I remember that NIN use a Minimoog D, Prophet VS, Oberheim XPander + OB-Mx, Waldorf Microwave and an Access Virus.

Gearspotting in Reznors studio also show an A6 and what I think is a poly evolver, but I can't be sure these were used in the record.

Trent Reznor uses anything and everything









I've managed to get a somewhat decent NIN-ish industrial rock sound with software, a couple guitar pedals, and a guitar though

Trent Reznor is not a genius.... I but respect him very much ( not so much his music)

Learn how to use ENV's (pitch, filter, amp)... that's all I can say.,..

good luck on your journey!!

Music is actually easy,... find your muse!
If not.. take an intro to music theory class at your local community college? If you somehow missed that opportunity in grade school...

blame your parents.. not me..

The song off of the Slip "The Four of Us are Dying", has it's drums basically completely off of Battery 3. Minor tweaks, but it's that exact drum set nontheless. I've also read Trent was big on Native Instrument's Reaktor as well. Also, Kontakt. Basically - everything softsynth he uses is Native Instruments.

Synthesizers are a whole other story, if you want even one of his you would have to spend at least a grand+.

He uses Ableton Live for composition.

He made anything actually relevant after The Downward Spiral? I thought that was made all made in Studio Vision Pro? while playing DOOM.

Whatever.. I guess I'll just continue listening to my old Cari Lekebusch records... cause I'm a lonely loner...

He had a DSI MEK when playing live a few years ago, and I recognise its character in some of the newer NIN material.

Win the lottery

Buy every modular system, by every company who makes them

Then buy every analog drum machine or synth that is currently being made

Yes even the weird obscure shit that is probably in production runs of 10 at a time...

Win the lottery once more...

buy every effects pedal ever made

Buy a place that can handle this much equipment

Win the lottery again...

This will fund your insurance and hydro bill for at least a few years

Ladies and Gentlemen, no need to discuss this topic any further, Trent Reznor's secrets have been revealed: community college and proper envelope usage.

EastWest's The Dark Side sounds like NIN in a box.

What sound from which album are you trying to emulate? Although there were pieces that run the length of NIN history, some of the gear and working methods did change. The guitar sound on Broken is vastly different than anything on With Teeth.

I still consider TDS/Fragile to be the pinnacle of NIN. A majority of the gear used on both those albums can be had for a fraction of the original price on ebay, and our current software/DAWs will easily emulate the SSL board.

I'm hearing Metasonix all over newer NIN stuff. Tube distortion over the drums is a big part of their sound IMO

haha!

Any fat American polysynth, Xpander, etc.
Waldorf Microwave (any model) or Prophet VS.
Anything with a huge solo unison sound.

well, metasonix has a different opinion as expressed on the PCB of one of his modules.

There's no magical gear formula that will make you sound like Trent Reznor. Two different people will create vastly different music with the same exact gear. That said, I'd bet Reaktor and a Sherman Filterbank would be a good place to start if you're trying to sculpt a NIN sonic replica.

To me, sound design in "industrial" styles is less about the gear that the sounds originate from and more on how you process them. You could make a Casio CZ-101 sound like Satan's farts if you twist it enough.

Obviously, the most important effect for this kind of stuff is distortion. So I'd recommend a nice, flexible distortion plug-in such as Ohm Force's Ohmicide. It has a bit of a learning curve, but it sounds great and is insanely flexible.

Apply distortion to stuff you wouldn't normally think to distort, such as drums, synths, or piano. In fact, since you're a rock band, you presumably already have guitar amps... try sending your synths through them and recording that.

Another good thing to have on hand is an old sampler like an Ensoniq EPS and using low sample rates to sample sounds. Yes, you can use a bit-crusher too, but it's not really the same soundwise. (Check out D16 Group's Decimort for one of the best bit-crushers I've found). Old samplers also have nicely primitive time-stretching on them, so try sampling sounds and time stretching them into weird, metallic-sounding sounds.

A good, flexible filter is nice to have too. I really like PSP's N20.

Yeah, it'd be great to have a wall of modular gear, but honestly, I've never heard anything on an NIN album that couldn't be done with a modest set-up and the right plug-ins. Reznor has the advantage that he hires people to do nothing but make sounds for him, so he can concentrate on music, too. Most of us don't have that luxury, so just find yourself some decent sound-mangling plug-ins and try using them in ways that seem unconventional. Process your guitars like synths, process your synths like guitars, and process your drums like they just insulted your mom.

I believe trent toured during the fragile with a few Xtks

Can you point out any individual tracks?

LOL!

looks like he uses the A6 alot , he was sitting right in front of it for most of that interview

-get an awesome good mic and an intense sampler editor,
(in addition to recording your own weird noises, nab stuff off of sci-fi/horror movies, the older and more Italian the better)
-modular system with really thick tits (recommend harvestman & DIY modules),
-vintage distortion pedals and modern FX processors,
-a tape delay... maybe some of those folktek bent things,
-find some hot charismatic emo chick (or tranny) to whisper, moan, and scream about God, dirty sex, self-hatred and society (you can do mommy/daddy issues at the risk of sounding like a pansy).

The muse thing is good advice, perhaps a dead pornstar or a Trent Reznor parody indie comic.
Forget music theory and read magazines like Juxtapose and Hi-fructose and then watch Fox news (so that you can have something to be really angsty about).
You should also convince yourself that you are more important than anyone else in the room.

...and what ever you do DON'T FALL ASLEEP

Your music sounds very cool

A lot of processing. Destructive filtering. Check out SoundToys' stuff...

PHM sampled tiny little bits of many things to form the soundscape. A high-hat from Front 242 or a snare from Prince... that kind of thing, from interviews at the time.

Also for Ghosts he got the drummer from Dresden Dolls to play a bunch of patterns one day, then go to Lowe's/Home Depot and pick up a bunch of trashcans/metal/plastic/pvc things to bang on and put a kit together from that and recorded him playing it, all to be chopped up and programmed later, according to interviews I've read with the drummer...

Have fun with it!

Yeah, he seems to use everything. Audiomulch is really fun and worth exploring. Load a bunch of your tracks in and record yourself screwing around and pull it back into Logic. He's working with someone that uses a Buchla now isn't he? Try Aalto. I have no idea what he uses to edit samples, but try Redmatica Keymap Pro.

Piano school for a decade, creative mania, and working 80 hours a week inside a studio off and on roughly 23+ years.

Or follow your own nose.

The best you are going to get here are 1% approximations from 3-20 years ago. If you are asking that question in 2011, you are on the road to making boring material.

^^^^this is what it's about.

also dont forget the early years used some really simple DAW gear by modern standards and had some FM synths and probably samplers.

It's been repeatedly stated by Trent that for PHM he used an EMAX sampler and very little else. Though imagine that's not the era your'e looking to sound like

-M

The latest albums have buchla all over the place (you can spot it on the bottom picture). But it's safe to say that they pretty much use everything they think is cool. If not in the studio they can rent or borrow it.

PHM = Emax, Minimoog, Xpander, Prophet VS.

Broken/The Downward Spiral = add Akai S-1000 x2, OberMoog prototype, Voyetra, etc. Sequenced on StudioVision with ProTools 16, record to Studer A800, mix on Amek (mozart IIRC). Zoom 9050 half-rack guitar fx was used a lot.

The Fragile = add every synth, guitar, and fx pedal and rack unit under the sun, but no modulars to speak of. Nord, Nord Modular, Waldorf Microwave and XT figured prominently. Sequenced on Logic with ProTools/24, record to Studer, mix on SSL 4k. AudioMulch, Reaktor, ReBirth with custom in-house mods were used a lot.

With Teeth and beyond = add modulars out the arse. heh