Fear Factory is one of my favorite bands of all time. Demanufacture and Remanufacture were gateway albums that got me into industrial. There are some powerful and magical sounds all over so many of Fear Factory's albums, but I've always been entranced with the synths on Demanufacture and Remanufacture. Any chance we can get some insight into the synths that were used on those recordings and any neato tricks you had for coaxing those sounds out? Thanks a ton!

Huge fan Rhys, seeing you on Oct 5th. I'm also curious about the synths used while producing Fear Factory and I'll add Obsolete, Digimortal and the latest Genexus to the gear inquiry list. They always sounded so cold, mechanical and futuristic and really gave those albums a depth to them.

You said it. Demanufacture and Remanufacture were landmark albums for me. They opened my mind musically during my metal/hardcore punk phase. Relentless drums, technical precision, darkness and beauty all at the same time.

Would love to know the gear (drum machines especially and of course synths) and if possible the story of Demanufacture

This album still grabs me today. Brilliance!!

Thank you I appreciate that.

Demanufacture was done with a few choice pieces - the trusty Akai S1000, a Kurzweil K2000 and an Oberheim Xpander, all sequenced on the Atari synced to 2" tape.. Remanufacture was made after I upgraded samplers to the Emulator IV (my DAW at the time basically), and there is a lot of Waldorf Pulse+ on that one too (one of my fav cheaper synths).
On Deman., the strings were all K2000 and alot of the clanky sounds were sampled from some obscure video games into the Akai. Anything big and analog sounding was the Oberheim Xpander. One of my fav bits is the whistling resonance sequence on "Flashpoint" (around :45 sec), which is the Xpander and unique to its filters. Another main feature on Deman is the pads and strings were mostly supporting the vocal - following the airy melodies, to give it a more epic sound.
Remanufacture was more electronic in approach because they were remixes, so all guitars, vocals, drums and sweepy synth riffs were in the EIV (The filters in the EIV are fantastic and are all over this record), Waldo for all the square wave synth sub basses and leads etc and some Roland JD990 for ROM breathy stuff..again it was mixed on a SSL so that little gear went a long way..

Hi...
Now that Eurorack is popular its worth noting that there is a ton of Doepfer Modular on Obsolete...the opening sound on the album is Ray's drums through the Doepfer A-100 system..any really "synthy" or very modulated or distorted analog synth sound on that album is A-100 (I got my system pretty early on, 1997 i think..) as well as lots of drum and keyboard processing.
Anything polyphonic is either EIV or K2500 and on the Cars cover, an Oberheim 4 Voice replicated all the vintage lead lines. I know there was a Minimoog in the studio then too but i don't recall what its on, other than the Cars intro..I am curious to know of any other Eurorack metal records. I know this must be one of the first...

Digimortal's main units were EIV, A100 and a Virus, with the K2500, Waldorf Pulse and JD990 in there too. That was also the first time we recorded in Pro Tools.

Genexus was made at my current studio so its a mix of all i use now, Eurorack, Omega 8, Jomox Sunsyn, Waldorf Q+ etc though I recall the Nord Wave got a lot of use on the last three FF albums..

Thanks and see you Oct 5....

Wow! I've never been able to get a blow-by-blow for music that I actually listen to before! This is REALLY informative and has me tempted to put together a "Rhys sez" shopping list. Thank you SO much for taking the time out to go into this in so much detail!

Both FF albums (demanu/remanu), at the time was 2 of my favorite top 10 albums.. Remanu was probably top 3. I can't wait to try some of these tips.