Gabriel's "Up" is one of my favorites for a long time, as is most of what he's done - his voice is one of the all-time greats for sure, and I could listen to him singing just about anything. His song from "Wall-E" called "Down to Earth" is also pretty wonderful - immaculate production and mixing.
I don't listen to too much recent album stuff - once in a while something will jump out of the speakers and I'll grab it, like Die Antwoord (love), Lil Wayne's "Stuntin' Like My Daddy" (a fantastic track), or Foo Fighters. For recreational listening I still go back to my old favorites like The Beach Boys, Prodigy, Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, Kraftwerk, Zeppelin, AC/DC, Ministry, Killing Joke, Earth Wind + Fire, Ice Cube, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Aphex Twin, P.I.L., Dre+Snoop, Elton John, Simple Minds, Eric B and Rakim, Beastie Boys, Clash, Roxy Music, Specials, Massive Attack, XTC, etc... you know, the quality shit.
A: What can you tell us about building those massive delay buildups and beatdowns?
B: Any tips for glitch rock guitar stuff? I've always been particually fond of the guitars in "Reverse Beartrap"
C: Have you ever thought about putting out a Sample CD? I know you contributed to one WAY back in the early 90's but I know I'd be willing to paypal $ over to you. Keith Hillebrandt seemed to have had good success with this after nails.
as thanks for this thread i submit the following and 2:00 mark is where it starts getting interesting plus i like how they mix in some Dutch/Afrikaans into their rapping
other music from your list I always felt like Killing Joke should have been more famous for what they did.....then again same thing with bands like Prong etcetcetc
are you a JG Thirlwell fan at all? Foetus, Wiseblood, Steroid Maximus?
A - For the big delay buildups I would usually just take the first word of a vocal line and reverse it, then put it through delay with long feedback, record the delay output, and then reverse that, giving me a long buildup that starts from an indistinct tone and gradually becomes more legible as it goes on. Dead simple technique from the era of tape. I probably used Echo Farm if we're talking about remixes.
B - Reverse Beartrap guitars had some of mine and some of Danny Lohner's tones in there - mine probably used some MXR Hendrix Fuzz, Experience pedal, Fender Blender, or Zvex Fuzz Factory. Definitely a Line6 Pod rackmount on a rectifier (they call it "treadplate") setting. Danny probably used something similar - he always liked Mesa tones and had rectifier and triaxis rackmounts back in the day, but might have used Pod as well. I probably put Logic bitcrusher on the final sound to add some grit and high-frequency edge.
C - Sample CD - nah. I don't have enough raw material... I don't make batches of sounds for later, I just make things on the spot for whatever I'm working on, so it's not like I could just pillage the archives without it being, "oh, that's the guitar intro from some Zombie track" or whatever. Those sounds belong to the production they were made for - it wouldn't feel right to cut up old work and extract sounds to sell. I don't have a big collection of unfinished or unreleased material to pilfer.
I guess Yo-Landi is hot, but hell, I've got cars, guitars, and scars older than she is. I've got bad habits older than she is!
Most of those bands I listed have one thing in common - the vocal tone and delivery sounds right for the style and emotion of the music. Andy Partridge sounds happy and confident but a little snarky and sarcastic - like XTC's music. Jaz Coleman sounds angry, defiant, and as though he should be ruling an ancient empire, like a Caesar or Mussolini - just like their music. Reznor sounds desperate, furious, and unafraid - like NIN's music. Peter Gabriel sounds plaintive and hopeful - like his music. The Beach Boys sound as though they are hypnotized by an imaginary beauty that they wished actually existed on planet earth - just like their music. Rob Zombie sounds like a Rat Fink hot-rod cartoon come to life - just like the music. The synergy between what the vocalist "sounds like" and what the music makes you feel is, to me, what makes a great and memorable record. But, yeah, Killing Joke are one of the all-time greats and never fail to get my blood boiling! Prong was another favorite - the guitars and vocals were totally rugged and it was all just boiled down to the most simple and powerful elements. Rude Awakening is still one of my favorite albums.
I discovered Thirlwell late in the game, but yes, I'm a fan, and I actually did a remix for Foetus back in the day. I do remember him being a bit of a wild man at an afterparty for one of the Bowie shows, involving flying liquor bottles and some minor destruction at a fancy NYC restaurant, but it's all a bit hazy now. Although it was the last thing I would have expected from him, his theme and score for "The Venture Brothers" is absolutely perfect... their opening titles is just spot-on.
Not sure if you would be interested, but I found a Gibson Les Paul with Moog Pickups in it, It's supposedly a rare guitar that's production was short lived.
Here's another Deepwater question; In the beginning credits, the song is chopped up and glitched in a interesting way, I noticed when the song cuts out its not quite cleanly chopped, {almost sounds mechanical between the slices} How do you typically approach cutting up guitars and cues like that?
Chris Vrenna did a lecture this past Tuesday and it's available for streaming here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/20924221
I remember you doing a lecture on Reason back in the day but i assume you don't really have the time to do stuff like that nowadays (with this thread being the exception of course) but is that something you might entertain? Skype seems to have opened up more opportunities for stuff like that
Also you may be happy {or horrified} to know that I picked up a Nord modular g1 and it has your sound banks in it!
Last edited by voidshell; 10th March 2012 at 12:48 AM..
Reason: adding.
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...
Liquid - The NIN/Flood era was sort of before my time. I've met the guy and he was around here and there, but we didn't ever buckle down on a production together...
voidshell - I seem to remember some hullaballoo about the Moog Les Paul at one point, but I can't remember if TR had one or we were just drooling over a picture on the internet....
As to the Deepwater stuff, it was all just manually chopped up in the timeline in Logic - no glitch plugins or anything like that. Holding the option key when making a cut in a region will cause the region to be equally divided with all the slices being the same length as the first one, and I often would take a small slice, turn it's loop on, then use "Turn Loops to Real Copies" keycommand to create a long row of repeats. Stuff like this takes mere seconds to accomplish and is much more reliable and simple than using plugins or whatever. I still just do that sort of thing manually; the chopped up lead vocal on the album version of NIN's "Starf*ckers" was just done manually in Logic.
I only remember using the Nord Modular for a couple of things - there were only a few presets that I created, so I'm sure it's no great archive of cool stuff. When it first came out it was revolutionary and we all got them, but in the long run the sound had a sort of plastic quality to it that made me not really use it that much. That was sort of like the TC Fireworx - great on paper but in practice it was a struggle to get much that I liked from it. The Nord MicroModular was convenient for live use as all I needed was a simple vocoder with MIDI triggering - I simulated the crowd backing vocals on "Starf*ckers" by taking a sample of a hockey game crowd cheering and routing it out an individual mono output on the E4 and into the vocoder on the MicroMod as the carrier, with a live vocal mic as the modulator. I'd hit the key that triggered the looping crowd sample and then shout into the mic and it sounded pretty good when it was buried behind the rest of the band screaming on top.
- I simulated the crowd backing vocals on "Starf*ckers" by taking a sample of a hockey game crowd cheering and routing it out an individual mono output on the E4 and into the vocoder on the MicroMod as the carrier, with a live vocal mic as the modulator
Thank you for taking time out of your day to answer all these questions.
Very much appreciated! This has to be one of the most informative and truth telling threads I've ever read.
I was wondering if you or the NIN camp of the past were ever big on analog tape echos/delays?
I didn't see any reference to tape echos (except for maybe the UAD plugin) at all in all those past gear lists...but may have slipped by me.
I have read that you are 100% I.T.B.,..but have read that you like to use acoustic instruments with an ebow for ambiance...and it would only make sense to me that a tape echo would come in handy with those acoustic instruments.
I am a HUGE collector of these wonderful artifacts, and was wondering how you feel about them in a mix or live situation even though they require love & maintenance.
I feel like I've exhausted my question quota so obviously feel free to ignore this, but any comments on your involvement with either Tapeworm or the collaboration with Zack de la Rocha? Both obviously would seem like incredible things to be a part of.
I feel like I've exhausted my question quota so obviously feel free to ignore this, but any comments on your involvement with either Tapeworm or the collaboration with Zack de la Rocha? Both obviously would seem like incredible things to be a part of.
Thanks
The Tapeworm project was kind of what convinced me to move to New Orleans in the first place, when the Downward Spiral touring ended. TR wanted to involve those of us that were in that incarnation of the live band (me, Lohner, Vrenna, Finck) in the next NIN album, but we knew that NIN was going to continue to be mostly TR's thing, so the Tapeworm idea was how the rest of us could get some more stuff out there. I had done a bunch of remixes, programming, and production for Prong, Manson, White/Rob Zombie, etc and TR wanted to include that remix aesthetic from the get-go in the Tapeworm thing - so when the touring for TDS ended we all moved to New Orleans and set up shop in the former funeral home that became Nothing Studios. My studio was in the former embalming room, complete with rope-operated coffin elevator. (!)
As we whiled away the years contributing bits and pieces to the 100+ song ideas that would form The Fragile, we were also generating tracks from scratch - Robin left New Orleans fairly quickly, but Danny and I really thought the Tapeworm thing was going to be a go, so we generated almost an album's worth of tracks to use as a starting point. It was tough to get TR to really pay attention, given that he was heavily involved with The Fragile, but Danny and I pressed on, and we wound up getting Phil Anselmo, Maynard, and Everlast to do vocals on a few tracks, and Alec Empire, Tommy Prong, Dimebag, Page Hamilton, and some other maniacs were on deck to contribute as well. TR actually did vocals on one track with Maynard, which eventually was performed and then (I think) re-recorded by A Perfect Circle. Keep in mind this was over a period of four or five years... chipping away at it while the dark clouds were closing in.
After the touring for The Fragile was complete, we were kind of losing hope that the Tapeworm thing was really going to happen - it was originally put to us that we'd finsh and release that album BEFORE what wound up becoming The Fragile, using Tapeworm as a fun way to break in the new studio and get comfortable with all of us working together, to ease the transition to having us band members contribute more to the NIN album than had been the case on previous albums.
It didn't really work out that way... I left the band in 2000 or 2001 (it's all a bit hazy at this point), and Danny left soon after. By then Chris Vrenna was long gone, and Robin had been in both Cirque Du Soleil and Guns 'N' Roses by then, re-joining NIN for the tours and then re-joining GnR when the NIN tours finished. Chaos. When I left I returned to Los Angeles and got back together with Page Hamilton, and we took a bunch of stuff that we had been writing together and turned it into the basis for Helmet's "Size Matters" album, which we recorded at Cello and at my house in Hollywood.
All of the tracks that we had intended for Tapeworm were still sitting on hard drives in various stages of completion, but shortly after the turn of the millenium Danny and I folded up our tents and bailed. I don't know how much (if any) of that material ever saw the light of day. If TR ever did anything with Zack, it was after I had left.
All of the tracks that we had intended for Tapeworm were still sitting on hard drives in various stages of completion, but shortly after the turn of the millenium Danny and I folded up our tents and bailed. I don't know how much (if any) of that material ever saw the light of day. If TR ever did anything with Zack, it was after I had left.
In the TR interview with the Reddit editor ca. 2009 he mentions Tapeworm specifically and (mildly) talked it down. The gist of his comments is that it didn't live up to a "Tool + NIN" expectation and that if such a thing was to happen, it had to be a "10 out of 10" instead of a "7 out of 10". He said the tracks were "mediocre" or something like that, and that one day he'll work with Maynard and do something that will be a "10 out of 10".
In the TR interview with the Reddit editor ca. 2009 he mentions Tapeworm specifically and (mildly) talked it down. The gist of his comments is that it didn't live up to a "Tool + NIN" expectation and that if such a thing was to happen, it had to be a "10 out of 10" instead of a "7 out of 10". He said the tracks were "mediocre" or something like that, and that one day he'll work with Maynard and do something that will be a "10 out of 10".
That sounds about right. We actually only did one track with Maynard, and it was a bit of a mess. It was just a track that Danny and I cooked up while TR was busy with other things, and as the years went by without us being able to get TR to add to the track or even really comment on it or offer guidance, Danny sent it off to Maynard and he did his thing. We fiddled with it a little bit, and it was one of those "it is what it is" tracks. You know those tracks, those half-finished songs that are a little lopsided and weird, and don't flow or groove the way you want but are too far along to "fix". Heck, it was only one track - it takes dozens of starting points to get to an album's worth of material (The Fragile had over a hundred!). I didn't like it much either, so I'm not surprised that TR wasn't dropping what he was doing to jump in. The track had these weird slow verses and a lumpy chorus "groove", kind of stop-starty, and, well... good thing it stayed on the hard drives!
It's coming up on fifteen years since we were doing those tracks... I look back on it now and go, "what the hell were we thinking?"
I started reading this thread about a month ago and keep losing the tab from various browser crashes, then I remember to look it up again. Here are a few things I saved out of the thread to bring back up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by charlieclouser
Thanks you guys! I'm psyched that you've actually heard those remixes... they only came out in imports I think... I don't even have the original CDs anymore.
I replaced the QuadraVerb with a FireWorx, and that sounded like ass; I don't even know where that went.
The pic below is from a show we played in Dusseldorf, and Florian was there. His comment: "I know zat you vere usink zome zynthesizers, but dere vere too many guitars and I could not hear zee zynthesizers well enough to know if zey vere any güt."
Those remixes you mention are believe were from the old FDTS import or the Closer to God single, I'd have to find the post again. Yeah its possible that not many people got those discs originally, but there have also been 15 or 18 years for people to get them as downloaded songs or track them down on Ebay. NIN fans tend to be pretty collector oriented I have noticed. I know I have everything that was a numbered halo form over the years .
You mentioned your theremin and the Fireworx processor. I have an old Keyboard magazine that talked w/you guys about The Fragile and that was the effects processor you were using on the theremin at the time. Was kind of amusing to see how you went from very positive on that unit at the time to pretty down on it later.
The Haken Continuum is a wonderfully strange instrument from everything I have seen about it. I know Lou Reed was making good use of it on his Metal Machine Trio tour he did. He had a band member using it and I think he was using it some too, plus the Moog guitar.
Also love the Kraftwerk story, great stuff. I actually haven't heard a lot of the scoring work you've done over the years Charlie, but I have a ton of your remixes (NIN and otherwise) and I've always enjoyed them. This has been a fantastic read and I hope it continues. I've seen some threads recently where people were trying to say bad things about Logic and claim that no producer would use stock Logic and it sounds bad, etc. I had to look this thread up so I could decide if I wanted to link it up to them to see what someone w/skill was doing w/it
Keep up the great work man, it's been a privilege. I think the only shows I saw w/you in the band were Madison WI on the Fragile tour and I think you had just joined for the Dayton 94 show on the TDS tour.
...it was one of those "it is what it is" tracks. You know those tracks, those half-finished songs that are a little lopsided and weird, and don't flow or groove the way you want but are too far along to "fix". ... I look back on it now and go, "what the hell were we thinking?"
i like to think of tracks like that as the crash test dummy that takes the beatings while you work out bugs in the system. be they interpersonal, technical, financial or time related. sometimes those experiences are an opportunity to gain the perspective that leads to a greater work down the road.
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."
...or maybe believing that is just more comforting than thinking i suck on days when it isn't right the first time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by charlieclouser
Most of those bands I listed have one thing in common - the vocal tone and delivery sounds right for the style and emotion of the music.
i think all the great acts have a mood, perspective, energy & theme that can make wherever their sound is played their domain.
speaking of which the new Killing Joke album sounds awesome.
BTW Charlie, cool to see you mention Black Rebel. I don't meet nearly enough people who like them, but when I play their stuff they wonder how they never heard of them. They're in the studio now. Can't wait for more.
Can someone please post a link to images of Charlie's current studio?
I would love to see the treament, placement of the 5.1 dyns, and the pedal collection!
That's the intro to Eraser, although you may hear it at the tail end of A Warm Place.
I always loved how it sounded though. Just fit really well in the context of the album. Downward Spiral is such a classic. In my top 5 best produced and written albums.
Hello Charlie, I was wondering if you could expand upon what Alan Moulder had to say about the following techniques used for live/electronic hybrid drums on "Just Like You Imagined" and The Fragile in general:
"The Toms on Just Like You Imagined are a combination. The deep ones are samples we made from a kit one bored night which we ended up using a lot on the album. I tuned all the drums incredibly low and mic'd them up through a PA. Charlie Clouser triggered his JoMox drum machine off the drums allocating different sounds to different drums and that went through the PA too. This gave a organic/synthetic blend with a bit of grit from the PA. I then mic'd the room fairly distantly with a pair of U87s through the SSL with some SSL compression and Bob's yer uncle. The other drums are ones Trent played in the dead room I described on an earlier question. So there is a live/programmed/organic/synthetic platter."
Additionally, could you comment on what kinds of samples were layered with the live kits? Electronic? Other acoustic samples? Both?
Also, I am going to buy a few stringed instruments (cello, viola, violin) to sample/record/process into textural layers for a project I'm on. I have some mics in mind, but also wonder what you might recommend?
It seems reamping and "worldizing" various sounds played a bit part in crafting The Fragile. Alan Moulder mentioned running sounds out to two side by side guitar cabinets separated by a screen, and re-recording with mics set in a tweaked mid-side configuration. This, to create more of a 3 dimensional impression for certain sounds. One example is the marimba at the beginning of "Into The Void".
Do you have any other commentary on this technique? Do you play around with phase or "worldizing" sounds in your scoring?
You mentioned your theremin and the Fireworx processor. I have an old Keyboard magazine that talked w/you guys about The Fragile and that was the effects processor you were using on the theremin at the time. Was kind of amusing to see how you went from very positive on that unit at the time to pretty down on it later.
The Haken Continuum is a wonderfully strange instrument from everything I have seen about it. I know Lou Reed was making good use of it on his Metal Machine Trio tour he did. He had a band member using it and I think he was using it some too, plus the Moog guitar.
Also love the Kraftwerk story, great stuff. I actually haven't heard a lot of the scoring work you've done over the years Charlie, but I have a ton of your remixes (NIN and otherwise) and I've always enjoyed them. This has been a fantastic read and I hope it continues. I've seen some threads recently where people were trying to say bad things about Logic and claim that no producer would use stock Logic and it sounds bad, etc. I had to look this thread up so I could decide if I wanted to link it up to them to see what someone w/skill was doing w/it
Keep up the great work man, it's been a privilege. I think the only shows I saw w/you in the band were Madison WI on the Fragile tour and I think you had just joined for the Dayton 94 show on the TDS tour.
As to the Fireworx, if I ever actually used it onstage with the Theremin it was just for a simple delay > distortion patch - very basic. Back when it came out it was kind of unique and interesting, but in the studio it did sound a bit plastic. Still a cool box I guess, and I see them around for $500 or so these days. I DID use a TC Intonator on the Theremin, after we lost the unique AC adaptor to the Antares ATR-1 AutoTune rack unit, so maybe my memory is a little fuzzy on which TC unit was used when...
You know those guys that claim they can get nulling when comparing a basic eq plugin like stock Digi or Logic eq and a fancy waves API or Neve emu? I'm kind of in that camp. I just bring up good ol' Logic eq and grab-n-go. Same with the compressor - Logic's compressor is on every single track in my mixes these days. When you compare it to hardware, then it's a different story, so I have a UBK Fatso, some Distressors, some 1084's, etc. - but I only use them when recording as opposed to mixing. When it's mix time it's all software and mostly stock Logic plugs...
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