NIN the fragiLe soundS

[Musicfuelzgood]

I was listening to the fragile today by NIN, and i've always wondered about a certain, what i think is, guitar sound, on the song, The Wretched. It comes in at about 3:10 during the song. Anyone know how to achieve that? I suppose a bit of distortion and filtering? And while we're on topic, I was wondering what you guys love about this album, as it's come up here and there as people's fav.'s. Great production, great engineering. Awesome sounds....An aural delight, or an aural exciter so to speak.........wow........yeah it's 4:46 a.m.
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[silverdisk]

What do i love about this album?......... everything, its a masterpiece in its own way IMHO. It would be amazing to have someone involved with that project as guest moderator

[ransomRR]

Sounds like one of Trent's "signature" techniques. Take a guitar, plug it in to a Boss Metal Zone pedal, and then straight into the board. Add way too much 1176 compression, filter out the extreme high frequencies, and automate a lowpass filter filter for the first few notes.

[excellrec]

I've just pulled this album out again for the first time in awhile. Mainly what i like about this album so much right now is the mixture of his beautiful piano compositions and the screaming guitars/basses/synths. There are lots of other things i love about this album to... but i'm speaking on contrast to his previous work. I read in a an article once that he bought a house in Big Sur, California with a grand piano and wrote for ... a year? for this album. Producing "La Mer".... and i'm not sure but i'm thinking "Gone Still" as well.

[SolipsismX]

I think the best moments on the album are actually the instrumentals (also the ones on the album STILL). He's very good at creating moods without resorting to typical instrumentation. Just Like You Imagined and The Way Out Is Through are some of the most epic sounding rock tracks of all time. Ripe with Decay is one of the darkest and Mike Garson's piano work on it give me the chills.
I think what's great about NIN in general is that the albums manage to sound like nothing else out there, but I can't put to words why. It definitely doesn't sound like straight rock, but even when I compare to other electronic/rock hyrbids, it's unmistakenly different. I also like how organic and alive his synths sound (or heavily processed acoustic instruments). Even if it played to a click, it doesn't feel as sterile as KMFDM or Linkin Park. Oh yeah, gotta like trent's sloppy out of tune guitar playing.

[denial]

The Fragile is an amazing album and just keeps on giving. Everytime I listen to it, I hear something new.

Dare I say, one of the best records of all time.

[Tibbon]

It should have gotten the Grammy for best engineered album (non-classical).

[Synth80s]

Not to wander too far off topic, but if you like "The Fragile," check out Peter Gabriel's latest album, "Up." It's not quite as sinister or heavy, but it is similarly dark, full of wonderful details and it's very engaging. IMO, it sounds more like the obvious successor to Gabriel 3/"Melting Face" than any of his subsequent albums.

Both are albums that take a while to digest. I like both of them more every time I hear them, especially in a quiet room with a good playback system or on a great set of phones. Conversely, both make terrible driving music -- you can't hear half of the tracks!

-Synth80s

[brendondp]

Anyone know what Steve Albini did on the album?

It lists him as "additional recording" or something like that...but don't say what he did exactly...


I was curious.

Check on this link below. I believe you'll find your answer there.

http://www.9inchnails.com/encyclopedia/list.php?loc=a

bdp

[brendondp]

You're welcome...

bdp

[Musicfuelzgood]

Originally posted by Synth80s
Not to wander too far off topic, but if you like "The Fragile," check out Peter Gabriel's latest album, "Up." It's not quite as sinister or heavy, but it is similarly dark, full of wonderful details and it's very engaging. IMO, it sounds more like the obvious successor to Gabriel 3/"Melting Face" than any of his subsequent albums.

Both are albums that take a while to digest. I like both of them more every time I hear them, especially in a quiet room with a good playback system or on a great set of phones. Conversely, both make terrible driving music -- you can't hear half of the tracks!

-Synth80s

up is an amazing album definetley!! I remember at AES a year ago i suppose? in NYC, i heard part of this album and parts of other albums like pink floyd in surround, on an amazing system, the name of the system escapes me now, but the disc was an SACD hybrid, very cool times had. good call on that album.

[parasitk]

Hi, first post!

I'd like to second (or third) the idea of getting someone from the NIN camp to guest mod.

I'd assume the most likely person to ask would be Alan Moulder - he co-produced, engineered, and mixed The Fragile and did some engineering and mixing on The Downward Spiral.

There's a cool interview with him here, which also has a discography...



//Chris