Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv3M5OvCJuQ
BPM: 90
Time Signature: 4/4
Time Code:
00:00-00:09 Movie Reel sound effects, ends with a bleep
00:10-00:20 Strong Kick and Snare (snare sounds like it is over-laid with white noise or pink noise)
00:21-00:42 Vocals enter 1st verse, very warm, as well as a bubbly synth effect with 8th note tick sounds
00:42-01:00 Pre-Chorus, backing vocals enter and sound distant
01:01-01:25 Chorus, looming bass sounds and stronger drums
01:26-01:34 Bridge between verse, new synth sound enters
01:35-01:55 Second Verse with added synth sound that came in after 1st chorus
01:56-02:15 Pre-Chorus ( second one)
02:16-02:40 Final Chorus, synth sounds thus far are dropped and a new synth sound comes in, sounds almost like a steam whistle, with bass, drums, and vox
02:41-02:44 Reverts back to original loops from 1st chorus
02:45-03:06 Saw synth added with pounding bass effect
03:07-03:49 New synth section with quiet vocals that sound like they are coming from a radio (very mid range)
03:50-04:03 Original theme comes back with similar sounding synths but still different.
04:04-04:20 More layered synths come in
04:21-04:42 All original music stops and a new theme begins for the outro with a new synth and noise blips that pan left to right.
Levels
Kick (digital) 6
Snare (digital) 7
Synth(tick noise) 6
Synth (main) 8
Vocals (main) 8
Backing Vox 7
Bass 8
Synth (Chorus) 6
Synth (2nd Verse) 6
Synth (High Notes Second Verse) 6
Synth (Steam Whistle Soundy thing) 6
Synth Bass 7
Synth Sawtooth Fades into 6
End Vox 5
Synth Stabs 6
Synth Metal Sounding (end) 7
Synth (upward) 6
Synth (long notes end) 6
Pan
Kick (digital) C
Snare (digital) C
Synth(tick noise) -2
Synth (main) C
Vocals (main) C
Backing Vox -8, 8
Bass 3
Synth (Chorus) -3
Synth (2nd Verse) 3
Synth (High Notes Second Verse) -6
Synth (Steam Whistle Soundy thing) -4
Synth Bass 2
Synth Sawtooth -6, Fades to C
End Vox 10
Synth Stabs C
Synth Metal Sounding (end) -3
Synth (upward) -8
Synth (long notes end) C
Producers- Flood (mark Ellis) and Trent Reznor, Sean Beavan
Mixing Engineer- Alan Moulder- Worked with Lostprophets and Depeche Mode
Mixing Studio-Le Pig in L.A. and A&M
Mastering Engineer- Alan Moulder at The Record Plant
I chose this song due to its timelessness. This song was released in 1994 and 19 years later it is still a favored Nine Inch Nails song. As for the mix I was really impressed. The layering that occurred in this song must have taken incredible amounts of time. Alo I like the fact that the layering is seamless, you do not hear much of a huge transition in layers except in 2 spots closer to the end. I like the fact that the panning changed one or two sound effects which seemed to be automated to pan left or right. To me the amounts of layering and transitions all add up to one common goal, to keep the audiences attention which I think Trent Reznor accomplished very well.
Research-
Source: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep12/articles/classic-tracks-0912.htm
According to Sound on Sound Le Pig, the studio "Closer" was recorded at had a 56-input Amek Mozart Console with Rupert Neve modules, two Studer A800 Mk3 tape machines, Pro Tools, Akai S1100, Kurzweil K2000 Samples, Prophet VS, Digidesign Turbo Synth, ARP Odessy.... and the list goes on. The kick drum was taken from Iggy Pops "Nightclubbing". The snare drum was put through a Solid State Logic console to add in distortion and they used a Zoom 9030 for effects processing. Most of the other synths and samples used came stock out of some of the gear such as the Prophet VS and some Akai gear. To get most of the drum parts they ran the pattern out of a sampler into outboard gear and then hit record. This process was repeated for bass as well, and since they only had 4 outputs that is all that could be done at once through some of the processors.
Trent was apparently "anti-pitch shift and anti- chorus" he wanted to keep the realism of the performance and emotion. Mostly a SHure Beta 58 was used on vocals except for a few instances where an AKG 414 was used to gather room tone. According to Reznor 90 % of what they did was recorded directly to Pro Tools and later dumped into one of the Studer Tape Machines. Most of the effects on this tracks were created "from the ground up on the Kurzweil K2000, even to distort vocals ad the Eventide H3500". Occasionally a Zoom 9030 pedal was used. To achieve some crisp distortion without re-amping Reznor and Beaven would gain the track up to the distortion point which is what was done on the snare. Also for the snare they added fast attack compression. Also for some distorted vocals they ran them through a Neve 1073 into a Urei LA3 into a gate into another LA3, sometimes even going as many as four LA3s. They never recorded any dry vocals for this song. One interesing issue they ran into was Trent's dog accidentally switching off a bank of noise reduction units, however this was during the recording of the Entire Downward Spiral album and thankfully "Closer" was left unaffected.
This photo of Le Pig in 1994 was taken by Trent Reznor during the recording of The Downward Spiral. To the left is the Amek Mozart console.
No comments:
Post a Comment