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Home , Alan Moulder, I Will Stand, Nine Inch Nails, The Downward Spiral, The Fragile, Trent Reznor

will always try other people’s ideas, because I’ve learned through bitter experience not to shoot the baby before it’s born. You can learn from anyone. Sometimes someone with no musical idea will come with something from a com- pletely different angle which is sheer genius, and I“ havIe found that you can learn a lot from the most sur- prising sources.” That’s one of ’s takes on his art and given that some of these ‘surprising’ sources have included seminal acts such as , , The Jesus & Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, , , and Curve, you can tell that Moulder has enjoyed an enlightening and varied musical education. At the same time, for a large slice of the past two decades this versatile and highly accomplished producer, recording engineer and mixer has lent his own considerable skills to the work of an eclectic cache of artists, and the results have ranged from the sublime to flat-out nail-your-ears-to-the-wall ball-busting asperity. Hailing from the small English town of Boston in Lin- colnshire, Moulder was influenced by the sounds of bands like , T-Rex, Slade, Sabbath, and Echo and the Bunnymen during his formative years. He played in local bands, and first saw the inside of a studio when recording some demos. After giving himself a good crack at being a rock star, at the age of 24 he started his studio career in earnest at in London. Alan Moulder: “When I was there I was very lucky, because that was a fantastic time at that studio, I worked a lot with , who was then the house engineer, as well as Clive Martin, while Steven Stuart Short – who owned the place – was very inspirational to watch. I’d be put on his production sessions, and he really taught me the ropes with regard to professionalism, a lack of tolerance for sloppiness, and generally getting my act together and being on the case.” Indeed, having set out to become a first-rate engineer, Moulder had always harboured the desire to also work as a producer. As things turned out, this wasn’t too hard to achieve. Many of the bands that he engineered didn’t really have a producer; they just produced themselves, and so Moulder’s progression into that role evolved fairly smoothly. Producer Alan Moulder spent the best It was on the back of his work with Ride and My Bloody Valentine that Moulder was asked to mix The part of two years holed up in Trent Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dreams . This led to Reznor’s studio recording a similar assignment on album by Nine Inch Nails, prior to him co-producing the Chicago . Richard Buskin finds out outfit’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness project with Flood and , and then NIN’s more recent how time flies when you’re haunted by The Fragile. Moulder was holed up in ’s personal studio for two years finishing the NIN artistic paranoia. magnum opus. Reznor’s New Orleans studio may be personal but hardly falls into the ‘home’ category. It features a 72-input SSL G-Plus console with Ultimation, two Studer A800 multitrack machines, a wealth of

26 ProTools gear and “every synthesiser and guitar imagin- and that all eyes were therefore now upon him in terms of able”. Wrapped around the large control room are three how the new record was going to sound. This was espe- different live areas, each visible via closed-circuit cially true in America, so the pressure was on us to monitors rather than windows; one with a PA setup for deliver something. Consequently, we couldn’t go into this either rehearsals or live drums, another similar but project with a fixed idea as to what it would be like, espe- deader-sounding room without a PA, and then the third cially as, during the few years between The Downward which is basically a garage area. Spiral and The Fragile, there had been such a massive AM: “In the beginning Trent had a template of ideas evolution of equipment. Suddenly, all of the sounds that that he wanted to cover, so I went into the studio with him Trent had cleverly manufactured on Downward Spiral – and we just started going through what he had and what sampling, re-sampling, changing sampling rates – were he wanted to do. Initially we recorded and remixed a available on a plug-in and could be achieved really song called Somewhat Damaged, which ended up being quickly. So, we had to have a bit of a re-think and try to the first track on the album – although we redid it a year be a bit canny. later – and then we started taking some of Trent’s other “The instrumental tracks were all recorded in one go ideas to another stage. We never worked on anything to during the early stages of the project. We’d get to the completion but just kept evolving things; constantly point where we’d built up the atmosphere and there was a updating and moving on. We’d work for like two or three general arrangement that we’d come up with by way of days on one piece – 14 or 15-hour days – and it would be overdubbing, cutting and pasting. Then we’d start mixing, a case of anything goes. Trent would hear it shaping up, it would become apparent “We’d often start with guitar, just plugging a guitar into that certain things needed redoing or supplementing, and anything that took our fancy, be it an amp, DI, or amp and he’d generally become inspired to add another section. DI. Then we might think, ‘Oh, let’s do some drums,’ so This would all be running on ProTools – we couldn’t put it we’d set up a , record the drums, then do a bit of to tape if something wasn’t finished – and he’d either bass, some keyboards... Whatever Trent was inspired by, want to add a section or extend one. For instance, we we’d do it. It was never a case of us saying, ‘Okay, now might both think, ‘That sounds great now, but we could we’re going to do drums on the album,’ and that was fun extend it with another four bars in there and hold off on because it meant we’d always get a different drum sound. this sequence until it comes in four bars later,’ and so the At the same time, given that no drum sound was intended whole arrangement and length of the song would be for the whole album, we wouldn’t spend a day trying to completely changing all the time we were mixing. I mean, get it. I probably would only spend 20 or 25 minutes getting the sound, and then after we’d recorded it we would move on, so sonically nothing was that precious. It was more a case of being inspired and keeping the momentum going.”

Overdub Club With overdubs as the modus operandi, no more than two musicians ever recorded together at the same time. For the most part Trent Reznor played everything, while a guest musician would occasionally drop by for a day or two in order to make some contribution or other. AM: “Everything went straight onto ProTools, and then, because it could be anywhere between a month to three months before we’d listen back to one of the tracks that we’d worked on, we would have mammoth cutting days to sort through the material. You know, after working on things and evolving them for so long, we would get to the point where we would forget what we’d done. Then we’d come back to it and it would be fantastic. We’d say, ‘Whoa! I don’t remember it sounding like that! I forgot about putting that bit down!’ It would always sound better than we thought, and that was great. Just at the point when we’d be at a low ebb and thinking, ‘Is this ever going to finish? Have we actually done anything?’ we’d then go back and listen to something and think, ‘Yeah actually we’ve been quite busy!’ It was quite inspiring. “Trent didn’t really know what he wanted the record to sound like. He knew that the previous album, The Downward Spiral, had been lauded for its sonic approach

27 ambient mics drum trigger synth

PA rig

preamp

Fragile signal chain: The miked drums triggered a synth patch, the drums and synth were played through the PA in the DI rehearsal room, which vibrated a specially tuned guitar. The results were used on a number of tracks on The Fragile. compressor pedal at the end Pilgrimage had three more sections than when Happy Accidents we started mixing it – three completely different sections On the other hand, so-called ‘happy accidents’ – those evolved, each clearly delineated with starts and stops; moments of musical magic that come about by chance, guitar and synth sections, and the marching band at the mistake or a quirk of fate, and which are consequently end which Trent and I created by foleying, making often impossible to reproduce – are reason enough for samples, playing drums and adding brass. the producer to keep an open mind and the engineer to “As a producer I don’t have any hard and fast rules, so keep the tape rolling. To a greater or lesser degree most I found this project exciting from the perspective of recording projects have them – whether they elicit cries never having worked this way before. However, I also of ‘Whoa! Where did that come from?’ right there and probably won’t rush into doing it again! Different people then, or only become evident after multiple playbacks – all have their own ways of working, and when you’re and sessions for The Fragile were no exception in this working with Trent or Billy Corgan or from regard. My Bloody Valentine – who are all pretty special – the AM: “We got bored one day and we started doing some best thing to do is run with them. They’ll come up with drum sounds. At the time, Charlie, who was one of the some wild ideas and you have to try them, because they programmers, was the closest thing we had to a definitely come at things from a different angle to most drummer. So, we set up a drum kit and we decided to people anyway, and that’s what attracts me to working have the drums trigger the synth and stick it through the with them. Exploring and trying to achieve what they PA. I tuned the drums because there wasn’t anyone else have in their heads is 1) a big challenge, and 2) generally there, and I tuned them really low and really badly, and very rewarding. really quickly that started to sound amazing – a mixture “They’re all pretty good at communicating what they of the natural and the synthesised going through a PA in want. Trent used to be an engineer and he’s now a pro- a room, recorded with ambient mics. That then started grammer, so he can explain things, and Billy again is very vibrating some acoustic that were hanging technical. We’ll discuss what they want and perhaps use around, so we tuned those to a chord, put a compressor other records as a reference – albeit in a completely pedal on them and recorded them DI. The result was a different context or with different instruments – and whole load of drum sounds which we used on a lot of generally I’ll get an idea as to what they’re after and try to the tracks on the album.” interpret it as an engineer. They then might say, ‘No, more like this,’ or ‘more like that,’ and we might even end up with Cut & Paste something that isn’t quite the way they originally envi- At the same time, there was also plenty of cutting and sioned it but which they like nonetheless. It’s one of those pasting between tracks, with a part intended for one song interesting journeys that you go on. You don’t know how being edited out and dropped into another. long it’s going to take, but you hope it’s going to be fruitful. AM: “There were entire songs made up that way. We “That’s why I generally won’t turn down an idea until made a database of all of the songs, and all of the bits and we’ve tried it. I can remember working with Ride and all of the riffs and all of the keys and the tempos and drummer saying, ‘I want to try to double-track the time signatures. Well, for instance, there was a track called drums on this part,’ and I thought, ‘Yeah, right. That’s , and this was a piece that consisted solely of a going to sound fantastic, isn’t it?’ Then again I also take. Then we took some drums from another song thought, ‘No, no, as long as he’s reasonable I should which were in a similar tempo, and we thought, ‘Well, that give him . I’ll quickly set up a rough drum kind of feel might fit,’ and so we shrunk that to the right sound, it won’t take long, I’ll let him hear it, and he’ll tempo and added it as a drum part. At the same time, we hear that it doesn’t work. Let’s give it a go...’ So we had a separate guitar effects loop – the Eventide DSP4000 tried it and of course it sounded fantastic, and now I has a sampling loop which you can overlay – and we got a was thinking, ‘Thank God I shut my mouth!’ That’s whole bank of different ones in different tempos with happened to me more than once, so something has to different textures, and we took one of those that was in a be pretty ridiculous for me to say I’m not going to try similar tempo, shrunk it and put that in. So, those three it. Then, if we try it and I don’t like it or it doesn’t different pieces became a song. Then, when we decided to work, I will stand my ground.” it later on, it became yet another song. We played

28 the bass line on a different instrument, changed the drum unique. The room sounded good, so we gave Trent a sounds and the drum pattern, and kept the chords and click and he just started playing. These loops were used tempo identical to La Mer, and that became Into The Void.” on the title track The Fragile and on I’m Looking Forward Around 120 songs would eventually be recorded for To Joining You Finally, while we also got a bank of The Fragile, and these would then have to be whittled sounds that were used here and there on different songs.” down to a way more modest number for the double- While Reznor and Moulder pushed the boat out on the album format. Meanwhile, in order to intermittently sonic front for a lot of the tracks on The Fragile, perhaps alleviate the boredom, and also to offset any feelings of the greatest challenge came from a song called, We’re In paranoia about long-term non-achievement, mix sessions This Together. took place at various stages during the two year period. AM: “We were worried about that song sounding too Some tracks were, in fact, mixed more than a year before conventional. A lot of time and energy were wasted the album’s completion, yet as a result there was also trying to make it something that it innately wasn’t; to concern on the part of Messrs. Reznor and Moulder per- make it gratuitously unusual, whereas all of the other taining to consistency of sound and feel. songs were naturally unusual. I think it was a sign that we AM: “I think doing it all in the same studio and with all had our heads up our arse. We were maybe waving the same people helped in that regard. Also, the material the art banner a bit too far, but at least we did eventually was pretty varied, and so that was more forgiving. Still, in realise that we were in danger of killing it. That was an the case of the first track that we’d done, Somewhat interesting lesson – It is what it is and it’s good, so don’t Damaged, we did have to go back and pull it into line. It try to ruin that.” just sounded a little more old-school Nine Inch Nails in Nevertheless, the genesis of the track was interesting terms of the drum pattern, the bass in its own right, evolving out of one of synthesiser and the guitars. Trent the days that had been alotted to wanted to play guitar on this album “something has simply creating new sounds rather more than keyboards, and during the than working on specific songs. course of it we’d evolved some pretty to be pretty AM: “Trent got the sample card for good guitar sounds and his style had the Eventide DSP 4000 and he could changed to quite a degree, so we just ridiculous for do the loop, record and the overlay. put some of that on there. Fragile was We’d have a send going to the DSP a bit more complex than Downward 4000, and so he’d start with a pretty Spiral, and so those kinds of subtleties me to say I’m not distorted or mangled guitar sound applied to it.” that would be put in and looped, and With Trent Reznor in full creative flow going to try it” then he’d keep adding to that. He’d and Alan Moulder more than willing to work out a note that complemented it indulge both of their experimental impulses, the co- and feed that into the loop, and we were constantly producers didn’t hold back in their on-going quest for new running a DAT, so it was kind of evolving on the DAT. and innovative sounds. As a result these would emanate That would then go to a point where either a mistake from an eclectic array of hitherto unforeseen sources – was made and it was ruined, or it was just full, and those indeed, even from a pile of junk… were then chopped up into arrangements of ambient- AM: “We kind of all liked that Tom Waits-type of type songs. Well, that became the starting point for We’re unusual drum sound [see AudioTechnology, Issue 9] and In This Together – it was just like a static sound from one we said, ‘Well, let’s do something like that. So, we had a of those bits, and everything else was written around it.” shopping trip to a percussion store and bought loads of Currently taking a well-earned break from the different percussion instruments, and then we just recording process, Alan Moulder is drawing inspiration amassed as much junk as we could from around the from all of the new technology while turning his studio; various size boxes, empty water bottles and so on. attention towards new musical avenues which he would I set Trent up in a small area of one of the live rooms, like to explore. surrounded by all of this junk, so that he could use AM: “Flood and I have started to look at film different mallets to hit things and make them resonate projects,” he says, “That would mean actually creating without having to worry too much about how they would music and writing; a combination of doing the original sound. score and inserting other elements. So, that could be “There was a screen on each side of this mass of stuff, really exciting, while in terms of production I think I just and I had PZMs on those, and then a bit further back – have to look at every band as being a different adventure. about eight feet away – there was an SASS-P stereo mic, I’m looking forward to doing stuff that’s a bit different and a couple of Neumann U87s about 15 feet away. I from what I’ve done already if possible, because it’s a was driving them pretty hard on the mic pres – the PZMs challenge and, like I said before, you can always learn were starting to distort and the U87s were on the edge of from people. It’s always good to have that feeling of ner- distortion. I compressed the U87s with Urei 1176s with vousness. You know, ‘Oh God, am I out of my depth?’ all of the buttons in so that they started to really pump, That’s what keeps me interested.” and again we instantly got a fantastic sound. It was really AT

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