[JAMik]

Dawno chciałem zrobić taki temat.Czekam na miksy swojej płyty i mnie nosi,a dopiero za 45 minut jest szkoła przetrwania na Discovery

Wzięte stąd:
www.gearslutz.com

Hey Butch!

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer some questions.

I have always been enthralled with Nevermind's sound quality, especially the drums. Can you tell us which snare drum was used? I heard rumor it was a 80's Tama Bell Brass.

Also, was there any sampling that you added to the snare or any other drums. If so, can you elaborate on the ratio of sampling to real drum sound?

Lastly, what kind of kit was used and drum heads?

Thanks again,
Josh

BUTCH VIG:

The best way to get the drum sound on Nevermind is....get Dave Grohl to play drums at Sound City!!!

The snare was called "The Terminator"...it was 80's Bell Brass.

His kit was an 80's Tama Grandstar.

Andy Wallace added a bit of his custom samples as ambience, they get a bit of the "gunshot" effect, but the samples were mixed pretty low...

We used a drum tunnel" on the kick, which is basically adding and extra kick drum to extend the low end.

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Like everyone else here - I've been a big fan of your work. Absolutely, for me, Nevermind has been the standard from which I've measured drum sounds for the genre.

Researching and trying to go after that sound a few years ago improved my drum engineering more than anything else ever has.

Thank you so much for doing this!

Drum setup for Nevermind:

Kick - D12 with a drum tunnel, FET 47 at the end
Snare top - 57
Bottom - 451
Hat - KM84?
Cymbals - KM84's and 414's
Room - U87's

Pres were Neve in the 8028 board (1290 based pres - 1073 or 1084 probably)

Recorded at Sound City (nice big live room there)

As mentioned, nobody but Dave Grohl sounds like Dave Grohl

Also, several years ago Andy Wallace was asked specifically if samples were used on Nevermind. He swears they were not.

Again, thank you for taking the time to let us pick your brain!

Matt

BUTCH VIG:

I think that's pretty close to what the setup was...although I don't remember a bottom mic on the snare. I saw Dave Grohl last week, I mentioned I'm doing a GS forum, and he said he has a picture of me setting up the drums, and if he can find it I'll post it.

Re: samples, I'm pretty sure Andy had a bit of them mixed in the background on kick and snare. He would load them into an AMS, and trigger them from the sync head with a delay. He didn't replace the drums, just used the samples for ambience.
I wanted to steal them, put them on a DAT! But every day when he finished a mix, he would turn the AMS off, then load them back in the next day.

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Hi Butch,

It has been docmented that the band first tried recording Somthing In The Way as a band. Did the band try recording an electric version or was it always acoustic? On the BBC sessions they recorded a really heavy version with lots of feeback and it was also played this heavy way for the Nevermind tour.

Also were the cello parts pre-planned to the sessions or was it an idea that came together during the recording process?

Many thanks

BUTCH VIG:

We tried tracking with the full band and it didn't sound very good.

Kurt ended up doing the acoustic and his vocal while lying on the couch in the control room.

We overdubbed everything in Studio B, drums, bass, back vocals, and the cello was last.

FYI: I rented some sort of digital editing system to tighten the tracks up, this was before Pro Tools. I think the system was called an ADAP? Ring any bells anyone?

It was a pain in the ass to use!

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I was fairly obsessed with Nirvana years ago and had a collection of dubbed tapes of their unreleased songs, years before the box set came out to expose better quality versions of them and more. They had a lot of great songs that never got the full studio treatment.

My question is, had you heard them and felt strongly about any of them? There were a couple songs started/demo'd on the Nevermind session that didn't get completed - 'Old Age,' for example - which wound up on the box set. And I always loved the song 'In His Hands' among many others... Were any of the songs that didn't get finished (or maybe even didn't get started) songs that you'd really wanted to help them get recorded? Just curious if any of those never recorded 'lost songs,' demos or b-sides ever stood out to you in particular.

Thanks!

BUTCH VIG:

i think most of the unfinished songs that had ruff vocals have come out.
They did have this super catchy song that didn't have any lyrics, I encouraged Kurt to come up with something, but he thought it sounded "too much like REM"...

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Butch, do you remember whether Song in D was recorded at all during the Nevermind sessions? Is it possible that an unfinished instrumental take is somewhere in the vaults?

Also, if you were to hear the song now, all these years later, would you recognize it?

BUTCH VIG:

I seem to remember that we cut a basic track for Song In D, but there's no vocals.
I would recognize it, it had a jangly, ringy riff in the verse.

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Hey Butch, can you enlighten us to the processing used on Chris' bass in Breed? sound like some sort of light synth effect ... thanks in advance!

BUTCH VIG:

There's no synth, Chris used a fuzz pedal.

Andy might have put a bit of Eventide on it during the mix.

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I wanted to ask about the track "Endless, Nameless" that appears on some of the Nevermind pressings.

Did you produce this track? How/Where was it recorded?

And, how come it's not on all the releases of Nevermind?

Once again, thanks for taking the time to answer these questions.

Cheers.

BUTCH VIG:

The band launched into that song after a a few failed attempts at recording Lithium...Kurt started playing that riff while the tape was still rolling....it was SCARY to see how pissed off he was...and at the end of the song he smashed hsi guitar to bits. I think it was his left handed Mosrite, and I spent the entire next day trying to track another one down in Los Angeles.

It was originally added as an extra track. When we mastered, Howie Weinberg didn't even know the extra song was on the reel, and left it off the first master!

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I read somewhere that Kurt didn't like singing in headphones and you set up a speaker system for him to track his vocals .

Could you describe this setup , like mic position and speakers ?

How loud was the volume ?

As producer what did you do to help get the best performance out of him ?

What was a typical session tracking his vocals like ? Could you only get 5 takes out of him , then his voice was blown ?

BUTCH VIG:

I tried using the out of phase speakers with no headphones but I didn't like it (I could hear the weird phase bleed), so I convinced Kurt to wear headphones. We used a U67 on most of his vocals, I think it was the Neve pre, and probably an LA2A.

I was lucky if I got 4 takes. Usually 3...I would get him to do a warmup and adjust levels (and record it) and then get him to do a couple takes. He did not have the patience to do more than that, and usually blew his voice out anyway, so I would take anything I could get!

It's funny, I can hear the vocal comp on some songs...like Lithium. The verses are really obvious between the different takes.

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To tyle