Random NIN Questions

[Ryan]

How do we supposedly know that Page Hamilton supposedly played on No You Don't? Since it's uncredited, what the source?

Here's some 2009 ninwiki discussion:

http://www.nin.wiki/Talk:No,_You_Don't

Page Hamilton's own MySpace apparently credited himself being on it...



This article only mentions him programming drums and loops:

http://www.mtv.com/news/1430003/form...-nails-record/

[joplinpicasso]

I just read the pitchfork review of the fragile reissue. Is Into the Void really a "direct black sabbath reference"? I know sabbath has a song with the same title and we werent sure if it was a cover when the tracklist came out. But has this ever been confirmed? I feel like I'd remember if TR spoke on that.

And for the record I don't think "the clouds will part" line is comical at all. It's fucking brutal. "Misery loves comedy"?? Wtf?

I hear it as a bit sardonic in the same way I hear the interrupted lyrics in "ATLITW" or the verse melodies in "Everything". Still enjoyable and brutal in a way, like, 'he just went there.'

[botley]

Independent of online reviewing, I had two exes who were pretty into Nine Inch Nails ask me whether I thought this line was cool or funny. Apparently, for some people it plays more like the opening to Monty Python's Flying Circus. I always thought it was a bit of sardonic overstatement for effect. I love it. But every time I hear it now, I do think of two very smart women, both skilled in the art of analyzing texts, who were like "Why is he sneaking Monty Python into this vicious song?"

What did they think when almost a whole NIN album turned out to be about arms coming down from the sky?

[joplinpicasso]

What did they think when almost a whole NIN album turned out to be about arms coming down from the sky?

Wow. Almost made me laugh out loud at work.

I, for one, find TR to sneak sardonic/dark humor into a lot of his music. If anything, The Fragile is somewhat devoid of this humor compared to other releases. Also, Sesquipedalism...there's that same dark part of me that is tempted to start a thread about exes and their comprehension of NIN.

[wizfan]

So I'm going through and sorting my rarities, but one thing is really bugging me. Is Piggy [Radio Edit] from the Piggy promo disc actually any different to the album version? Other than a couple of extra seconds on the end it seems the same to me. I'm guessing it was either mislabelled or there was a 'clean' edit meant for this disc, but if anybody knows different I'd be pleased to hear.

Cannot find any differences, either.

[Ryan]

Independent of online reviewing, I had two exes who were pretty into Nine Inch Nails ask me whether I thought this line was cool or funny. Apparently, for some people it plays more like the opening to Monty Python's Flying Circus. I always thought it was a bit of sardonic overstatement for effect. I love it. But every time I hear it now, I do think of two very smart women, both skilled in the art of analyzing texts, who were like "Why is he sneaking Monty Python into this vicious song?"

I can't see any humour in it at all. "The clouds will part and the sky cracks open and god himself will reach his fucking arm through, just to push you down, just to hold you down - stuck in this hole with the shit and the piss
and it's hard to believe it could come down to this"

...you can't really visually paint a picture of despair and emotional turmoil better than that.

[wizfan]

I can't see any humour in it at all. "The clouds will part and the sky cracks open and god himself will reach his fucking arm through, just to push you down, just to hold you down - stuck in this hole with the shit and the piss
and it's hard to believe it could come down to this"

...you can't really visually paint a picture of despair and emotional turmoil better than that.

I like the live versions because of the added "ooooooh" after "back at the beginning". It makes the song that much sicker and demented, as if the narrator briefly enjoys seeing his enemy (or himself) stuck in the shit/piss-hole.

[jubilee]

I have three questions -

1. Around the peak of YZ fever and the band starting to perform TGD and Me, I'm Not live with Alessandro, Trent and Aaron on stage there was a lengthy (iirc) interview where Trent (or Alessandro) discussed how the three "nodes" set-up worked, what the hell they were all doing at each console and how they all worked together to make the music. I still can't seem to find this interview (it was text, not video) and would love to read it again. I know there was an element of miming during Tension and a few tracks that were played with Finck at a console and not behind a guitar but this interview went some ways to explaining what they were doing to play some of the more electronic songs live. Anyone remember this and have a link?

2. After listening to the thick, impenetrable guitar on Burning Bright (starts around 30 seconds) I started thinking about when Trent and co have used recordings of guitar then played them at different speeds / processed them in what seemed to me as very unique methods of music production. DISCLAIMER - I know very little about music production . I remember reading about how Physical was made by speeding up a guitar riff then playing that at a reduced speed to get that thick, gelatinous sounding riff, I would love to know more about when this sort of technique was used across the NIN catalog and if I'm right i thinking this is what's happening in Burning Bright.

3. Kind of related to question 2 - in the guitar solo bit on Closer from AATCHB, is Robin playing a riff that is then being played backwards or what is going on here? (3:14, then a similar sound resurfaces at 3:57- these time stamps are from the MP3) Is this something NIN have utilized either in studio or live and are there other examples.


Apologies for my ignorance if music production but I would love to know more!

[eversonpoe]

I have three questions -

1. Around the peak of YZ fever and the band starting to perform TGD and Me, I'm Not live with Alessandro, Trent and Aaron on stage there was a lengthy (iirc) interview where Trent (or Alessandro) discussed how the three "nodes" set-up worked, what the hell they were all doing at each console and how they all worked together to make the music. I still can't seem to find this interview (it was text, not video) and would love to read it again. I know there was an element of miming during Tension and a few tracks that were played with Finck at a console and not behind a guitar but this interview went some ways to explaining what they were doing to play some of the more electronic songs live. Anyone remember this and have a link?

2. After listening to the thick, impenetrable guitar on Burning Bright (starts around 30 seconds) I started thinking about when Trent and co have used recordings of guitar then played them at different speeds / processed them in what seemed to me as very unique methods of music production. DISCLAIMER - I know very little about music production . I remember reading about how Physical was made by speeding up a guitar riff then playing that at a reduced speed to get that thick, gelatinous sounding riff, I would love to know more about when this sort of technique was used across the NIN catalog and if I'm right i thinking this is what's happening in Burning Bright.

3. Kind of related to question 2 - in the guitar solo bit on Closer from AATCHB, is Robin playing a riff that is then being played backwards or what is going on here? (3:14, then a similar sound resurfaces at 3:57- these time stamps are from the MP3) Is this something NIN have utilized either in studio or live and are there other examples.


Apologies for my ignorance if music production but I would love to know more!

1. not sure about that interview, but with regards to "miming" during "copy of a", it's only during the first section of the song, before much really happens.

2. old-fashioned-style tape recording and modern digital software is pretty easy to manipulate in such a way to speed up or slow things down. one only needs to play something faster and then slow it down after it has been recorded in order to "thicken" it up. off the top of my head, i can't think of many other examples that are obvious within the NIN catalog. but burning bright definitely sounds like the main riff AND the drums were recorded at a faster speed and then slowed down.

3. pretty sure that's a combination of a reverse delay effect (certain pedals will do such things on the fly and make them sound pretty amazing) as well as some enhancement during mixing.

[seasonsinthesky]

3. Kind of related to question 2 - in the guitar solo bit on Closer from AATCHB, is Robin playing a riff that is then being played backwards or what is going on here? (3:14, then a similar sound resurfaces at 3:57- these time stamps are from the MP3) Is this something NIN have utilized either in studio or live and are there other examples.

It's not backwards. Robin plays the full riff the whole time, but uses his expression footpedal as a volume controller. So he's making it fade in and out with the pedal, live as he plays. Tricksy!

[jubilee]

1. not sure about that interview, but with regards to "miming" during "copy of a", it's only during the first section of the song, before much really happens.

2. old-fashioned-style tape recording and modern digital software is pretty easy to manipulate in such a way to speed up or slow things down. one only needs to play something faster and then slow it down after it has been recorded in order to "thicken" it up. off the top of my head, i can't think of many other examples that are obvious within the NIN catalog. but burning bright definitely sounds like the main riff AND the drums were recorded at a faster speed and then slowed down.

3. pretty sure that's a combination of a reverse delay effect (certain pedals will do such things on the fly and make them sound pretty amazing) as well as some enhancement during mixing.

Thanks to you both for your responses first and foremost

1. I'm still holding on to the hope that someone out there in ETS land has the interview link or text stored on a harddrive. I had a C+P of it in a word document but that was many years and a few computer crashes ago. The miming aspect isn't an insult to the band at all, It was just something I thought I heard Trent acknowledge briefly, perhaps in the Rehearsal audio. Always makes me think of that Pic / GIF of Robin just standing there poking the keyboard with one finger.

2. Thanks for the info (both you guys), I knew recording something being played faster then being slowed down would give it that sort of sound, I could have sworn there was a discussion about Physical being sped up in some way then re-recorded and played at a slower speed - as if there were two aspects of speed manipulation. I could of course be wrong but I'm going to be looking out for this technique in other NIN songs now :P

3. What is reverse delay effect??? The whole mini-solo here has always been one of my favorite moments from any NIN-live performance and I just wanna know for sure just how it's achieved.

[eversonpoe]

Thanks to you both for your responses first and foremost

1. I'm still holding on to the hope that someone out there in ETS land has the interview link or text stored on a harddrive. I had a C+P of it in a word document but that was many years and a few computer crashes ago. The miming aspect isn't an insult to the band at all, It was just something I thought I heard Trent acknowledge briefly, perhaps in the Rehearsal audio. Always makes me think of that Pic / GIF of Robin just standing there poking the keyboard with one finger.

2. Thanks for the info (both you guys), I knew recording something being played faster then being slowed down would give it that sort of sound, I could have sworn there was a discussion about Physical being sped up in some way then re-recorded and played at a slower speed - as if there were two aspects of speed manipulation. I could of course be wrong but I'm going to be looking out for this technique in other NIN songs now :P

3. What is reverse delay effect??? The whole mini-solo here has always been one of my favorite moments from any NIN-live performance and I just wanna know for sure just how it's achieved.

yeah, @seasonsinthesky is right about the volume pedal usage, but i think it's also coupled with reverse delay.

reverse delay basically VERY quickly samples what you're playing and spits it out in reverse. king crimson used the effect quite a bit starting with the album THRAK, but it's prevalent in more things than we probably realize.

here's a pretty good example of how it sounds:

[sick among the pure]

I think I only remember reading about the LITS version, rather than the original Performance 2007 version, but I remember for some of those songs, Ally was in charge of live distorting what (guitarist) was playing live on their end. Basically the one would play their part, and Ally would noodle around with it.

[butter_hole]

I thought the miming happened on a couple of different HM songs? The beginning of Copy of A was usually just Trent up on stage by himself triggering that one riff and the drums. Find My Way and... Disappointed, I think? had the whole band up there pretending to press buttons.

[sick among the pure]

Does anyone have or know where I might find a good sized image of the "used to stand for something" us map image used on the shirts? I can just take a picture of my shirt in the daylight tomorrow, but wondered if there was ever a digital version of that image anywhere online.

[Jon]

2. After listening to the thick, impenetrable guitar on Burning Bright (starts around 30 seconds) I started thinking about when Trent and co have used recordings of guitar then played them at different speeds / processed them in what seemed to me as very unique methods of music production. DISCLAIMER - I know very little about music production . I remember reading about how Physical was made by speeding up a guitar riff then playing that at a reduced speed to get that thick, gelatinous sounding riff, I would love to know more about when this sort of technique was used across the NIN catalog and if I'm right i thinking this is what's happening in Burning Bright.

This interview talks about a technique TR/AR used for recording Patriots Day. It's possible that what we're hearing is audio from different "generations":

It involved stringing tape machines together to record some motifs. We could capture two, four, six, eight bars of phrases and have it bounce between cassette decks indefinitely until we stopped the tape. Each time, it loses a generation and feels like it’s a memory of the other one. It’s a very subtle process where you could leave it to play for an hour and then listen to it and that motif suddenly has a worn-in feel, or you could let it go all night or a couple nights and it starts to become unrecognizable, but in a way that feels — not menacing — and that feels almost comforting and nostalgic.

[botley]

I thought the miming happened on a couple of different HM songs? The beginning of Copy of A was usually just Trent up on stage by himself triggering that one riff and the drums. Find My Way and... Disappointed, I think? had the whole band up there pretending to press buttons.

Not true.

[buckaroo]

I though the whole "miming" thing was just an off-hand comment by Trent explaining that sometimes during performances there isn't much happening due to triggered loops, etc. and that since that would not be interesting to watch members needed to sort of play it up and be more animated. I never thought it was that nothing was being performed or that they were pretending to push buttons, just that what they were doing wasn't exciting to watch.

[Toadflax]

This came up in the Not the Actual Events thread.

It's been three years and change now: Has general opinion softened or hardened against "Everything"? I honestly think that, when that song came out, the reception here was the first time I heard the phrase "dumpster fire."

Personally, I love the song. I liked it then and I like it now, although it absolutely sticks out more on Hesitation Marks than "Starfuckers" does on The Fragile. So, I'm not sure it belongs where it is, but I enjoy the heck out of it and am sad that the collective temper tantrum eventually ensured I'd never get to see it live.

I never had a problem with it, but honestly Not The Actual Events has made me like it even more. I have eminently more time for NIN doing something unusual and risky than boring, derivative shit like The Beginning Of The End or Not So Pretty Now.

[BRoswell]

I never had a problem with it either, especially after I read what music influenced that track. I like the tragic arrogance that's on display in the lyrics, and that "ascending on a high that might just kill me" ending still rocks. It's certainly not Trent's finest work, but I like it and still listen to it.

[xfocalinx]

especially after I read what music influenced that track.

Mind elaborating? I must have missed that.

[BRoswell]

Mind elaborating? I must have missed that.

http://www.nin.wiki/Everything#Meaning

"To me, 'Everything' is a descendant of Fear and Joy Division and New Order."

I can definitely hear those influences in the song, even if it doesn't sound exactly like those bands.

[Kamelion]

I thought that about Branches/Bones too. The bassline screams Joy Division to me. Which is a good thing, I hasten to add

[nowimnothing]

I was a supporter of 'Everything' when it was released. But I have to say that my opinion has changed.

And I don't mind the lyrics - I quite like them actually.

What grates me now is the actual tempo of the song. It breaks the flow of the whole album. Perhaps that is because I I never listen to just a selection of tracks from an album, I always listen to an album as a whole.

I figure that, in my humble opinion, 'Everything' would have been better suited as an inclusion on NTAE than on HM.

[Jg23666]

2. Thanks for the info (both you guys), I knew recording something being played faster then being slowed down would give it that sort of sound, I could have sworn there was a discussion about Physical being sped up in some way then re-recorded and played at a slower speed - as if there were two aspects of speed manipulation. I could of course be wrong but I'm going to be looking out for this technique in other NIN songs now :P

The guitars in "Suck" and "Physical" were recorded being played at double-speed and an octave higher, then slowed down. From this interview with Reznor:

Another thing I'll sometimes do is play the guitars twice as fast as the song's tempo, recording them at 30 ips [inches-per-second] on the multitrack. Then I'll slow it down to 15 ips. I'll play the part an octave high, too, so when I slow it down, it's in the right register and at the right speed. But if you saturate the tape real hard when you record it at 30 ips, it takes on a really clear, thick, warm, and bizarre quality when you slow it down. The guitar on "Suck" [Broken]--which I think is the best guitar sound I've ever gotten--was done that way.

And from this interview with Sean Beavan:

What's involved in getting that "Nothing Records' Guitar sound": that signature industrial distorted rhythm chunk? It's really full frequency: big bottomed, yet it goes all the way up the spectrum.
That's analog. The way we do this is track a bunch of guitars. We always track them at 30 ips with the guitarist play the part and octave high, twice as fast - and then slow the tape down to 15 ips. That's how you get the huge guitar in "Physical":20 tracks of 30 ips slowed down to 15. It's so weird how it mutates the frequency band. And analog gets that high breadth that you cant get from digital. But then we also track guitars then throw them into Turbo Synth and screw around with them. At the lowest volume, we can get it sounding like your boom box is being ripped to shreds. Trent's whole idea when we were working on Broken [NIN's 1993 EP] was, "I just want it to sound really loud, quiet. How do we do that?" I just figured it out.

IMHO this kind of stuff should be in the ninwiki somewhere, on the pages for the individual songs and/or on a new page cataloging uniquely NIN songwriting and production methods (in the same way the lyrical motifs page catalogs distinctively NIN lyrical methods). It would save people from having to independently trawl decades of interviews.

EDIT: I should mention that this recording technique is essentially the reverse of how the vocals for Chipmunks songs were recorded, as you can hear for yourself at this surreal and nightmarish site: https://soundcloud.com/alvin-thechipmunkson16sp

[Disassociative]

Was the music video version of Gave Up ever released on a CD or anything as just an audio track?

[pinata89]

Was the music video version of Gave Up ever released on a CD or anything as just an audio track?

I have an audio copy (albeit, low-quality...may be 128-192kbps, but I'd have to check when I am home) that was sourced from the Closure release...probably a VHS rip. Other than that, I'm not sure.

[buckaroo]

I was a supporter of 'Everything' when it was released. But I have to say that my opinion has changed.

And I don't mind the lyrics - I quite like them actually.

What grates me now is the actual tempo of the song. It breaks the flow of the whole album. Perhaps that is because I I never listen to just a selection of tracks from an album, I always listen to an album as a whole.

I figure that, in my humble opinion, 'Everything' would have been better suited as an inclusion on NTAE than on HM.

I love Everything. I always felt that it created a really great division in the album. I'm not sure what it is, but the first half and second half of the album have very different vibes and I like how Everything just separates them with this odd track that doesn't fit on either side, but fits well with full album. There are a million ways to sequence an album, but I don't think Disappointed into Satellite would work.

[TheBang]

Was the music video version of Gave Up ever released on a CD or anything as just an audio track?

Pretty sure it was not. Anything around would be a VHS/DVD rip.

[Ryan]

Where in the rehearsal version of LINE was this line inserted? I never noticed it before:

http://www.nin.wiki/Recurring_lyrics#Used_up

Love Is Not Enough (rehearsal version): "left for dead and all used up"