Random NIN Thoughts

[Copy_of_an_Echo]

What did Trent use to create the "hammer synth" patch that starts the song "That's What I Get"?

I read that it came from something like a steel drum keyboard preset or something... Please don't tell me it's from his Moog lol... I would find it hard to believe that a Moog could make that sound unless it was layered with more notes and frequencies and maybe sampled and played back with his Mirage...

This has been a curiosity to me for so long I'm just dying to know how Trent got that patch/sound.

[nooneimportant]

What did Trent use to create the "hammer synth" patch that starts the song "That's What I Get"?

I read that it came from something like a steel drum keyboard preset or something... Please don't tell me it's from his Moog lol... I would find it hard to believe that a Moog could make that sound unless it was layered with more notes and frequencies and maybe sampled and played back with his Mirage...

This has been a curiosity to me for so long I'm just dying to know how Trent got that patch/sound.

I found a synth sound in Garageband that is very close to it. It also sounds suspiciously like the bass during live versions of Happiness in Slavery.

[Copy_of_an_Echo]

lol that bass in Happiness in Slavery... I love it I somehow managed to edit a patch on my DX7 to sound incredibly close to it.

[Copy_of_an_Echo]

I am blown away. I just decided to give Year Zero another listen after years of disregarding it. I was 17 when I last listened to the album, but at the time I didn't pay attention to sound the way I do now; no attention to room tones or reverbs, delays, eq, noise and ambience, drum sounds vs samples... I also was turned off by the political message in Year Zero because I felt that I knew nothing of politics or what was going on in the world. I felt I couldn't understand it. Plus Mr. Capital G was someone I never studied but everyone else just new he was an asshole. I was always like, hm, he is eh?

Now, after gone through the whole album, the sounds and the message, the amount of personality and style in the music; it's simply fascinating to me. Now I'm just fantasizing Trent in some movie or real life Apocalypse and I can just see him as this hardened street smart man trying to help people out in life or death situations; intimidating and angry on the outside but caring and helpful on the inside. I can just imagine the music as an epic anthem to the times.

Man, did I ever miss out I mean I'm 21 now and I started listening to NIN when I was 15. And that alternate reality game.... Holy shit man what the fuck was that all about?

[Copy_of_an_Echo]

I mean, I know Trent wanted people to "wake up!!!" lol. But that's all I know.

[Copy_of_an_Echo]

Very good Kris. Your thumbs encourage me.

[Copy_of_an_Echo]

Hey, am I the only person that thinks that NIN comes very close to music we hear in our dreams? What I mean is, the immense amount of subtlety in the sound, the variation, things sneaking up on you or sounds flashing and bouncing off of Trent's voice and moving around. Like shit I seriously feel like sometimes, NIN is just dreamy. lol. I mean just creamy. No, I mean just like a fantasty. Yeah, like a fantasy.

Maybe it's because sometimes I hear NIN in my dreams, and often the music is just full of mystery; changing and morphing in front of my eyes, but never in a way that I can completely follow and comprehend.

[Copy_of_an_Echo]

One time I had this dream I was watching TV, and the screen goes totally white with noise, and I know it's like an MTV music video or something, and slowely, I begin to realize an image of Trent Reznor, face down on a pure white background; a large pool of blood beneath him. I believe the scene was accompanied by a drone of noise and such. That was a really kool dream. Who wants to hear more Trent Reznor dreams from me?

[sheepdean]

One time I had this dream I was watching TV, and the screen goes totally white with noise, and I know it's like an MTV music video or something, and slowely, I begin to realize an image of Trent Reznor, face down on a pure white background; a large pool of blood beneath him. I believe the scene was accompanied by a drone of noise and such. That was a really kool dream. Who wants to hear more Trent Reznor dreams from me?

There's a thread for that already, go crazy http://www.echoingthesound.org/commu...nt-NIN-in-them

(also you can edit your posts so that you can put all of your things in one thread, rather than posting three times)

[Copy_of_an_Echo]

Holy shit now way. Lol can't believe people are already talking about that.

[GlitchyFlame]

Seeing '90s Trent with his modern hair cut is strange.

[nooneimportant]

Seeing '90s Trent with his modern hair cut is strange.

It's funny how 90's Trent has a different stage presence than he does now, but in this video he has current hair and acts like current Trent. It's like Trent knows Time Travel or something...

[sweeterthan]

Seeing '90s Trent with his modern hair cut is strange.

This video is great. Anyone know what year it was recorded? We all know suck is a "pigface cover" but reznor owned that song from beginning and in the end made it his own.

[sheepdean]

This video is great. Anyone know what year it was recorded? We all know suck is a "pigface cover" but reznor owned that song from beginning and in the end made it his own.

Well he wrote the lyrics, so it's his as much as it is Atkins'
And those shows were 1991, there's a boot of one at ninlive http://ninlive.com/shows/1991/19910425.html

[GlitchyFlame]

The Genesis P-Orridge mix of While I'm Still Here would be perfect if he/she (Not a knock against trans people, but ever since he tried to turn himself into his wife i'm not even sure if he thinks of himself as an individual anymore) wouldn't have added vocals.


We do not believe in human feeelingggshhh... Nooooooor in human fanshiess... Noooor human needsh... Human vallueesh... Human fears... Or even human hopes... The only purpose oooor belief... Is the path between the miiiind and the braaaaiiinnn.... Miiind.... to the Braaaiiin...

Kind of ruins the mood for me.

[Copy_of_an_Echo]

Hello forumers. A fellow member asked this question on the questions forum but people haven't replied yet. Anyone have the answer to this?

"Speaking of which (Year Zero period), does anyone know where THE BEST resource documenting ALL the hidden website stuff (content/meaning/how it was found/etc.) might be? I know there were several different compilation-websites put together for that purpose at the time and pretty quickly afterward, I'm just looking for opinions (and links? w00t) regarding whichever sites have been deemed most comprehensive for the full picture and organization/ease-of-browsing."

And while we're on that note...wasn't ets (or someone here once upon a time) the spearhead of some effort to package all that Year Zero website/concept album insanity on an interactive DVD with branching menus? OMFG, I'd especiallylove to see that! Did it ever happen? Someone PLZ say YES and link me there!

[Copy_of_an_Echo]

Oh oh, I just had a funny thought. I wonder if Trent has stumbled across a lot of NIN fans when he's out to pick up some piece of vintage gear from Craigslist sellers. I'm just picturing his old emails right now:

"Sure sounds good Mark,

I'll come take a look at the Xpander at around 3pm on Sunday. Hopefully I won't be any later than that.

Trent"

And then Mark is like "Holy shit, oh it's that Trent..."

[Copy_of_an_Echo]

I've had a very interesting thought on NIN ever since I heard HM. What came to my mind was different "breeds" of Nine Inch Nails. Here's what I mean. I think a lot of us can agree that Hesitation Marks has a very particular, perhaps fresh sound to it. That album had put me in a fantasy land often when I was first listening to it, especially the very abstract and almost ethereal kind of songs like In Two, All Time Low, and Running. Every NIN album has a particular "sound" to it, and after what I've heard, I can really imagine some wild "breeds" of NIN where the sound theme's are just out of this world. Like honestly, if any of you guys are familar with Japanese anime, some of the songs for those TV shows are just like, super fast tempo, high energy, and wild and weird, and a bit dated too haha. But just for fun, I can totally imagine and fantasize a futuristic NIN where Trent is basing his music off of that and making this really crazy, super SCI-FI, high energy anime kind of music.

So far, to my ears, I consider How to Destroy Angels to be pretty much like another breed of NIN. HTDA reminds me of NIN, but just with a totally different theme and sound to it you know? And more people involved and different subject matter and such.

With this, I can imagine more "breeds" of NIN. Like some weird ass romantic period stuff, anything really. Oh yeah, and that song Everything, I mean that was Trent's take on New Order and Joy Division and Fear so I can see him pulling off a lot of weird styles of music.

Anyway so check this out if you're curious to see what I just started thinking about.
When I watched this, I was just fantasizing Trent Reznor's version of this kind of music. I imagine it would sound very similar, except he'd cut out the cheese and make it less dated and more sophisticated.

By the way, skip to 1:17 and click "watch on youtube", this shit gets crazier the more you listen to it.

[Copy_of_an_Echo]

Alright so it seems the "Dreams of NIN and Them" thread is pretty dead so I'm going to complete my last Trent Reznor dream on this one.

Trent Reznor Dream Number 3!!!

Okay so I find myself having an observatory dream in the third person, viewing an interview setting (studio/radio station in this case) through the eyes of a camera. As my camera eyes look around in the room, I see that I'm sort of in between the live room and control room. The walls and floor of the live room are mostly concrete with a window or two on the far side, and their is a medium sized cheap fold-able table in the center, with a good bunch of gear like drum machines, pedals, and synths set up on it. I particularly recall seeing a Yamaha RX8 actually haha... When I saw all this I simply knew that this was actually a How to Destroy Angels setup, and that we were just about to film a live performance of one of their songs.
As the camera pans away from the gear, I hear the host of the show start to speak with a British accent; something on the lines of: "Okay on this side we have the setup here.. Okay very good! And oh! That may or may not be Trent Reznor sitting comfortably in the corner of the room over there!"
And as he says that the camera pans across Reznor, who's comfortably laying or sitting down on a thick cloth reclining chair with an olive green jacket, his headphones on and his attention focused on his laptop. As the camera finds it's way into the control room, still looking towards the live room, the hosts's last phrase was actually Trent's cue to come in and start the interview. So just as the host is finishing his last phrase, Trent slightly interrupts him, gets up and out of his chair and looks towards the camera and host with a grin on his face, and a pair of Splinter Cell-like night vision goggles over his eyes.... lol And in a playful manner, he says this:

"Shows over Bigz. What the fuck."

lol and I wake up from that and I'm like, really? That's what my subconscious made Trent say in my dream? HAHa of course... the F word, but what kind of name is Bigz? lol. I've heard Biggy Smalls but... Also, the night vision goggles actually had some relevance because in my mind, it was part of the music video, relating to a particular songs militaristic theme.

[Copy_of_an_Echo]

I was just dissecting NIN overdrive/distortion bass guitar sounds and aside from that I began to realize just how much Trent's insecurities about himself that he used to have show throughout his lyrics in more songs than I thought. I can very closely relate to his words from various sources.

Specifically, stuff that's related to destroying his past self:

Sunspots
my life has taken a turn
why in the name of god would i ever want to return
peel off our skin we're gonna burn what we were to the ground
fuck in the fire and we'll spread all the ashes around
i wanna kill away the rest of whats left and i do

With Teeth
wave goodbye to what you were

Various Methods of Escape
a place to bury everything i did
and burn it to the ground
i've gotta let go
i've gotta get stray/straight?
why'd you have to make it so hard
let me get away

Ice Age
sometimes i still believe who i pretend to be

I Would For You
see I keep lying to myself
don't know what else there is to do
if i could be somebody else
i think i would for you

[Copy_of_an_Echo]

I wonder what Trent would have said many years ago if someone had asked him simply "Hey man, what exactly don't you like about who you used to be? Whats's this thing you're trying to hide and destroy all the time?"

If I were asked that question a few years ago, I would be pretty damn embarrassed to admit what it was. I've heard of a lot of rock starts/musicians coming out and admitting that they wanted to "be that guy"; the best, the most messed up, the most hardcore, the most tough, the most bad ass/kool basically. With all the pressure of the masses and fans expectations I'm not surprised at all to hear that.

But at the end of the day it's like, lol man wait a second, isn't that desire just downright embarrassing to hold onto and keep secret? I mean this is the kind of anxiety I had when I was in elementary and highschool!

I'm not saying that's exact what Trent was particularly hiding, but I mean what else would he really need to hide other than not being as "amazing" as everyone thought he was? Doing unkind or bad things to people is pretty much the only other thing I can think of. Other than that, I would imagine that being awkward around woman or people in general would have been a major thing that he wanted to erase from his past. I mean, I remember those interviews where he messed up lines on MTV and stuff... That's hard on a musicians ego lol. Or maybe back in the day, some bad ass NIN fan girl with a dragon tattoo on her back was really into him, but at the time, he was struggling with social anxiety, so when he took her to his place one time she was like "Wtf this guy is so awkward... I thought Trent Reznor was a rockstar freak but he's like fumbling over his words and not making eye contact and... Wasn't he supposed to fuck me like an animal by now? Okay well now that I'm here, I'm going to make it really hard for him to get away hee hee!!"

And then later on Trent's like, "Oh!! I'm so imperfect and tainted.. I'VE GOTTA LET GO!!! I'VE GOTTA GET STRAY/STREIGHT. WHY'D YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT SO HARD?!? LET ME GET AWAY!!"

All jokes aside I fucking love that song and I love Trent Reznor. I'm not saying this actually did happen, but I'm just trying to imagine what he was struggling with and these things come to mind.

Could happen to someone.. Could've happened to my past self at least!

[Copy_of_an_Echo]

Oh man I can't believe I had another Trent Reznor dream last night! It's so weird I've had like 4 in the past 4 months.


Okay so I'm like at this free NIN concert in some large city legion; you know, like those town halls where sometimes small local bands play at. In my mind I'm like, "hm, kind of weird NIN would do a free concert at a small venue like this..." The place practically looks like a highschool gym complete with stage lol. So I'm at this place and it's pretty much full of various NIN fans; some actually watching the show, and others casually talking among each other and I'm like what the hell is this? The music isn't that loud, it's all instrumental sort of Ghosts-like stuff, but not even as impressive, and Trent looks like he's just off to the side of the stage with his nose in a laptop; all laid back Aphex Twin style. At some point I work my way towards the front of the stage and I under my breath or maybe to a friend I say something on the lines of "Why's Trent doing such a small show like this?" And somehow Trent hears me and he says something to me like "You know not everyone feels the need to flaunt a stadium packed concert every time they do a show" or something like that. This whole time I'm quite surprised by how modest and casual this whole thing appears to be. Soon enough however, I find myself just being an observer and I'm looking to the crowd from the stage. Now things are starting to pick up and Trent's more in the center of the stage and his band mates and him pick up their guitars and prep for a song. BUT, as they do this, Trent gets caught up in some cables and something like his guitar strap is hooked with another guitarist right beside him. So now these two guys have their guitars in their hands, but their trying to unhook each other from the cables or whatever, and finally they get free and they're like "alright. one. two - " lol and here's the fuckin hilarious part. On three Trent attempts to strike an aggressive guitar riff to start the song, and just as he swings his arm down, the whole neck of his fucking guitar snaps right off from the guitar body and he virtually trips over himself lol. It was so anticlimactic I'm pretty sure I laughed in my dream and maybe woke myself up from it.

[Lew]

listened to phm last night, for the first time in a while, and don't know if it is because i am so old now...but the whole album had a different taste and i saw it, thematically, very differently than i ever have.
and, i totally and completely fell for "kinda i want to". holy shit. lol.

[Copy_of_an_Echo]

Hey guys, if anyone is curious, this funny video shows song examples of a particular chord progression/root notes that may just be the most frequently used throughout Trent's career. I was talking about this a while back and I remember a guy was kind of curious about it too and said that some people thought Trent was losing it lol. Although, I think Trent is usually aware of what he does; I think he just likes these chords.

[GlitchyFlame]

If the next album had some Autechre and Tuss influences, that would be amazing.

[Jetvet1975]

Anybody hear of a NIN cover band called Sin? They're playing on Long Island tomorrow and thinking of checking them out.

[OnInFive]

Hey Everyone,
My friends and I have a podcast where we talk about the rise of famous bands and artists called On In Five. We just finished up a 2 part series on the history of Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails. We do a lot of research and try to build the most complete story we can. We'd love if you'd go take a listen and let us know what you think and how we did! You can find everything at wereoninfive.com where you'll find links to all our episodes, and some bonus information on the band, or you can jump straight in on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. Thanks!

[OSPF]

Amazon now lists Watchmen Vol 2 as "in stock March 14." I suspect Vol 1 and 3 will do the same.

[NIN –Downward Spiral Book]

NEW BLOG POST

[WHAT A FANTASTIC DEATH ABYSS!] David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails and the Great Beyond - IN REMEMBRANCE OF DAVID BOWIE ON HIS BIRTHDAY – 8/1/1947 - 10/1/2016 - an examination of NIN, Trent Reznor, The Downward Spiral and 1. Outside #bowie#nineinchnails

https://adamsteiner.uk/2021/01/08/what-a-fantastic-death-abyss-david-bowie-nine-inch-nails-and-the-great-beyond/

[NIN –Downward Spiral Book]

NEW – Edith Bowman interviews Reznor and Ross on Soundtrack Podcast!


Hello NIN fans!


BBC Radio presenter Edith Bowman talks to the dynamic duo about their soundtrack work – a really great podcast series – definitely check out the other episodes!

https://adamsteiner.uk/2021/01/23/new-edith-bowman-interviews-reznor-and-ross-on-soundtrack-podcast


I’ll be publishing a long form essay going in-depth on the making-of The Social Network soundtrack soon – coming soon on my blog.


My book INTO THE NEVER – a deep dive through The Downward Spiral is available now!

https://adamsteiner.uk/nine-inch-nails-into-the-never/