The Secret to Nirvana’s In Utero Heavy Sound

Nirvana’s album In Utero became an intriguing album for rock bands and record producers, particularly in the mid 90’s. What makes intriguing is the weight of the sound: heavy, crisp, and yet catchy drum sound.

Nirvana In Utero Heaviness

Nirvana’ In Utero can never be produced again by any other band or producer so far, at least as far as my opinion is concerned. I’ve listened to numberless of rock bands in my whole life and I can tell you that no band has ever accomplished what Nirvana had both in corporate and underground rock scene.

Lots of rock musicians and rock fans are wondering: how Nirvana did it? How did they create such a powerful sound of the drums? So here’s what I’ve learned about Dave Grohl’s favorite toy.

Nevermind the Drums

If you’re a die-hard Nirvana fan, you know that the band was popularly known for very particular about the sound of the drums. Very obvious in albums Bleach, Nevermind, and most of all In Utero. Kurt, Chris, and Dave, including the past drummers, always see to it that the sound of Nirvana will produce a drum sound that can smash windows and break eardrums. They wanted the snare drum to sound like a gunfire or a bomb.

So what they did was look for the loudest snare drum that they can get in all music stores all over California. This was during the Nevermind sessions. Good thing they were able to get the sound they want, with the big help of record producer Butch Vig.

Steve Albini’s Role

After this achievement, which made tremendous amount of record sales on the first release, they knew they’ve learned something from the Nevermind experience. But it changed all that when record producer Steve Albini came into the scene.

When the band hired Steve Albini as (not record producer as Steve doesn’t want to be labeled as such) record engineer, Steve and Nirvana knew that they were up into something. They knew they both shared the same goal, and that was to achieve the greatest drum sound in the history of rock and roll. This was when the In Utero sessions began.

Nirvana already knew what the outcome of the album would be because Steve had already worked with previous band The Pixies, on the album Surfer Rosa. And Nirvana wanted their drums to sound like the Pixies’ Surfer Rosa.

Perfect Producer

So since Steve is a kind of a producer (as he claims recently) who doesn’t do the job of record producers because typical record producers decide the aesthetic production of the record–which involves all the decisions how the record should sound–he lets the artists decide how they want their album to sound like. And so Nirvana and Steve are a good team.

Mics, mics, and nothing but mics

Albini’s craft in analogue recordings and experimenting microphones made Nirvana very pleased during the In Utero sessions. What Albini did to make the drums sound like an explosion was to put countless and countless of microphones into the control room to record the drums. This is not the typical drum recording wherein one drum part has one mic each; one mic for the bass drum, one for the snare, one for the high hat, and so forth and so on.

A typical recording records one track for every drum part—that’s one mic for every part– the Albini style recorded one track from the many mics scattered on the floor and taped on acoustic walls and ceiling. This is to achieve a live, surround sound. Just like recording a live performance from a boom box or tape recorder.

Steve was able to produce the analogue sound digitally, with the use of computers, audio software and stuffs. But to be able to do it, microphones and nothing but microphones were all scattered in the control room, in random with high end mics and condensers.

And so the drum sound that they wanted was achieved. The rest of the instruments, the bass and the guitars had also their own acoustic style of recording. Although the guitars, bass, and Kurt’s powerful vocals—were recorded one by one for each track, they tried to make it sound like as if it’s a live performance. Some mics again are hung on the amplifiers and some areas in the control room.

Perfect Team

Even though the idea of the drum sound already rested in Steve’s mind, Nirvana made the sound even much more than Steve had expected. And even though it sounded like The Pixie’s Surfer Rosa, it sounded even ten times heavier than what Albini had done to Surfer Rosa. This was all because of the genius minds of Kurt Cobain and Steve Albini.

[Image Credit: ifmusic.co.uk]

UPDATE: January 17, 2012 9:28 AM -

For further readings about Steve Albini, his interviews, his art, his electrical engineer profession, and his other projects, you can click the recommended links below:

1. Electrical Engineer Steve Albini
2. Steve Albini’s Respect to Nirvana as an Artist
3. Steve Albini on New York City
4. Steve Albini’s Comments

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