Ask a music scene micro celebrity

[Joe Fitzgerald]

Mr. Albini,
Thank you for your insights in this post, it is enlightening to hear the opinions of a more experienced engineer.

Anyway, a couple of questions, first two regarding "in Utero", I listened to the album a few weeks ago and picked up on a couple things.

I noticed in "rape me" the first verse that the drums play on, it seems that the snare was overdubbed, but the old snare line remained in what I am assuming are the overheads.
Was this an intentional thing? an afterthought? or something you just lived with? It seems intentional, because it sounds pretty cool.
Did dave grohl overdub hits a lot?
I use drum replacement software sometimes, but don't like to, it kills the dynamics of a song. better to just have a good drummer.

Whatever you did to get the KICK drum sound for that album, in my opinion, set the tone for the whole record. It almost has a "woody" sound (haha everyone laugh.... ok done.)
that, got me thinking of an clip I saw of the lord of the rings in post prod, where they built a wooden box with baffles, and reamped the dialogue, to get the tree dudes sound.
Was is something like that you did? if not, have you ever?

Final question,
I'm a Full Sail Grad, Certified Pro Tools operator, and currently freelance engineering... Do you have any advice for someone in my "newborn" position?
At the moment, I am just trying to do as much work as possible, meet as many people / bands as I can, and generally do good by everyone I come in contact with.


Thank you again for your posts, I've gained some insight and a few laughs. =)
Take it light.
-Joe Fitzgerald

[ICallHimGamblor]

LOL at all the people who signed up at a poker forum to ask Steve questions when he has his own forum at his website.

[roto13]

Do you ever watch documentaries about the making of famous rock records, or is that too much like work to be entertaining? I'm thinking specifically of the Metallica documentary where their label hires a therapist to help the band and producer work through their bad vibes and childhood "issues" so that they might be able to squeeze out a serviceable rock album. I know nothing about Metallica, but that is one funny movie.

[AlexisBelle]

Steve

Brightback Morning Light is the best sounding (production, quality) album in my opinion of the year so far. Have you had the chance to listen? Also, we need a new Dead Meadow album soon, those guys are making great records. Also, allow me to blow smoke up your ass and mention that the work done on Joanna Newsom's Y's sounds great.

[electrical]

[ QUOTE ]
Have you heard Andy Falkous' new band Future of the Left?

[/ QUOTE ]
Andy is quality. I'm glad he's still playing.

[ QUOTE ]
who in your opinion did you need to work with the least? like, bands that you pretty much just plugged in and were done right quick.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, The band Weeddeater just did an album here that was scheduled to take 5 days, but they knocked it out in 4, and I think we were done by 8pm every day. That's a pretty easy session. If you've ever seen them, you know that they have a unique and gnarly sound, but that sound is built-in, and I didn't have to do anything special. That one just sort-of fell off the truck complete.

[electrical]

[ QUOTE ]
1)how do you feel about Kronos Quartet? if you like them can you suggest anything in that neighborhood?

[/ QUOTE ]
If you mean small-ensemble string music, you might like Threnody Ensemble or the Rachel's. I particularly like their Music for Egon Schiele, but that's more piano-based. If you are more interested in ensembles with commissioned pieces, you might like some of Rova Saxophone quartet's recordings.

[ QUOTE ]
I liked some songs on Exit the Dragon by Urge Overkill a lot, do they suck that bad?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, they do. You probably don't even like those songs you think you like.


[ QUOTE ]
3) You may direct me to your forum...

[/ QUOTE ]
All this stuff should be directed to an audio/recording forum. Unless you want to talk about nailing musicians, Swingo or how bad Urge Overkill are, that's probably the place.

[NozeCandy]

Waht m;usican gave the best bj. pics plzzz

[electrical]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi Steve, just curious as to other music you're into, like electronic stuff....do you ever listen to any of this? Techno/abstract/whatever....doesn't have to be recent, go as far back as you like.

[/ QUOTE ]
There used to be interesting electronic music, before that became a synonym for a special kind of horrible dance music. I enjoyed quite a bit of this pre-disco era: Iannis Xenakis, Morton Subotnick, the White Noise, Silver Apples, Kraftwerk, Suicide, DAF, Tommi Stumpff, S.P.K., Throbbing Gristle, Whitehouse, Metal Urbain, Cabaret Voltaire, Tuxedo Moon, Factrix, etc. There is very little going on now that can compare to the either the creepy dread or the crazy inventiveness of the pre-sampler era.

I do admire bands like Wolf Eyes, and I had a single from Arcane Device that I liked, but honestly, dance music really destroyed the whole electronic genre for me, and I no longer even look for it.

[electrical]

[ QUOTE ]
LOL at all the people who signed up at a poker forum to ask Steve questions when he has his own forum at his website.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, this thread has gone lame in a hurry.

[Joe Fitzgerald]

I don't frequent forums much beside the digidesign user conference. I merely saw this as an opportunity to ask some questions I was curious about only weeks ago. Please excuse my hijacking of your thread.