i used to spend hours as a kid using my humble casio wk3300 trying to make this exact sound haha, luckily i have more than just that nowadays. thanks for the videos, i love trying to create and analyze the sounds that trent and atticus create, and you are farther ahead than any other youtube channel or other source in doing just that.
Great video, thank you, it's been hard to find great resources on behind the scenes of NIN's production, so this has been very helpful. Would love to see more of this.
Thank you for this. It's crazy how good Trent and his team were at sound design, how much they must have paid attention to that. They weren't just using presets, apparently, they really dialed everything in carefully.
can you try emulating some of swarm-like synth sounds trent uses in alot of his nin and soundtrack tracks? i believe the instrument he actually uses is called a swarmatron...been trying to figure out how to replicate this forever...btw appreciate the channel, just discovered from the reddit post
There was, at one time, a free digital synth called "The Swarm" which could accomplish, or at least emulate, some of the Swarmatron's sounds. It's something to try anyway, provided it's still available.
I know I’m late to the game, but I’m glad I found this video. I’ve been trying to get a similar baseline and one of my songs, but I think if you added a little bit of course to this, you would be dead spot on perfect.
Very informative video; great job! I was wondering if you could do a two-part breakdown, maybe, on ・the synth that does the E₅_-F-g-e₆-E₅_-F-G riff, and ・the 'choppy' f₅.-E____ synth that plays over top of it every odd measure
Good stuff, subbed. Maybe try messing around with Ruiner? You can get a lot of midi files that others have created ages ago, if you remember lol, when we had geocities pages and needed music and GM was all that was available...those were the days. haha. It's a good jumping off point. I once used a midi of La Mer but made my own arrangement and used wavetable synths to make it kind of strangely retro. As a person who grew up on NIN as I grew into making music, I can say it was such a curse sometimes trying to figure out anything, because TR is frequently unexpected and 14 year old me was just confused as all get out. For example I was surprised to learn that his version of "big dumb guitars" is a zoom pedal DI - TDS and Antichrist at least. It's as if the synths are processed like guitars and the guitars like synths! If anyone is searching for midi files as a starting point hit me up, always glad to help my fellow ninies.
Those drums are actually sampled. Setting the tone for the rest of the track, 'Closer' kicks off with a basic beat whose kick drum was sampled from Iggy Pop's Krautrock-influenced 'Nightclubbing', co-written with David Bowie for Pop's 1977 solo debut, The Idiot. "It was like a Roland 808 with all of this noise and hiss,” Beavan says. "I removed the noise but retained the grit. The snare drum was a sample that Flood ran through an SSL console for some distortion and a Zoom 9030 [Advanced Instrument Effects Processor] for a little bit of ring modulation. Whenever he would take samples and run them through processing gear, we would say, 'Uh-oh, Flood's putting on the lab coat.' The bass part was an Akai sample that he had, while his super synth licks were straight out of the Prophet VS and Akai stuff that we stacked together. "While creating the drum pattern by running different parts out of the samplers, tweaking them with outboard gear and recording them, and then doing the same for the bass track, having four outputs meant we could only dump four audio tracks at once. We therefore had all the samplers lined up, running through the console, so we could listen to practically the whole song and tweak things while knowing what the vocal lines were going to be. This is because Trent recorded his vocals fairly early on.
What's great about this track, is that the snare is actually a heavily processed 909 snare. I've recreated the drums & punchy crisp snare on my Elektron Digitakt, and the synthesizer bass riff on my Nord Lead A1 using only 2 multi-timbral layers of a modified Saw Wave with velocity-sensitive envelope filters/etc, and a Sine Wave at 50% volume to achieve that low-frequency Moog girth.
Would you happen to know anything about the really awesome syth line (I guess?) that comes in during the last minute of the song? It starts at 4:48 in the album track.
I'm wanting to suggest kmfdm or front line assembly or SP..bur can't think of anything at moment other than name dropping lol. They all are relatively straight forward. Oh what about nins heresy drums? Its not just 'noise'. Maybe white noise plus a simple bass drum and hit ? I tried but couldn't get it. The key to that song is the drum line.
Possibly with a wah pedal, but you are going to have a very different tone no matter what because your source is a string, not a saw wave. I recommend giving a Closer cover by "In This Moment" a listen, they did well to adapt the sound to a bass.
I'm a guitar player and for some time I've been wanting to get in the synth world (mainly because of NIN). Just bought a Volca Drum and started to toy with it a bit. Any tips on where to start? I already grasp the basic concepts of amplitude, filters, pitch, etc
Awesome Breakdown! Sorry if I sound completely ignorant here (I don’t want to sound like I know more than I do) what is the name of the program here? Trying to get more into music😄
No problem! This one is called Ableton Live, It's got a range of prices and options. But there are also some fantastic free DAWs (digital audio workstation) out there that can achieve similar results. Let me know how it goes!
i just found these synth breakdown videos, just wondering if you plan to make a return to youtube or have another channel? they are really good videos. Good job man
Excellent Tutorial!!! Could you do a synth breakdown of this song. "Watchmen HBO Series" bass line (objects in mirror are closer than they appear) by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
To my ears, the filter frequency sounds like it's just tracking the keyboard. Which would be the easiest way to pull this off on a Minimoog. Add an envelope to it and you're done for 95% of the sound. The delay IMO needs to be a lot shorter. It's barely a ping echo, not something that really registers to the brain (or my brain, anyway) as a delay, but serves to open up the sound regardless. Maybe even a stereo delay? I wouldn't put it past Trent to use a delay like that, given Ringfinger. I'm also not convinced the notes are correct. In particular I swear I'm hearing two notes at the start/midpoint of the bass line instead of only one, but that may also be because it's got the bass drum behind it while yours does not. I know you're just using what you found sounded closest to your ears, but guitar tabs have taught me that a lot of people's ears don't seem to hear the same things as mine do. Or they're just being lazy and trying to approximate what someone is playing with as little work as possible.* I think the weirdest thing to me about this bass line is just knowing that it was played on a Minimoog. Nothing about it screams Moog to me, as great as it sounds. It's just another awesome NIN sound that happened to be played on something that I basically own (I know a Behringer Model D isn't a Minimoog, but it's close enough). I think the movement you get with the filter frequency, the envelope, and the delay really add a lot of depth to the sound that make it stand out. It's a classic example of a very talented artist using a fairly common piece of gear in a way that absolutely works for what it was intended for while also not sticking out like a sore thumb. I definitely enjoyed the video!
you're definitely right about it being a minimoog. the kicker is it was a malfunctioning, broken moog. (making it nigh impossible to accurately recreate) and it's a sample of a single note they took and put through a sampler. that's why the filter opens slower the lower its played and faster the higher but retains it's growl. load this sample into just your standard sampler and play it across the keyboard - mega.nz/file/TTRVEKBZ#bWwTMLWfwyyhrYrel6wy-lqo-seSn2Nww_hDdC5S9_A
The bass line is off. I think it goes down one more step at the end. Maybe down a major 3rd idk. It's close, but knowing that it's just a little off bugs the hell out of W
@A B I read that somewhere, that's what artists who get to be in the driving seat with big money contracts do. Everyone knows the drum beat of that song is from Iggy Pop night clubbing, and A warm place is a david bowie cover (uncredited) But did you know that Piggy is basically the song cornflake girl? I just found about that one. I love Piggy I always wondered how he could come up with something so strange and original and plop it in the context of downward spiral, now i know he borrowed it from cornflake girl. Trent of course was a self serving scum bag, at the time, lol its all he sung about...haha
@@barneyrubble8255 Regarding "A warm Place", I recall that Trent said in an interview that the line is very similar, but he did not consciously intend to cover Bowie's melody.
@@nassera it may not of been intentional that time, as all who try to write songs, know how easy it is to think you came up with something fantastic only to find out all you did was rehash some other song. There's another very strong component in warm place, from the lengendary pink dots. it has the the distinct vibe of a warm place, the pumping breathing motion, and that haunting bass line. Trent probably set out ot rip off that song, then thought he added an original melody, but it turned out to be david bowies melody. Either way a warm place is better than both and one of the best recordings of music period. No small help from verenna and flood and moulder ect.
@@nassera But there's examples of trent taking other songs, and morphing them into his own, like piggy. Pinion the intro to wish, is a tiny section from a david bowie song, that he took, and turned into that epic intro. It's actually amazing how he did that. And he even samples the bowie song he took it from and puts it in pinion, so you know. Cryptically, that's what he's done to create pinion
Sweet, I want to thank you like an animal!
I want to thank you from the inside!
You are the reason I stay...... Uploading
Kinda I want to see more videos on this channel.
😂🤣😂🤣😂
The only thing that works for us
i used to spend hours as a kid using my humble casio wk3300 trying to make this exact sound haha, luckily i have more than just that nowadays. thanks for the videos, i love trying to create and analyze the sounds that trent and atticus create, and you are farther ahead than any other youtube channel or other source in doing just that.
That means so much! Thank you
@@PhotonVideos it's true. You are. Internalize it!
*underrated - nobody with a brain thinks Closer is overrated.
You’re channel will explode if you keep doing synth tutorials my man. Really great stuff
Just subscribed
The 4th note seems to be coming a bit early. Thanks for sharing this tho.
i thought i was the only one that noticed lol
Great video, thank you, it's been hard to find great resources on behind the scenes of NIN's production, so this has been very helpful. Would love to see more of this.
Thank you for this. It's crazy how good Trent and his team were at sound design, how much they must have paid attention to that. They weren't just using presets, apparently, they really dialed everything in carefully.
This just shows Trent's genius
Came from your reddit post...this is great!!! Really enjoyed this, subbed
Just discovered your channel trying to figure out where to start with synths lmao, I'm loving the content man this is great
This is a really cool series! Keep it up and the musicians on UA-cam will be drawn in. You've got lots of room to grow:
I didn't recreate this bassline but I did something inspired by it which was even cooler for me. Thanks for this
Think it's be really cool to see a Breakdown of this in Something like Vital. Great Video!
I'm super happy to see this man. Thank you
This sounds AMAZING, I’m doing it tonight. Thank you so much!
Awesome man!! Can you do a Synth Breakdown of the background texture from 'Hurt' by Nine Inch Nails??
Which part now?
You let me educate you
You let me oscillate you
Another kickass tutorial! Thank you!
can you try emulating some of swarm-like synth sounds trent uses in alot of his nin and soundtrack tracks? i believe the instrument he actually uses is called a swarmatron...been trying to figure out how to replicate this forever...btw appreciate the channel, just discovered from the reddit post
There was, at one time, a free digital synth called "The Swarm" which could accomplish, or at least emulate, some of the Swarmatron's sounds. It's something to try anyway, provided it's still available.
Gory Rory good to know, i’ll see if i can track it down
Also native instruments massive has that ability
Photon Videos thanks for the info, looking forward to more nin-centric synth tutorials
The swramatron episode should be up tomorrow
I know I’m late to the game, but I’m glad I found this video. I’ve been trying to get a similar baseline and one of my songs, but I think if you added a little bit of course to this, you would be dead spot on perfect.
I've always wanted to re-create the Synths from the middle instrumental bit, particularly the 'BA-NA-NA-NEOW!' stab
These videos are fuckin great! Would love to see more
Awesome video. More like this please
Loved this video. I have a moog synth I’ve been trying to understand better and this helped a lot!
Very informative video; great job! I was wondering if you could do a two-part breakdown, maybe, on
・the synth that does the E₅_-F-g-e₆-E₅_-F-G riff, and
・the 'choppy' f₅.-E____ synth that plays over top of it every odd measure
I would love to hear about the synth bass in F that plays during the "Through ever forest above the trees" part
Good stuff, subbed. Maybe try messing around with Ruiner? You can get a lot of midi files that others have created ages ago, if you remember lol, when we had geocities pages and needed music and GM was all that was available...those were the days. haha. It's a good jumping off point. I once used a midi of La Mer but made my own arrangement and used wavetable synths to make it kind of strangely retro.
As a person who grew up on NIN as I grew into making music, I can say it was such a curse sometimes trying to figure out anything, because TR is frequently unexpected and 14 year old me was just confused as all get out. For example I was surprised to learn that his version of "big dumb guitars" is a zoom pedal DI - TDS and Antichrist at least. It's as if the synths are processed like guitars and the guitars like synths! If anyone is searching for midi files as a starting point hit me up, always glad to help my fellow ninies.
This. I'd love to know what he uses for a lead in the verse. Actually, in both ruiner and closer.
Really unique synths.
Great video, gotta love this series if you're planning to continue it. Subscribed!
This is actually a from the sample pack "a poke in the ear with a sharp stick" vol II
Woo, super cool!! Great job bro!
Awesome job digging that synth
I'm very interested in how Nine-Inch Nails gets those static/white-noise sounds applied to their drums. Is it just overdrive?
Those drums are actually sampled.
Setting the tone for the rest of the track, 'Closer' kicks off with a basic beat whose kick drum was sampled from Iggy Pop's Krautrock-influenced 'Nightclubbing', co-written with David Bowie for Pop's 1977 solo debut, The Idiot.
"It was like a Roland 808 with all of this noise and hiss,” Beavan says. "I removed the noise but retained the grit. The snare drum was a sample that Flood ran through an SSL console for some distortion and a Zoom 9030 [Advanced Instrument Effects Processor] for a little bit of ring modulation. Whenever he would take samples and run them through processing gear, we would say, 'Uh-oh, Flood's putting on the lab coat.' The bass part was an Akai sample that he had, while his super synth licks were straight out of the Prophet VS and Akai stuff that we stacked together.
"While creating the drum pattern by running different parts out of the samplers, tweaking them with outboard gear and recording them, and then doing the same for the bass track, having four outputs meant we could only dump four audio tracks at once. We therefore had all the samplers lined up, running through the console, so we could listen to practically the whole song and tweak things while knowing what the vocal lines were going to be. This is because Trent recorded his vocals fairly early on.
What's great about this track, is that the snare is actually a heavily processed 909 snare. I've recreated the drums & punchy crisp snare on my Elektron Digitakt, and the synthesizer bass riff on my Nord Lead A1 using only 2 multi-timbral layers of a modified Saw Wave with velocity-sensitive envelope filters/etc, and a Sine Wave at 50% volume to achieve that low-frequency Moog girth.
I love the wabble .
Nailed it dude. Thanks! You made easy enough for dumb rock nerd to understand.
Thank you so much for this!
I feel like there are a few NIN songs that you should do, and I’d gladly watch every one of them lol
Try Lorn by Acid rain
Would you happen to know anything about the really awesome syth line (I guess?) that comes in during the last minute of the song? It starts at 4:48 in the album track.
Yeah i really would wanna know about it
4 years late, but that's a factory preset on the Prophet VS. I believe it's called Volkanik.
You get me closer to Analog
There's a third VCO an octave up, but much quieter. Or something like that. It's hard to tell exactly, but there's something up top.
Shoot man great job with a soft synth
go listen to nightclubbing by iggy pop, you may recognize the drums
I think there's a space dimensional reverb, or a chorus on there too. Maybe give it a shot
Very, cool thanks for the vid.
Awesome! 💯
Any chance we could get the ambient synth in “the day the world went away”
Awesome
I think there might be a hint of vibrato at the end of some of the notes, maybe on 1 osc.
God given from nin
Is it just me or does the forth note come in slightly too early? Maybe it was intentional
Ah my insecurities! You caught me.
Can you make a tutorial on the synth solo from the "Becoming" by NIN?
AWESOME :)
Straight up minimoog
Sweeeet!!! have you tried the background synth in Right Where it belongs?
I'm wanting to suggest kmfdm or front line assembly or SP..bur can't think of anything at moment other than name dropping lol. They all are relatively straight forward. Oh what about nins heresy drums? Its not just 'noise'. Maybe white noise plus a simple bass drum and hit ? I tried but couldn't get it. The key to that song is the drum line.
I just want to know what he used for pretty hate machine
More NIN please!
Can you share the midi for the bass line pls? :)
What program are you using for synthesizer?
Richard Roberson It’s called Analog and comes with Ableton Live
@@mbrande Thanks
I'd love to see shine on you crazy diamond
How could I get this sound on my bass guitar?
Possibly with a wah pedal, but you are going to have a very different tone no matter what because your source is a string, not a saw wave. I recommend giving a Closer cover by "In This Moment" a listen, they did well to adapt the sound to a bass.
I'm a guitar player and for some time I've been wanting to get in the synth world (mainly because of NIN).
Just bought a Volca Drum and started to toy with it a bit.
Any tips on where to start? I already grasp the basic concepts of amplitude, filters, pitch, etc
Try every combination of knobs possible, see if you can imagine/hear a sound, and recreate it on your own.
Metroid Prime vibes honestly.
Awesome Breakdown! Sorry if I sound completely ignorant here (I don’t want to sound like I know more than I do) what is the name of the program here? Trying to get more into music😄
No problem! This one is called Ableton Live, It's got a range of prices and options. But there are also some fantastic free DAWs (digital audio workstation) out there that can achieve similar results. Let me know how it goes!
@@PhotonVideos I know this comment is a bit old, but do you know a Synth alternative for cubase?
@@frankbartssohn2341 I would say the free VST "Vital" has amazing flexibility. Im not super familiar with cubase's built-in synth engines.
i just found these synth breakdown videos, just wondering if you plan to make a return to youtube or have another channel? they are really good videos. Good job man
I would love to make more. Just finishing my last few classes for my sound design degree. Just keep an ear to the ground!
hey is that fl studio? if it is, what is he using to emulate the synth(im kinda new to the program)?
it's not
Excellent Tutorial!!! Could you do a synth breakdown of this song. "Watchmen HBO Series" bass line (objects in mirror are closer than they appear) by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
To my ears, the filter frequency sounds like it's just tracking the keyboard. Which would be the easiest way to pull this off on a Minimoog. Add an envelope to it and you're done for 95% of the sound.
The delay IMO needs to be a lot shorter. It's barely a ping echo, not something that really registers to the brain (or my brain, anyway) as a delay, but serves to open up the sound regardless. Maybe even a stereo delay? I wouldn't put it past Trent to use a delay like that, given Ringfinger.
I'm also not convinced the notes are correct. In particular I swear I'm hearing two notes at the start/midpoint of the bass line instead of only one, but that may also be because it's got the bass drum behind it while yours does not. I know you're just using what you found sounded closest to your ears, but guitar tabs have taught me that a lot of people's ears don't seem to hear the same things as mine do. Or they're just being lazy and trying to approximate what someone is playing with as little work as possible.*
I think the weirdest thing to me about this bass line is just knowing that it was played on a Minimoog. Nothing about it screams Moog to me, as great as it sounds. It's just another awesome NIN sound that happened to be played on something that I basically own (I know a Behringer Model D isn't a Minimoog, but it's close enough). I think the movement you get with the filter frequency, the envelope, and the delay really add a lot of depth to the sound that make it stand out. It's a classic example of a very talented artist using a fairly common piece of gear in a way that absolutely works for what it was intended for while also not sticking out like a sore thumb.
I definitely enjoyed the video!
you're definitely right about it being a minimoog. the kicker is it was a malfunctioning, broken moog. (making it nigh impossible to accurately recreate) and it's a sample of a single note they took and put through a sampler. that's why the filter opens slower the lower its played and faster the higher but retains it's growl.
load this sample into just your standard sampler and play it across the keyboard -
mega.nz/file/TTRVEKBZ#bWwTMLWfwyyhrYrel6wy-lqo-seSn2Nww_hDdC5S9_A
Nice ear my friend keep up more more .
you forgot the fast chorus on the sound
The bass line is off. I think it goes down one more step at the end. Maybe down a major 3rd idk. It's close, but knowing that it's just a little off bugs the hell out of
W
Me
he made the bass by playing a synth that was low on battery
Comparison 6:10
100th like!
Hi, 100th like. I'm 101st like.
Bravo!
Dude I love what your trying to do but why didn't you say" I have no clue how he did this and I never will."
I always thought the bass line was a tb303
it wasn't even close to closer bass
moreover the midi line is inaccurate
sounds like a frog
So that isn't right at all. Breakdown? Of what, the wrong riff snd wrong synth?
Not even close
Trents bass player came up with that, but got no credit for the song
@A B I read that somewhere, that's what artists who get to be in the driving seat with big money contracts do. Everyone knows the drum beat of that song is from Iggy Pop night clubbing, and A warm place is a david bowie cover (uncredited) But did you know that Piggy is basically the song cornflake girl? I just found about that one. I love Piggy I always wondered how he could come up with something so strange and original and plop it in the context of downward spiral, now i know he borrowed it from cornflake girl. Trent of course was a self serving scum bag, at the time, lol its all he sung about...haha
@@barneyrubble8255 Regarding "A warm Place", I recall that Trent said in an interview that the line is very similar, but he did not consciously intend to cover Bowie's melody.
@@nassera it may not of been intentional that time, as all who try to write songs, know how easy it is to think you came up with something fantastic only to find out all you did was rehash some other song. There's another very strong component in warm place, from the lengendary pink dots. it has the the distinct vibe of a warm place, the pumping breathing motion, and that haunting bass line. Trent probably set out ot rip off that song, then thought he added an original melody, but it turned out to be david bowies melody. Either way a warm place is better than both and one of the best recordings of music period. No small help from verenna and flood and moulder ect.
@@nassera But there's examples of trent taking other songs, and morphing them into his own, like piggy. Pinion the intro to wish, is a tiny section from a david bowie song, that he took, and turned into that epic intro. It's actually amazing how he did that. And he even samples the bowie song he took it from and puts it in pinion, so you know. Cryptically, that's what he's done to create pinion
Great artists always steal
I want to know who said that song was overrated so I can slap them.
ever heard of de-esser? my ears are bleeding
Dude, you’re not even in the right octave.