An Analysis of Nirvana’s Nevermind
This was originally intended as a college Audio Engineering class research paper and was formatted to meet those requirements. It has now has been adapted to fit the limitations of Medium.com while retaining the core of its format.
In 1991, a trio from Seattle released an album that would have a significant and enduring impact on mainstream music. Selling over 30 million copies worldwide, Nevermind was such a hit that it replaced Michael Jackson’s Dangerous as number one on the Billboard 200 (Newman). While Kurt Cobain’s songwriting and the band’s performance abilities clearly played major roles in the album’s success, the productional aspects of the recordings are just as key. Via the techniques used by producer Butch Vig and mix engineer Andy Wallace, Nevermind managed to capture the coarseness and authenticity of Nirvana’s music in high fidelity.
The Room and the Board
One of the biggest influences on the album’s sound were the rooms it was recorded in. With the exception of one song, Nevermind was tracked on reel-to-reel tape over the course 16 days at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles (Sound City). Three different rooms were used for tracking at the studio: a very live room called Studio A, a dead, dry room called Studio B, and the control room (Recording Nirvana: Something In The Way). The most fascinating thing about Studio A is its shape and construction. Before transforming into a recording studio, the entire building was a Vox amplifier factory and the area that became Studio A was nothing more than a giant box with parallel walls. An instance where reality defies science, Sound City is amazingly the setting of hit records from Tom Petty, Pat Benatar, Fleetwood Mac, and countless others (Sound City).
The other defining characteristic of Sound City is its recording console. Equipped with a Neve 8028, there are only four other recording consoles like it, and this one in particular was the only one custom ordered from Neve. According to Grammy-winning producer/engineer Jim Scott, “If you put a fader up, turn the mic pre up [on the Neve]… [drums] sound great… if you turn the mic pre up too loud and it distorts, it still sounds great” (Sound City).
Tracking
For Nevermind, the full band and guitar overdubs were tracked live in Studio A while most of the final vocals were re-recorded in Studio B (Watson). The reasoning behind this method was simply so they could “replicate their live show” (Henderson). In an effort to maximize isolation, drums were placed in the middle of the room while the guitar and bass amplifiers were placed on the sides away from each other. The drum kit was miked in a very typical fashion, featuring a Shure SM57 and AKG 451 on the snare, Sennheiser 421’s on the toms, AKG 414’s and Neumann KM84’s for overheads, as well as Neumann U87’s to capture the room. The story behind miking the kick drum is a little more interesting. In order to increase low end and isolate the room sound, bass drum cases were glued together to create a 6 to 8 foot “drum tunnel”. Then, an AKG D12 was placed about 3 or 4 feet inside of the tunnel while a Neumann U47 FET was placed at the end (Butch Vig; Henderson).
The thick characteristics of the bass guitar on Nevermind were influenced by several factors. To begin with, Krist Novoselic tuned his bass down one and a half steps. By reducing the tension of the strings, the tone of the bass became much fatter. Secondly, Noveselic used a Gibson Ripper fitted with dual humbucker pickups; naturally, humbuckers have a much warmer tone. The Ripper was then sent into a Ampeg SVT 400 amplifier and a Tech 21 SansAmp DI. Vig pointed out that the SansAmp used for Nevermind was customized so it “…[produced] more of an amp sound” and could be utilized more functionally than a standard DI due to the SansAmp’s control features. Like the ambient kick mic, the bass amp was also captured using a U47 (Butch Vig; Simms).
Aside from the clean bass tones present on most of the album, Vig and the band also experimented with other timbres. “Come As You Are” utilizes a triple tracked bass: two dry basses (one performed in the original octave and another above) and an oddly tuned bass running through a dbx subharmonic synthesizer. “Breed” on the other hand features a very distorted bass. This was accomplished by pushing the amp’s volume and overloading the recording console (Henderson).
Guitars were recorded through a variety of methods. Most of the guitar tracks were recorded on a Mosrite guitar through the following amps: a Mesa Boogie Studio .22 preamp with a Crown power amp and 4x12 Marshall cab, a Fender Bassman, and a Vox AC30 (Butch Vig; Henderson; Simms). These amps were simultaneously miked with a Neumann U87, AKG 414, Sennheiser 421 and Shure SM57. Vig and the band would then review the sound of each microphone and select their favorite (The Microphones of Kurt Cobain & Nirvana). In most cases, amps were overdubbed and blended together. Vig recalled that “Drain You” holds the “record for most guitar overdubs”: two tracks through the Mesa Boogie, two tracks through the Bassman, and another track through the Bassman and a pedal that was referred to as the “super grunge” (Recording Nirvana: Drain You).
The other technique for tracking guitars relied heavily on the recording console. On “Territorial Pissings”, Kurt’s guitar went straight into the board with no additional processing, producing a heavily distorted sound. Furthermore, the distorted vocal intro on the song was achieved by Novoselic singing into the pickup this same guitar (Vinnicombe).
“Breed” utilizes a similar guitar technique, except the guitar was split between the DI and an amplifier, and the DI was preceded by a ProCo Rat distortion pedal (Butch Vig; Henderson). While not used excessively, other pedals on Nevermind’s guitars include an EHX Small Clone, EHX Big Muff, Ibanez Tube Screamer, and Boss DS-1 (Henderson; Simms; The Microphones of Nirvana & Kurt Cobain)
In order to capture Cobain’s voice, Vig opted for a Neumann U67 into a Neve console preamp because it “brought out the flaws in his voice that [he] was so enamoured with” (Henderson). Vocals were then processed through a Teletronix LA2A tube compressor. To widen vocals in the mix, Vig double tracked them, especially on choruses. As Cobain did takes for double-tracking on “Drain You”, he would fill the song’s instrumental middle section with randomly placed squeaky toys, hisses, and other sound effects. During post-production, all of these takes were included and processed through delay units (Henderson; Recording Nirvana: Drain You; Recording Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit; Recording Nirvana’s In Bloom; The Microphones of Nirvana & Kurt Cobain).
While highly effective for Nevermind’s heavy tracks, Studio A’s reflectivity proved to be inappropriate for the album’s most delicate composition, “Something in the Way”. After failing to properly capture the song in Studio A, Cobain recorded the song ever so gently in the control room with an AKG 414. The raw, exposed sound of Cobain’s whisper vocals and Harmony Stella 12 string guitar (which only had 5 strings) would become the basis for the recording. The remainder of the track was painstakingly tracked in Studio B bar-by-bar with no click track (Sound City; Recording Nirvana: Something in the Way).
Mixing
Final mixes were engineered by Andy Wallace. Vig approved of the work Wallace did on Nevermind, explaining, “A lot of the stuff Andy used was real subtle. He’d add a stereo ambience to the vocals and delays and make sure there was really good separation between the instruments” (Henderson). Additionally, Wallace added samples to kick and snare to add depth, and enhanced the room mic sound via EQ and reverb
Nevermind is typically recognized as Nirvana’s most popular album, and one of the best selling rock albums of all time. Due to the careful selection and placement of microphones, Sound City’s console and rooms, and a wide array of guitar and bass equipment, the grunge trio’s energy and passion was captured in a quality sounding record. Without a doubt, Nevermind showcases Nirvana’s true identity.
Works Cited
“Butch Vig: Nevermind the Garbage .” Sound on Sound, March 1997, web.archive.org/web/20150705171706/http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1997_articles/mar97/butchvig.html. Accessed 12 March 2019.
Henderson, Peter. “Titanic! The Nevermind Recording Sessions.” MOJO, 1 May 1998. LiveNirvana.com, transcribed by Alex Roberts, www.livenirvana.com/documents/mojonevermind.html.
“How Nirvana Made ‘Nevermind’.” Rolling Stone, 5 March 2013, www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/how-nirvana-made-nevermind-194556/. Accessed 5 March 2019.
Newman, Melinda. “Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ Turns 25: How It Changed The Record Business.” Forbes, 24 September 2016, www.forbes.com/sites/melindanewman/2016/09/24/nirvanas-nevermind-turns-25-how-it-changed-the-record-business/#377c7d07bff2. Accessed 12 March 2019.
“Recording Nirvana: Drain You (Butch Vig Breaks It Down In The Studio).” YouTube, uploaded by MixMyMusicRob, 11 October 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRK6c7uXvJE.
“Recording Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit (w/ Butch Vig).” YouTube, uploaded by MixMyMusicRob, 7 July 2008, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErcJ2kUC4Wg.
“Recording Nirvana: Something In The Way. (Recording Studio).” YouTube, uploaded by MixMyMusicRob, 22 June 2008, www.youtube.com/watch?v=APHX-9ZQ7x0.
“Recording Nirvana’s In Bloom (Butch Vig breaks it down…).” YouTube, uploaded by MixMyMusicRob, 7 June 2008, www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOYvTXUqlrI.
Simms, Sara. “Nirvana’s Gear in the Nevermind Era” eHow, 18 April 2017, ask.audio/articles/nirvana-s-gear-in-the-nevermind-era. Accessed 5 March 2019.
Sound City. Directed by Dave Grohl, Gravitas Ventures, 2008.
“The Microphones of Kurt Cobain & Nirvana.” All Microphone, 30 October 2017, allmicrophone.com/the-microphones-of-kurt-cobain-nirvana. Accessed 7 March 2019.
Vinnicombe, Chris. “The Story of Nirvana’s Nevermind.” Music Radar, 23 September 2016, www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/the-story-of-nirvanas-nevermind-499277. Accessed 7 March 2019.
Watson, Paul. “Behind the Music with Butch Vig.” Headliner Magazine, 6 August 2014, www.waves.com/behind-the-music-with-butch-vig. Accessed 12 March 2019.
