Total Fucking Godhead / The Soundgarden Thread

[oasisfan35]

I can't believe how small the venues are that they are playing. The Tabernacle in Atlanta is in my top 3 venues in the country.

Indeed, I'm pretty stoked to see them at The Oakdale perhaps my favorite CT venue.

I might be going. Tickets are kinda high.

Damn, I had no idea you were from the area... there were three pre-sales before the major on-sale.

[RussellManiac12]

Searching With My Good Eye Closed>Room A Thousand Years Wide>Mind Riot

[Birds in Hell]

Searching With My Good Eye Closed>Room A Thousand Years Wide>Mind Riot

Very respectable choice as well.

Soundgarden rule.

[WtOB?]

King Animal is my new barbecuing album.

[Hatfield]

Overfloater > An Unkind > Boot Camp

nice play. I was so stuck on the first 8 tracks of DOTU for over a year that when I finally got to the back half it was like getting a brand new album that I liked equally as much. I've put Boot Camp on many mixed cd's.

I'll have to check out King Animal. I haven't given it one spin.

[Birds in Hell]

This would equally be at home in the gearhead thread, but man, this is too fucking cool.

[Soma.]

Haha, Ben names each of his basses and favors worn in strings. That guy knows what's up, seriously.

[VinylGuy]

Haha, Ben names each of his basses and favors worn in strings. That guy knows what's up, seriously.

Ben is the man.

[hbk]

I watched that video a few days ago. I love how both Ben and Kim use guitars with mostly factory specs and very little modification. I love how I think one of Kim's guitars still uses the strings that came with the guitar out of the box.

In the end...it's how you play the guitar, not what bells and whistles it has.

[KurtLeon]

I'd still say that a bad song in King Animal is tust a mith.

[Birds in Hell]

There's a Q+A with Michael Beinhorn happening over at Gearslutz, some great information about the recording of Superunknown being discussed.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/q-michael-beinhorn/

The drum sound on Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" (and entire Superunknown) in one of the greatest I've ever heard. Huge, punchy, with Bonham-esque feel to some degree. Did you spend a lot of time during preproduction, or actual recording, selecting and choosing from various drums, heads and mic placement?

What important do you recall from the session? I've read somewhere you were cutting drums and bass together, and then layered the guitars on top of it - did you ever after having recorded guitars and vocals got back to the drums to cut it again using different drum set?

Thanks for the kind words. There wasn't a lot of prep work prior to recording, but once in, getting the sounds took about five days. We tried a few different kits, but went pretty deep with snares. We decided on 2 Keplingers, a Black Beauty and one or two others which may, or may not have been used. We definitely used Keplinger's Pipe snare on Black Hole Sun- a very deep snare with a lot of crack and presence.

As for heads- I'm pretty sure we stuck with Remo Ambassadors which drummers hate using because they don't last very long but generally sound great. Generally, all the drums were re-headed and tuned every day prior to recording and whenever the tone started to slip. Mic placement and choice was a big deal and took awhile, too. We also experimented with recording formats- there was a Sony 3324 laying around which I wanted to try to see if it reproduced transients faster than tape. It did, but sounded awful.

Tracking that song in particular, I recall constantly being so sure that it was an amazing piece of work. There are some things you work on where you just know they have something very special to them- this was one of those things. When I heard things like Matt's fills going into the final chorus, the bass overdubs, the Leslie arpeggio motif and finally, the vocal, I was more and more and more certain of how remarkable it was.

We sometimes cut bass together with the drums, but that was usually with the full band and only on a few tracks (Superunknown in particular). We re-tracked everything after this so we could get better performances and better sound for each instrument. Black Hole Sun was cut without bass- I think it was one song where Matt played better when he didn't have to concentrate on the other instruments or vocal. Once the drums were tracked, that was it- we never re-tracked anything.

Wow... thanks Michael for the info.

Did you say Matt tracked 'Black hole sun' without references? I'm a big fan of this technique, it allows the drummer to play with better groove.

Although there's another general topic about 'Superunknown', a couple of questions dropped here with the permission of 'keap':

I know you said that '4th of July' didn't slow down or 'vari-speed' at all, but, what about 'Black hole sun'?? It's 1/4 up in tunning, and it seems a little forced in tempo.

And, what an awesome kickdrum (better!!... bassdrum) in 'Fell on black days', it's by far my favorite drums recording. Did Matt record the bassdrum with the resonant head on and without the hole, and more importantly, without muffling?

Another topic is the helium-like voice in the song 'Half'... I read somewhere that effectively, it's helium in the chain.

Sorry for my english. And thanks for supporting.
David.

Zep-

Actually, Matt did play with a click, although I think he would use it for a tempo reference and turned it off when the recording started. I agree regarding clicks, although some drummers can still play in the pocket on a click. My own feeling is, it really depends on the player and the type of music being recorded.

None of the songs on Superunknown were slowed down. Any variance in tuning is due to how the band tuned their guitars. I'm actually happy to hear that some of the record sounds slowed down to you just because of the low end connotations.

All the bass drums had back heads with a hole cut out and a degree of muffling. I tend to like muffling making very slight contact with the head so there is some room for vibration but on this record, it was probably tighter.

As for "Half".... I don't know about any helium. I think Ben can really sing like that.

[zeb]

I could read that stuff all day long. Thanks spenno.

[VinylGuy]

Thats great...i remember reading Susan Silver on how difficult was for the band to work with him. But he sure take them to a different route, and the change they made is huge.

[Birds in Hell]

[VinylGuy]

WHEN , WHEN WHENNN

[bada]

WHEN , WHEN WHENNN

http://artistsden.com/soundgarden

If you Facebook it you'll prob get an alert.

[VinylGuy]

WHEN , WHEN WHENNN

http://artistsden.com/soundgarden

If you Facebook it you'll prob get an alert.

i dont use it.

That is some great footage.

[Mojopin]

Fuuuuuck! That looks good!

[Will]

Found Badmotorfinger for $5 digging through the discount bin at Best Buy. Feel pretty stupid that I never gave this record that much attention back in the day when I was so into Superunknown.

[oasisfan35]

Found Badmotorfinger for $5 digging through the discount bin at Best Buy. Feel pretty stupid that I never gave this record that much attention back in the day when I was so into Superunknown.

All (we) ask is that you love it now, and you will; I adore Superunknown but badmotorfinger has tremendous highs.