Neutral Milk Hotel

[SpaceCad]

Does anyone have any insight on how NMH gets that heavy distortion on their acoustic tracks? I love how huge and raunchy it is and am working to get close to this sound. Any ideas?

[Jay]

Sounds to me like tape saturation. Kerry from the Mighty Rime and Tape Op Messageboard fame recorded with Robert and he has some similarly nice sounds on his album. There may have been some U87 involved.

[bert]

are you talking about that growly sound in "Holland 1945"?
They use alot of fuzz on the bass and Robert mixed it so bad ass and it has such a great cohesive sound. Plus, like jay said it does sound like it's SLAMMED to tape! You should read the Apples in Stereo article in the TapeOp book.

[rich]

are you refering to the huge fuzzy tone of the trcks in general or the tone of the acoustic guitar specifically? theres alot of fuzz bass on the neutral milk hotel albums which give the whole album the warm growly feel. aeroplane over the sea is by far one of my favoritly produced albums ever. to bad there wont be anymore.

[I'm Painting Again]

I can get sound like this with a martin acoustic/w output through a pod xt and doubled with a clean acoustic track(condenser mic'd), emphasis on the low end will help or layer a fuzz bass, have not gone to tape with it but i imagine that would make it sound a lot better. If you fiddle enough it will sound good..

[bedbug]

I can get sound like this with a martin acoustic/w output through a pod xt and doubled with a clean acoustic trackquote]

I'd definitely double track in some way. Maybe put your best (condensor if possible) mic next to the soundhole, and use something like a 57 on the neck.

[I'm Painting Again]

Its an increadably thick sound that brings me to tears nearly every time it enters my earholes. Also try to mess around with the old orange boss distortion pedal from the 80's..

[Jay]

Oh yeah, plenty of compression too. I don't think Robert had as much fancy stuff then so you should probably be able to get pretty close. If I were doing it I'd just use a condenser up close, compress it lots, saturate it lots, and double it. Ahhh, Neutral Milk Hotel.

[evan]

From a Magnet May/June 1998 interview:

"While doing some four-track recording, I found this acoustic guitar with an incredibly hot, hot pickup, and I got hold of an old, broken distortion pedal. My four-track has this mechanism where you push it into remix, and it feeds the fuzz back into itself a thousand times. I hit it one time accidentally and it blew my head off, and I totally fell in love with it."

[prince turbo lung]

here is what i know from recording with robert,, (hope he does not mind revealing some of his secrets)

aeroplane over the sea was mixed on a mackie console, recording on an mx 5050, mastered on a neve, mics... 4033, u87, rode nt2, sm57. alot of the distortion comes from slamming the tape and using outboard gear as fuzz boxes....ie. bellari rp220, 1176, spectrasonics 610. i also know robert will use a la3a whenever possible. they also use the fuzz box known as t.h.c. to run everything through to make sure it sounds right over at petsounds.

cheers,

kerry

[bedbug]

THC? What a great name for a fuzz box! But I can't find anything about it on the web. Does anyone know anything about these bad boys?

[prince turbo lung]

i hear they grow out of the ground more in kentucky than anywhere else.

[bedbug]

i hear they grow out of the ground more in kentucky than anywhere else.

I heard that!

[wing]

i know they use a spectrasonics 610 which also really lends to that ultrasharp kinda distorted sound.

[prince turbo lung]

actually to continue the mystery of this record. i was told by someone who worked around petsounds at the time. that robert had not bought any nice gear as of yet. the only comp was a alesis nanocompressor, bellari rp220 pre, mackie, at 4033. its not the gear its your ears!