This isn’t newsworthy or anything, but as I was driving in my car the other day, the Nirvana song “Heart-Shaped Box” came on the radio. I’ve heard this song probably more than a million times, as I’ve been listening to it since I was around 11 years old. Strangely though, everytime I hear it, it sounds even better. This is probably the mark of a truly great song, but probably also the mark of a great recording as well.

I am aware that this particular song was recorded by Steve Albini, (who’s also recorded The Pixies, Bush, various thousands of other artists) and mixed by Scott Litt (REM, Incubus). Steve Albini is of course well known for his drum sound, but I like the combination of that sound combined with Scott Litt’s mixing techniques. Yea, I don’t really care that its not “super raw” or whatever. It sounds good to me. Of course the drums wouldn’t sound that great at all if Dave Grohl weren’t playing them anyway.

Steve Albini though, is known to put mics all over the drum kit, as well as all over the room he’s recording the drums in. Some multi-tracks of the In Utero album did leak recently and they show that there were a ton of mic’s used on the drums. Some room mics were used just for the sound of the crash cymbals as well as the ride cymbal. I’d love to do this kind of recording myself, I just really don’t have the money for these kind of mics, or a specifically designed drum room to record in, but I might use this technique next time I record drums on my own.