The "Trent Reznor Filter" story.

I'm doing this in english since I think that story might interest not only our french people following the recording of DE part.2, but also music gear freaks and NIN fans (or the contrary).

One of the things that had prevented me from achieving a better quality mix on DE part 1 was the cheap way I had recorded most of the tracks. It was basically : instrument through pod pro through soundcard and an occasional preamp for vocals (a 5051 TL Audio Ivory 2).
I'm not a real mixer, I could barely use a comp or an eq to save my life, and when on top of that the recorded track sounds flat and lifeless, all I can do is "have it heard" and move on to the rest of the mix. That's basically the "you can't fix it in the mix" rule, for what I know.

This time I decided to pay more attention to the raw material, so I put a little money on a good pream/comp and was also searching for a nice analog studio EQ.

I stumbled on something called the "Death by Audio Custom" at a Californian modular synth and high end pedals and stuff shop called Noisebug. It looked like a filter Oliver would have built a few years before when he was still taking custom orders. I was wondering if that could do the trick (even if built in classic -though pretty big- pedal enclosure) as an EQ/Filter in my studio and so I went on to ask him.

He recognized one of the few filters he had built for Trent Reznor and told me the story behind that. A few monthes before taking APTBS as an opening band, and after having bought the entire line of DBA's pedals TR had asked them to built a compact eq/filter section for him to use in his studio. I'm not sure what the exact brief was, but I guess he was attracted by th high end analog and a bit rough sounding quality of DBA pedals' filter section and he wanted a standalone one to be built under his specifications.

Oliver designed it and ended up ordering 5 PCBs for he and Matt Conroy to handwire. Cost-wise, that probably made more sense than just ordering them one after one. They sent a first one to Trent, who ended up ordering two more later (including one with advanced fuzz/ random crash features).
One of the two remaining PCBs got built in a wah enclosure for Jono, APTBS's bass player.
The last one, which was on sale at Noisebug, got built in a pedal enclosure (ie : with a footswich), and it's the one I own now.


I don't know how this one made its way to Noisebug rather than at another DBA's dealer. The only connection I see is that Noisebug seem to work a lot with Alessandro Cortini, NIN's former keyboardist.
When the pedal surfaced a couple weeks ago, they told me they had found it among a stock of new effect they had forgot they had.

Funny thing is that Noisebug didn't know it had been made for TR in the first place so the price was fair and of course I jumped on it : if it's good enough for Oliver and TR then of course it's good enough for me!

Now whatever I record I EQ it first with this, to add a bif of analog warmth or low end or whatever the take needs. It's great as well to do some kind of reamp on the vst synthesizers so they sound less digital : out of the soundcard then EQ then PREAMP then in again.
The resonant filter also is really helpful. I use to experiment static filtering on the guitar tracks with my EH Microsynth, but this allows me take to it to another level.

I'm sure that at some point I'll do a video of me recording things through it so stay tuned.
And if you want to receive an email when the record I'm using it on is done, the best thing is to download our latest EP for free (click "télécharger etc..." on the right column) so we have your email address and tell you when it's finished.

Cheers!