[Music]
the downward spiral
kind of stands out i think from other
nano chanel's albums and i've been
trying to figure out why exactly
and i think one of the reasons might be
because of the sound design
and this track in particular has so many
elements and sounds
that i think are not only musical but
really visceral
i think a lot of us have been wondering
where all of these sounds come from and
i don't have answers
for all of those questions but i asked
mike james gallagher
who is a professional sound designer in
la and host of
in-depth sound design it's a really
really awesome youtube channel
all things about sound design usually in
cinema i asked him to
talk to me about the sound design of
this song and the downward spiral
so i'm going to include some of that
conversation in this video and then
there's an extended cut
with the whole conversation on my
patreon i wanted to invite mike
who is a ninja nails fan himself and the
sound designer for the song exploder
series on netflix
including that amazing episode where
they interviewed trent about
hurt to share his perspective on the
sound design and the power
of it in reptile what it was and i still
don't understand what it is
so please welcome mike james gallagher
of in-depth sound design
i think sound design is a very
misunderstood term if you search for
sound design on youtube
you might find like a lot of synth
programming
videos like how how to program the synth
from this edm song
here read this read this alan mulder
quote trent and chris brenna had already
been sampling things to create
these crazy soundscapes and most of the
songs had basic structures with various
ideas in place
chris would rent movies listen to them
and record sounds with his dat machine
you'd never think a lot of these effects
were any kind
of music but he and trent would take a
sound
do a couple things and all of a sudden
it would become this great keyboard hook
or a bass part or a big drone it was all
extremely clever and so when flood and i
came in we mainly had to figure out the
format for how we were going to record
all the different parts
sounds we were using were really weird
and a lot of them were created from
sound design a lot of a lot of the songs
were sound design based
you know like like reptile you know is
all i won't say where those sounds came
from either because i'm not giving away
my secret but
you know i think anybody who's watched a
few movies may
figure it out on their own you know
email me i'll tell you right but
it shows you that sound design isn't
just what they were pulling off vhs
tapes
sound design isn't just how they program
to synth sound design
is every decision that you make when it
comes to sound
[Music]
the signature sound of the doward spiral
is
that in my opinion now i know that
there's lots of synth sounds
and all these kinds of things but i
think what sets the downward spiral
apart
from all of his other records is how
cleverly integrated
that sound design that chris verna
pulled
how cleverly integrated that is to all
the all the songs
right there's so many unidentifiable
mysterious sounds in the songs
and i think a lot of them are not made
by a synthesizer
and they're not made by a guitar there's
no other way these sounds would have
been created
than if they were pulled from a film you
know you wouldn't have known to create
the
intro sound to reptile
from scratch unless you were the sound
designer for that film
creating these sounds for that sci-fi
movie they were created for
and then chris pop along and they're
like
hey that's a super cool sound let me
just like pop that into my the intro of
my song
and this whole story exists within that
sound
that just inherently came with the
sampling of it you know it makes it
makes the downward spiral
incredibly interesting to listen to do
you think that the
the story you said like it brings like
the story along with it or that sound
already has that story because it was
created
for a specific narrative or a specific
visual or scene
exactly do you think that that comes
along like
i mean it can't literally right because
we don't have that visual
and we don't have that full narrative
but
we make other connections right like
right you're talking about the metal
sort of that like creaking kind of
yeah it's actually a very yeah play it
because it's
if you really listen to it it's
incredibly complex
i mean that clearly sounds like a
machine to me
some some kind of machinery
literally industrial yeah
and it also sounds really consistent
like it's on a loop you know
so that also makes me think of machinery
but i mean not that alone doesn't make
me think of machinery it has to be
coupled with metallic sounds
right it's very musical as well
yeah yeah
actually i don't think i noticed that
before because having it all isolated
like that
really paying attention i always noticed
there were those high-pitched
sort of i don't know what you call that
but yeah those like squeaks
it's not a squeak
more like a creek or something yeah that
they had a pitch but
are you talking about so much more
musical now yeah
yeah that's it's metal resonance it's um
metal resonant
yeah yeah it's also got like a
kind of like there's something real
like it seems like a big thing right it
doesn't sound like a little thing it
sounds like a big
big thing with like a lot of
maybe because it's got like almost like
a dull roar to it it also sounds kind of
far away
right it's smeared it's yeah it's not
there's not a lot of like
even though there is that high pitched
um
metal resonance um
it's very rounded um it's really um
low passed where you only let the low
frequencies in
right right um so yeah it has high end
elements but it's very smooth
smeared so it sounds far away like
you're saying there's a room tone
yeah and it's so quiet it's like
yeah and i think that i mean that right
there adds dimension right because
it literally sounds far away like
whatever it is is not right in our face
it's like
you know maybe something we're like
moving towards or it's revolving or
revolving around it or
or we're trying to keep our distance
from it or yeah it's like
it's so evocative of so many things but
it feels so
[Music]
real
it's interesting that you're saying that
do we want to stay away
i mean when you think about it when the
when the
drumbeat kicks in those machine sounds
become incredibly close
right so you have this far away sound of
metal and this machine running
uh which by the way you hear no humans
this is this isn't like a factory with
people talking in the background
there's no humanity in this cold
machine sound going on this is on this
loop this
relentlessly you know it's it's not
going to stop i can't i got
to lean in it's like lean in yeah and
then
it's so quiet that's that scent that
comes in
it's sound design 101 it's uh it's just
like a little lesson in contrast
it's clinky it's high-pitched staccato
on this warm you know it's funny warm i
say warm because but really it's kind of
like cold machinery
but it's smooth it's smeared it's far
away
these these synths come in that are
plinky and close
yeah it's really delicious sounding
sound design
i mean it's so pleasing to hear that
um so anyway that's just like a little
lesson in contrast right there
the second lesson in contrast is when
that beat kicks in
right and kind of like what you're
saying i mean i i guess i never made
that connection but like yeah the
machine's far away
now the machine is in your face
servo sound this isn't i don't actually
know where that
um sound is from i don't think anybody
does
but or it has it's not public on the
internet anywhere
yeah yeah so we think of these big heavy
imposing machines
when we hear that sound definitely
sounds scary to me
that when it goes see if i can find that
in the stem
yeah it might take a while but i'll let
it just run
until it surprises us yeah i'm surprised
no one's identified that sound
from the downward spiral i mean from
reptile yeah
yeah i haven't been able to find that
online i found the source of
exactly it did its job it did its job
trent would be very pleased
yeah you're startled yeah that's
that servo sound so i i didn't have the
right word for it i just
had this like visual of yeah like some
kind of like a robotic like
i think of a foot you know because it
almost sounds like it's walking
you know and it's so that like after you
yeah i mean it very literally sounds
like a machine is after you
it just keeps doing it over and over
again it's part of the drum beat so it's
so consistent
yeah i guess i always thought of it as
an arm that's so funny but yeah but
we both pictured like some kind of robot
right some kind of machine that a
machine that's trying to
emulate humans in a way right but
isn't and like uh something that's very
powerful and dangerous and could just
crush your little head and then that
sound um
because you have that and it's like
so it's like it's after the first step
i guess the first footstep there's like
this
oh yeah it's kind of the snare drum
right which i want to talk to you about
i want to talk to you about how like
how he basically made a drum beat out of
like yeah machine
sounds um and how they're like yeah
emulating
emulating you know a drum kit kind of
roughly something that we're all very
familiar with
that one also sounds kind of
mechanical to me but it's not in time
it's kind of it kind of falters so
i don't know maybe i always thought of
that as like a like
fumbling footsteps or something it
sounds it actually sounds like the
machine is is uh
is stuttering and and uh stumbling
it doesn't it sounds like it's broken
and then
then it comes back to life and i mean
that definitely ties in thematically
with everything i mean i know it's
it's kind of weird to think of like a
reptile being a mechanical beast i mean
i don't know whoever the character is in
the darn spiral is being relentlessly
seduced and pursued by this
addiction to drugs a woman whatever it
is
um but he's being seduced in a way that
he is not
happy with um or is he is not
comfortable with
and um you know i mean i think
you know thinking about um a machine
that is after you
uh i think perfectly ties in with that
having even that fat
addiction show its weakness and its
weakness uh
that it doesn't have complete control
over you but then it does again
um i think it definitely ties in with
all of this uh
lyrically and sonic yeah because i was
wondering about that i
i don't know if i ever consciously
wondered like why all these machine
sounds for a song called reptile
right you know and why weren't these
sounds in the becoming
you know but
i don't know i mean i i don't know but
it's just like
that might not have been almost too
literal and i like
i like how these sounds give us the
opportunity to make like really
interesting connections
because like if there were just like
those metallic machine sounds in the
becoming it would be like
well he's talking about becoming a
machine and so there's machine
sounds it's like okay you know
that's right two on the nose
um it's just not like that'll be bad but
it's just more interesting
he literally says she has the blood of
reptiles right she's the blood
reptile and when we've already you know
been having the
feeling evoked of cold metal you know
right lack of humanity i mean
when you look in a reptile's eyes you
you don't see humanity there i mean
right and the same thing when you look
in the eyes of a move too
yeah very mechanically yeah
they can creepy it's creepy freeze
yeah right exactly the eyes just the
eyes of a crocodile is poking out from
under uh
you know murky water right yeah
yeah hunting you watching you i mean
that's scary stuff
so it's almost like you know what i'm
kind of picking up is like
all of these sounds i mean there's so
there's so much depth to them and
texture right
but they all seem to be sort of
contributing to this general
feeling of like danger
right like definitely there's a lot of
danger feelings that
that i get yeah you don't want to get
your hand caught
in whatever that servo motor is right
you don't want to get too close
i kind of want to talk a little bit
about this other sound that comes in
um but i think it's the one that goes um
and sort of the stand-in i guess for the
hi-hat kind of right
and um and it like hits
and then it and it lets up and i always
like imagined a taser
but i was also thinking like i could
also picture like um
a sprinkler yeah and that's very
mechanical
but if i picture a sprinkler it's not
scary anymore but if i think of it as a
taser
or some kind of machine like punching a
hole or you know whatever then it's
like i mean what's interesting about
that that hi-hat sound is that it never
happens during the servo motor sound
so right it's kind of a machine like
thing where
however this machine works whenever that
servo leg arm lifts whatever and it
stops it it comes down
this other valve is going on you know
and it's
building up pressure it's doing
something
to give the power to lift that leg or
arm again
and so you really hear this as like a a
whole mechanism
yeah and yeah i think that he absolutely
constructed it that way it's also it's
also a sound design kind of like mixing
thing where you
you take different sounds and they kind
of weave into each other like
those two sounds wouldn't be effective
if they were
as effective if they were playing at the
same time so it's interesting that this
like
clicky tasery valve sound is going on
like a hi-hat
and then when that stops this motor goes
up and down
yeah that's so true yeah
so it's constructed like the beat is
constructed as if this is a machine
that works in some way that was
engineered in some way
again kind of tying that back into the
lightsaber sounds it's
they built this very consciously you
know to have this kind of built-in story
behind it when i think of the sounds of
reptile
i think of that initial creaking noise
of the metal sort of like right
and then i think of that
and then i think of the like those three
are like so important to me um in
how yeah just like the feeling of it
and if you've ever heard the song live
the bass will blow your head off
[Music]
oh yeah let's talk about the base let's
talk about that
relentless again adds to the weight of
the machine
and the relentlessness of the machine
and then again
i mean i'm sure if you heard this on a
really good sound system i mean a lot of
people maybe haven't
um right you know that they've heard it
on their earbuds or whatever
uh but gosh if you hear this on a really
good sound system
the bass is really nice if you've heard
it live i mean i think he probably added
another
layer of low frequencies in um
yeah it's insane i mean with the two
songs
there were two songs that like i walked
away from one of the shows
um just like completely blown away by
and one of them was reptile
and it was because there's no other song
that he plays live that is
like that um
it really it's really one of the
signature sounds
of the song and i agree with you that it
does
add to the machinery the the machine
itself
or the robot because it sounds
to me there's something about it that
sounds almost like um
like a low machine hum but just like
really fast
but like like oh like a fan right that's
what i was thinking sure sure
like a big fan or yeah some big pulsing
just i don't know i don't know enough
about machinery to really speak
intelligently about it but just like
um like i don't want to get near that
fan i don't want to get sucked into that
fan
whatever or whatever is powering like
whatever this is cooling
you know must be extremely powerful i
mean i don't know if i've ever
literally gone this far into thinking
about like what specifically each of
these sounds
sounds like to me but this has all been
going on unconsciously right in the
background it's all been
subliminal i think you said primal in
the beginning right it just
it's it's it's turning on certain little
you know little areas in my brain like
without me really realizing
reminding me of things i've heard um
obviously that lizard part of our brain
that fear flight fight and i can't say
the fourth one
but um you know it's like well i won't
um but you know it's it's like these
really primal survival mechanisms
and they're i mean i feel like that's
that part of my brain is getting
set off by trent rezner all the time
is there a bowed metal sound in
reptile yeah so this is one of my
favorite sounds on the entire album
it's that gong sound and it's very it's
on the stems on the reptile stems
it is it completely um by itself
it okay so i'm not i'm not going to say
that this is absolutely bowed metal but
it definitely evokes the sound of metal
um and in the way that it
it just kind of like it's drawn out it
kind of sounds like it's got it there's
no attack
you know because so it kind of makes it
sound like it's bowed um
it's interesting like with
like a violin bow yeah yeah
so i don't know i don't know i have no
no no
i have no idea what the sound is i don't
think anyone's ever identified it
but i can almost guarantee you that
these are vhs sounds
oh my gosh okay let's listen to it
[Music]
i agree with you at least that at least
that big gong sound yeah at least the
big maybe not the
great spinach but what's that like that
sounds crazy it's like the sucking sound
um which one the sucker
yeah those have more fidelity i feel
like and the
there's like a almost a cymbal crash or
something
yeah which i've never heard before yeah
yeah play it play it again
[Music]
it's so damn cool that's so cool ah
it sounds like that gong sound is moving
into those sucking sounds
ah they sound like some mechanism
yeah sort of but i mean it's it's a lot
of what we do in film sound design as
well
where we'll take two unrelated sounds
but if we have them work together
they make this new thing
i do agree that it sounds so cinematic
um i don't even know yeah like bowed
metal maybe but
it reminds me almost of like like an old
sci-fi movie where like or even a dr a
thriller
actually for some reason i'm picturing
like star trek or something but like um
where likes or like the twilight zone
maybe something like horrible has just
happened some
somebody's just like realized something
horrible yeah
and there's like and like zooms in on
them and it's like
yeah or something right and then he like
pitches it down so he's got it
and then and it's so clearly it's so
clearly pitched down
uh yeah in a sampler yeah yeah yeah yeah
it's so
dramatic and so dramatic huge
and massive and it's so cool yes massive
right it is it's it's absolutely massive
it's so menacing
here's how it develops later in the song
i'm curious
there's wait so this part
[Music]
i could listen to that all day so
awesome
yeah it's really interesting because
again like with the contrast thing
um that breakdown
is very very sentimental it's the first
time i think we hear
anything that sounds close to
pity or
that we care you know about anything um
it sounds delicate fragile
uh and yeah that that piano and the pads
that come in that are building up
they just sound so like emotional um
and then that comes in it's destroyed
like absolutely destroyed but yeah it's
really cool i mean you know
you hear the sample of the vulnerable
sounding woman
um that's a really good example of um
you know that it's from that scene in
texas chainsaw massacre where they're
just like walking down a hill
[Applause]
it sounds like that she's just a little
bit but yeah it sounds like she's in
much
worse distress in the song
but uh yeah but if you take it out of
context
um it has that mood in the movie
it that mood isn't actually happening at
that moment but that's a really good
sound design thing where you where you
take things out of context
and uh we kind of touched on that
earlier but it doesn't matter what
the sound is that you're using it
matters like what is it evoking what's
it doing for you
is it you know so that's a really good
example yeah
that is a cool example but it doesn't
look like they messed with it too they
like chopped it up
just a little bit yeah it's amazing
actually how they chopped it up and i
have i haven't listened to it in
a lot of detail yet but just like my
initial impression is it
always sounded to me like this woman was
like uh
crying yeah she was like choking up like
like there was like these inhales where
when i hear the original sample it
doesn't sound like that
at all it just sounds like she's just
like oh oh like you know
um so the way that they spliced these
little
you know the samples of the sample
together it literally sounds like
somebody inhaling
and i was like they had to know right i
mean yeah
they had to know when they got to that
like oh that sounds tragic like or that
sounds
yeah it sounds like involuntary like
she's like you're saying like she's kind
of choking
oh yeah yeah yeah that's all
that really creeped me out when i was
younger
that's the thing is how unidentifiable
it is um you don't know if it's like a
little girl or if it's a woman
it's very strange so yeah i mean yeah
and that's
that's what's so cool about not having
the visual to go by
is that it's really whatever you do
whatever
horrible thing you're imagining is you
know i just say i think that's part of
why i love instrumental music so much is
because there's
so much left up to interpretation and
there's such a rich visual world that
goes on for me when i'm listening to
music
and to not have any words to like
be in conflict with what i'm you know
not to say obviously this song obviously
has lyrics but
like a section like that there's no
lyrics
and it's just me and the sounds and it's
like anything could happen it could mean
anything
with sound design talking about doing it
in film
talking about doing sound design in in
cinema
you're not always trying to manipulate
someone's emotions in some certain way
you're you're just trying to make it
feel right it's you're trying to make it
be
satisfying interesting um
immersive that's a huge one yes
and i think it's a huge one with the
downward spiral i think the doward
spiral is
so immersive he they he knows how to
nail
a mood and stay there or
go somewhere else but like in the most
perfect way possible
the other thing is the other parallel
between the downward spiral and film
sound design
is that true rezar is very much the
director of
the downward spiral and that's not the
case when you think of a lot of albums i
mean
um film is a director's medium and we
all know
when we read the liner notes of nine
inch nails albums that trent reznor
is nine inch nails and
it's the singular meticulous vision of
trent resner
you