Clipping sound?

S

stasz

New member
Was listening to Nirvana's In Utero and noticed something on the track "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter". youtube link

It sounds to me like Dave Grohl's snare drum has this weird "popping" sound in the mix...like just a slight little high-frequency "pop" you can hear every time he hits the snare drum. (Seems especially strong around the 3:00 mark) What causes that sound exactly? Clipping? Some kind of compression? Just wondering...seems like a strange sound to me...I just hope someone else can hear it and I'm not going crazy/deaf.

PS I was listening to it on iTunes (mp3 file) so it's not just youtube.

Thanks
-stasz
 
There is so much wrong with that YouTube clip that it wouldn't surprise me if the snare was being clipped. In particular, the comb filtering on the high hat is atrocious.
 
A lot of the recordings on that album are unique and it would be difficult to determine the reasoning, method and techniques used to achieve what was created. I love Nirvana and I am a fan of old punk, but some of the stuff they did just seemed to exist purely to violently assault the listener.
 
I zoomed in and had a look at some of the waveforms on that Youtube video and some of them are indeed squared off at the top. However whether it was just a bad transfer or they applied a deliberate distortion effect I won't even guess. Some of it sounds like when I put vocals through a guitar distortion effect to create a sort of "monster" sound for a musical I worked on. (Not a technique recommended for normal vocals by the way...)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top