From the decidedly "un-Hollywood" environs of the mid-west, Butch Vig has been involved with some of the most revolutionary music of the past decade. Vig came to forefront with his monster success producing Nirvana's breakthrough album Nevermind. Along with producing other sonically challenging endeavors from Smashing Pumpkins to Nine Inch Nails, he also founded his own band. As both drummer and producer for the cutting-edge band Garbage, Vig continues to add new and exciting twists to the world of popular music. We gathered an assortment of interesting technical information during our recent interview with Butch and his tech, Billy Bush.
 GC: Let me start by asking you about your current projects and the band's current projects.
Butch Vig: Well, we just finished recording the new James Bond single, the new theme, "The World is Not Enough." It's the first time we've recorded in three or four different studios around the world. We're also utilizing a sixty-piece orchestra and it's been pretty cool. I mean, the song is very "Garbagy" but it's also very James Bond. It's dark and it's got a sort of soaring melody and Shirley absolutely slayed the vocal take on it. David Arnold composed the strings and recorded them at Air Studios in London while we cut the basic tracks and the vocals at Metropolis. We did this in the middle of touring, so Billy dragged the ProTools System with us so we could basically set up anywhere. We got back here to the states and flew up to Vancouver where we finished the overdubs and mixed the track. It's pretty cool because we've been just swapping drives back and forth with David Arnold who's mixing a different version, the orchestral version that will be on the film. So the technology has made it easy for us to record anywhere!
GC: Wow! We've heard that you guys take ProTools with you on the road and even into your hotel rooms and things. Can you talk a little bit more about how that's accomplished?
Bush: Basically we've got two racks that I drag around with me and another case that carries like the computer monitor and the CPU in it. We've got one rack for ProTools, a thirteen-space rack with a bunch of outboard gear, my basic ProControl main unit, an Apple flat screen monitor, and a new Mac G3. The ProTools rack has got a SBS Bit 3 expansion chassis, a pair of Glyph 18 gig drives, two 888/24 I/O's, a Universal Slave Driver, and a Tascam IF88AE digital interface. Basically we can drag it around and plug in a pair of monitor speakers or powered speakers, like Genelec 1029's and that's pretty much our set up. We've used it for everything that we've done since the record. All the B-sides, all the remix stuff that Butch and I have done or the band has done. At one point we even had it in, like, locker rooms in Germany to do a remix for Fun Lovin' Criminals.
GC: Do you guys use plug-ins for processing and effects? What are your thoughts using plug-ins versus outboard hardware processors?
Bush: We're totally into the plug in world. Right now we've got Amp Farm loaded, which we completely over used...
Butch Vig: Amp Farm works in a pinch! You run anything into it and it vibes it up. It's great!
Bush: We've got the new Pro Tools plug-ins: Bruno, Reso and SoundReplacer which I'm totally, totally into. Again, these are just going to be completely over used in the next week or two. All the basic ones that come with Pro Tools like the DPP-1, the compressor, and stuff like that. We really got into using the stock compressors and EQ's that come with the Pro Tools. In-a-pinch stuff for filtering drum sounds and things. It's pretty cool to put a compressor and an EQ across pretty much anything. We've got all the Focusrite plug-ins and GRM tools stuff. GRM tools is so hardcore, it's unreal, the coolest thing ever! LexiVerb, all the D-fi plug ins: Lo-Fi, Recti-Fi, Vari-Fi, Maxim. Half the time I use Maxim when I'm doing a semi-master thing. I use the L1 Mastering Limiter from Waves a lot of times when we're doing a CD reference. Wave Mechanics Pitch-Doctor and Pure-Pitch, all the TC Electronic / TC Works stuff. We're huge into the TC/MegaReverb and the Waves stuff. Waves stuff I end up using more when we're doing a CD reference kind of thing, trying to make it sound a little bit more like a final master. For the James Bond thing we tried to get away from using any outboard gear whatsoever. We were moving around and didn't want to have to deal with, you know, not having the exact harmonizer, not having the exact compressors, or the exact EQ's when we moved to a different studio. So I kept the majority of the stuff in Pro Tools and we had a couple of things we patched out. We have a couple of Manley things on that outboard rack, that I got out, a Manley Voxbox which we used on Shirley's vocals and as an insert through one of the 888's and also the Manley Massive-Passive EQ which we used the EQ the strings. We just got a new Summit Audio MPE200 which is a stereo pre-amp and equalizer designed with Rupert Neve that sounds amazing. We're getting a new plug in for that which will allow it to go straight into Pro Tools.
Butch Vig: I think that one of the reasons we try to keep things within our own system is that we end up doing recalls. If we're in Spain, for example, and we have to do a recall on something, it's hard to walk into a studio and find what we had in London or in L.A. or New York. So we tend to want to keep stuff within our own system and, as Billy was saying, we have a few outboard EQ's and an Eventide 4000 that we drag with us and we also just got the new Eventide Orville that we're putting through it's paces. As I said, we did a remix for Fun Lovin' Criminals, and one for Freak on a Leash by Korn. Alanis Morisette, we did a club mix for her, and we just did some remixes for Limp Bizkit, and a lot of times you have to go back and re-tweak them and it's much easier if we know if it's our own gear. We forced ourselves to use what we had and it works great that way. I think if we're in a studio, or if we know we're going be somewhere a long time, we'll use whatever we feel is appropriate and probably experiment a lot more. But because we want to make sure that we're self-contained no matter where we are, that's why we have a tendency to keep it all in our internal, sort of mini studio.
GC: Are you using a hardware control surface at all with ProTools?
Bush: We're using the ProControl which we're totally in love with. Right now, the system we've got has got just the ProControl main unit with the 8 faders on it because it's nice and portable and fits pretty much anywhere. I love flipping between 64 banks! By the time we do another record, we'll end up getting the full 32-fader package because we always have a ridiculous number of tracks going. It's really cool! Butch has gotten really speedy on it! It's nice to have this control surface.
GC: So you mentioned using Glyph hard drives, are you using any others and do you...then you just, when you're talking about sending those out, you just take the whole drive and send it out, you don't use any removable or hot swappable?
Bush: We do now, for the first time, because I just got this blue and white G-3 with a DVD-RAM drive, I'm sending data on with all of our mixes, our whole pro tool system on DVD-RAM Disk. By the time all of our different tracks and different takes were on in there, it'll be about 5 gigs. And he's in London, do I really want to send him a 9 gig c gate drive all the way to London on the chances it might get destroyed or do I just want to send him something small and easy and light that'll survive the trip? So, I'm kind of getting into using the DVD-RAM to transfer files back and forth between people, but I have probably about 160 gigs worth of drives that I kind of flop around between. For the most part, I use a zip disk for small things, if I'm transferring files from my PowerBook into the computer or the drives where I just keep everything, I don't mess up with too much removable stuff besides the DVD-RAM and the Zip
GC: What other recording gear do you use in the studio?
Bush: Let's start with mics, depending on what we're doing, Bush has got this amazing Telefunken 250, which is you know, totally the bomb! It's the full-on Garbage secret weapon! The sound of Shirley's voice on any of the records is basically the sound of that mic. Besides that, we've got a bunch of old stuff & new stuff. Shure SM57's on guitars you can't go wrong with. Butch has got a collection of nice old ones. We just got Browner VM1 which I carry out on the road. It's a great tube mic, the best sounding new tube mic out there, in my opinion anyway. Other than that, we use anything under the sun that we can get our hands on basically!
Butch Vig: Duke and Steve, use Matchless guitar amps live. That's probably one our favorite guitar amps to use in a pinch. We use Fenders, Marshalls, Mesa/Boogie basically we use a bunch of stuff. We're huge fans of the old Vox amps too. I've been using a Drum Workshop kit in the studio and live, but I also have a Ddrum elecrtonic kit. When we're recording there's a lot of custom things that I can do. I can play an acoustic kick, but also trigger different drum sounds. I've got probably 30 or 40 kick drums and custom stuff that we did in the studio as well as snares and processed loops and things like that.
Bush: We use all Audio Tech mics on tour. We use AT4050 on all the guitars and on the overheads. Shirley sings through a wireless system with an Audix OM5 capsule. There's a lot of pieces of gear that we have in the studio that we couldn't really live without. All the Summit stuff we couldn't live without, the Eventide stuff...
Butch Vig: Yeah, the Summit TLA100A compressor. I've been using that on vocals and guitars for about 7 or 8 years. I've recorded almost everything with it, whether it's Garbage or something else I've produced, and I absolutely love it! As a compressor, particularly for vocals, I set it so it's kicking down about 10dB on the choruses and it sounds amazing! It just really helps the vocals sit in the track! Really we're not that fussy thgough. A lot of times, like when we we're talking about doing the Fun Lovin' Criminals remix in some locker room in Germany, we would just bang on things, record it and get it into Pro Tools! Then we'd edit so it sounded like a kick drum or some sort of percussion loop. We've recorded things in sound check onto the Tascam DA88 and then transferred them into ProTools and processed them. We don't think that you necessarily have to be in a really pristine studio or recording environment in order to record a great song or to do a great re-mix.
GC: So what's the next thing you'd like to get? What's on your wish list?
Bush: I'm lusting heavily after the Eventide Orville which is staring at me right now from the rack, but I have to give it back next week! It's Jerry Griffin at Eventide's personal unit...
Butch Vig: We may just keep though!
Bush: Yeah, he may have to come to Madison to pry it out of my hands! That's my new favorite thing. The next thing we're going to end up shopping for is some more new keyboard stuff. The only thing we're really bored with these days is our old keyboard sounds. I think once we're done with the tour, we're gonna shop for some cool stuff!
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Butch Vig: Yeah, we use the Nord Lead a lot because we're big fans of old analog synthesizers, but like Billy's saying, we want to get some new, keyboards and rack-mount things in the studio so we can experiment with some new sounds.
GC: Are you pressing CD's with Digidesign MasterList?
Bush: Yeah, I'm using MasterlistCD and a Yamaha 4x SCSI CD burner. I've had it for about a year, so it's kind of old but it works alright.
GC: Garbage is known for a heavily layered, dense sort of a sound, does achieving that kind of a sound present in challenges in terms of production and mixing?
Butch Vig: In the past, particularly on Version 2.0, we really experimented a lot in the studio. All of us love processing sound, Shirely, Duke, Steve and I, and Billy for that matter, all have production ideas and we experiment a lot. For us the songs are all defined in the mixing process. I think "Push It" took about five or six days to mix. It was the same with "I Think I'm Paranoid" and "Hammering In My Head." Alot of what you leave in or take out of the mix defines how the song ends up. There are so many different things going on sometimes that we try to focus on the most important thing, which is Shirely's vocal. Her voice, persona, and presence has to be sort of in your face but she has so much charisma it really allows us to sort of veer all over the place sonically. I think one of the things we're really lucky about in this band is that we have a great singer and that does allow us to do a lot of experimenting.
GC: You mentioned assembling songs in the mixing process, how does the band write material together?
Butch Vig: Well, we really don't make demos. I mean, I may a have a chord progression or a melodic line and Shirley might have an idea, Duke will bring in something, or Steve will bring in a riff or a chord thing. Version 2.0 was recorded with all of us in the same room sort of free-form improvising. We would record into ProTools and then, after a night of recording a bunch of bulls--t, if we were lucky, we would find thirty seconds, or four bars or eight bars. We'd go, "This sounds like something that might be the idea to start a song." It might be a guitar riff or a melodic line of Shirley's. But it's a slow process. We'll take that little section and start jamming on it and further extend things out. The songs all go through sort of a long roller coaster ride. But once Shirley has an idea of what she wants to sing lyrically and melodically, then what the band is doing sort of takes shape behind it. We don't do demos, for example, and give them to Shirley to finish. Version 2.0 is really is based around her singing. And I think because of that, it definitely sounds more like a band. You can hear it her singing. She's a lot more confident than on the first album. I wouldn't recommend that method for everybody, though. We're lucky that we have a studio here in Wisconsin and we're also able to set up almost anyplace. We started writing a song at a friend's house in the San Juan Islands, and stayed there for about a month. There was absolutely nothing to do, except get up and jam everyday! Most of the songs came from those initial loose sessions.
GC: What's involved in being a producer? What makes a good producer versus a bad producer?
Butch Vig: I still think the most important thing a producer can do is draw out whatever a bands' vision is and whatever their strengths are. I don't really consider myself a Svengali-dictator-type. I've always gotten very close to the artist that I'm working with to the point that they forget that I'm in the room and I almost become part of the band. I think I'm very good at getting people to let their guard down and pushing them in a way that's non-confrontational. Sometimes I can push people very aggressively, if I need to, in order to get them to do something that I think they should do. But, in general, I prefer that the artist be able to figure that out on their own. I guess making records, to me, is a lot about psychology. I mean, I'm way into technology, but I don't read manuals and don't really obsess over it. Luckily, Billy sort of handles that end of everything. We know enough to keep our hands in technology because it's fun to experiment, but ultimately I think you still have to focus on whether it's Garbage. We have to focus on the internal dynamics between the four of us, and the song. You have to try to write really good songs, and produce them so they somehow connect with you, whether it's laying a ton of tracks or it's just an acoustic guitar and a piano. So I guess to answer your question I think a great producer is someone who is sort of invisible, you're not aware of their production to a certain extent. You put on a record or a CD and you fall in love with a song or the singer. I don't think you necessarily fall in love with a hi-hat sound or a guitar sound (although I love guitars!).
GC: Do you have any tips, or secret techniques for recording guitars?
Butch Vig: Working with the Pumpkins on Siamese Dream, and stuff, I would put out about 4 or 5 microphones and we would spend hours and sometimes days, trying to get absolutely the best perfect sound we were looking for. With Garbage, if there happens to be a scratch vocal mic on and someone is playing a guitar part, we'll just sort of move it by the amp and spend, literally, like, 10 seconds with the sound. Because we're more interested in the part and the vibe versus the perfect guitar sound. I think that surprises a lot of people! I think a lot people think that in this band we're very neurotic about how we approach recordings, but we are so loose! Garbage is, by far, the loosest band I've worked with, in terms of going in the studio. We're just sort of haphazard sometimes how we record...
Bush: You never know where a part is going to come from! A lot of the sounds and actual parts on the Version 2.0 record came from our initial recording in the San Juan Islands. Someone might say, "Hey, remember that part that Duke played back in Friday Harbor? Maybe we can make that work for this." And I'll just go dig it out and find it. It might be a horrible sound, weird and phasey, but somehow we'll just make it work.
GC: You just lift like an actual recorded part from sometime ago and just fly it into a new arrangement or something?
Butch Vig: Yeah! Even if it sounds crappy, that's what sometimes makes it sound cool! It may sound kind of low-fi or not particularly in tune, but the sound or the vibe from that performance is what we're more interested in than actually trying to worry about a brilliant guitar sound. We process alot of things in ProTools too. Once it's in there, we'll totally mess with something in order to make it sound interesting. Again, the actual the source doesn't matter as much as what we can do with it once we've recorded it.
GC: It sounds like you're really using this computer-based recording technology to good advantage!
Butch Vig: The great think about technology these days is that it allows people to do great recordings or really interesting recordings in their living rooms or in their basement! You don't have to go into the studio and spend two thousand dollars a day. And that's very liberating. Twenty years ago there was sort of this wall put up, a barrier between being starting as an amateur and becoming a professional. But now anybody can do it! I think, ultimately, you still really have to concentrate on getting a great performance and connecting somehow emotionally with the song, whether it's the singer or the sound, or the groove, or whatever. Technology allows anybody to go in and remix a record or find a loop from somewhere and put some beats over it. Ultimately the song has to connect somehow. That's one of the most important things that young musicians or artists or recording engineers should pay attention to. Music is human and it's very emotional and somehow you need to make sure you get a connection with that. So, if you can figure out some way to do that in your basement or living room, there's no reason you can't record it there!
GC: You mentioned using triggered sounds & loops. How is that orchestrated live?
Butch Vig: Well, it's complicated. It sort of depends on what song we're doing. Something like Medication we don't use any loops. Duke plays piano on that live now and Steve plays acoustic guitar. It's a very simple set up. But when I scroll up to that song on my Ddrum all the kicks, and snares, and toms, and things are all customized for that song. Something like Stupid Girl is all based on that Clash loop. That's triggered from the Ddrum and it basically loops over and over and I just play a basic 4/4 rock pattern over it. There are fills and things that I do, but it's basically pretty simple. For something like Hammering In My Head, we have sequences on the Tascam DA88 which also has a click track that goes to the guitars and my head phones. I play along to that. I play drum samples from the acoustic kit: kick and snare, and certain effects and things, which I have on some of the pads. Synchronizing the guitar rigs to the click track allows Duke and Steve to play a lot of weird gated sounds that are also locked into the sequencer. On that song a lot of the things that sound like keys they're actually doing with the guitars!
GC: Do you shop at Guitar Center?
Bush: I love Guitar Center! I've had a great relationship with a couple of Guitar Centers across the country, they've been always helpful. I always get a great price. They always have what I need, and the staff is usually knowledgeable about the gear. I had a guy who used to work at the Hollywood store that always kept me up to date on the new stuff. He'd call me up out of the blue and say, "Hey, they're coming out with this thing that's right up your alley, you should check it out." Guitar Center has definitely been very helpful to us.
Butch Vig: They were very instrumental when we started Version 2.0. When we were in Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands they just sent us up a bunch of gear. It was great just being able to spend a week just sort of experimenting in this funky room that we set up and go, "This is cool, let's use this and we'll send this back" and no questions asked. They were very supportive and have continued to be supportive.
Bush: The 30-Day money back guarantee is the best thing in the world! Oh yeah! Send me that, that, that, and that! I'll have five things sent up and end up buying three and send back the other two. It's really instrumental for me because it's hard for us to go into a music store and check out something cause it's never going to sound the way it's sound until you put it through it's paces and put it in the studio and you actually use the thing. So being able to get something and go, "Yeah that's it, that's totally what I wanted!" or go "This is not quite it," and then take it back and swap it out is the coolest thing in the world! If you don't have that pressure, the feeling that you have to buy it right then and there, that second, having to make the decision and live with it for the rest of your life, is great. I remember being a struggling musician when Guitar Center opened in Dallas for the first time and that was the coolest thing! If I need to get a new guitar and a new amp, having five hundred different things to choose from and the pressure to having to choose just one thing is tough. Take it home! Mess around with it a couple of days! If it's not really what you wanted, maybe you should try this other thing instead! The Selection is always amazing. The prices are always amazing. The people are knowledgeable.
» See the interview with Butch from April 2005
» Check out more exclusive GC interviews
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