Nine Inch Nails

Hi GMC!

Welcome to my new lesson in the style of Trent Reznor’s legendary Industrial Rock band Nine Inch Nails formed in Cleveland, Ohio in 1988.

Music Style:
NIN is one of the most important Industrial Rock bands ever, and their combination of rock, electronic, alternative and synth pop have influences a lots of bands over the years. Their Industrial Rock sound is a perfect mix of electronic and alternative rock, with a dark feel and noisy/dirty synth sounds. In this lesson, I’ve composed a tune inspired by some of their most popular songs like “Only”, “Closer”, “The hand the feeds” and “We’re in this together”.

Tonality, Chord Progression & Scales:
Their style is dark and usually has a sad or angry feeling. Most of their tunes are base don Minor keys, being Aeolian, Phrygian and Minor blues scale the most used scales for riffing and to build chord progressions. This lesson is in G minor, and most of the parts are base don G Blues Scale, and G Aeolian. There are also some chromatic ideas that are not based on 1 specific scale, which recreate Reznor’s way to build lines and riffs.

One thing that you'll note in this lesson and also if you listen to their music is that the songs are arranged with many layers that build a dense texture. This is a very distinctive characteristic in Reznor's composing and arranging style and that's what I'm trying to recreate here.

Techniques:
This lesson recreates NIN’s guitar work which is mostly base don riffing and melodies. Here we will combine different techniques like alternate picking, downpicking, palm muting and vibrato. This tune is a cool exercise to train your rhythm skills.

Sound:
I used Fractal Ax8's Plexi Emulation, Cubase 9.5 to record audio and midi, Addictive Drums II for drums and Trillian for bass.

Tuning: Standard 440.