The sound engineers at OEM Inc. have spent thousands of hours with the original masters of the most
famous songs ever recorded. They use them to create products like Jammit, an iPhone app that allows you
to play along with those original tracks. There are many, many things to learn from those original tracks.
Through a partnership with Gearhead Communications, OEM Inc. engineers are sharing their discoveries
exclusively with Premier Guitar readers in what we like to call…
“Dragula” by Rob Zombie
By Frank Gryner
From the album Hellbilly Deluxe (1998 Geffen)
Produced by: Scott Humphrey
Engineered/Mixed by: Frank Gryner
Recorded at: The Chop Shop in Los Angeles, California
Available in the JAMMIT “Rob Zombie Vol. 1” application
I guess it was only a matter of time before
the tables were turned and some of my past
work was put under the same microscope
as other multi-tracks we’ve dissected here in
the past. This month we’re taking a look Rob
Zombie’s biggest hit to date, “Dragula.”
This song was the first single released on
Zombie’s debut solo record Hellbilly Deluxe
in August of 1998. Production was headed up
by Scott Humphrey, who had already done
a significant number of high-profile credits.
It was—and still is—one of my most notable
engineering projects. So the thought of revisiting the tracks felt a lot like going to a high-school reunion—but without the alcohol and
anti-anxiety medication to get me through
it! Well, it’s not really insecurity as much as
it is the feeling that more than a decade of
additional experience must have advanced
my craft to a place that would make any
previous work somehow inferior. As it turns
out, I was pretty off base in that assumption.
These tracks held up remarkable well. Hellbilly
Deluxe has a sonic character that is tough to
compare to anything else, past or present—
even subsequent Rob Zombie albums. So let’s
begin our audio autopsy on the individual
elements of “Dragula” and get a closer look
at the anatomy of this modern-rock milestone.
Building a Pro Tools Frankenstein
Hellbilly was recorded in an awkward era
when computer-based digital recording was
not yet embraced as an industry standard.
But Humphrey had the technology in a head-
lock. His digital artistry was very transparent,
which why he was chosen to work as a digital
audio editor on huge records by Metallica,
Bon Jovi, and Mötley Crüe when most
people didn’t even know what digital audio
editor meant. He had pushed the boundaries
of primitive DAW and was instrumental in the
development of Pro Tools features like Beat
Detective and batch cross fade processing.
So that same inventive mentality went into
Hellbilly’s production.
The Chop Shop was Humphrey’s laboratory for piecing together the album. Even
though he was an accomplished musician,
Humphrey’s main instrument was arguably
