Changes

Reznor set out to make an album that was a departure from the ''[[Broken ]]'' EP ("when I went into the studio, I knew that I didn't want to make Broken again"), which he described as "a real hard-sounding record that was just one big blast of anger." Instead, Reznor wanted to create an album "that went in 10 different directions, but that was all united somehow." Reznor brought in a number of guest performers to record, including [[wp:Stephen Perkins|Stephen Perkins]] and [[Adrian Belew]]. Perkins played a number of drum parts that were recorded live in the studio; these tracks were then turned into sample loops. Reznor took a similar approach to recording guitar parts. Reznor would record 20 to 25-minute long sessions of himself playing guitar on a hard disc recorder with a Studio Vision sequencer, then would cut out parts of the recording he found interesting for later use. Reznor said, "99 percent of the stuff we do–even vocals–is recorded into the computer [hard disk] first. We get an arrangement together and then dump it to tape." For "Mr. Self Destruct" , Reznor ran the entire mix through the mic pre-amps of several modules plundered from an old Neve board.

Like other NIN releases, some songs never made it to the final album. In this case, some songs were "''[[The Beauty Of The Drug]]''", which was a general out take, and "''[[Just Do It]]''", which was a track prompting the album's protagonist to kill himself. The latter was axed at the request of [[Flood]], who refused to have anything to do with it.