Butch Vig

The Nirvana track "Polly" was recorded on a Scorpion control board at Butch Vig's Smart Studios

When it comes to working on music, Butch runs Pro Tools on a Mac. “I’ve used the Macintosh for years,” says Vig. “All in all, we’ve got about 15 Macs behind Garbage alone.” The Garbage Mac collection includes several Power Macs and PowerBooks, plus a couple iMacs.

"Steve owned this when I met him, and when we started jamming in his basement late at night, we ran EVERYTHING through it: vocals, drums, guitars, bass and percussion. It gave those early jam sessions a super lo–fi vibe that sounded awesome, sort of a fuzzed out Cramps style rockabilly. We continued to use in on almost every session we did at Smart for 30 years!"

"We bought this for $50 at a pawn shop and since it was the only compressor we had when we started, we used it on a lot of the sessions. I would track drums and use it on the snare. It has this cool, aggressive “thwack” that really helps the snare pop. We also used it for overdubbing bass and vocals. It is not subtle. It’s still one of my fave compressors."

"My favorite digital reverb. I had a bunch of custom presets I made that I used all the time. 'Pelvisman' (named after a song by Knerble Knerble) was a huge, bright hall sound with a lot of pre delay, and 'Anti-Pelvis' was a super fast gated snare sound, used on a ton of sessions."

"I bought an Akai S1000 and a Kurzweil K2500 and those became writing tools for us."

"We had a bunch of synths at Smart Studios: Oberheim, Roland, Yamaha. But the Mirage was our first sampler. I think it was 8–bit, so it was sort of crunchy, but it had a vibe and some truly unique sounds. Used on everything from The Singing Irishman to Garbage."

"Our first drum machine. Somewhat limited in what you could program, but it sounded great, warm and punchy."

"This was a multi–tasking piece of outboard gear: stereo limiter, gate, ducker, de–esser. We would compress the drum overheads with it when we tracked. It has a very aggressive sound. Bob Mould was the producer on one of the first Tar Baby sessions we did. He REALLY liked to compress the overheads. Then we would gate the plate reverb through it for a gunshot snare sound when we mixed. Used on a LOT of sessions."

Butch worked with Duke and Steve to produce a new sound using Akai samplers, a Kurzweil keyboard and a Mac SE.

"I bought this in 1990, it was pricey but well worth it. I used it on almost every session we did. I love APIs. This is the drum sound, bass sound, guitar sound, and vocal sound on 'Gish.' I still use it here at my home studio in Silver Lake."

In an article on Guitar.com The Humble Gear Used By Kurt Cobain on Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’, it mentions that the Neve 8078 console at Sound City studio had a "big influence on the sound of the album":

Another piece of gear that had a big influence on the sound of the album was the Neve 8078 console that was at Sound City – a console that recorded dozens of iconic albums both before and after Nirvana recorded Nevermind there. In fact, that was part of the reason they went to Cannon Falls, Minnesota in the dead of winter to record their follow-up album, In Utero – they also had an 80-series Neve console at the time.

In the video titled "Recording Nirvana: Drain You (Butch Vig Breaks It Down In The Studio)" by MixMyMusicRob on YouTube, Butch Vig can be seen using a Lexicon M93 Prime Time Digital Delay Processor. The device is visible in the rack while Vig deconstructs the song "Drain You" in the studio.

In a video titled "GML 8200 EQ from Butch Vig" by ANALOGr on YouTube, Butch Vig explains how he uses the GML 8200 Series III 2-Channel Parametric Equalizer with Power Supply.