Nirvana and Albini set a two-week deadline for recording. At the suggestion of Albini, who was wary of interference from DGC, Nirvana paid for the sessions with their own money. Studio fees totaled $24,000, while Albini took a flat fee of $100,000. Though he stood to earn about $500,000 from royalties, Albini refused to accept them, as he considered taking royalties immoral and "an insult to the artist". Albini did not meet them until the first day of recording, though he had spoken to them beforehand about the type of album they wanted to make; he observed that "they wanted to make precisely the sort of record that I'm comfortable doing". The group stayed in a house on the studio grounds. Novoselic compared the isolated conditions to a
gulag; he said, "There was snow outside, we couldn't go anywhere. We just worked." Nirvana made it clear to DGC and their management company Gold Mountain that they wanted no intrusion, and did not play their work in progress for their
A&R representative. Albini instituted a policy of ignoring everyone except for the band members; he said that everyone associated with Nirvana were "the biggest pieces of shit I ever met". Nirvana arrived at Pachyderm Studios without their equipment and spent much of the first three days waiting for it to arrive by mail. Once recording began, on February 13, work moved quickly. He said, "Generally speaking, [Cobain] knows what he thinks is acceptable and what isn't acceptable [...] He can make concrete steps to improve things that he doesn't think are acceptable." Cobain reportedly recorded all his vocal tracks in six hours. Albini said that Cobain, who had struggled with drug addiction, was focused and sober in the studio. The sessions were completed on February 26. "
I Hate Myself and Want to Die" was omitted from the album as Cobain felt it already contained too many "noise" songs.
Production and mixing dispute After the recording sessions ended, Nirvana sent unmastered tapes of the album to several individuals, including Gold Mountain and Ed Rosenblatt, the president of DGC's parent company,
Geffen Records. When asked about the feedback he received, Cobain told
Michael Azerrad, "The grown-ups don't like it." He said he was told his songwriting was "not up to par", the sound was "unlistenable", and that there was uncertainty that mainstream radio would accept Albini's production. Few at Geffen or Gold Mountain had wanted Nirvana to record with Albini, and Cobain felt he was receiving an unstated message to scrap the sessions and start again. The band began to have doubts about the record. Cobain said, "The first time I played it at home, I knew there was something wrong. The whole first week I wasn't really interested in listening to it at all, and that usually doesn't happen. I got no emotion from it, I was just numb." The group concluded that the bass and lyrics were inaudible and asked Albini to remix the album. He declined; as he recalled, "[Cobain] wanted to make a record that he could slam down on the table and say, 'Listen, I know this is good, and I know your concerns about it are meaningless, so go with it.' And I don't think he felt he had that yet ... My problem was that I feared a slippery slope." The band attempted to address their concerns during the
mastering process with
Bob Ludwig at his studio in
Portland, Maine. Novoselic was pleased with the results, but Cobain still did not feel it was perfect. (pictured in 2008) was recruited to help make the album sound acceptable to DGC Records. Soon afterward, in April 1993, Albini told the
Chicago Tribune that he doubted Geffen would release the album. Years later, Albini said: "I wasn't there when the band was having their discussions with the record label. All I know is ... we made a record, everybody was happy with it. A few weeks later I hear that it's unreleasable and it's all got to be redone." While Albini's remarks in the article drew no reply from Nirvana or Geffen,
Newsweek ran a similar article soon afterwards that did. Nirvana wrote a letter to
Newsweek denying any pressure to change the album and saying the author had "ridiculed our relationship with our label based on totally erroneous information". The band reprinted the letter in a full-page ad in
Billboard. Rosenblatt insisted in a press release that Geffen would release anything Nirvana submitted, and the label founder,
David Geffen, made the unusual move of calling
Newsweek to complain. Nirvana considered working with the producer
Scott Litt and remixing some tracks with
Andy Wallace, who had mixed
Nevermind. Albini vehemently disagreed, and said the band had agreed not to modify the tracks without his involvement. He initially refused to give the
master tapes to Gold Mountain, but relented after a phone call from Novoselic. The band eventually had Litt remix songs intended as singles; "Heart Shaped Box" and "All Apologies" were remixed at Seattle's
Bad Animals Studio in May 1993. The rest of the album was left unaltered aside from a remastering. Albini was critical of the final mix; he said, "The record in the stores doesn't sound all that much like the record that was made, though it's still them singing and playing their songs, and the musical quality of it still comes across." ==Music and lyrics==