Extreme Metal - drums vs guitars

[WarriorOfMetal]

see, that's part of why my band Recently Vacated Graves: True Zombie Metal plays with programmed drums live, and has no intention of getting a live drummer. we can do whatever ridiculous shit we want with drums on the albums, and then replicate it perfectly live every time

 

[Drew]

No, but I do have a pedal that I can step on and make the entire front row die.

What, "solo boost" on the Roadster? Or are you talking about turning the "tuner bypass" off?


I kind of dig the halftime-against-full-time thing, but on both ends - full tempo drums against half time guitars sounds badass, but so does halftime drums against normal tempo guitars. It's even cooler if you mix them.

So, I think I just agreed with you.

 

[Variant]

I kind of dig the halftime-against-full-time thing, but on both ends - full tempo drums against half time guitars sounds badass, but so does halftime drums against normal tempo guitars. It's even cooler if you mix them.

So, I think I just agreed with you.

Depends on the goals of the music... I'd say. Sure there are some lazy guitarists out there, but a lot of death metal is just that, fast, blasting drums with slower guitar riffs... a lot of thrash metal was the exact opposite. Then you've got bands like Nile, Suffocation, and Dark Tranquillity that do a good job of pairing frantic guitar riffing with equally frantic drumming. My personal goal as a musician is to try to best work with what I've got, the limits of myself and those who I work with, and to be realistic about it... but that's just me. I'm not demanding of much.

 

[Drew]

See, I'm more into prog-y stuff with a lot of different influences coming in, so I guess it makes sense I'd like to be able to go back and forth from faster doubletime stuff to halftime stuff to god knows what we could come up with.

 

[Variant]

See, I'm more into prog-y stuff with a lot of different influences coming in, so I guess it makes sense I'd like to be able to go back and forth from faster doubletime stuff to halftime stuff to god knows what we could come up with.

Yeah... same here, lots of progressive rock (both contemporary and classic) and on top of that a particular affinity for industrial/electronic music, and world music with their sequenced and layered patterns not necessarily indicative of traditional drumming. I'd need two drummers, a dedicated percussionist, and a sequencer just to put together some of the stuff that I've got bouncing around in my head.

 

[Oogadee Boogadee]

before i moved to VA and hooked up with Division, I had this short-lived pipe dream of being an extreme metal drummer. Sandoval and Barker.... two sons-o-bitches that I thought were freakin awesome (still do).

anyway, no practice... job hunt... work..... no practice.... find a home.... move.... no practice.... get a new job... blah blah.. join a power metal band.... blah blah... so the extreme drumming thing didn't happen. but i was still a fan (and still am, in some really selective ways)

so now (late 2003) i'm in my first metal band and i'm jumping into the world of metal drumming and finding out what it's all about. I get to see drummers live, research different shit on the internet from gear to techniques to you-name-it, reading fly-on-the-wall accounts of recording sessions of some well-known names, etc...... i began to realize how much fabrication is going on..... how fake the drumming was in the studio... and even live, b/c of insane triggering, and insane volumes hiding feet flams and stuff..... I'm sure a part of me is defending my experience of failing short of that goal I had by cracking on drummers who completely depend on triggers in order to put on a show...... but oh well, even if i'm jealous of what they can do, there is still truth to the statement.......

anyway, I've said it before - i totally fell in love with drums all over again when I rediscovered Lombardo... and how he recorded classics, on tape, by hitting hard, with rickety pedals and microphones..... and how he can do it now, better than ever! Relax, hit like you mean it, and flow. Totally turned my life around.

anyway, not to derail my own thread... but to tie it together.... his shit is real. a lot of these insane guitarists writing insane beats at insane tempos might find *a* session dude to do it in the studio, but, they probably wont and will just doctor the shit out of whoever they find. it's almost like compromising the artist, for the sake of an art..... which, in a way, lost its artistic value when a machine had to do a major part of it.

 

[Oogadee Boogadee]

my boobs are ok

 

[Variant]

Toontrack

 

[Ancestor]

Usually, when I get to the audition, it is three guys: a bassist who thinks he can play with his fingers but really sounds like he is dragging sausage links across the strings in random patterns, a drummer with three cymbal stands that all fall over when he hits them and the double kick styles of three year old with a hammer, and a vocalists that sounds like he is strangling a cat while running with a box full of aquarium gravel.

Damn, that's good.

To me, it sounds better if it's either the drummer or guitarist that's playing super fast. Both together is usually a mess. Kind of like you don't really want the bass to play the same as the guitar and same with the vocals. Everyone should be playing a different part usually.

All I have ever wanted from a drummer is a consistent tempo. If you can't play 32 kicks a measure, play 16. If you can't play 16, play 8. But if you would be so kind, don't make me be the time keeper. That's not my job.

 

[7 Dying Trees]

Someone said to me that this is the decade of the drummers shredding like the guitarists did in the 80's, about technical drumming proficiency.

FOr me, personally, I'd say 220 really is an upper limit as to speed I'd want to go, as that is stupidly fast, in fact, 200bpm is already fast enough, and 180-190 is still fast as well.

250-270? Getting towards the realm of just being able to do it rather than musicality, groove, or swing. And once in the studio, just try nailing that trem picked riff at that speed, matching the kicks up exactly whilst still putting enough power into the guitar picking to make it sounds like you mean it, rather than a wet blanket tone with no aggression.

Staying tight at that speed, and making it sound good live is just plain stupidly hard, and the slightest echo in the hall will just kill anything you are trying to achieve.

Plus, blasting bands usually end up dull as fuck, with no dynamic, just extreme, and when it's extreme all the way through, it is no longer extreme, as there is nothing to compare the extremety to, and thus you end up desensitised to it, and thus, you lose the point of it being extreme, in my opinion.

 

[eaeolian]

Plus, blasting bands usually end up dull as fuck, with no dynamic, just extreme, and when it's extreme all the way through, it is no longer extreme, as there is nothing to compare the extremety to, and thus you end up desensitised to it, and thus, you lose the point of it being extreme, in my opinion.

I get bored with that incredibly quickly.

 

[Oogadee Boogadee]

Someone said to me that this is the decade of the drummers shredding like the guitarists did in the 80's, about technical drumming proficiency.

i don't think so. There are still only a few Langs/Colaiutas/Minnemans/etc around.... guys who truely do this stuff and are solid players who don't depend on editing and triggers. They can sit an any kit and show you it's them, not the gear.

In the 80's, you had your guitar heros, and you had your shredding bedroom jammers...... I don't think our drumming bedroom drummers are quite up to par yet, as far as clean execution.

I think one of the hardest things for a drummer is controlling dynamic (hitting hard on fast parts, softer on slow parts, for example, to achieve even dynamic). It's hard for me to observe myself on this, but I think it's safe to say that I'm far from getting to where I need to be. And this has nothing to do with my tempos, meter consistency, part complexity, mood projection, creativity, etc!!!

I believe that, because of extreme editing, and a chase for high-tempos, the quest to become an awesome well-rounded drummer has been totally derailed and it's not going to recover anytime soon. Triggers have let drummers get away with lighter hitting on stage and in the studio in a quest for speed, editing has pulled a blanket over all types of stuff, etc etc....

This decade is simply the decade for pro-tools and DFH..... I think it's going to make those of us who're following the solid path more of a hot commodity.... which is good for me.... b/c like it was just stated, if you can't do 32nd's at 120bpm, do it at 90, or do triplet 16ths, or whatever.... but EXECUTE IT!

 

[Naren]

I agree a lot with what's being said in this thread. Some things that have been said remind me of something in my own band. We have a song where the drummer is playing blast beats at 210 bpm for about 15 seconds while me and the other guitarist are playing trem-picked thirty-second notes at about 210 bpm while I'm singing/growling over that and then suddenly the drums go into a regular type beat, still at 210 bpm, but now very smooth, while the guitars are playing power chords and arpeggios at almost a gallop. The drummer has no problem playing the blasts, but the bass player can't play the trem-picked 32nd notes, so he plays them as 16th notes. It still sounds good. And, lately he's been trying it by playing just the root notes as 16th notes instead of playing all the same notes as us. And that sounds good too.

We had written this one song before we had a drummer that had insane psychotic double bass. Now, with a real drummer, he does some pretty cool double bass and I kinda like his version better than the programmed one, but it isn't as insane as the one we had made before. Me and the other guitarist always tell the drummer, "Hey, we aren't drummers. This is just the general kinda drums we were visualizing, but change them anyway you want. This is just so you can get an idea." And oftentimes he changes the drums a lot from what we had in mind.

 

[Matt Crooks]

... Usually, when I get to the audition, it is three guys: a bassist who thinks he can play with his fingers but really sounds like he is dragging sausage links across the strings in random patterns, a drummer with three cymbal stands that all fall over when he hits them and the double kick styles of three year old with a hammer, and a vocalists that sounds like he is strangling a cat while running with a box full of aquarium gravel.

Mike was there too, right?

 

[eaeolian]

Mike was there too, right?

That took you long enough.

 

[Matt Crooks]

That took you long enough.

I've been too busy to be a smartass.

 

[7 Dying Trees]

I think a lot of this drive for speed has killed people's drive to write a good song, In a lot of cases it's like a sport, endurance and speed. But I don't like listening to sport.

Having a song is way more important than the speed it's played at. To me, it's like most fans of extreme musicianship are musicians themselves rather than joe public, who may think it's awesome because of the speed, but not because of the tunes.

 

[eaeolian]

Good point. I also think too many people confuse speed and energy - you can be very energetic in your playing without having to be fast...

 

[7 Dying Trees]

Good point. I also think too many people confuse speed and energy - you can be very energetic in your playing without having to be fast...

I actually think extreme speed detracts from energy. When it's all precision, you end up removing the rawness and power that gives you energy, in so far that speed means less movememnt, less "mass" when hitting the strings. I also think with extremem speed you just lose heaviness, just becomes mush when trying to combine the two.

 

[Oogadee Boogadee]

I'll always admire extreme speed from a player who can hit hard enough to get good tones from a real acoustic kit. I think Lombardo may be one of the fastest hard-hitters out there. I'm sure there are plenty who hit slightly lighter, and go slightly faster. That's the range I like there..... really impressive. Grip Inc records rule because of the acoustic drum tones... huge drum sounds. INC was done in all analogue. It sounds great.