Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives

Message board

* FAQ    * Register   * Login 



Reply to topic
Author Message Previous topic | Next topic
Prigione Eterna
Metal newbie

Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2020 12:43 pm
Posts: 161
PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2020 9:56 am 
 

Something I've always wondered and this seems like the right place to ask: with extremely fast songs like early Sepultura or Slayer, do the guitars always play four notes per beat or do they play triplets/sextuplets but it's so frantic that you can't really tell?
I've noticed that with, say, Metallica, you can precisely hear the pattern even with their fastest songs; but with, say, Beneath The Remains or Schizophrenia, I never really could.
Troops of Doom is around 250bpm, if I remember well, and playing precise 16th notes at that tempo seems ridiculous to me.
By the way, by "triplets" I don't mean "gallop" (i.e., 16th+16th+8th or reversed), I literally mean triplets (three notes x beat).

Top
 Profile  
SeedsOfTheSuffering
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2020 5:25 pm
Posts: 3
Location: United States
PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2020 1:34 pm 
 

250bpm... that sure is a ridiculous tempo. There is no set-in-stone answer, though I believe there is a certain tempo threshold where 16th notes can just not fly anymore, the human hand can only move so fast while relaxed. After exteeeennnsive training you could probably get close (I wouldn't know though, at least not yet).

The answer: I wouldn't say it's exclusively 16ths or triplets, but I do feel that once a certain tempo is reached, bands would take the route of the triplet. A song I particularly had some trouble with was "Dead & Grotesque" by Spawn of Possession. The intro to be exact, there are triplets used there instead of 16ths.

So I would say it's a case-by-case basis. Hopefully I was able to help a little in that.
_________________
I might have something creative here... when I get to it.

Top
 Profile  
tomcat_ha
Minister of Boiling Water

Joined: Fri Oct 27, 2006 8:05 am
Posts: 5570
Location: Netherlands
PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2020 2:32 pm 
 

some bands do, for example the chugs that Jon of Iced Earth do are absolutely that fast just listen to Pure Evil thats some 1/16th note stuff at v high speed right there.

Top
 Profile  
Awblaster
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2010 6:07 pm
Posts: 617
Location: United Kingdom
PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2020 9:04 pm 
 

Sixteenths at those tempos aren't that hard, especially for rawer sounding shit. One of my old bands would get up to the 260bpm range with 16ths, on the bass as well, and it was fine - it took some metronome drilling with the more complex riffs, but it was pretty easily doable.

Also worth bearing in mind that there's other styles of fast. Tech death and power metal can reach those tempos as well, and require much tighter playing, and there's guys that can do that easy enough.
_________________
Venomwolf - blackened speeding metalpunk - debut album Stormriding Power out now!

Top
 Profile  
Element_man
Metalhead

Joined: Tue Aug 30, 2005 2:37 am
Posts: 1021
Location: Vancouver, Canada
PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 2020 2:02 pm 
 

Prigione Eterna wrote:
Something I've always wondered and this seems like the right place to ask: with extremely fast songs like early Sepultura or Slayer, do the guitars always play four notes per beat or do they play triplets/sextuplets but it's so frantic that you can't really tell?

I think that depends wholly on the player and the level of production involved. The more clear, articulate and layered your guitar sound is, the tighter and more precise it needs to be played.

On a somewhat-related note, there is a very funny clip from the Metallica Documentary "Some Kind of Monster" where James is trying to show Kirk a riff. James is playing triplet-16ths and Kirk is playing straight 16ths. Both of them are sorta bouncing this riff back and forth and getting super frustrated--neither one of them can explain what's wrong and the communication breakdown is delicious to behold.
_________________
Jeff Black
Heavy Metal Producer.
Gatekeeper
Heavy Metal. No new shit.
Encloaked
Dungeon Synth/Fantasy Ambient

Top
 Profile  
Prigione Eterna
Metal newbie

Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2020 12:43 pm
Posts: 161
PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 2020 4:56 pm 
 

Awblaster wrote:
260bpm range with 16ths, on the bass as well


Really? I think not even the bass player in Nile does that. Honestly, I don't think it makes much sense to do that on bass, but that's a matter of taste of course.

Here's a clip that shows well what I'm talking about. From 3:05, more or less:



When Andreas plays Beneath The Remains those sound more like triplets than 16ths to me, but it's so raw and frantic that I can't really tell. Sure, the recording isn't pristine but that's only the guitar; let alone in a full mix.
I know Sepultura better, but I think it's pretty much the same with Exodus, early Slayer or generally those bands with a rawer sound within the genre.

Top
 Profile  
Awblaster
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2010 6:07 pm
Posts: 617
Location: United Kingdom
PostPosted: Fri Jul 31, 2020 6:29 am 
 

Prigione Eterna wrote:
Awblaster wrote:
260bpm range with 16ths, on the bass as well


Really? I think not even the bass player in Nile does that. Honestly, I don't think it makes much sense to do that on bass, but that's a matter of taste of course.


This is the release I made with that band. I don't know the exact tempos on the recording 'cause we tracked it live without a click, but it's all 16ths at pretty high speeds. Some of those songs were still super fresh as well, by the time we'd been playing them for a year or so they were even faster.

When you're playing thrash riffs with the pedal note on the open E and accents on the A string, it's mechanically a lot easier to play 16ths rather than triplets. It means the accents are on downpicks.

Comparing Nile to old-school death/thrash metal isn't really the best thing here, but I'm pretty sure they go even faster.


There's also the crazy fast grind bands, they'll have 16ths at 300bpm kinda speeds.
_________________
Venomwolf - blackened speeding metalpunk - debut album Stormriding Power out now!

Top
 Profile  
Prigione Eterna
Metal newbie

Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2020 12:43 pm
Posts: 161
PostPosted: Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:59 am 
 

Awblaster wrote:
This is the release I made with that band. I don't know the exact tempos on the recording 'cause we tracked it live without a click, but it's all 16ths at pretty high speeds. Some of those songs were still super fresh as well, by the time we'd been playing them for a year or so they were even faster.

When you're playing thrash riffs with the pedal note on the open E and accents on the A string, it's mechanically a lot easier to play 16ths rather than triplets. It means the accents are on downpicks.

Comparing Nile to old-school death/thrash metal isn't really the best thing here, but I'm pretty sure they go even faster.

There's also the crazy fast grind bands, they'll have 16ths at 300bpm kinda speeds.


First of all, although not really my thing (despite this topic, I'm not crazily into the genre), good stuff!

I guess with guitars it's more common than I thought to go that fast, but is it normal with bass? I take your word for it that your bass player was doing it, but I doubt I could have heard the difference if he had played 8ths instead of 16ths and I think normally Tom Araya and the likes don't go that fast.

Top
 Profile  
Awblaster
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2010 6:07 pm
Posts: 617
Location: United Kingdom
PostPosted: Sat Aug 01, 2020 6:04 am 
 

The bass player was me. A large part of it is due to the mechanical side of it, I just find it easier to follow the riffs like that.

The way one approaches playing the bass also plays a part. Using a pick is a big part of it, I know some tech death dudes who can get that fast with three or four finger techniques, but for old-school sounding shit a pick just works better. A healthy amount of distortion is also very useful, not just for the tone, but for the compression that comes with it - it evens out the sound a lot. And then just relaxing and letting the muscle memory take over. For the last track on that EP, the guitarist and I literally spent an entire afternoon doing metronome drill with Guitar Pro files, starting at 50% and working our way up 2% at a time. It was tedious as hell, but it got us up to speed.

A lot of bassists do play 8ths rather than 16ths - partly there's personal preference there, and yeah, sometimes it probably does sound better, but it's entirely possible to play 16ths just as fast as the guitars. Hell, if you think about how some guys play super fast tempos on their 8 string downtuned guitars, the thickest strings on them aren't too far off bass strings, it's not too much of a reach... Also I personally think some bassists are just lazy when it comes to playing fast, but that's just me... Point being, it's entirely possible.

I think in the examples of bands like early Sepultura, there's a good chance they'd be playing (or at least attempting to be playing) the same as the guitars, even if it was just because nobody knew any better. Brute force and ignorance works wonders.
_________________
Venomwolf - blackened speeding metalpunk - debut album Stormriding Power out now!

Top
 Profile  
Prigione Eterna
Metal newbie

Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2020 12:43 pm
Posts: 161
PostPosted: Sat Aug 01, 2020 11:12 am 
 

Awblaster wrote:
The bass player was me. A large part of it is due to the mechanical side of it, I just find it easier to follow the riffs like that.

The way one approaches playing the bass also plays a part. Using a pick is a big part of it, I know some tech death dudes who can get that fast with three or four finger techniques, but for old-school sounding shit a pick just works better. A healthy amount of distortion is also very useful, not just for the tone, but for the compression that comes with it - it evens out the sound a lot. And then just relaxing and letting the muscle memory take over. For the last track on that EP, the guitarist and I literally spent an entire afternoon doing metronome drill with Guitar Pro files, starting at 50% and working our way up 2% at a time. It was tedious as hell, but it got us up to speed.

A lot of bassists do play 8ths rather than 16ths - partly there's personal preference there, and yeah, sometimes it probably does sound better, but it's entirely possible to play 16ths just as fast as the guitars. Hell, if you think about how some guys play super fast tempos on their 8 string downtuned guitars, the thickest strings on them aren't too far off bass strings, it's not too much of a reach... Also I personally think some bassists are just lazy when it comes to playing fast, but that's just me... Point being, it's entirely possible.

I think in the examples of bands like early Sepultura, there's a good chance they'd be playing (or at least attempting to be playing) the same as the guitars, even if it was just because nobody knew any better. Brute force and ignorance works wonders.


I see, it makes sense. I'm probably so skeptic because I hate practicing so much that I find it hard to believe anyone would be that willing to commit :).
Especially on bass. Maybe I don't have a good ear but with most metal I don't have a clue what the bass is doing, I only notice there's something missing if it's not there or if it doesn't glue with the other instruments because the tone or the playing are bad. It seems more like a waste of time. But if you tell me that you notice things like that, I believe you.

Top
 Profile  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Reply to topic


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 18 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

 
Jump to:  

Back to the Encyclopaedia Metallum


Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group