Since this video has been posted, one of the drummers that was covered, Lord Marco, had been going pretty hard on social media to defend himself on his ability to play drums… If Lord Marco ever happens to see this, I just want to say that nobody has once questioned your ability. Most everyone that knows of you and your playing has even said you are an absolutely killer drummer, including myself, AND Mike Caputo who made the original video on you. There’s no questioning your technical ability. What happened is that you got called out by a fellow drummer for editing your videos while constantly arguing and fighting that all of your stuff you post is „100% raw and unedited“. THAT is the issue, not your playing. If he‘s wrong, prove him wrong.
Manuel Gardener-Fernandes had a controversy a while back about punching in notes in some of his IG videos. That doesn't change the fact that he still rips Unprocessed songs live.
That is understood Tank that Lord Marco is an amazing drummer but the two go hand in hand. If he was that amazing at the drums then the editing would not be needed because he can play whichever song 100% at its bpm. If you’re unable to perfect and master the song then the editing is needed. This is why he is hard pressed to defend his drumming ability.
its going to come out next that Nik Nocturnal paints on the eye shadows and is actually well rested, but are we as a society ready for that revelation?
If you are a liar yourself , yes. This video Shows what a pos you are. If you are an up right person, this video fks you up, because you see, again, how much pos are outhere
Guitar players are always calling out other guitar players. Drummers are so busy loading and unloading drums we are a few years late calling out insecure social media musicians.
As a person who started playing drums in 1977 I want to say thank you for this video. I have been saying to people for years that some of these people on social media are not really doing what they say they are and getting bashed by people that idolize musicians for saying that isn't what they are doing finally is spoken about by someone that is well known. I own my mistakes and don't feel bad that I am not perfect as should all musicians. I actually like hearing the mistakes and seeing how they recover from them. It makes it seem genuine to me. I am tired of people thinking everything has to be perfect because like you said we are human and make mistakes. If you want perfection have a machine do it. I bet people will not go watch a live show of machines playing on a stage because the human factor of a live show is what draws people in.
Yoooo! So I wanna throw my two cents in here for this. There is one comment you pointed out in the video from THESTRYKERPROJECT that says, "But what kills me is, during an actual, live audition, any 'fakery' will be expose. I don't get putting out a not-100% accurate audition." And I know you're familiar with this, Tank, but I wanna clarify for anyone who is not familiar with the touring world and how new members and fill-ins work. I can say this as a fill-in musician for other bands, and as a new member of Cradle of Filth. Rarely do bands have a live audition. Your first show of the tour is usually the first rehearsal. There is no money, time, or means to find a space for most bands to have a rehearsal. There is a reason why most bands who have to replace a member, get someone recommended to them by other touring musicians or someone they know. And you'd be surprised how many really sub par musicians do make it into fill in spots, and how many are even still in those bands.
I'm a drummer, live and studio engineer and can say from experience, it's physically impossible to play blasts at the same dynamic range as hard single hits. Some form of "enhancement" is almost always used to even it out, and it goes back farther than most people realize. Alex Van Halen was doing it in the 80s, Vinnie Paul in the 90s, there were even tricks with gates and white noise used in the 70s. I have no issue if the performance is still real, but it's disingenuous to try and pass an edited performance as a single unedited take.
As a drummer myself winning band competitions, and playing live numerous times over 30 years, there's gigs I played 99% perfect, others 85% and a couple like 60%. With enough practice, that makes perfect.. but drums are technical and nothing will always be 100% perfect. Drummers just need to accept that fact, and stop editing videos because people will pick up on it. We're not stupid.
I love it when amazing musicians show some of their mistakes, it's honest and human. Obviously most people don't wanna share their worst playthrough and will do a second take, but there's always gonna be something and you can't beat yourself up about it. Just be honest instead of pretending. Especially for someone as good as Marco, why do this when you're at that level of skill? It's like deadlifting 600 lbs and then telling everyone you did 800, just makes no sense.
@@dmnhntr86I saw video where Eric Clapton messed up. He put an oops beside his head when he smiled after the mistake. I did not hear it until I really paid attention and watched and listened several times. It was just cool to see him own up to it and bring it in as a funny
The biggest controversy is his claim that it is not edited. Deceit. Many album drums are edited and studio people know that. But they don't lie about it.
Exactly. I think the majority of people fully understand studio albums are edited and touched up because, well, it’s a studio album and they’re going for perfect recordings.
I think most playthroughs/live covers are also edited; I'm not sure if that's considered controversial, though? I don't see much of an issue with it myself *unless* they explicitly claim it's a single take/unedited. When it comes to an audition, I would expect them to be unedited, of course.
In a sense, it's actually more aggravating that they are good players and cheating too. With someone that's fake, at least they have the excuse of having a mountain of practice in front of them to become that good. For the good players? If they'd stop being f'kin lazy and practice like an hour more a day, they'd get to where they were originally trying to fake.
People are really forgetting what humans sound like. With all the quantizing, editing, sampling, tuning, be it singing, drums, guitar.... if you don't do it, people just think you're less good than everyone else who does. I think that's pretty sad.
Exactly. I know people are big on internet videos and stuff. But the truth is, prior to that the same argument of young people feeling defeated by the perceived talent they heard on studio album is in essence the same argument as today. There was probably thousands of kids who heard a Van Halen, Iron Maiden, Metallica or whatever album and heard the guitarwork or drum work or whatever and were absolutely blown away. Got inspired and worked towards the perfection they heard on the album and could never reach it because it's a studio album where the musicians are doing multiple takes and splicing takes together for that perfection. But they were in their garage, basement or bedroom making little mistakes and feeling like they'll never reach the inauthentic peak. And back then it's not like you could just look up an interview or ask the musician yourself about how they recorded it. It's not like Lars was out there doing interviews talking about how many takes it took him to nail Dyer's Eve or whatever song inspired people. Before the internet gave people access to understand what music production and recording in a studio is actually like, your first inclination wouldn't be that they sat in the studio for days on end messing up the song over and over until they finally Frankenstein'd together perfection.
"All this machinery making modern music, Can still be open-hearted, Not so coldly charted, it's really just a question of your honesty Yeah, your honesty One likes to believe in the freedom of music But glittering prizes and endless compromises Shatter the illusion of integrity, yeah" Decades later, Rush lyrics more relevant than ever lol.
"Because of the social media age we're in, people feel like they need to have all of their videos just be perfection now" This. And I include myself in the affected demographic. Even though I'm convinced I'm a pretty good vocalist/drummer, I ALWAYS edit. Even if it's just a little bit. Maybe it's a music producer habit, but honestly it's a bit of insecurity, and a lot of "do you see the guys I have to compete with?" It's like cute girls editing their instagram pics. "Cute" just isn't enough anymore.
Awesome reaction, just a small sidenote: loads of drummers, or even better engineers, will use triggers on the drums just to send that signal to a gate, not to trigger samples with. Gate opens for a set amount of time when the trigger sends a pulse, sound goes through, gate closes again and this way there is less bleed from other instruments. For people that don't know: a gate is a device used by sound engineers, that blocks all incoming sounds unless a certain threshold is met. This way you can block for instance cymbals coming through a snare microphone. Cymbals don't go above the threshold so the sound is blocked, the snare does meet the threshold so the gate opens. Some of these gates can be MIDI or trigger controlled.
Heh, thats me. Thanks for putting that in there and sharing that insight in this format aswell. To defend my Argument a little: I watch a bunch of channels that upload a lot of extreme metal drum cams with the monitor or FOH mix (like drummers from hell e.g.), and there's rarely a trigger to be seen on the snare or toms, but pretty much all those videos have obvious triggers for the bass drum. You can clearly see the triggers in the footcams, and you can also just tell from the consistency of the sound what is and what's not triggered. Granted, those channels don't cover larger Bands, and in general you obviously know much more about the behind the scenes stuff in the live biz, and you obviously had a good example at hand. Point is: a trigger is very, very obvious on the drums if you know what you are looking for, and I didnt see one in Riccardo's video so I just assumed sample enhancement or replacement (as many drummers do in their drum cover clips, people like Eugene Ryabchenko are very open about this). Love your stuff Tank, thanks for covering this topic!
@@ironblast5 Bro, they said "I didn't see triggers, so I assumed sample enhancement or replacement." It's pretty clear by the way they wrote this that they know you can do sample replacement without triggers. Why would someone assume sample replacement can be only done with triggers, when they say they don't see any triggers but suspect sample replacement?
Also, triggers come in a wiiiiide variety of options, could be easily hidden. I agree that the kick is target #1 mainly because it's the hardest to play clean. Hands come easier to us for sure.
@@JordanEmede_376 If you know what you are looking and listening for, a trigger is always fairly obvious in a live set, mostly because they need a cable for the signal to be transported. You can also just tell from the sound, because its always the same. A trigger is not an electric drum, it cannot distinguish between strokes of different power (to my knowledge at least), so the sound is always the same. So if different stick heights produce the same sound, you know for sure. For kickdrums that might be harder to tell, but for faster metal I just tend to assume they are, since kick triggering is so widespread. Also, the moment you see double strokes on the feet and the sound is super consistent, you can be 100% sure they are triggered. Also to be sure: I don't mind triggers, to me its a stylistic choice, and I consider them necessary on the kickdrums if one wants to sound passable at 260 bpm and above.
@GoneAngel I was just clarifying for those in the comments that dont understand sample replacement or triggers. I should have speccified that but I was overtired when I posted my bad homie
Hello from TH-cam algorithm. I don't know why it wanted me to watch exposing drummers, but here we are. It was entertaining to watch. I'm not saying I disagree with anything here, but using a TH-cam video as a proof of something not happening right on beat when it goes that fast is kinda laughable. I'm watching it and I'm like "don't teach people understand frame rate and video capture?" Again, not that I agree with the bottom line, but that single clip about slowing down a YT video and watching for on-beat hits was cringe.
Speaking of triggers, Spencer has been quite open that he uses triggers. His big point was that the sound of triggered kicks is so closely tied to tech death (and death metal more generally) that you basically have to to make it sound right.
this is why Kevin Paradis is the best fit in my opinion... hes always been honest about triggers and tries to educate people around using them correctly
Or Andrew Tkaczyk from The Ghost Inside as far as explaining their use. Even with his custom pedal he says he can’t hit his kick with anywhere the same power post amputation so he uses a trigger instead. That was the moment I basically understood why they should be considered acceptable.
Also, like Tank mentions you actually have to be *cleaner* to play with triggers especially with kicks. Every little imperfection is glaringly obvious, whereas natural kicks tend to just blur together at fast tempos. Triggering snares and toms is a bit different…I personally prefer guys like Eric Morotti (Suffocation) who play big, natural strokes with some variation between notes.
Dude... as someone who's been going to death metal shows since the 90s... I say, TRIGGER EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME ALWAYS EVER!!!! Not on the album, but live? Abso-fucking-lutely! I've literally stopped going to metal shows because every show the sound guy has no idea how to mix a death/black metal band and all you can hear are static guitars, vox loud as fuck, the bass player could've just stayed on the bus, and the kick drums are typing a novel at 300 wpm. The snare only cuts during skank beats or "slayer beats" (as my band always called them). Blasts, the snare completely disappears EVERY TIME no matter what band. Go watch some old Necrophagist videos and see if you can hear the snare, maybe if the audio is coming from the board and mixed in post. People always talked shit on Pete Sandoval back in the day for triggering everything, but I'll say this, when Morbid Angel toured the states with At the Gates and Dissection, Pete was the only drummer you could hear perfectly the entire night. As for cheating... everyone cheats. Every band ever would be called out on TH-cam if you saw video of their ProTools wizardry. Even before ProTools there was Megadeth looping "Poison was the cure". Gene Hoglan has been known to quantize the shit out of his stuff. How many bands have you heard where the double bass sounds insane on the album and then you go see the band live and the double bass sounds like a bag of oranges going down a flight of stairs. "oh bro my triggers weren't working right tonight". "Yeah, man... Terrible when that happens EVERY night!". It's just significantly worse these days cause everyone wants that social media clout and click revenue, and everyone else is a keyboard warrior. To me, if you're going to put yourself out there on any platform, be ready to take the heat that comes with it. Even if you're NOT chopping videos, you're never going to please everyone all the time and someone who's never even picked up a drumstick will talk shit. If Marco doesn't like the heat, do a live stream or make a new legit raw video and shut everyone up or take the videos down... otherwise, deal with the haters and fallout. Can't have it all. Bold move with the White Sox hat these days. I think they recently crushed an MLB attendance record with a total of 17.
There is also the flip side to this.. some young drummers see those edited drum playthroughs.. and don't realize they are edited.. so they actually do figure out how to play those parts that perfectly and that good. Def not the majority but if you notice.. a lot of young drummers are insanely good now.
Craig kinda brought that up in his entire video with people like Chris Turner. But people like that are true outliers. Like the top 0.1% of people that can actually do it.
There's also just an evolution in skill base. Every generation of musician has another generation of boundary-pushing influences behind them, no fake shit required.
My thoughts exactly. Not that I endorse lying about it but once somebody sees that it's actually possible then the bar has been raised and meant to be broken. This generation of musicians are far better than musicians in the past with the exception of one thing. I think with all the technology to be able to perfect their playing the soul has been lost and it seems lifeless although technically mind-blowing.
This reminds me of something Karl Jobst said about fakers/cheaters in speedrunning. I don’t recall the quote excactly but it goes along the lines of: “they[top speed runners who fake runs] don’t do it because they need to to win, they do it because they think that they deserve to win”
@@Carriesaglock I mean go watch his videos but Billy Mitchell comes to mind. KQLY from CS:GO who was the top pro in counterstrike. There are dozens of them, that's why Karl Jobst continues to make videos about these people.
At 17:12 that’s a point that I’ve never personally understood as a drummer. Anytime I see anyone doing something amazing, I try to learn as much as I can from it and get better. I’ve never been discouraged from seeing legends play legendary stuff, only inspired. It’s hard for me to fathom anyone having any other mindset personally.
Drummers are getting exposed, and now what we need to see next is guitar players getting exposed Edit: Lmao 🤣 11:20 I had the displeasure of interacting with one of those fake accounts 😂 Called out the account without saying names 😏
the youtube guitar community has already done that. all the notable content creators leave the mistakes in. ola, Glenn, Andy, the boys at andertons, the only ones that don't are the ones who make gear demos and make it aware they've edited the videos.
I can't recall off the top of my head which drummers or videos as it has been a long time, but I remember some drum videos from back in the day where they would edit out the fuck ups, but they would include a little compilation at the end of the video with the fuck ups. Totally respectable in my opinion as they aren't trying to pretend like they nailed it in that one take.
6:58 - As someone who is into fitness I'm completely not surprised, considering how many influencers are so incredible obviously on juice, and there's so many peoples blind to that. I see music scene have similar problem with this shit.
@TankTheTech right? If you were to judge society based solely on social media, you would come away under the impression that nobody has EVER had a bad day in their entire adult life.
The filters and only using peak photos is more in line with your point I think, steroids still leave you with real results. You just don’t get to see the rough edges on social media.
Metallica has been editing Lars' sloppy performances since the day they started offering "live" performances for sale on their website. And now they do it especially for TH-cam.
Also note, from an audio engineer/mixer perspective, triggers can be used for musical reasons to cut through a dense mix or replace a terribly tuned snare, bass drum, etc, that's replace with a better sounding audio. Snare lacking low end? Slip in a trigger audio that's 50% percent of the real drum sound, or blend to taste. Bass lacking attack/click of the beaters & not audible through a dense metal mix during fast double bass? Slide in another bass sound with x % with the original sound, to have both a beefy kick but yet able to cut through the density. This is used nearly ALL the time in gigs/studios/cover, etc.
21:30 Yes, for me a "hero drummer with triggers" was Nick Barker, who was one of the musicians responsible for me realizing that I actually love extreme metal. His performance of Kings of the Carnival Creation on World Misanthropy did that. Live. I still remember the exact moment in the song, when he just blows my mind. And afaik he never pretended otherwise. All drums triggered. Cymbals real. Be musical, be honest, youre golden.
@@TankTheTech 😂😂😂 "Next *** to say something whilst I'm talking is gettin shot" Whole sketch is genius. Thanks for all the great content, bro. Can also totally relate on the bass-playing front!
An album I recorded drums on, we triggered the kicks, snare, and toms. The toms were actually mesh pads that we added samples to later, but the snare we mic'd and triggered and blended the real sound with a sample. We did this to save time as I only had 2 full days in the studio to record the drums for like 9 songs. This was back in 2010, so it was a while ago...I think nowadays you would just program the drums, but the point here is that triggering all the drums was certainly more common than people would think. When I played live though, the only thing I would trigger was my kick, because live sound is usually not as complicated as recording sound for an album. But I always made an effort to make sure anything I recorded, whether it was a live capture or a sample or quantization, would be how I would actually play it. That you would never hear anything on the album that I couldn't play live, or that needed 4 hands to play. This was especially true on drum play throughs, etc. I have seen drummers in the past basically play along with a pre-recorded track, similar to shooting a music video, but claim it was all live sound. I think that's kind of shady and is probably what is being discussed here. It's one thing to create a track that is impossible for one person to play because you are just creating music and that track needed a complicated drum part. That is perfectly fine. But it is another thing when you play a drum track that requires 4 hands, and state that you did it all yourself live....in one take. Bullshit. Anyways, as a retired metal drummer, I find this an interesting topic and I guess am kind of glad that this is now getting some attention. I think before when we would see this shit we would just kind of ignore it, but perhaps it's too hard to ignore these days and now a light is being shined on this aspect of creating music.
Thank you for that short explanation with triggers as i didn’t really understand how they work. It really makes sense for drummers to use while touring to keep the quality of the parts for the show. I prefer the human element in music as it’s hard to play super technical parts 6 nights a week and I like to hear the subtle differences in everyone’s performances. I play live on upright bass and most songs I know the actual written part but i find it fun to not play everything the same everytime. Makes it more entertaining for me.
people bitching about kick triggers are ridiculous. have you heard an untriggered kick flying at high bpms? it sounds like absolute shit because of PHYSICS. at high bpms, the drum heads can't even rebound quick enough to make a decent sound. also, extreme metal genres have been using triggers on kicks pretty much since the beginning, it's just part of the sound.
As an amateur musician, this is the reason I'll never post any of my shit publicly. The pressure of perfection and the need to be better than the next guy can get to anyone. My music is my therapy and doesn't need to be perfect. I can pretty much guarantee if I started letting random strangers listen to it that I would not be able to rise above that need for inhuman perfection.
I know you'll stop reading this 'cuz of my tone, so just click read more, skip it all, and go right down to the bottom paragraph. You're welcome As a human, you sound like a loser. Stfu and post it you coward. Fuqq the haters. Make art, you dork. You're trapping your own expression in your fear. Stfu. Post it. Shawn Lane hit sour notes, you can post it, it's okay. Post it, dude. It's your art. Or, it's not, in which case stop whining about it. I'm being serious. Post it. Force yourself. It's okay, dude. I know I came in hot, but seriously, my brother, post it; it's okay. Shawn Lane hit sour notes. Just post your art, dude. There are seven billion humans, if enough people see it you will get literally every conceivable response no matter what you post. Shut up. Post your art, dude. You have a need for perfection..? Then achieve it. With practice. Which you get by doing. So do. Post it. Shawn Lane was perfection. He hit sour notes. He only hit like seven, but he's a god, and he still hit sour notes. Perfection is effective expression. You can achieve that. Nobody has technical perfection. People still play music. Stfu, dude. Post your art. Like, now. Today. Tomorrow. Go out this weekend and do an open mic. I'm not joking. Post your art, dude. It's a learning experience that you need. I know you're not still reading 'cuz of how I opened, but go to the search field up top and type in "The dialectics of rick and morty" [it's by cj the x] and watch the first seven minutes
you don’t have to post it. there’s nothing wrong with that. but i’d at least recommend (personally, my own opinion) recording yourself, for yourself. That way, you have reference points, for yourself, to show growth.
It’s not really about being perfect, it’s about owning your performances and not lying about editing them. There nothing wrong with editing, if that’s what you want to do, so long as you’re honest about it. There’s also nothing wrong with having mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. I get what you mean though. I feel the same way about playing live. I don’t want to do it unless I know I can do it perfectly, and I don’t have that kind of time to dedicate to it. I’m also very happy just playing at home for my own enjoyment.
The insistence on social media that every musical performance be 100% perfect is ruining musical expression. You see drum cams of metal drummers halfway through gigs beating the drums, sweating and getting a whole crowd bouncing and the comments will say "sloppy footwork, very lazy!"
Wings of Pegasus similarly exposes pitch correction on TH-cam videos. It's gotten so far that someone (we don't know who) is pitch correcting elite singers' recordings - singers like Freddie Mercury, Barry Gibb... I think he even had a video on Paul McCartney.
Don't forget Ken Tamplin lip-syncing parts of his live shows and miming in his videos. Remember his famous quote: 'It appears that I have the backing track, let's fire it up and see how it goes...' And let's not forget those impressive high notes he hits on guitar, even though the fretboard doesn't actually allow him to reach those notes.
@@alexleclerc1I can understand the guitar if you are using an effect, like a pedal or rack gear or anything really as long as you are hearing whatever the guitar player is actually playing before it hits the speakers. I'm not against effects on instruments or even drums (which are instruments), but dislike hearing live performances are being edited or dishonestly putting something like lead vocals being put on a backing track (backing tracks are a whole other issue) while someone pretends to or they cut amplification to someone's playing. Pitch altering effects are cool on guitars and bass, but not ones that make it so the note you play isn't what creates the way the tone is heard. Same for vocals if you want, the live vocals should make the pitch, and any effects sound how they do based on that. I certainly wouldn't be disappointed in a singer, providing they are honest about it and where it is during a set of even on an album, especially anyone asks you, or praises you for hitting a really hard but realistic note, (Not disclosing using effects that alter a singers pitch is dishonest to people consuming your music, especially live) if you sing it at a lower register but run it through an octave pedal or something as long as it originates from the note you actually sing. It might be kind of cool if you arrange a part with a harmonizer and you sing the low part, but telling people you are singing the lower part of the harmony during whatever line. It would probably help a lot of older bands, especially some older bands playing arenas, where singers struggle and kill their voice the first week or two of a 6 month. As long as it's honest, and not excessive I think it's ok. Sorry to anyone that reads this, having a little party with myself and feeling pretty good, got a bit carried away on a rant.
@@alexleclerc1I'm pretty fucked up, so don't mind my long winded message. I saw the video on Tamplin, I bet he doesn't teach his paying customers these vocal techniques.
In Lord Marco’s defense, I actually don’t think it’s him making the burner accounts. I think it’s just a crazy fan. Edit: Uh… nevermind. After seeing the “Spencer wrote his parts to replicate mine” comment, he might actually be that much of a narcissist. 😂
Dude, I had the same thought the second I read that comment. I unsubbed the second read it. Was already hard to support the guy than he posted that. Dude's ego is wild at this point. I was a huge fan of him when I was a young man, and I was teaching myself to play the drums. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Great video and great points made. I 1000% agree with you on your final thoughts segment. This is why I geek out so hard for DCI and seeing that level of drumming musicianship in the lot LIVE every year.
shit like this has been DESPERATELY needed in the metal community. not just drummers, but metal musicians of all kinds. 95% of the guys faking shit are INCREDIBLY talented musicians, but not only are they giving their community a very skewed view of what a world class metal drummer can actually do, but most are also just lying to people. we need not only more accountability on this, but more appraisal and championing of stuff that isn't edited and quantized to fuck and replaced with samples. perfect is not human. no matter who you are. guys like spencer and david diepold and john longstreth can get pretty fucking close, but imperfections are what give parts human feel and flow and energy. 127 velocity snare blasts not only sound so fucking overpowering in every mix, but it's a GIANT turn off hearing pure machinery when you're being told its a person.
I agree on the full velocity blast thing. I don't understand why people think I want to hear a full volume snare blasting away at 260+. In my band we put a compressor on the snare mic to lift up the weaker hits a bit so that it can still be heard together with the full volume guitar and base amps but still allow for a noticeable difference in dynamics between a normal beat and a blast beat.
No it pushes true metallers who play in the industry like myself to push the limits. If someone gives up because they think they cant reach that limit then they are not made to be a true metal drummer, they are weak minded. True story But have a good day, i know it is your opinion. 🤘
@@iamdillyj do you like metallica? You do realise alot of lars drumming was edited in studio right? Dyers eve, fight fire with fire, because lars couldnt play the fast double kick parts in studio so they looped it, thats why when you listen to it closely it jumps because they did a terrible editing job lol haha. Marco can play his shit live, the thing everyone is hating on here is he said raw and unedited on his edited video, Marco plays all his shit in studio and live and is now being hated on because of some videos made 6years ago that say unedited on an edited video. Does that not seem stupid to you? Luana from Crypta edits her videos aswell , who fukn cares?
23:49 I was LITERALLY thinking the exact same thing right before you said it - "If anyone out there hates drummers that use triggers, then you also need to hate every guitar player that uses amplifiers or distortion".....great analogy. (Esp with full distortion/gain for sure). Ive heard a LOT of metal/fast drummers record without triggers, and all i can think the whole time is 'God dammit this would sound so much better if they would just use triggers' lol We all need to embrace the technology!!!! As long as we can perform all of this music live, I am all for turnin up the electricity!!! 🤘☠️🤘
On one hand, I can see why they want to put out "perfection"; to minimize trolling. On the other hand, it reduces the number of full "takes" they have to do. Both Eddie Van Halen and Alex Lifeson would play multiple guitar solos (in studio) put together the best bits then learn that new, whole solo, which was often nearly impossible to pull off. So this kind of thing isn't a new concept.
But nobody ever pretends that recording an album, or adding a ton of extra shit to a song you'll never play live, is 'raw and unedited' If dude didn't throw that out there nobody would care that he's beefing up the tracks to get a full sound Edit: which is what Tank says around the 15ish minute mark
Yeah, and he was one of the examples that Craig used in his full video that is a true outlier and freak of nature. The dude just did what it took to get THAT good. He’s literally in the upper 0.1%.
Most metal bands right now are recording guitars in slow motion, perfecting the editing process, and speeding up the riffs to match the actual song’s tempo/playing speed. Many guitar players don’t play their songs ever until it comes time to tour. A lot of wizardry and smoke and mirrors happen in the studio.
As a life long gym rat(and out of practice drummer), I think we need some 'Natty or Not' type of stuff for these musicians, like they have been doing for the lifters using roids that claim to be natural.
i am all for 'perfection' for studio albums and i love it when life shows aren't. songs are played differently, variations in instruments and/or musicians. acoustic versions. snapping guitar strings. forgetting notes &| words. that's LIVE
Yes! I was scrolling the comments section for something like this. I would prefer if the studio version was “perfected” (to an extent) for general listening. Live versions of songs or play throughs should be completely unedited and transparent. It keeps music… human- one of the main reasons why I absolutely adore Counterparts as musicians. Their live performances are almost purely just them playing instruments on stage with some background ambient tracks at most.
No I do recording you don’t gate till after in the mix down only in live situations do you gate and limit. The reason for recording why you don’t gate is to keep sub harmonics open in your recording. The compressor is a lot more useful in recording
Photo editing is much older than that. People have been doctoring pictures since the 1822 when it was invented. There are even manuals from that time teaching editing techniques.
"Drummers complain that other drummers are doing what they're doing but making it more obvious," Fixed the title 🤣 I can only find 2 drummers that are 100% mic recorded all the time (Chris Turner and Alex Lopez). A few drummers have a single album or 2 while the rest is replaced or blended. Even Rush had blending and replacement on some albums. Can we get a video of drummers that are only mic recorded?
Triggers will not help you play better. They are made to help maintain a consistent sound. Joey was one of the best drummers because of his heart and ability to play, not because of his technicality and consistency. He was an absolute madman behind the kit. People with THAT sort of drum ability are a rarity and treasure (looking at Eloi).
At those exteme metal speeds, you either have to use triggers or use two bass drums. For double pedals, there's a point where your next hit is just dampening the one that came before it.
@@icehearteddragon You could argue that consitency of your hits is part of that ability. Having said that, I am not at all bothered by triggers. I am slightly bothered by how playing music has became a competition though.
Drum dummy here, what's the difference between triggers and an electric kit? It's either very vague or very obvious, either way I'm not sure what it is.
I love Baard Kolstad's drum playthrough of the Sky is Red. He has another drummer help him with over dubbing. He also ends up missing a China cymbal hit.
Triggers, generally, are used to maintain consistency. To call a drummer fake for using them is nonsense. Social media, and the pressure to look perfect has gotten to a level where it's demotivating people and pushing them away from a style of music that is already difficult to make a name in. Marco isn't fake drummer. Dude is insane. He edits his shit, and even that is ok. Just don't lie about it lol. I also saw him during the myspace days, in his room on his little electric kit doing insane blasts. He was crazy with sleep terror, he was crazy with vital remains. He has no reason to lie about it when no one really questioned his skill. Don't worry about being perfect, especially not on social media. Embrace the mistakes. Jazz has learned that there are no mistakes... just happy little improvised parts :)
I used to occasionally drink beer with a drummer for a world touring black metal band, so we used to talk about his job. One of the things he told me is that playing fast doesn't make you a great drummer. He used to say that not all difficult parts are not about your speed, but that there are other criteria. I don't remember the exact wording, but Eloy said something similar in one interview, also mentioning that he actually practises with songs that are slower than usual metal stuff (correct me if I'm wrong). As far as I understand all those players who are editing their videos are mainly focusing on their speed, right? I guess they want to be Quicksilver of drumming, and what's the point of that?
True. A great drummer has it all - groove, speed, creativity, yet also serving the song perfectly. These Social Media drummers are mostly going after speed because that's what draws attention from normies.. Branching out into different styles, and therefore tempos, makes sure you become more creative and a better musician in general.
Archspire is pretty much the most difficult-to-play tech death band… hell the name of the genre is Technical Death Metal. For that genre, the value of the music is completely reliant on how hard it is to play… that’s what’s going on here.
I think TwoSetViolin (is that their name?) mentioned once something like judging musical skill by speed of the playing is kind of like thinking a ballet is the best when it is just done as fast as possible flailing your limbs around. It kind of misses the point of the music and why it is played in the first place. But you know... this is internet. Everything has to be a competition so we can judge.
Though still disingenuous, Lord Marco can get away with it because he’s still actually good, not much different from his editing. Other drummers who are doing this who AREN’T as good can’t get away with it so easily. I forget who it was but there was a social media drummer who was editing his takes to perfection in post like this and he got hired to join a band but was quickly fired because they could tell immediately he wasn’t nearly as good as he seemed on social media irl. And yes, drummers like Riccardo Merlini and El Estepario Siberiano are 100% quantizing their takes in post in an obvious and ridiculous way
I think that the over-engineered, pitch-corrected nature of digital music in the current day contributes to this problem, alongside social media... where we used to celebrate the difference between the studio performance & the live version as "proof" of musical ability, there's an expectation now that people going to see a live performance will hear the exact same thing as on Spotify. It's sad that musicians at the top of their game feel the need to lie about something like editing or using tools to support their performance, because most of us fans are _FASCINATED_ to learn about things like triggers & techniques employed by artists... maybe I'm really old-school, but I revel in the imperfections of rock & metal music precisely because there is an honesty to it.
Brother I love this video. As a drummer musician for 50+ years I've found the quickest way to be humbled is to watch an iso video playing live. There are so many young gifted drummers it can discourage a seasoned pro. But I like the fact you're encouraging young musicians to stay with it and not get caught up in perfection. We are all only human.
While I absolutely don't want anyone getting discouraged from their passions, it reminds me of one of the best "success stories" from being discouraged. Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull originally wanted to be "the world's greatest guitar player", until he saw Eric Clapton play live and acknowledged he would never be able to surpass him. So he decided if he couldn't be the world's greatest guitar player, then he would become the world's greatest rock flute player instead 😂. Love the vids Tank, keep up the great work!✌
As a sound engineer and drummer I'm not at all against triggers. I would not, however, equate them to "amplifiers and distortion" in such a broad sense. Maybe I'm wrong? I mainly use triggers on drums for gates. Love your vids man!
I completely agree, the conceptual overlap isn’t total. Triggers aren’t intrinsically bad but they can cover sloppy playing or otherwise mask the performance. Granted, a distorted guitar solo can cover up some mistakes that a clean tone will lay bare, but the distortion is a matter of tone before it’s a skill leveler.
I have edrums and have it set up to behave as closely to acoustic as possible. I like dynamics. The solders on my snare trigger broke and rattled so every time I hit it it would sound like a very fast 100% power gravity blast for about 1 measure. My roommate heard me messing around with it and said, "Now you should make a youtube channel. You sound just like all those other guys." Says it all right there.
Same thing has been going on with guitar players. There are tons of videos where you can clearly see that they aren’t playing live yet make it appear like they are and play to an edited track. I think it’s great to start calling these players out. The imperfections are what makes music great. Don’t be afraid to humanize your instrument.
Just for everyone who's confused, this is not just drummers. All of your favourite "unreal" guitarists are doing the exact same thing, it's just much easier to fool in guitar videos. But if you play an instrument at a high enough level you can easily tell anyways.
The ride& bell thing…. I’m not exactly sure what is happening, but if you listen to the audio with just your left side headphone/monitor whatever, with right off…. The bell and the ride are both 100% there, which Mike claims is not happening.
I honestly don’t care about the editing. It takes time and money to record and deadlines/pace are a real thing. I’d argue that editing is pretty much necessary in order to stand up to modern, unreasonable levels of scrutiny. I care about music, performing arts, entertainment, and related things. With that, I think editing is perfectly acceptable. As long as the edits aren’t dishonestly representing the content, it’s fine. Hell, when you hear drum recordings in most metal, you’re not even hearing real drums. They’re either triggered samples or incredibly processed, and everyone seems to be fine with that. So if the entire sound is artificial, what’s the big deal with editing? I think people need to get over it. But going out of your way to double down on the claim that some content isn’t edited, when it really is, is not okay with me. It’s basically a lie. I think there are good points made in this video and the referenced videos. But that’s just my opinion.
It just makes me sad, from both of those guys. Marco is a bat shit crazy drummer, videos where it is 100% live, you can see how hard he hits and how clean he plays. It's a shame to see this level of editing. I've been to one of Riccardo's clinics. I've learned the technique and have seen him utilize it in person. It's fucking incredible, fairly easy to pick up, and genuinely works super well. But there's no doubt he has to trigger/sound replace cuz over cymbal hits and bd playing, you wouldn't hear his snare playing at all. It's a cool technique but it isn't possible to play THAT loud with it.
Love the discussion here! We - like most other bands release the studio drumming track with the official playthroughs, bc people actually want that stuff. We do have a fantastic drummer with Norman, and we release a ton of bts footage with just camera audio to show how good the dude is. But for studio production, stuff is just ridiculously edited- including guitars and vocals, just bc that's the name of the game. Thanks a bunch ❤
This reminds me of the “Beast and the Harlot” breakdown from Avenged Sevenfold where Synyster Gates is talking about the guitar part in the intro and he says something along the lines of ‘if we had the original stems you’d see lines here, here, here, here’
Lmao "he wrote the songs in my style so naturally I can play it perfectly too" is some Dragonball Z ass-pull plot device like this is your body's drumming style and superpower. What the fuck.
I don’t think anyone is questioning the talent of the guy. We all know he’s a good drummer. We‘re questioning why he (and other) awesome drummers are editing their videos but blatantly insisting they’re not.
@@TankTheTech Oh please... you bedroom drummers can't wait to shit on people that are actually giving something to the scene because most of you can't. Who gives a shit if he edits or not? Sure as hell he's light years better than most of you whiners combined and AT LEAST he's giving something back. Quit the whining...
I think it's just so prevalent these days that people's ears have been tuned to expect perfection. If you put out a video on TH-cam, it has to be perfect because all of the others are and ultimately, whether you spent 6 months practicing a 30 second part and then recorded it 1000 times until you got the perfect take or you just edit it, you're not hearing how someone naturally sounds.
I know… not the right crowd, but I think a guy doing the raw 1-take stuff that Tank describes is a ‘classic rock’ guy named. Leland Sklar. He played for Phil Collin’s etc. He sits down, chats about the song, and plays it one take. You can hear rough runs here or there, but I love watching that. Reminded me of what Tank described he’d rather see. Loved this breakdown! I agree all around.
On the Merlini bit, how is that not just shitty recording equipment not being able to physically keep up with how fast that dude is going? And the quality on this video is so bad that I can't tell what's what. Is it the original video that's bad or the "reacts video"? Or is it this video? I just saw Merlini on the Drumeo video which is recorded in extremely high quality. That dude is legit and I don't think he'd have to edit anything. He's fast AF and has zero reason to edit his vids.
the main problem in this story is that there are far too many musicians who confuse ART with sport. Making music is not like going to the gym. It's as if, to be a good drummer, you had to play fast and loud... it makes no sense. music is an art. Unfortunately, by almost systematically putting forward "performance" rather than musicality, we end up with ego battles that open the door to everything that is possible. The paradox is that in sport, there are rules that define the threshold where cheating begins. In music, there are none. You will ALWAYS be someone else's cheater. If you use a trigger, you will be a cheater for the one who doesn't use one, if you edit, you will be a cheater for the one who doesn't. if you use compression or a transient designer, you will be a cheater for the one who does not use them. if you use too many microphones to balance your drums at best, you will be a cheater for the one who advocates the 4-microphone recording and playing balance. If you play click, you will be a cheater for the one who does not use them... And we can go on like this for a long time, because for the musician without the slightest money who lives in a poor country and who does not even afford a decent kit, for him, the fact that you were born with sufficient means to buy a drum kit, place it in a dedicated room and be able to record it other than with the microphone of a recycled smartphone from 2006, you are already a cheater... And this debate is not new, it's basically an evolution of the "Video kills the radio stars" debate
Hmmm.... So what is fake about Riccardo Merlini? Is it just the song or his speed that comes into question? I've only recently seen him, and he has videos going insanely fast just hitting the palm of his hand! And he also uses practice pads - all of which aren't triggered. Just confused.
Thank you for finally covering this! I’ve been doing all of the drums for Tool and Meshuggah for years but Danny Carey and Tomas Haake keep stealing all the credit! 😢
Watching this as someone without any musical knowledge but a huge love for (technical) death metal and people who can play it, thank you for taking the time to explain terms like triggers and how they work. I get to learn something from your video, it makes the criticism all the more understandable, and I feel somewhat less ignorant on what musicians do. :)
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Since this video has been posted, one of the drummers that was covered, Lord Marco, had been going pretty hard on social media to defend himself on his ability to play drums…
If Lord Marco ever happens to see this, I just want to say that nobody has once questioned your ability. Most everyone that knows of you and your playing has even said you are an absolutely killer drummer, including myself, AND Mike Caputo who made the original video on you. There’s no questioning your technical ability. What happened is that you got called out by a fellow drummer for editing your videos while constantly arguing and fighting that all of your stuff you post is „100% raw and unedited“. THAT is the issue, not your playing.
If he‘s wrong, prove him wrong.
Manuel Gardener-Fernandes had a controversy a while back about punching in notes in some of his IG videos.
That doesn't change the fact that he still rips Unprocessed songs live.
Love this Natty or NOT arc.
What a mess for Marco!
@@stupidgameprizeswhere is Reynlord when you need him?
That is understood Tank that Lord Marco is an amazing drummer but the two go hand in hand. If he was that amazing at the drums then the editing would not be needed because he can play whichever song 100% at its bpm. If you’re unable to perfect and master the song then the editing is needed. This is why he is hard pressed to defend his drumming ability.
its going to come out next that Nik Nocturnal paints on the eye shadows and is actually well rested, but are we as a society ready for that revelation?
Hahahahahaha
That doesnt sound like fun metal things.😊
Poser! 😂
Dude wears makeup for sure, I just wonder if he would admit to it or not!
@huntermengel2683 he's nocturnal, guys. It's in his name.
"Perfection is a flaw in itself, because once reached, we have nothing to strive for."
- Some Wise Old Man.
Perfection is a floating point. The moment you attain it, it changes. - me, right now.
This video should have a trigger warning. Badum tshhhhh.
Hehehehe underrated comment 🤪
Or start with a drum roll
take your like and go
If you are a liar yourself , yes. This video Shows what a pos you are.
If you are an up right person, this video fks you up, because you see, again, how much pos are outhere
You won 🏆
Guitar players are always calling out other guitar players. Drummers are so busy loading and unloading drums we are a few years late calling out insecure social media musicians.
😂😂😂
I'm conflicted as I'm a drummer AND guitarist 😮
As a guitar player... I always haul drums plus my guitars anD amps...
Singers tho....
here i am, trying to make my midi drums sound as realistic as possible. and pro drummers out here try to make their performances as midi as possible.
right?
Same here...we are going backwards I guess xD
hahaha perfect take! Too real 😂
The duality of man!
Lmao
As a person who started playing drums in 1977 I want to say thank you for this video. I have been saying to people for years that some of these people on social media are not really doing what they say they are and getting bashed by people that idolize musicians for saying that isn't what they are doing finally is spoken about by someone that is well known. I own my mistakes and don't feel bad that I am not perfect as should all musicians. I actually like hearing the mistakes and seeing how they recover from them. It makes it seem genuine to me. I am tired of people thinking everything has to be perfect because like you said we are human and make mistakes. If you want perfection have a machine do it. I bet people will not go watch a live show of machines playing on a stage because the human factor of a live show is what draws people in.
"you could set it to farts"
*66Samus-ing intensifies*
oh-yhurrrrrr!
SEKS!
TWENTY-TWOOOOO!
OH YHURRRRRRRRRRR
Sam should obviously do his audition to Archspire just triggering farts.
TWEN...ty twooo
Yoooo! So I wanna throw my two cents in here for this. There is one comment you pointed out in the video from THESTRYKERPROJECT that says, "But what kills me is, during an actual, live audition, any 'fakery' will be expose. I don't get putting out a not-100% accurate audition." And I know you're familiar with this, Tank, but I wanna clarify for anyone who is not familiar with the touring world and how new members and fill-ins work.
I can say this as a fill-in musician for other bands, and as a new member of Cradle of Filth. Rarely do bands have a live audition. Your first show of the tour is usually the first rehearsal. There is no money, time, or means to find a space for most bands to have a rehearsal. There is a reason why most bands who have to replace a member, get someone recommended to them by other touring musicians or someone they know. And you'd be surprised how many really sub par musicians do make it into fill in spots, and how many are even still in those bands.
Excellent point as that does happen a lot.
Craig Reynolds was doing critical 'natty or not' reviews of drum videos since the lockdowns. Worth a dive.
Craig comes across as such a cocky snob and I love it 😂😂
Yes! Please visit Craig for this - not only informative, but freakin' hilarious.
Came here to find this comment!
The one for 40 Roll was gold lol. I love that those two now have a decent friendship. Lol
I just commented this too. Craig has no problem calling out bs.
I'm a drummer, live and studio engineer and can say from experience, it's physically impossible to play blasts at the same dynamic range as hard single hits. Some form of "enhancement" is almost always used to even it out, and it goes back farther than most people realize. Alex Van Halen was doing it in the 80s, Vinnie Paul in the 90s, there were even tricks with gates and white noise used in the 70s. I have no issue if the performance is still real, but it's disingenuous to try and pass an edited performance as a single unedited take.
I think nobody has a problem with triggers and sound engineering. Just tell the truth.
@@chris9650 i giggle seeing a kit mic'd up with $20k of mics only for them to throw the same genre friendly drum samples everyone else is using on it
Mike Portnoy notoriously hates the snare trigger sample the producer insisted on using on Images and Words which came out in 92
What if this was a ploy by Archspire to root out all the "fake" drummers out there?
It’d be kinda funny. 😂
I can actually see them doing this!
4D Chess!
😂
Would be such a plot twist
As a drummer myself winning band competitions, and playing live numerous times over 30 years, there's gigs I played 99% perfect, others 85% and a couple like 60%. With enough practice, that makes perfect.. but drums are technical and nothing will always be 100% perfect. Drummers just need to accept that fact, and stop editing videos because people will pick up on it. We're not stupid.
I love it when amazing musicians show some of their mistakes, it's honest and human. Obviously most people don't wanna share their worst playthrough and will do a second take, but there's always gonna be something and you can't beat yourself up about it.
Just be honest instead of pretending. Especially for someone as good as Marco, why do this when you're at that level of skill? It's like deadlifting 600 lbs and then telling everyone you did 800, just makes no sense.
@@dmnhntr86I saw video where Eric Clapton messed up. He put an oops beside his head when he smiled after the mistake. I did not hear it until I really paid attention and watched and listened several times. It was just cool to see him own up to it and bring it in as a funny
The biggest controversy is his claim that it is not edited. Deceit. Many album drums are edited and studio people know that. But they don't lie about it.
Exactly. I think the majority of people fully understand studio albums are edited and touched up because, well, it’s a studio album and they’re going for perfect recordings.
but dooood... he "forgot" to write a correct description to his fake vids 😆😆😆😆
I think most playthroughs/live covers are also edited; I'm not sure if that's considered controversial, though? I don't see much of an issue with it myself *unless* they explicitly claim it's a single take/unedited. When it comes to an audition, I would expect them to be unedited, of course.
@@exscapeLord Marco is very adamant that it's raw, unedited
In a sense, it's actually more aggravating that they are good players and cheating too. With someone that's fake, at least they have the excuse of having a mountain of practice in front of them to become that good. For the good players? If they'd stop being f'kin lazy and practice like an hour more a day, they'd get to where they were originally trying to fake.
Social media is one of the worst things to happen to the human race. 😑
You will get no argument from me on that one whatsoever.
Hard agree
100% agree
You find no irony in your comment as you’re sitting here on the Internet, watching videos and commenting on them
@@RobertYacobozzinope
"you could replace the drum sound with a fart if you want to " Samus feeling called out
"I ain't fartin on no snare drum" lol.
@@IanVase Id buy the Pip farting on a snare drum album. Just saying.
Exactly what I was imagining , samus and the triggered fart 😂
Pete Sandoval from Morbid Angel have been playing with triggers on his whole kit since the 90's
People are really forgetting what humans sound like. With all the quantizing, editing, sampling, tuning, be it singing, drums, guitar.... if you don't do it, people just think you're less good than everyone else who does.
I think that's pretty sad.
I think that's a pretty self-inflated bit of nonsense
Who are people...? All seven billion of them.....? Hush up, kid. That's happening in your head
They tried to make real instruments as if this is EDM or hip-hop production lol
Exactly. I know people are big on internet videos and stuff. But the truth is, prior to that the same argument of young people feeling defeated by the perceived talent they heard on studio album is in essence the same argument as today.
There was probably thousands of kids who heard a Van Halen, Iron Maiden, Metallica or whatever album and heard the guitarwork or drum work or whatever and were absolutely blown away. Got inspired and worked towards the perfection they heard on the album and could never reach it because it's a studio album where the musicians are doing multiple takes and splicing takes together for that perfection. But they were in their garage, basement or bedroom making little mistakes and feeling like they'll never reach the inauthentic peak. And back then it's not like you could just look up an interview or ask the musician yourself about how they recorded it. It's not like Lars was out there doing interviews talking about how many takes it took him to nail Dyer's Eve or whatever song inspired people. Before the internet gave people access to understand what music production and recording in a studio is actually like, your first inclination wouldn't be that they sat in the studio for days on end messing up the song over and over until they finally Frankenstein'd together perfection.
"All this machinery making modern music,
Can still be open-hearted,
Not so coldly charted, it's really just a question of your honesty
Yeah, your honesty
One likes to believe in the freedom of music
But glittering prizes and endless compromises
Shatter the illusion of integrity, yeah"
Decades later, Rush lyrics more relevant than ever lol.
i rather watch a drummer fuck up and try to save it since that shows skills more than doing it perfect with editing.
Not to mention a bit of groove, and when they really nail it it is that much more impressive.
This is what Archspire themselves said they want to see also.
"Because of the social media age we're in, people feel like they need to have all of their videos just be perfection now"
This.
And I include myself in the affected demographic. Even though I'm convinced I'm a pretty good vocalist/drummer, I ALWAYS edit. Even if it's just a little bit. Maybe it's a music producer habit, but honestly it's a bit of insecurity, and a lot of "do you see the guys I have to compete with?"
It's like cute girls editing their instagram pics. "Cute" just isn't enough anymore.
As an audio engineer, I just assumed all play throughs were edited 😅
As you should unless they specifically say its raw and unedited. Thats the problem.
My 12 subscriber page here though, 100% real guys. lol
Same here mate.
Indeed
I know for a FACT this video he did for anomalous is unedited - he didn't even have a count in ffs lol!
th-cam.com/video/XAcYVObSmcA/w-d-xo.html
Awesome reaction, just a small sidenote: loads of drummers, or even better engineers, will use triggers on the drums just to send that signal to a gate, not to trigger samples with. Gate opens for a set amount of time when the trigger sends a pulse, sound goes through, gate closes again and this way there is less bleed from other instruments. For people that don't know: a gate is a device used by sound engineers, that blocks all incoming sounds unless a certain threshold is met. This way you can block for instance cymbals coming through a snare microphone. Cymbals don't go above the threshold so the sound is blocked, the snare does meet the threshold so the gate opens. Some of these gates can be MIDI or trigger controlled.
Heh, thats me. Thanks for putting that in there and sharing that insight in this format aswell.
To defend my Argument a little:
I watch a bunch of channels that upload a lot of extreme metal drum cams with the monitor or FOH mix (like drummers from hell e.g.), and there's rarely a trigger to be seen on the snare or toms, but pretty much all those videos have obvious triggers for the bass drum. You can clearly see the triggers in the footcams, and you can also just tell from the consistency of the sound what is and what's not triggered. Granted, those channels don't cover larger Bands, and in general you obviously know much more about the behind the scenes stuff in the live biz, and you obviously had a good example at hand.
Point is: a trigger is very, very obvious on the drums if you know what you are looking for, and I didnt see one in Riccardo's video so I just assumed sample enhancement or replacement (as many drummers do in their drum cover clips, people like Eugene Ryabchenko are very open about this).
Love your stuff Tank, thanks for covering this topic!
You dont need triggers to do sample replacement and editing theres Ai programs and drumagog can sample replace miced drum sounds
@@ironblast5 Bro, they said "I didn't see triggers, so I assumed sample enhancement or replacement." It's pretty clear by the way they wrote this that they know you can do sample replacement without triggers. Why would someone assume sample replacement can be only done with triggers, when they say they don't see any triggers but suspect sample replacement?
Also, triggers come in a wiiiiide variety of options, could be easily hidden. I agree that the kick is target #1 mainly because it's the hardest to play clean. Hands come easier to us for sure.
@@JordanEmede_376 If you know what you are looking and listening for, a trigger is always fairly obvious in a live set, mostly because they need a cable for the signal to be transported.
You can also just tell from the sound, because its always the same. A trigger is not an electric drum, it cannot distinguish between strokes of different power (to my knowledge at least), so the sound is always the same. So if different stick heights produce the same sound, you know for sure.
For kickdrums that might be harder to tell, but for faster metal I just tend to assume they are, since kick triggering is so widespread. Also, the moment you see double strokes on the feet and the sound is super consistent, you can be 100% sure they are triggered.
Also to be sure: I don't mind triggers, to me its a stylistic choice, and I consider them necessary on the kickdrums if one wants to sound passable at 260 bpm and above.
@GoneAngel I was just clarifying for those in the comments that dont understand sample replacement or triggers. I should have speccified that but I was overtired when I posted my bad homie
Hello from TH-cam algorithm. I don't know why it wanted me to watch exposing drummers, but here we are. It was entertaining to watch.
I'm not saying I disagree with anything here, but using a TH-cam video as a proof of something not happening right on beat when it goes that fast is kinda laughable. I'm watching it and I'm like "don't teach people understand frame rate and video capture?"
Again, not that I agree with the bottom line, but that single clip about slowing down a YT video and watching for on-beat hits was cringe.
Speaking of triggers, Spencer has been quite open that he uses triggers. His big point was that the sound of triggered kicks is so closely tied to tech death (and death metal more generally) that you basically have to to make it sound right.
Past 240 bpm triggers are necessary for velocity
this is why Kevin Paradis is the best fit in my opinion... hes always been honest about triggers and tries to educate people around using them correctly
Or Andrew Tkaczyk from The Ghost Inside as far as explaining their use. Even with his custom pedal he says he can’t hit his kick with anywhere the same power post amputation so he uses a trigger instead. That was the moment I basically understood why they should be considered acceptable.
Also, like Tank mentions you actually have to be *cleaner* to play with triggers especially with kicks. Every little imperfection is glaringly obvious, whereas natural kicks tend to just blur together at fast tempos. Triggering snares and toms is a bit different…I personally prefer guys like Eric Morotti (Suffocation) who play big, natural strokes with some variation between notes.
Man are we still having the trigger debate? Any top drummer will tell you triggers don’t make your playing better
Dude... as someone who's been going to death metal shows since the 90s... I say, TRIGGER EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME ALWAYS EVER!!!! Not on the album, but live? Abso-fucking-lutely! I've literally stopped going to metal shows because every show the sound guy has no idea how to mix a death/black metal band and all you can hear are static guitars, vox loud as fuck, the bass player could've just stayed on the bus, and the kick drums are typing a novel at 300 wpm. The snare only cuts during skank beats or "slayer beats" (as my band always called them). Blasts, the snare completely disappears EVERY TIME no matter what band. Go watch some old Necrophagist videos and see if you can hear the snare, maybe if the audio is coming from the board and mixed in post. People always talked shit on Pete Sandoval back in the day for triggering everything, but I'll say this, when Morbid Angel toured the states with At the Gates and Dissection, Pete was the only drummer you could hear perfectly the entire night.
As for cheating... everyone cheats. Every band ever would be called out on TH-cam if you saw video of their ProTools wizardry. Even before ProTools there was Megadeth looping "Poison was the cure". Gene Hoglan has been known to quantize the shit out of his stuff. How many bands have you heard where the double bass sounds insane on the album and then you go see the band live and the double bass sounds like a bag of oranges going down a flight of stairs. "oh bro my triggers weren't working right tonight". "Yeah, man... Terrible when that happens EVERY night!". It's just significantly worse these days cause everyone wants that social media clout and click revenue, and everyone else is a keyboard warrior. To me, if you're going to put yourself out there on any platform, be ready to take the heat that comes with it. Even if you're NOT chopping videos, you're never going to please everyone all the time and someone who's never even picked up a drumstick will talk shit. If Marco doesn't like the heat, do a live stream or make a new legit raw video and shut everyone up or take the videos down... otherwise, deal with the haters and fallout. Can't have it all.
Bold move with the White Sox hat these days. I think they recently crushed an MLB attendance record with a total of 17.
There is also the flip side to this.. some young drummers see those edited drum playthroughs.. and don't realize they are edited.. so they actually do figure out how to play those parts that perfectly and that good. Def not the majority but if you notice.. a lot of young drummers are insanely good now.
Craig kinda brought that up in his entire video with people like Chris Turner. But people like that are true outliers. Like the top 0.1% of people that can actually do it.
@@TankTheTech Alex Rüdinger is another good example of that!
There's also just an evolution in skill base. Every generation of musician has another generation of boundary-pushing influences behind them, no fake shit required.
My thoughts exactly. Not that I endorse lying about it but once somebody sees that it's actually possible then the bar has been raised and meant to be broken.
This generation of musicians are far better than musicians in the past with the exception of one thing. I think with all the technology to be able to perfect their playing the soul has been lost and it seems lifeless although technically mind-blowing.
if some young drummers who reach that kind of "perfect playing" surely he/she can hear /understand which is fake which not!
This reminds me of something Karl Jobst said about fakers/cheaters in speedrunning. I don’t recall the quote excactly but it goes along the lines of: “they[top speed runners who fake runs] don’t do it because they need to to win, they do it because they think that they deserve to win”
Like who?
@@Carriesaglock U serious bro, check out his channel - it's full of top rank players cheating
@@Carriesaglock I mean go watch his videos but Billy Mitchell comes to mind. KQLY from CS:GO who was the top pro in counterstrike. There are dozens of them, that's why Karl Jobst continues to make videos about these people.
At 17:12 that’s a point that I’ve never personally understood as a drummer. Anytime I see anyone doing something amazing, I try to learn as much as I can from it and get better. I’ve never been discouraged from seeing legends play legendary stuff, only inspired. It’s hard for me to fathom anyone having any other mindset personally.
Drummers are getting exposed, and now what we need to see next is guitar players getting exposed
Edit: Lmao 🤣 11:20 I had the displeasure of interacting with one of those fake accounts 😂 Called out the account without saying names 😏
Jared Dines already did one. Says Lucas Mann from Rings of Saturn is faking. And a few others.
@@meeze_ Debunked a couple of years ago. Watch Lucas Mann's explanation and demonstration.
@@meeze_ debunked and I THINK (can't recall for sure) Jared retracted it all anyways
@@NPC-30 it wasn't debunked. Lucas is a crybaby and a hack.
the youtube guitar community has already done that. all the notable content creators leave the mistakes in. ola, Glenn, Andy, the boys at andertons, the only ones that don't are the ones who make gear demos and make it aware they've edited the videos.
I can't recall off the top of my head which drummers or videos as it has been a long time, but I remember some drum videos from back in the day where they would edit out the fuck ups, but they would include a little compilation at the end of the video with the fuck ups. Totally respectable in my opinion as they aren't trying to pretend like they nailed it in that one take.
6:58 - As someone who is into fitness I'm completely not surprised, considering how many influencers are so incredible obviously on juice, and there's so many peoples blind to that. I see music scene have similar problem with this shit.
Social media. Everyone has to look perfect even when none of us are.
That's a universal problem of the 21st century
@TankTheTech right? If you were to judge society based solely on social media, you would come away under the impression that nobody has EVER had a bad day in their entire adult life.
It’s sad when somebody so talented ruins their reputation due to an Icarus complex.
The filters and only using peak photos is more in line with your point I think, steroids still leave you with real results. You just don’t get to see the rough edges on social media.
Metallica has been editing Lars' sloppy performances since the day they started offering "live" performances for sale on their website. And now they do it especially for TH-cam.
Also note, from an audio engineer/mixer perspective, triggers can be used for musical reasons to cut through a dense mix or replace a terribly tuned snare, bass drum, etc, that's replace with a better sounding audio.
Snare lacking low end? Slip in a trigger audio that's 50% percent of the real drum sound, or blend to taste.
Bass lacking attack/click of the beaters & not audible through a dense metal mix during fast double bass? Slide in another bass sound with x % with the original sound, to have both a beefy kick but yet able to cut through the density. This is used nearly ALL the time in gigs/studios/cover, etc.
Well yeah, that's all fine.
Nothing wrong with that as it’s not turning 4 notes into a 6 stroke roll.
21:30 Yes, for me a "hero drummer with triggers" was Nick Barker, who was one of the musicians responsible for me realizing that I actually love extreme metal. His performance of Kings of the Carnival Creation on World Misanthropy did that. Live. I still remember the exact moment in the song, when he just blows my mind. And afaik he never pretended otherwise. All drums triggered. Cymbals real. Be musical, be honest, youre golden.
Props for the Ice-T Player Hater's Ball clip 😂 hate, hate, hate, hate
"MAN YOU CORNY"
@@TankTheTech 😂😂😂 "Next *** to say something whilst I'm talking is gettin shot"
Whole sketch is genius.
Thanks for all the great content, bro. Can also totally relate on the bass-playing front!
"Looks like he wears underwear with dick holes in em".
An album I recorded drums on, we triggered the kicks, snare, and toms. The toms were actually mesh pads that we added samples to later, but the snare we mic'd and triggered and blended the real sound with a sample. We did this to save time as I only had 2 full days in the studio to record the drums for like 9 songs. This was back in 2010, so it was a while ago...I think nowadays you would just program the drums, but the point here is that triggering all the drums was certainly more common than people would think.
When I played live though, the only thing I would trigger was my kick, because live sound is usually not as complicated as recording sound for an album. But I always made an effort to make sure anything I recorded, whether it was a live capture or a sample or quantization, would be how I would actually play it. That you would never hear anything on the album that I couldn't play live, or that needed 4 hands to play. This was especially true on drum play throughs, etc. I have seen drummers in the past basically play along with a pre-recorded track, similar to shooting a music video, but claim it was all live sound. I think that's kind of shady and is probably what is being discussed here.
It's one thing to create a track that is impossible for one person to play because you are just creating music and that track needed a complicated drum part. That is perfectly fine. But it is another thing when you play a drum track that requires 4 hands, and state that you did it all yourself live....in one take. Bullshit. Anyways, as a retired metal drummer, I find this an interesting topic and I guess am kind of glad that this is now getting some attention. I think before when we would see this shit we would just kind of ignore it, but perhaps it's too hard to ignore these days and now a light is being shined on this aspect of creating music.
Saw your comment on Caputos video....was wondering if you were gonna make a video about it! Spot on tank!
Haha yeah I saw it too. Honestly seems like Caputos video caught everyone’s attention even big names like Dan Presland.
Thank you for that short explanation with triggers as i didn’t really understand how they work. It really makes sense for drummers to use while touring to keep the quality of the parts for the show. I prefer the human element in music as it’s hard to play super technical parts 6 nights a week and I like to hear the subtle differences in everyone’s performances. I play live on upright bass and most songs I know the actual written part but i find it fun to not play everything the same everytime. Makes it more entertaining for me.
Mike and Marco both played with Rings Of Saturn too.
Marco did it better, too. Why mike is a bitch about it.
Yeah Mike talks about his video.
Oh wow I totally forgot about them
people bitching about kick triggers are ridiculous. have you heard an untriggered kick flying at high bpms? it sounds like absolute shit because of PHYSICS. at high bpms, the drum heads can't even rebound quick enough to make a decent sound. also, extreme metal genres have been using triggers on kicks pretty much since the beginning, it's just part of the sound.
As an amateur musician, this is the reason I'll never post any of my shit publicly. The pressure of perfection and the need to be better than the next guy can get to anyone. My music is my therapy and doesn't need to be perfect. I can pretty much guarantee if I started letting random strangers listen to it that I would not be able to rise above that need for inhuman perfection.
I know you'll stop reading this 'cuz of my tone, so just click read more, skip it all, and go right down to the bottom paragraph. You're welcome
As a human, you sound like a loser. Stfu and post it you coward. Fuqq the haters. Make art, you dork. You're trapping your own expression in your fear. Stfu. Post it. Shawn Lane hit sour notes, you can post it, it's okay. Post it, dude. It's your art. Or, it's not, in which case stop whining about it. I'm being serious. Post it. Force yourself. It's okay, dude. I know I came in hot, but seriously, my brother, post it; it's okay. Shawn Lane hit sour notes. Just post your art, dude. There are seven billion humans, if enough people see it you will get literally every conceivable response no matter what you post. Shut up. Post your art, dude. You have a need for perfection..? Then achieve it. With practice. Which you get by doing. So do. Post it. Shawn Lane was perfection. He hit sour notes. He only hit like seven, but he's a god, and he still hit sour notes. Perfection is effective expression. You can achieve that. Nobody has technical perfection. People still play music. Stfu, dude. Post your art. Like, now. Today. Tomorrow. Go out this weekend and do an open mic. I'm not joking. Post your art, dude. It's a learning experience that you need.
I know you're not still reading 'cuz of how I opened, but go to the search field up top and type in "The dialectics of rick and morty" [it's by cj the x] and watch the first seven minutes
you don’t have to post it. there’s nothing wrong with that. but i’d at least recommend (personally, my own opinion) recording yourself, for yourself. That way, you have reference points, for yourself, to show growth.
It’s not really about being perfect, it’s about owning your performances and not lying about editing them.
There nothing wrong with editing, if that’s what you want to do, so long as you’re honest about it.
There’s also nothing wrong with having mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes.
I get what you mean though. I feel the same way about playing live.
I don’t want to do it unless I know I can do it perfectly, and I don’t have that kind of time to dedicate to it.
I’m also very happy just playing at home for my own enjoyment.
The insistence on social media that every musical performance be 100% perfect is ruining musical expression. You see drum cams of metal drummers halfway through gigs beating the drums, sweating and getting a whole crowd bouncing and the comments will say "sloppy footwork, very lazy!"
Dude exactly lol. If I had to put that much effort into making everyone happy, I wouldn’t play anymore. It’s supposed to be fun and therapeutic
In the ninetees we called people that cheated or had no clue Posers. Thanks for the great video!
Wings of Pegasus similarly exposes pitch correction on TH-cam videos. It's gotten so far that someone (we don't know who) is pitch correcting elite singers' recordings - singers like Freddie Mercury, Barry Gibb... I think he even had a video on Paul McCartney.
Don't forget Ken Tamplin lip-syncing parts of his live shows and miming in his videos. Remember his famous quote: 'It appears that I have the backing track, let's fire it up and see how it goes...' And let's not forget those impressive high notes he hits on guitar, even though the fretboard doesn't actually allow him to reach those notes.
@@alexleclerc1I can understand the guitar if you are using an effect, like a pedal or rack gear or anything really as long as you are hearing whatever the guitar player is actually playing before it hits the speakers. I'm not against effects on instruments or even drums (which are instruments), but dislike hearing live performances are being edited or dishonestly putting something like lead vocals being put on a backing track (backing tracks are a whole other issue) while someone pretends to or they cut amplification to someone's playing. Pitch altering effects are cool on guitars and bass, but not ones that make it so the note you play isn't what creates the way the tone is heard. Same for vocals if you want, the live vocals should make the pitch, and any effects sound how they do based on that. I certainly wouldn't be disappointed in a singer, providing they are honest about it and where it is during a set of even on an album, especially anyone asks you, or praises you for hitting a really hard but realistic note, (Not disclosing using effects that alter a singers pitch is dishonest to people consuming your music, especially live) if you sing it at a lower register but run it through an octave pedal or something as long as it originates from the note you actually sing. It might be kind of cool if you arrange a part with a harmonizer and you sing the low part, but telling people you are singing the lower part of the harmony during whatever line. It would probably help a lot of older bands, especially some older bands playing arenas, where singers struggle and kill their voice the first week or two of a 6 month. As long as it's honest, and not excessive I think it's ok.
Sorry to anyone that reads this, having a little party with myself and feeling pretty good, got a bit carried away on a rant.
@@alexleclerc1I'm pretty fucked up, so don't mind my long winded message. I saw the video on Tamplin, I bet he doesn't teach his paying customers these vocal techniques.
Merlini has done this in front of top drummers, so ... Basically dude is hating him...
In Lord Marco’s defense, I actually don’t think it’s him making the burner accounts. I think it’s just a crazy fan.
Edit: Uh… nevermind. After seeing the “Spencer wrote his parts to replicate mine” comment, he might actually be that much of a narcissist. 😂
mikecaputoschin channel is pretty damn suspect
Marco is a turd. I asked why his video and audio didn't match, and he immediately resorted to personal insults.
Dude, I had the same thought the second I read that comment. I unsubbed the second read it. Was already hard to support the guy than he posted that. Dude's ego is wild at this point. I was a huge fan of him when I was a young man, and I was teaching myself to play the drums. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
@@jimtobakos1933that guy's been holding f5 on the comment section on both videos for the last 5 days it's fking hilarious
Lord marco is official crazy pants, full fledge conspiracy theorist.
Great video and great points made. I 1000% agree with you on your final thoughts segment.
This is why I geek out so hard for DCI and seeing that level of drumming musicianship in the lot LIVE every year.
shit like this has been DESPERATELY needed in the metal community. not just drummers, but metal musicians of all kinds. 95% of the guys faking shit are INCREDIBLY talented musicians, but not only are they giving their community a very skewed view of what a world class metal drummer can actually do, but most are also just lying to people.
we need not only more accountability on this, but more appraisal and championing of stuff that isn't edited and quantized to fuck and replaced with samples. perfect is not human. no matter who you are. guys like spencer and david diepold and john longstreth can get pretty fucking close, but imperfections are what give parts human feel and flow and energy.
127 velocity snare blasts not only sound so fucking overpowering in every mix, but it's a GIANT turn off hearing pure machinery when you're being told its a person.
I agree on the full velocity blast thing. I don't understand why people think I want to hear a full volume snare blasting away at 260+. In my band we put a compressor on the snare mic to lift up the weaker hits a bit so that it can still be heard together with the full volume guitar and base amps but still allow for a noticeable difference in dynamics between a normal beat and a blast beat.
I'm really glad to see this pushback...
Bout time!
16:44 Agreed. The unrealistic bar is dangerous for the industry and the individual.
No it pushes true metallers who play in the industry like myself to push the limits. If someone gives up because they think they cant reach that limit then they are not made to be a true metal drummer, they are weak minded. True story
But have a good day, i know it is your opinion. 🤘
@@DOOM.SLAYER666bro what. Editing stuff is dangerous. Id rather listen to human drumming
@@iamdillyj do you like metallica? You do realise alot of lars drumming was edited in studio right? Dyers eve, fight fire with fire, because lars couldnt play the fast double kick parts in studio so they looped it, thats why when you listen to it closely it jumps because they did a terrible editing job lol haha.
Marco can play his shit live, the thing everyone is hating on here is he said raw and unedited on his edited video, Marco plays all his shit in studio and live and is now being hated on because of some videos made 6years ago that say unedited on an edited video. Does that not seem stupid to you?
Luana from Crypta edits her videos aswell , who fukn cares?
23:49 I was LITERALLY thinking the exact same thing right before you said it - "If anyone out there hates drummers that use triggers, then you also need to hate every guitar player that uses amplifiers or distortion".....great analogy. (Esp with full distortion/gain for sure). Ive heard a LOT of metal/fast drummers record without triggers, and all i can think the whole time is 'God dammit this would sound so much better if they would just use triggers' lol We all need to embrace the technology!!!! As long as we can perform all of this music live, I am all for turnin up the electricity!!!
🤘☠️🤘
On one hand, I can see why they want to put out "perfection"; to minimize trolling. On the other hand, it reduces the number of full "takes" they have to do.
Both Eddie Van Halen and Alex Lifeson would play multiple guitar solos (in studio) put together the best bits then learn that new, whole solo, which was often nearly impossible to pull off. So this kind of thing isn't a new concept.
Yes but the only problem with the drumming is that he insists that's it's all unedited and raw, which is literally a lie on his part
@@aar0n357 Exactly right! 👍🏽😁
Right, but it’s important to be forthright and honest about what you are doing when asked. Lying about it only exists to stroke your ego.
But nobody ever pretends that recording an album, or adding a ton of extra shit to a song you'll never play live, is 'raw and unedited' If dude didn't throw that out there nobody would care that he's beefing up the tracks to get a full sound
Edit: which is what Tank says around the 15ish minute mark
The small difference there is that they actually played those constructed solos live.
Tank, I just wanna say your explanation of triggers was the best explanation I’ve heard. Don’t beat yourself up 😆
This is where watching Chris Turner’s 40 Roll is epic. True one take and impeccable
Yeah, and he was one of the examples that Craig used in his full video that is a true outlier and freak of nature. The dude just did what it took to get THAT good. He’s literally in the upper 0.1%.
Most metal bands right now are recording guitars in slow motion, perfecting the editing process, and speeding up the riffs to match the actual song’s tempo/playing speed. Many guitar players don’t play their songs ever until it comes time to tour. A lot of wizardry and smoke and mirrors happen in the studio.
As a life long gym rat(and out of practice drummer), I think we need some 'Natty or Not' type of stuff for these musicians, like they have been doing for the lifters using roids that claim to be natural.
Actually thats the best explanation of triggers Ive heard so far (non musician here).
I thought it was excellent too not having any prior knowledge of them
I want Spencer to come out and review these videos and call em out now. He will save us.
Thank you so much for taking the time to clearly explain "trigger" to those of us who are interested but not experienced! ❤
i am all for 'perfection' for studio albums and i love it when life shows aren't. songs are played differently, variations in instruments and/or musicians. acoustic versions. snapping guitar strings. forgetting notes &| words. that's LIVE
Yes! I was scrolling the comments section for something like this. I would prefer if the studio version was “perfected” (to an extent) for general listening. Live versions of songs or play throughs should be completely unedited and transparent. It keeps music… human- one of the main reasons why I absolutely adore Counterparts as musicians. Their live performances are almost purely just them playing instruments on stage with some background ambient tracks at most.
No I do recording you don’t gate till after in the mix down only in live situations do you gate and limit. The reason for recording why you don’t gate is to keep sub harmonics open in your recording. The compressor is a lot more useful in recording
This reminds me of airbrushing photos of models to get rid of the flaws. Same concept different medium.
Photo editing is much older than that. People have been doctoring pictures since the 1822 when it was invented. There are even manuals from that time teaching editing techniques.
"Drummers complain that other drummers are doing what they're doing but making it more obvious,"
Fixed the title 🤣
I can only find 2 drummers that are 100% mic recorded all the time (Chris Turner and Alex Lopez). A few drummers have a single album or 2 while the rest is replaced or blended. Even Rush had blending and replacement on some albums.
Can we get a video of drummers that are only mic recorded?
Triggers will not help you play better. They are made to help maintain a consistent sound. Joey was one of the best drummers because of his heart and ability to play, not because of his technicality and consistency. He was an absolute madman behind the kit.
People with THAT sort of drum ability are a rarity and treasure (looking at Eloi).
At those exteme metal speeds, you either have to use triggers or use two bass drums. For double pedals, there's a point where your next hit is just dampening the one that came before it.
@@BrunodeSouzaLino, that's a fact, but they do not help your ability to play
@@icehearteddragon You could argue that consitency of your hits is part of that ability. Having said that, I am not at all bothered by triggers. I am slightly bothered by how playing music has became a competition though.
Drum dummy here, what's the difference between triggers and an electric kit? It's either very vague or very obvious, either way I'm not sure what it is.
@@pookie2986 In principle there's no difference. Edrums are triggers without the acoustic part. In both cases, you're triggering samples.
This is my first time catching your videos. Appreciate the technical explanations and honest takes. Good stuff.
I love Baard Kolstad's drum playthrough of the Sky is Red. He has another drummer help him with over dubbing. He also ends up missing a China cymbal hit.
One of the few times on camera that Baard is playing drums while NOT topless.
One of my favorite playthroughs ever!
He did a playthrough of Moon or Rewind and he drops a stick halfway through. I wish I could remember which one it was
Baard putting the china far away so he wont over-use it. *Misses*
@@sVieira151 That's the one for Rewind, on the final section. Moon has its own fun bit with him tightening a mic on of the toms without missing a beat
Triggers, generally, are used to maintain consistency. To call a drummer fake for using them is nonsense. Social media, and the pressure to look perfect has gotten to a level where it's demotivating people and pushing them away from a style of music that is already difficult to make a name in.
Marco isn't fake drummer. Dude is insane. He edits his shit, and even that is ok. Just don't lie about it lol. I also saw him during the myspace days, in his room on his little electric kit doing insane blasts. He was crazy with sleep terror, he was crazy with vital remains. He has no reason to lie about it when no one really questioned his skill.
Don't worry about being perfect, especially not on social media. Embrace the mistakes. Jazz has learned that there are no mistakes... just happy little improvised parts :)
I used to occasionally drink beer with a drummer for a world touring black metal band, so we used to talk about his job. One of the things he told me is that playing fast doesn't make you a great drummer. He used to say that not all difficult parts are not about your speed, but that there are other criteria. I don't remember the exact wording, but Eloy said something similar in one interview, also mentioning that he actually practises with songs that are slower than usual metal stuff (correct me if I'm wrong). As far as I understand all those players who are editing their videos are mainly focusing on their speed, right? I guess they want to be Quicksilver of drumming, and what's the point of that?
True. A great drummer has it all - groove, speed, creativity, yet also serving the song perfectly. These Social Media drummers are mostly going after speed because that's what draws attention from normies.. Branching out into different styles, and therefore tempos, makes sure you become more creative and a better musician in general.
Archspire is pretty much the most difficult-to-play tech death band… hell the name of the genre is Technical Death Metal. For that genre, the value of the music is completely reliant on how hard it is to play… that’s what’s going on here.
I think TwoSetViolin (is that their name?) mentioned once something like judging musical skill by speed of the playing is kind of like thinking a ballet is the best when it is just done as fast as possible flailing your limbs around. It kind of misses the point of the music and why it is played in the first place. But you know... this is internet. Everything has to be a competition so we can judge.
@@timmokoo5679 It’s totally a counter-culture.
Though still disingenuous, Lord Marco can get away with it because he’s still actually good, not much different from his editing. Other drummers who are doing this who AREN’T as good can’t get away with it so easily. I forget who it was but there was a social media drummer who was editing his takes to perfection in post like this and he got hired to join a band but was quickly fired because they could tell immediately he wasn’t nearly as good as he seemed on social media irl. And yes, drummers like Riccardo Merlini and El Estepario Siberiano are 100% quantizing their takes in post in an obvious and ridiculous way
Tank-Craig crossover FINALLY!!!
I think that the over-engineered, pitch-corrected nature of digital music in the current day contributes to this problem, alongside social media... where we used to celebrate the difference between the studio performance & the live version as "proof" of musical ability, there's an expectation now that people going to see a live performance will hear the exact same thing as on Spotify. It's sad that musicians at the top of their game feel the need to lie about something like editing or using tools to support their performance, because most of us fans are _FASCINATED_ to learn about things like triggers & techniques employed by artists... maybe I'm really old-school, but I revel in the imperfections of rock & metal music precisely because there is an honesty to it.
That’s why I love playing live. 🥁
Brother I love this video. As a drummer musician for 50+ years I've found the quickest way to be humbled is to watch an iso video playing live. There are so many young gifted drummers it can discourage a seasoned pro. But I like the fact you're encouraging young musicians to stay with it and not get caught up in perfection. We are all only human.
While I absolutely don't want anyone getting discouraged from their passions, it reminds me of one of the best "success stories" from being discouraged. Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull originally wanted to be "the world's greatest guitar player", until he saw Eric Clapton play live and acknowledged he would never be able to surpass him. So he decided if he couldn't be the world's greatest guitar player, then he would become the world's greatest rock flute player instead 😂. Love the vids Tank, keep up the great work!✌
As a sound engineer and drummer I'm not at all against triggers. I would not, however, equate them to "amplifiers and distortion" in such a broad sense. Maybe I'm wrong? I mainly use triggers on drums for gates.
Love your vids man!
I completely agree, the conceptual overlap isn’t total. Triggers aren’t intrinsically bad but they can cover sloppy playing or otherwise mask the performance. Granted, a distorted guitar solo can cover up some mistakes that a clean tone will lay bare, but the distortion is a matter of tone before it’s a skill leveler.
I have edrums and have it set up to behave as closely to acoustic as possible. I like dynamics. The solders on my snare trigger broke and rattled so every time I hit it it would sound like a very fast 100% power gravity blast for about 1 measure. My roommate heard me messing around with it and said, "Now you should make a youtube channel. You sound just like all those other guys."
Says it all right there.
Sometimes the best sounds are made/discovered because accidents are happening it have happened lol.
Same thing has been going on with guitar players. There are tons of videos where you can clearly see that they aren’t playing live yet make it appear like they are and play to an edited track. I think it’s great to start calling these players out. The imperfections are what makes music great. Don’t be afraid to humanize your instrument.
Just for everyone who's confused, this is not just drummers. All of your favourite "unreal" guitarists are doing the exact same thing, it's just much easier to fool in guitar videos. But if you play an instrument at a high enough level you can easily tell anyways.
The ride& bell thing…. I’m not exactly sure what is happening, but if you listen to the audio with just your left side headphone/monitor whatever, with right off…. The bell and the ride are both 100% there, which Mike claims is not happening.
Kevin Paradis from Benighted is the only drummer capable of filling Spencers shoes in my opinion.
I can do it as well!
Bro relax Spencer isn't really that much of a great drummer and he sounds like absolute dogshit live, Kevin is like 10 times more tight and precise.
@@GregASmithh I hadn't seen your playthroughs yet. Yes you can do it as well
You've never heard of Alex Grind? or John Longstreth ??
@@GregASmithh YOU GOT MY VITE BROTHA. YOU'RE SICKKKK!!!
I honestly don’t care about the editing. It takes time and money to record and deadlines/pace are a real thing. I’d argue that editing is pretty much necessary in order to stand up to modern, unreasonable levels of scrutiny.
I care about music, performing arts, entertainment, and related things. With that, I think editing is perfectly acceptable. As long as the edits aren’t dishonestly representing the content, it’s fine.
Hell, when you hear drum recordings in most metal, you’re not even hearing real drums. They’re either triggered samples or incredibly processed, and everyone seems to be fine with that. So if the entire sound is artificial, what’s the big deal with editing? I think people need to get over it.
But going out of your way to double down on the claim that some content isn’t edited, when it really is, is not okay with me. It’s basically a lie.
I think there are good points made in this video and the referenced videos.
But that’s just my opinion.
19:22 The beard stroke, haha, two minds in sync
Class😂
I love that you decided to make a Prison Break reference because I'm currently rewatching it and that reference hit home!
It just makes me sad, from both of those guys. Marco is a bat shit crazy drummer, videos where it is 100% live, you can see how hard he hits and how clean he plays. It's a shame to see this level of editing.
I've been to one of Riccardo's clinics. I've learned the technique and have seen him utilize it in person. It's fucking incredible, fairly easy to pick up, and genuinely works super well. But there's no doubt he has to trigger/sound replace cuz over cymbal hits and bd playing, you wouldn't hear his snare playing at all. It's a cool technique but it isn't possible to play THAT loud with it.
Love the discussion here! We - like most other bands release the studio drumming track with the official playthroughs, bc people actually want that stuff.
We do have a fantastic drummer with Norman, and we release a ton of bts footage with just camera audio to show how good the dude is. But for studio production, stuff is just ridiculously edited- including guitars and vocals, just bc that's the name of the game.
Thanks a bunch ❤
This reminds me of the “Beast and the Harlot” breakdown from Avenged Sevenfold where Synyster Gates is talking about the guitar part in the intro and he says something along the lines of ‘if we had the original stems you’d see lines here, here, here, here’
Lmao "he wrote the songs in my style so naturally I can play it perfectly too" is some Dragonball Z ass-pull plot device like this is your body's drumming style and superpower. What the fuck.
I went to highschool with lord marco, was on the drumline with him in 2004, he is a really talented drummer, one of the best I’ve played with.
I don’t think anyone is questioning the talent of the guy. We all know he’s a good drummer. We‘re questioning why he (and other) awesome drummers are editing their videos but blatantly insisting they’re not.
@@TankTheTech Oh please... you bedroom drummers can't wait to shit on people that are actually giving something to the scene because most of you can't. Who gives a shit if he edits or not? Sure as hell he's light years better than most of you whiners combined and AT LEAST he's giving something back.
Quit the whining...
I think it's just so prevalent these days that people's ears have been tuned to expect perfection. If you put out a video on TH-cam, it has to be perfect because all of the others are and ultimately, whether you spent 6 months practicing a 30 second part and then recorded it 1000 times until you got the perfect take or you just edit it, you're not hearing how someone naturally sounds.
Who are you talking to? Hey, the camera's over here.
it's the autotune epidemic , but for drums.
I know… not the right crowd, but I think a guy doing the raw 1-take stuff that Tank describes is a ‘classic rock’ guy named. Leland Sklar. He played for Phil Collin’s etc.
He sits down, chats about the song, and plays it one take. You can hear rough runs here or there, but I love watching that. Reminded me of what Tank described he’d rather see.
Loved this breakdown! I agree all around.
The cool thing about Archspire is that apart from being technical and brutal, their music also actually super catchy.
On the Merlini bit, how is that not just shitty recording equipment not being able to physically keep up with how fast that dude is going? And the quality on this video is so bad that I can't tell what's what. Is it the original video that's bad or the "reacts video"? Or is it this video?
I just saw Merlini on the Drumeo video which is recorded in extremely high quality. That dude is legit and I don't think he'd have to edit anything. He's fast AF and has zero reason to edit his vids.
That's kinda the entire point. We KNOW he's a good drummer, so why does he feel the need to edit audio on his videos he puts out.
the main problem in this story is that there are far too many musicians who confuse ART with sport. Making music is not like going to the gym. It's as if, to be a good drummer, you had to play fast and loud... it makes no sense. music is an art. Unfortunately, by almost systematically putting forward "performance" rather than musicality, we end up with ego battles that open the door to everything that is possible. The paradox is that in sport, there are rules that define the threshold where cheating begins. In music, there are none. You will ALWAYS be someone else's cheater. If you use a trigger, you will be a cheater for the one who doesn't use one, if you edit, you will be a cheater for the one who doesn't. if you use compression or a transient designer, you will be a cheater for the one who does not use them. if you use too many microphones to balance your drums at best, you will be a cheater for the one who advocates the 4-microphone recording and playing balance. If you play click, you will be a cheater for the one who does not use them...
And we can go on like this for a long time, because for the musician without the slightest money who lives in a poor country and who does not even afford a decent kit, for him, the fact that you were born with sufficient means to buy a drum kit, place it in a dedicated room and be able to record it other than with the microphone of a recycled smartphone from 2006, you are already a cheater...
And this debate is not new, it's basically an evolution of the "Video kills the radio stars" debate
Hmmm.... So what is fake about Riccardo Merlini? Is it just the song or his speed that comes into question? I've only recently seen him, and he has videos going insanely fast just hitting the palm of his hand! And he also uses practice pads - all of which aren't triggered. Just confused.
We should run a campaign to get Lord Marco on Drumeo.
Thank you for finally covering this! I’ve been doing all of the drums for Tool and Meshuggah for years but Danny Carey and Tomas Haake keep stealing all the credit! 😢
This is the same when people thought Infants Annihilators C*nt Crusher drum playthrough was real
They even admitted that most if not all the drums are recorded in segments…Shit like cuntcrusher played at full speed like that is near impossible
Watching this as someone without any musical knowledge but a huge love for (technical) death metal and people who can play it, thank you for taking the time to explain terms like triggers and how they work. I get to learn something from your video, it makes the criticism all the more understandable, and I feel somewhat less ignorant on what musicians do. :)