# Fake Shredders



## Spaced Out Ace

I think this is a great video and reminds me of that one awful "band" that was posted on here a year or two back. Faking your guitar abilities is pretty lame, and I'd much rather listen to a "messier" solo like Friedman's at the end of the video than some perfect solo that sounds bland, soulless, and fake. The sad thing is that even guitarists in the 80s were doing this, and I'm sure most of you can name one right off the top of your heads.


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## jaxadam

https://soundcloud.com/jaxadam/not-cheatin


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## Spaced Out Ace

I think Herman Li better watch out!


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## Bdtunn

I always look and see how fast their face and hair twitch


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## gnoll

Wait, are you saying you DON'T like music that's bland, soulless and fake???

But I thought that kind of stuff was in fashion????


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## GRUNTKOR

Didn't Vinny Vincent do this in the '80s?


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## Spaced Out Ace

GRUNTKOR said:


> Didn't Vinny Vincent do this in the '80s?


That's what I was referring to in my initial post. And yes, he did, particularly on the first single, which was a really dumb idea.


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## jaxadam

If you ain’t cheatin’ you ain’t tryin’!


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## BIG ND SWEATY

Call me crazy but I don't give a shit if a guitar solo/riff/entire song is faked with midi and re-amped or recorded half-speed and sped up. All I care about is if it sounds cool and if its written well, if it ticks one or both of those boxes then it'll get some listens from me.

Everyone's argument against this is always that guitar playing isn't a competition so why does it even matter how a song/album is written or recorded?


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## Leviathus

Before i clicked i was crossing my fingers that this was gonna be a diss track from @Spaced Out Ace


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## Spaced Out Ace

Leviathus said:


> Before i clicked i was crossing my fingers that this was gonna be a diss track from @Spaced Out Ace


I would but my rap abilities ain't so good.


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## Hollowway

BIG ND SWEATY said:


> Call me crazy but I don't give a shit if a guitar solo/riff/entire song is faked with midi and re-amped or recorded half-speed and sped up. All I care about is if it sounds cool and if its written well, if it ticks one or both of those boxes then it'll get some listens from me.
> 
> Everyone's argument against this is always that guitar playing isn't a competition so why does it even matter how a song/album is written or recorded?



Yeah, but did you watch the video? He’s saying exactly what you’re saying. What’s bad is when someone claims that they are playing that fast, and aren’t. It’s posting a photo of someone else on your dating profile, or lying on your resume. It just makes the person look like a jackass with low self esteem. I personally love music that many call soulless. But I’m not cool with someone saying they played it or wrote it if they didn’t. It just seems like a weird thing to lie about, and I lose respect for the person.


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## Hollowway

He’s playing the malmsteen strat in that video, ya? I gotta get me one of those.


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## Spaced Out Ace

Blonde and scalloped, so I would assume so.


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## c7spheres

Only Milli Vanilli can and anyone else who was in thier situration could get away with this and stlil get my respect for lying about saying they actually played/sang parts etc. They were duped by blackmailer type's, plus they could still sing, just not as intelligibly.


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## BIG ND SWEATY

Hollowway said:


> Yeah, but did you watch the video? He’s saying exactly what you’re saying. What’s bad is when someone claims that they are playing that fast, and aren’t. It’s posting a photo of someone else on your dating profile, or lying on your resume. It just makes the person look like a jackass with low self esteem. I personally love music that many call soulless. But I’m not cool with someone saying they played it or wrote it if they didn’t. It just seems like a weird thing to lie about, and I lose respect for the person.


Honestly I skipped through a lot of it. Even then though I still don't care if the guy says he can play it but can't, it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the music at all. Unless there's riffs being stolen with an attempt to be passed of as original ideas the artist can make whatever claims about their playing skill and mime along to however many backing tracks they want, its not going to bother me at all.


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## Cynicanal

That discussion of "stank" in the Marty Friedman solo reminds me of when "The Luster of Pandemonium" by Crimson Massacre came out 15 years ago, and everyone went crazy for it being the most insanely technical thing this side of Necrophagist, and in some ways, even crazier than that; listening to it today, having been inured by 15 years of tech death bands faking it, and it's amazing how sloppy that performance that wowed everyone is.

I still love "The Luster of Pandemonium", whereas most modern tech-death bores me to death. Sloppy really can be better!


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## Spaced Out Ace

In all honesty, all Tech death bores me to hell and back.


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## budda

Spaced Out Ace said:


> In all honesty, all Tech death bores me to hell and back.



Everyone has a point in music where something they love strays too far into "unlistenable". For me it was also tech death, and some jazz.


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## Splenetic

Stupid fake shredders.....


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## Blasphemer

Spaced Out Ace said:


> I would but my rap abilities ain't so good.



It's all good, just record the lyrics at a slower tempo to get the flow and annunciation right and then speed it back up to the tracks tempo, nobody will notice


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## Winspear

Blasphemer said:


> It's all good, just record the lyrics at a slower tempo to get the flow and annunciation right and then speed it back up to the tracks tempo, nobody will notice



Actually had a lot of fun doing this, and also singing - gives me significantly more time to find the right note and make it sound good


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## Ozzfest

BIG ND SWEATY said:


> Call me crazy but I don't give a shit if a guitar solo/riff/entire song is faked with midi and re-amped or recorded half-speed and sped up. All I care about is if it sounds cool and if its written well, if it ticks one or both of those boxes then it'll get some listens from me.
> 
> Everyone's argument against this is always that guitar playing isn't a competition so why does it even matter how a song/album is written or recorded?


Because it's not a legit way of achieving the end result if you cant do it without guitar pro, IMO. It may sound good to you in the end and that's all you may care about, but if you really cant play like that and I know you can't, well then that's all I care about.

I appreciate natural and organic methods and results. Not mechanical and assisted.


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## Spaced Out Ace

Blasphemer said:


> It's all good, just record the lyrics at a slower tempo to get the flow and annunciation right and then speed it back up to the tracks tempo, nobody will notice


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## Spaced Out Ace

Ozzfest said:


> Because it's not a legit way of achieving the end result if you cant do it without guitar pro, IMO. It may sound good to you in the end and that's all you may care about, but if you really cant play like that and I know you can't, well then that's all I care about.
> 
> I appreciate natural and organic methods and results. Not mechanical and assisted.


Which is why Vinnie Vincent is relegated to horror conventions, selling comforters with his atrocious 80s get up on them, and 300-500 dollar birthday bashes and "merry metal christmas" ventures. What a fucking joke that guy is. But he's a "great shreddddddder (for extra Full ShreDDness) and amazing songwriter, dude!" Such a great songwriter the guy has never made a consistent living as a songwriter.


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## BIG ND SWEATY

Ozzfest said:


> Because it's not a legit way of achieving the end result if you cant do it without guitar pro, IMO. It may sound good to you in the end and that's all you may care about, but if you really cant play like that and I know you can't, well then that's all I care about.
> 
> I appreciate natural and organic methods and results. Not mechanical and assisted.


And that's fine everyone is going to have their own opinion when it comes to things like this. I listen to music for the music, not to sit around and wonder how long it took the player to play a certain part or use a certain technique.


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## Ozzfest

BIG ND SWEATY said:


> And that's fine everyone is going to have their own opinion when it comes to things like this. I listen to music for the music, not to sit around and wonder how long it took the player to play a certain part or use a certain technique.


You don't have to look when the editing job sticks out like a sore thumb because it's so obvious. But to each their own!


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## Hollowway

BIG ND SWEATY said:


> Honestly I skipped through a lot of it. Even then though I still don't care if the guy says he can play it but can't, it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the music at all. Unless there's riffs being stolen with an attempt to be passed of as original ideas the artist can make whatever claims about their playing skill and mime along to however many backing tracks they want, its not going to bother me at all.



Yeah, but the issue isn't the recorded music. I'm with you on that - if it sounds good, then great. The issue that the guy brings up is that there are people on youtube who are putting up play through videos that they're not actually playing through. It just seems weird to say, "Look at me play this fast passage - betcha can't do this!" and then find out that the guy didn't actually play it. I'm not sure how much it matters to me, in that I'm pretty sure I can't play as well as ANY youtube guitarist , but I do hate liars and people who pretend they're something they're not.


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## Mathemagician

I like Tech death but I also don’t care if it’s real or not, just if it’s catchy.


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## Spaced Out Ace

Catchy tech death...

I am about to blow a goddamn Jim Cornette level gasket over that one. 

"Catchy tech death" -shakes head-

Thanks, man. I needed a laugh.


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## BornToLooze

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Which is why Vinnie Vincent is relegated to horror conventions, selling comforters with his atrocious 80s get up on them, and 300-500 dollar birthday bashes and "merry metal christmas" ventures. What a fucking joke that guy is. But he's a "great shreddddddder (for extra Full ShreDDness) and amazing songwriter, dude!" Such a great songwriter the guy has never made a consistent living as a songwriter.



I mean, Vinnie Vincent is like those Sharknado kinda movies.


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## Hollowway

Mathemagician said:


> I like Tech death but I also don’t care if it’s real or not, just if it’s catchy.



Yeah, some of the stuff I like most is probably not real in any way. But they do tour, so I guess they play it in some way. I’m honestly surprised how many tech death drummers are actually playing that stuff. I always read about people like bulb programming it, and I assume that when a live drummer shows up he’d be like, “that can’t be played irl.”


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## Spaced Out Ace

BornToLooze said:


> I mean, Vinnie Vincent is like those Sharknado kinda movies.


I dunno. I at least find those Sharknado films somewhat enjoyable in a trainwreck sort of way. I legitimately want shit to meet garbage in a Sharknado vs Tremors crossover, but that's a side issue either way.

Imagine having to listen to KISS drones circle jerk over this guy as if he is anything above mediocre. Whether performance wise or songwriting wise, he is not Eddie Van Halen. He is not George Lynch. He's not Steve Stevens. He is not Randy Rhoads, Jake E Lee, John Sykes, Akira Takasaki, Ty Tabor, or Warren DeMartini. Hell, he hopes to one day be as well regarded as Vito Bratta, and unfortunately, even Vito is a second or third tier 80s guitarist (primarily because White Lion never got mega huge and he retired after the fourth WL album).

Vinnie's just some mediocre putz who people parrot this idea that he's a guitar god and a songwriter supreme, when his own band would make fun of his 20 minute live jack off sessions pretending he was the best lead guitarist ever, and his songwriting equates to third rate AOR with hair metal accoutrements in an attempt to fool the late 80s MTV generation. I really don't get it. Why? Because he was in KISS for like 15 months? Big deal. Facts are that his playing and his songwriting do not stack up against any of his contemporaries at the time; he is a pretender and a fake.

I think A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master are a perfect example. Dokken's song Dream Warriors is a great tune, still remembered, and well liked outside of the band's sphere of fans. Meanwhile, Dream Master has a dud of a track like Love Kills (I do not get why it was used at all; it makes zero sense in context to the movie) and that is if you can even hear it as it's been all but muted, likely because Chrysalis is embarrassed that they were total marks and signed this fucking clown. 

In short: Vincent Crooksano is a shit guitarist, a shit songwriter, and a shit person. He really should give people their box sets he owes them, but I doubt he ever will. But he will certainly continue charging the 20 or so dumb chumps idiotic enough to pay him $150 for a signed CD or $500 to hang out with him for a day and eat his salad.


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## BornToLooze

Spaced Out Ace said:


> I dunno. I at least find those Sharknado films somewhat enjoyable in a trainwreck sort of way. I legitimately want shit to meet garbage in a Sharknado vs Tremors crossover, but that's a side issue either way.
> 
> Imagine having to listen to KISS drones circle jerk over this guy as if he is anything above mediocre. Whether performance wise or songwriting wise, he is not Eddie Van Halen. He is not George Lynch. He's not Steve Stevens. He is not Randy Rhoads, Jake E Lee, John Sykes, Akira Takasaki, Ty Tabor, or Warren DeMartini. Hell, he hopes to one day be as well regarded as Vito Bratta, and unfortunately, even Vito is a second or third tier 80s guitarist (primarily because White Lion never got mega huge and he retired after the fourth WL album).
> 
> Vinnie's just some mediocre putz who people parrot this idea that he's a guitar god and a songwriter supreme, when his own band would make fun of his 20 minute live jack off sessions pretending he was the best lead guitarist ever, and his songwriting equates to third rate AOR with hair metal accoutrements in an attempt to fool the late 80s MTV generation. I really don't get it. Why? Because he was in KISS for like 15 months? Big deal. Facts are that his playing and his songwriting do not stack up against any of his contemporaries at the time; he is a pretender and a fake.
> 
> I think A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master are a perfect example. Dokken's song Dream Warriors is a great tune, still remembered, and well liked outside of the band's sphere of fans. Meanwhile, Dream Master has a dud of a track like Love Kills (I do not get why it was used at all; it makes zero sense in context to the movie) and that is if you can even hear it as it's been all but muted, likely because Chrysalis is embarrassed that they were total marks and signed this fucking clown.
> 
> In short: Vincent Crooksano is a shit guitarist, a shit songwriter, and a shit person. He really should give people their box sets he owes them, but I doubt he ever will. But he will certainly continue charging the 20 or so dumb chumps idiotic enough to pay him $150 for a signed CD or $500 to hang out with him for a day and eat his salad.



Holy shit, really?

The most I've heard about Vinnie Vincent was seeing Boyz Gonna Rock or whatever on MTV or VH1 and being vaguely aware that he was in KISS, I don't know that I've even heard any of the songs he did with them. So for me he's like one of those pop songs you _might kinda_ like, you just don't admit to it. Even the one dude I know that's a big KISS fan is just into the actual Ace and Paul KISS.


Honestly I think the Sharknado vs Tremors is a more important issue. As shitty as they've gotten, I have a soft spot for Tremors. My dad came over when I was moving a couple years ago, right about the time I came out the door with my arms loaded down with rifles. He wanted to know why I had so many, but he's the one that let me watch the 2 decent Tremors every weekend when I was growing up.


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## Spaced Out Ace

BornToLooze said:


> Holy shit, really?
> 
> The most I've heard about Vinnie Vincent was seeing Boyz Gonna Rock or whatever on MTV or VH1 and being vaguely aware that he was in KISS, I don't know that I've even heard any of the songs he did with them. So for me he's like one of those pop songs you _might kinda_ like, you just don't admit to it. Even the one dude I know that's a big KISS fan is just into the actual Ace and Paul KISS.
> 
> 
> Honestly I think the Sharknado vs Tremors is a more important issue. As shitty as they've gotten, I have a soft spot for Tremors. My dad came over when I was moving a couple years ago, right about the time I came out the door with my arms loaded down with rifles. He wanted to know why I had so many, but he's the one that let me watch the 2 decent Tremors every weekend when I was growing up.


I like KISS with Ace, too, but I think their time with Bruce Kulick from 1984 to 1995 was just as good. He was a total pro and never missed a note. (Okay, maybe he did, but it wasn't a regular occurrence). I really wish that the reunion didn't happen and KISS with Bruce Kulick lasted longer. 

Sharknado vs Tremors would be awesome I think. Start out as a Tremors film, then find out there are Sharknados, and you aren't safe hiding from ass blasters or any of that because sharknados will get you regardless.


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## Ozzfest

Spaced Out Ace said:


> he is not Eddie Van Halen. He is not George Lynch. He's not Steve Stevens. He is not Randy Rhoads, Jake E Lee, John Sykes, Akira Takasaki, Ty Tabor, or Warren DeMartini.


I gotta youtube Vinnie Vincent guitar solo now.

Well I've seen worse....I think? He does play quite fast, and he does play cleanly for at least half of the time. Let me check another vid..




Spaced Out Ace said:


> Vinnie's just some mediocre putz who people parrot this idea that he's a guitar god and a songwriter supreme, when


Yeah no you're right. Hes not what I would consider a guitar god. Just about every other shredder from this era can play better than him. He kinda reminds me of Carlos Cavazo which to me his playing is nothing special.

Alot of blinding speed going on but its all sloppy and just sounds like rubbish.


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## Splenetic

Wow.

You know, you always hear about Kerry King's solos being nonsense, but straight up compared to these fuckers, King is fucking Mozart.


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## Vyn

Malevolent_Croatian said:


> Wow.
> 
> You know, you always hear about Kerry King's solos being nonsense, but straight up compared to these fuckers, King is fucking Mozart.



+1

I’ll take 15min of atonal taping and divebombs over that any day


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## Splenetic

That's kinda the cool thing about Kerry's shit though. He gets in, weedle-weedles his way around for like 20 seconds, and then gtfo's with a divebomb or pull up. Quick and easy, can't really think of any songs where he wanks around continuously for days on end. (Though I've only seen them live once, and they were killer)


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## Ozzfest

Well now I just have to.....

That's not much better to be honest.


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## Splenetic

I guess to each their own, cause I found that about 1000 times better. Yeah it's a bit wanky but it works with the song.


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## Ozzfest

Malevolent_Croatian said:


> I guess to each their own, cause I found that about 1000 times better. Yeah it's a bit wanky but it works with the song.


True it does. But to be fair, the others were just solo spots not actual songs.


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## Cynicanal

Ozzfest said:


> Well now I just have to.....
> 
> That's not much better to be honest.



This forum needs a dislike function just so we can dislike posts that impugn Slayer.


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## Splenetic

True true, but I did give a listen to a VVI Toronto show on youtube due to this thread... not much better on the songs haha.

I made it through a whole 10 minutes.

That said, I'm definitely biased. I find 98% of those glam/cockrock/AOR types of bands are just atrociously bad. The only ones I can think of that kicked ass were like....Ozzy obviously, VH with DLR (and even their stuff I only got into recently), first two Crue albums, W.A.S.P. and ....that's about all I can think of.


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## BornToLooze

Malevolent_Croatian said:


> That's kinda the cool thing about Kerry's shit though. He gets in, weedle-weedles his way around for like 20 seconds, and then gtfo's with a divebomb or pull up. Quick and easy, can't really think of any songs where he wanks around continuously for days on end. (Though I've only seen them live once, and they were killer)



That's one of the things I love about Slayer. The solos might not "technically" be good, but they're angry and chaotic and that fits perfectly with Slayer.

If the solo at the end of Raining Blood was perfect six string sweeps it just wouldn't be right. They're the AC/DC of thrash. They aren't the best, but they have what they do down to a T.


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## USMarine75

My fav for nonsense trem wankery and achromatic BS was always Exodus...


@2:30-3:10

So good.


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## USMarine75

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3pIeVag72D/


Thoughts on this? Amazing, but a couple times like when he shakes the guitar up and down (twice towards end of loop) it seems to move quicker than it should.


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## GuitarBizarre

Re: Vinnie Vincent. 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the reason he's nowhere career-wise, not because of his mediocre songwriting/guitar abilities, and much more to do with the fact he's a reclusive, impossible-to-work-with nutbar, who just burned every bridge in the space of a few years and did nothing professionally afterwards? 

I don't think it's really fair to lay the blame for his Where-Are-They-Now status, at the feet of his playing, when there's clearly the bigger issue of him being an asshole nobody wants to work with.


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## Mathemagician

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Catchy tech death...
> 
> I am about to blow a goddamn Jim Cornette level gasket over that one.
> 
> "Catchy tech death" -shakes head-
> 
> Thanks, man. I needed a laugh.


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## GunpointMetal

I like a lot of the music that gets made this way, I just don't wanna see somebody pretending to play it on guitar when the videos aren't even close, or obviously sped up, or you can hear stuff like pick attack on "tapping" parts or slides that don't slide, or somehow picking the second fret on the low string and then then the 21st fret on the high string in consecutive 32nd notes. Just make animated music videos of crazy 3D shit to go along with the music and leave it at that, or something. There's that guy that posts those really edited videos of playing harmonics, but the two videos of him at NAMM were basically little plink fests with an actual note here or there (and the bad ones mysteriously disappeared from the internet shortly after), or the dude who spends 3-4 hours editing video on a 45 second instagram clip and can't even be bothered to pretend to make the kill switch work the right way, lol. It's the guitar equivalent of Threatin's booking practices, lol.


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## Spaced Out Ace

GuitarBizarre said:


> Re: Vinnie Vincent.
> 
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the reason he's nowhere career-wise, not because of his mediocre songwriting/guitar abilities, and much more to do with the fact he's a reclusive, impossible-to-work-with nutbar, who just burned every bridge in the space of a few years and did nothing professionally afterwards?
> 
> I don't think it's really fair to lay the blame for his Where-Are-They-Now status, at the feet of his playing, when there's clearly the bigger issue of him being an asshole nobody wants to work with.


Yes, he's paranoid too. He got dropped by Chrysalis, and when he got signed to another label, attempted to sell an album they paid for out from under them. He's been persona non grata with Gene and Paul for decades, and I'm surprised Gene had him at a vault event, of which Vinnie was completely unappreciative of. He talked shit about later when talking to Mitch Lafon saying he should've no showed.

I lay blame at the feet of his playing because despite looking awkward and unable to play much at all, he insists on these "FULL SHREDD" debacles that never happen, and banning footage from his birthday bash and shit.


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## jaxadam

Best shredding of all time


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## KnightBrolaire

Hollowway said:


> Yeah, some of the stuff I like most is probably not real in any way. But they do tour, so I guess they play it in some way. I’m honestly surprised how many tech death drummers are actually playing that stuff. I always read about people like bulb programming it, and I assume that when a live drummer shows up he’d be like, “that can’t be played irl.”


except Bulb used to be a drummer, so he actually understands what can and can't be played irl, unlike someone like me (who doesn't know the first fuckin thing about drumming) so I usually program dumb unplayable stuff.


Malevolent_Croatian said:


> Wow.
> 
> You know, you always hear about Kerry King's solos being nonsense, but straight up compared to these fuckers, King is fucking Mozart.


 KK is equally as worthless when it comes to soloing, he just has the common sense to keep his shitty solos relatively short.


USMarine75 said:


> My fav for nonsense trem wankery and achromatic BS was always Exodus...
> 
> 
> @2:30-3:10
> 
> So good.



^this is how you do trem wankery and not sound like shit *cough* kerry *cough*


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## Avedas

Spaced Out Ace said:


> In all honesty, all Tech death bores me to hell and back.


Technical death metal is what you get when you take hardstyle but sample distorted guitars and make it shitty to listen to at parties.


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## gunch

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Catchy tech death...
> 
> I am about to blow a goddamn Jim Cornette level gasket over that one.
> 
> "Catchy tech death" -shakes head-
> 
> Thanks, man. I needed a laugh.



Origin.


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## Ozzfest

jaxadam said:


> Best shredding of all time



What the


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## Spaced Out Ace

Lol Great Kat.


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## Leviathus

I AM BEETHOVEN!


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## Hollowway

KnightBrolaire said:


> except Bulb used to be a drummer, so he actually understands what can and can't be played irl, unlike someone like me (who doesn't know the first fuckin thing about drumming) so I usually program dumb unplayable stuff.



Holy crap, I didn’t realize that! I figured he was like (and me) and didn’t know how to play, but just programmed it out of necessity, because he wanted to lay down a guitar track.


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## stockwell

Unplayable programmed drums can be an aesthetic choice, though. If you aren't bound by the laws of drummer limb quantity and you're willing to lean into it, you can make some cool stuff that sounds fresh.


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## nedheftyfunk

Hollowway said:


> Holy crap, I didn’t realize that! I figured he was like (and me) and didn’t know how to play, but just programmed it out of necessity, because he wanted to lay down a guitar track.



Oh, Misha knows how to play drums:

https://www.instagram.com/p/9eeUUhjP_C/?hl=en

In the drum programming tutorials he put up years ago he mentions being conscious of what a drummer can physically do.



allheavymusic said:


> Unplayable programmed drums can be an aesthetic choice, though. If you aren't bound by the laws of drummer limb quantity and you're willing to lean into it, you can make some cool stuff that sounds fresh.



That was basically the motivation behind drum 'n' bass. If you haven't seen Jojo Mayer's tedx talk on being the man copying the machine copying the man with drumming, I'd recommend it:



He's not faking it:


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## Alex79

All these videos in this thread remind me of this:


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## USMarine75

https://www.instagram.com/p/B4c3zZMI2TK/?igshid=1qgk1fsaauwey


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## GunpointMetal

USMarine75 said:


> https://www.instagram.com/p/B4c3zZMI2TK/?igshid=1qgk1fsaauwey


Gotta love that nintendo vibrato, lol


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## Gnarcade

USMarine75 said:


> https://www.instagram.com/p/B4c3zZMI2TK/?igshid=1qgk1fsaauwey


Took a quick peek at this dude's Instagram bio and he is apparently in a band called "Unprocessed" ...is there a word stronger than irony to characterize that?


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## Señor Voorhees

Programming playable drums isn't that hard. Two hands, two feet. Can't hit two toms, the snare and the crash at the same time. If you're doing "two hand" fills on the toms, you use the foot pedal on the hi-hat instead of the stick sample. Speed isn't a super limiting factor, as there's surely someone out there who can play to any enjoyable sounding tempo, just make it sound good and just try to visualize what body part is hitting a drum/cymbal and realize it's kind of hard to go from floor tom number 2 to the snare in a 32nd note or something. 

As for guitar playing, I do hate show offs in general. I hate show offs who are faking it even more. I don't mind if they cheat to get a good song. I, personally, like the process of writing the music and having it come to life more than the ability it takes to play the instrument. It used to be with midi guitar, and now it's through low-intermediate playing. I record my songs piece by piece, and on rare occasions, I'll record it at a slower tempo to get it as clean as I'd like it in the recording. I record videos over backing tracks typically just to have something to upload. (though I hate being on camera, so I've BEEN putting it to visualization things since I figured out how to do that.) If I ever perform live, (I usually just jam alone or around friends) I can play my music, but it's far from perfect. Not bad, but not great. I practice every day and try new things, but my creative mind is a lot quicker than my physical ability at current. I tend not to worry too much about the musicians themselves, and just enjoy the sounds they make one way or another. (or don't.) 

For the record, I also tend to hate shredding in general just because while it's technically difficult, it rarely makes a good song. I like melodic solos that contribute to a song rather than obnoxiously fast sweep arpeggios that go nowhere and are just there for the sake of being fast. ie: I hate solos like the one in Angel of Death, but I love stuff like Jetpacks Was Yes, or like most of the solo from Fermented Offal Discharge. (gets a little derivative towards the end.)


----------



## GunpointMetal

Honestly, I don't care how music gets made, I just get annoyed by dudes pretending to do stuff they're not doing. Reminds me of those old old cartoons where the character would show off how strong they are by lifting really heavy dumbells that are just balloons that look like dumbells.


----------



## jephjacques




----------



## Demiurge

So you can fake speed- but you still can't fake a composition being good or interesting. If the music isn't good or interesting, then it isn't worth listening to. Seems then that this shouldn't be a problem.


----------



## GunpointMetal

Demiurge said:


> So you can fake speed- but you still can't fake a composition being good or interesting. If the music isn't good or interesting, then it isn't worth listening to. Seems then that this shouldn't be a problem.


I happen to enjoy stuff that sounds similar to Berried Alive, just not from someone pretending to play it. "Good" is entirely relative to the listener.


----------



## isispelican

Are there any players that actually like/seek this sound? It seems like most musicians are just ok with it (but actually leaning on the meh side) where on the other hand the non musicians who are unaware of the trickery are loving it and worshiping these guys like guitar heroes.


----------



## Splenetic

jephjacques said:


> View attachment 74298


*Ahem*...get your own joke punk. 


jk idgaf.


----------



## Splenetic

That said....i just have to. 

Jeph rn:


----------



## jephjacques

ahahahha serves me right for not reading the rest of the thread


----------



## Splenetic

No worries man, I'm just kidding around hahaha.


----------



## ArtDecade

Am I in the *HAARP Machine Is Back* thread?


----------



## jco5055

isispelican said:


> Are there any players that actually like/seek this sound? It seems like most musicians are just ok with it (but actually leaning on the meh side) where on the other hand the non musicians who are unaware of the trickery are loving it and worshiping these guys like guitar heroes.



To be fair, just the way our economy/culture/capitalism works you pretty much need to have the true mindset of "90% of people aren't really musicians in the Berklee sense...like probably 90% of those who consider themselves musicians think of music as basically poetry set to words and care about the lyrics predominantly" if you want to maximize your success, especially on instagram where you're making 1 minute vids.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

GunpointMetal said:


> I like a lot of the music that gets made this way, I just don't wanna see somebody pretending to play it on guitar when the videos aren't even close, or obviously sped up, or you can hear stuff like pick attack on "tapping" parts or slides that don't slide, or somehow picking the second fret on the low string and then then the 21st fret on the high string in consecutive 32nd notes. Just make animated music videos of crazy 3D shit to go along with the music and leave it at that, or something. There's that guy that posts those really edited videos of playing harmonics, but the two videos of him at NAMM were basically little plink fests with an actual note here or there (and the bad ones mysteriously disappeared from the internet shortly after), or the dude who spends 3-4 hours editing video on a 45 second instagram clip and can't even be bothered to pretend to make the kill switch work the right way, lol. It's the guitar equivalent of Threatin's booking practices, lol.


 Who is the guy playing harmonics you mentioned? I’d like to see it.


----------



## SpaceDock

jaxadam said:


> Best shredding of all time




this took me down a 20 minute YouTube vortex that ended in me seeing she sells her bras on a late 90s website for $9.99


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

SpaceDock said:


> this took me down a 20 minute YouTube vortex that ended in me seeing she sells her bras on a late 90s website for $9.99


Lmfao, what the fuck?

Maybe she could fingerblast something else besides that fretboard and sell it for $20 and I might be interested.

(Note for the puritans that are easily offended over a sexual joke about a woman who makes that a point in her, uh... "music": It was a joke; time to unclutch your pearls.)


----------



## jaxadam

SpaceDock said:


> this took me down a 20 minute YouTube vortex that ended in me seeing she sells her bras on a late 90s website for $9.99



Glad I could be of assistance. Pics when you get your NBD


----------



## thesnowdog

USMarine75 said:


> https://www.instagram.com/p/B3pIeVag72D/
> 
> 
> Thoughts on this? Amazing, but a couple times like when he shakes the guitar up and down (twice towards end of loop) it seems to move quicker than it should.



Hmmm, looks sped up to me. Some of those large position shifts alone look all kinds of unnatural.

I like the piece though.


----------



## Ulvhedin

Already mentioned, but I still think it's hilarious. You know you're a badass when you reverse the laws of physics with the whammy bar...

https://www.instagram.com/p/B4K3lJXAE3C/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link


----------



## GunpointMetal

Ulvhedin said:


> Already mentioned, but I still think it's hilarious. You know you're a badass when you reverse the laws of physics with the whammy bar...
> 
> https://www.instagram.com/p/B4K3lJXAE3C/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link


He also has a kill switch that works backwards, too.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

What do you consider fake ? Guys like Jason Richardson openly admit in interviews to punching in notes as well as recording solos at slower tempos and speeding them up. Hell, the whole prog metal genre is filled with such tricks because it is humanely impossible to have each note at equal volume and perfect pitch at such speeds. Listeners of the genre are now used to hearing such "perfection". Personally, I see no problem with that; at the end of the day, it's all about the music you want to create. If you want that super clean/tight aesthetics, then go for it. I also prefer an organic approach (a la Marty Friedman), but to each his own. That being said, most players of that genre (including JR) can reproduce their stuff live. If you can't reproduce it live, then I agree it's kinda weird/lame.


----------



## GunpointMetal

Yeah, he openly admits to working towards a sound on the album, then he goes out and actually rips dicks off live, and even if it doesn't sound AS inhuman, it's still impressive. There's a whole class of dudes that either don't play live (a ten second IG clip of the non-shreddy stuff with "camera audio" doesn't count), or bring their solos on the laptop. Just look at some of the videos of Lucas' solos on the latest RoS shows. You can tell he's AT LEAST playing along to a track, if not completely tracked for some of that stuff.


----------



## thrashinbatman

HungryGuitarStudent said:


> What do you consider fake ? Guys like Jason Richardson openly admit in interviews to punching in notes as well as recording solos at slower tempos and speeding them up. Hell, the whole prog metal genre is filled with such tricks because it is humanely impossible to have each note at equal volume and perfect pitch at such speeds. Listeners of the genre are now used to hearing such "perfection". Personally, I see no problem with that; at the end of the day, it's all about the music you want to create. If you want that super clean/tight aesthetics, then go for it. I also prefer an organic approach (a la Marty Friedman), but to each his own. That being said, most players of that genre (including JR) can reproduce their stuff live. If you can't reproduce it live, then I agree it's kinda weird/lame.


Go nuts in the studio if you can reproduce to a reasonable extent live. There's nothing wrong with using trickery to achieve perfection, until it no longer represents your actual playing ability. I'm just imagining hearing one of these chucklefucks on recording, going, "wow, this guy kicks ass!", asking him to join your band, and then you find out he can't play worth two shits and a fuck. That's sounds about like my luck.


----------



## Fred the Shred

This is not really about folks speeding things up to get the whole unreal cyborg like perfection happen as much as it is about people who claim to be playing said parts in real timing, making "playthroughs" miming to them (sometimes complete with almost Dubstep like effects), and place absolutely surreal expectations not only on them but on the minds of the newbie who believes it is feasible to play like that at all.

Jason Richardson goes for the whole inhuman thing on record, but the man can rip like a motherfucker live, and he's a great example of discipline and immense practice used to attain ridiculous degrees of efficiency - there's virtually no wasted motion anywhere, and he is quite honest about his studio approach to boot.


----------



## Metropolis

HungryGuitarStudent said:


> What do you consider fake ? Guys like Jason Richardson openly admit in interviews to punching in notes as well as recording solos at slower tempos and speeding them up. Hell, the whole prog metal genre is filled with such tricks because it is humanely impossible to have each note at equal volume and perfect pitch at such speeds. Listeners of the genre are now used to hearing such "perfection". Personally, I see no problem with that; at the end of the day, it's all about the music you want to create. If you want that super clean/tight aesthetics, then go for it. I also prefer an organic approach (a la Marty Friedman), but to each his own. That being said, most players of that genre (including JR) can reproduce their stuff live. If you can't reproduce it live, then I agree it's kinda weird/lame.



Sounding this processed, quantized, tuning corrected and everything. I've stumbled to this dude many times and just can't stand listening to this.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

I'd rather have some string noise, etc. of a "sloppy" live in the studio performance like the greats (for instance, Friedman and Eddie) over someone doing shit perfectly. There's a lack of the human element that I think is missing a lot in today's music.

That said, punching in a bend correction is fine as long as the entire solo isn't bandaged up in such a way.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

I agree with all those saying “no problem with the studio fiddling, as long as you can play it live”.

I always find it funny to see guys do 2-4 tapping finger arpeggios with string skipping in their “live” play throughs with absolutely no string noise.

Personally, guys like JR, Steven Taranto and Paul Wardingham impress the hell out of me and are my technical target (that I’ll never reach), namely in terms of string noise muting skills. @Fred the Shred I don’t find it discouraging, on the contrary, it’s pretty motivating to practice and nail one of their solos/riffs.



Metropolis said:


> Sounding this processed, quantized, tuning corrected and everything. I've stumbled to this dude many times and just can't stand listening to this.




This guy is the noise gate/compression master. Allegedly he can reproduce it live. Allegedly. *raised eyebrow*


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

For those who have paid attention, you may remember this one: I think Berried Alive is horrendous noise.


----------



## stockwell

Actual fake shredders seems like a self-correcting issue. Anyone who fakes stuff and develops an online following won't make that much, because shredding appeals to a limited audience. The money is in doing shows and clinics and selling gear. And if an actual faker tries to do all that, they'll be exposed. Nothing to worry about. 

That's a separate from a studio recording. When you buy a record (or stream it or whatever), you get the record. What it sounds like is what it sounds like. It is what it is. If you don't like the sound, you won't want to buy the record. I've enjoyed stuff on every end of the recording spectrum, so I really don't have a prescription about "more people should do XYZ and use only ABC production techniques". Also a non-issue.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

On the other end of the spectrum, gotta admire super clean "phone speaker" recordings of guys like Taranto. I like the (minuscule) imperfections in his playing, considering the incredible note choices and technique involved.


----------



## jaxadam

HungryGuitarStudent said:


> On the other end of the spectrum, gotta admire super clean "phone speaker" recordings of guys like Taranto. I like the (minuscule) imperfections in his playing, considering the incredible note choices and technique involved.




holy fuck people are getting good at playing guitar


----------



## manu80

intresting video. Hollywood deaging CGI process is working well on scott ian


----------



## Boofchuck

GunpointMetal said:


> Gotta love that nintendo vibrato, lol


I just don't understand why that guy feels compelled to speed everything up. He's clearly talented and a lot of the music is pretty cool. I don't think any of it sounds better when he's pretending to blast through it. It just seems pointless to me.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

manu80 said:


> intresting video. Hollywood deaging CGI process is working well on scott ian


Speaking of, Hollywood is apparently so bereft of ideas that they are making a new film with James Dean with the help of CGI. Because, you know, people are just dying for that.


----------



## Spicypickles

HungryGuitarStudent said:


>




It’s been a while since someone made me want to give up playing, but here we are again.


----------



## BornToLooze

HungryGuitarStudent said:


> What do you consider fake ? Guys like Jason Richardson openly admit in interviews to punching in notes as well as recording solos at slower tempos and speeding them up. Hell, the whole prog metal genre is filled with such tricks because it is humanely impossible to have each note at equal volume and perfect pitch at such speeds._ *Listeners of the genre are now used to hearing such "perfection"*_. Personally, I see no problem with that; at the end of the day, it's all about the music you want to create. If you want that super clean/tight aesthetics, then go for it. I also prefer an organic approach (a la Marty Friedman), but to each his own. That being said, most players of that genre (including JR) can reproduce their stuff live. If you can't reproduce it live, then I agree it's kinda weird/lame.



That's the reason I haven't been so interested in metal the past couple years. It just got to the point it's too perfect. I'm not saying I want to hear bum notes or out of tune bends, I just want to hear a little human behind it. Like in one of the Metallica solos where Kirk bent the string off the neck while he was using his whammy bar (or something like that), just little things that make it feel a lot more real.


----------



## Avedas

For me, Stephen Taranto is the gold standard in shredding at the moment. Dude is putting up crazy clips every other day on Instagram.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

Totally agree. His note choice and composition skills (and technique) eclipse a lot of players who simply put on boring riffs to play uninspired shred over them.

@Spicypickles : Lol, yeah Stephen made me want to simultaneously give up the guitar and practice like a madman. It’s been about a year since I’ve discovered him (and his EP).

Playing his IG licks and some parts of his EP was really a mind blowing experience for me. Thank god for SheetHappens for tabbing the EP, it was a pain in the ass to pick some of it up by ear. By playing his licks, not only am I getting better, his peculiar note choices (namely via stretches) has gotten me out of a compositional rut.

I recommend anyone who likes his EP and wants to improve in the shred department to pay 8$ and get one of his IG lick pack tabs (or his EP tabs).


----------



## Eptaceros

Fake shredding only brings one thing to the table = aesthetics. "whoa this _sounds_ cool!" 

Real shredding encompasses SO MUCH MORE. Dedication, sweat, rage, accomplishment, awe, inspiration, etc. It's as stark of a difference as 2D vs 3D. Listening to uber-edited guitar music that is meant to be physically played is akin to a metaphysical simile. Might as well upload your brain to the cloud and float in a vat for the rest of your life.

I honestly feel bad for people who couldn't care less whether they're listening to real guitar playing or not, because it means that they can't emotionally process what they're hearing to the same degree that others do.


----------



## c7spheres

I see shredding as more of a physical and mental accomplishment rather than artistic or emotional. Combining both is nearly impossible and even then rarely holds any emotional content for me, personally. I know that it's different for others, and that's great, but even the greatest techincal players very rarely write something I can be moved by, though I'm very impressed and often in awe of their playing ability. People like Hendrix had it all and continued innovation while paying respect to his mentors, though many can technically outplay what he did. Bruce Lee would be like this to martial arts, wheras bedroom shredding and techincal wankery is like a pro wrestler that doesn't compete in any matches. They have the skills and ability but do nothing with it other than keep getting better., but to what end? Also, I'm not talking about anybody specific here or that has been mentioned either. I respect people want to do it and appreciate the ability, just stating it's not for me.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

Random hijack of my own thread, but if you guys have any cool videos of Marty Friedman, please share them. I need some inspiration. Even I can't play anything like him, he's still an influence on my playing.


----------



## BIG ND SWEATY

Eptaceros said:


> I honestly feel bad for people who couldn't care less whether they're listening to real guitar playing or not, because it means that they can't emotionally process what they're hearing to the same degree that others do.


This is one of the most elitist things I've seen posted on this site. I get the exact same feeling while listening to Rings of Saturn's hyper-edited guitar playing as I do when I listen to your band. It has absolutely nothing to do with being able to emotionally process(insert mega-eyeroll here) riffs and everything to do with how well the riffs are written and the personal preference of the listener.


----------



## Eptaceros

I'm sorry if you feel that's elitist, but I'm just being really real. This is a fundamental matter that I base my life around, and it's something I've dedicated myself to til the grave. I think it's bonkers that you get the same exact feeling listening to RoS/AB, because the two are extremely different on a fundamental level. Bands like RoS are a slap in the face to bands that actually play their songs while recording. And bands like this get encouragement from an audience that doesn't appreciate the HUGE difference between real and fake, creating a vicious cycle of plastic garbage. And I'm not talking about all music. I love electronic music of all kinds, but that music is inherently not "live format" music. We're talking about music that stems from a group of people getting together and physically making noise. The organic give and take of imperfection is literally what rock/metal/etc IS.

I debated even writing anything in this thread because I've had this same conversation for over a decade with many people, and nothing ever changes. It's the same as the conversation about bands that heavily use backing tracks during live performances, etc. It's all a fucking sham, and it's truly disheartening to see people not give a shit how something as visceral as metal is expressed in a live/recorded format. Especially when you have real people dedicating years of their lives to their craft, only to "share the stage" with some hacks that will do anything for a perfect representation of themselves.

There's a reason most musicians are on the same side as Tom G. Sometimes, it's worth looking inward.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

Some people like asparagus, some don’t. Some get an emotional response from listening to Bach, some don’t. Different strokes for different folk.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

Eptaceros said:


> I'm sorry if you feel that's elitist, but I'm just being really real. This is a fundamental matter that I base my life around, and it's something I've dedicated myself to til the grave. I think it's bonkers that you get the same exact feeling listening to RoS/AB, because the two are extremely different on a fundamental level. Bands like RoS are a slap in the face to bands that actually play their songs while recording. And bands like this get encouragement from an audience that doesn't appreciate the HUGE difference between real and fake, creating a vicious cycle of plastic garbage. And I'm not talking about all music. I love electronic music of all kinds, but that music is inherently not "live format" music. We're talking about music that stems from a group of people getting together and physically making noise. The organic give and take of imperfection is literally what rock/metal/etc IS.
> 
> I debated even writing anything in this thread because I've had this same conversation for over a decade with many people, and nothing ever changes. It's the same as the conversation about bands that heavily use backing tracks during live performances, etc. It's all a fucking sham, and it's truly disheartening to see people not give a shit how something as visceral as metal is expressed in a live/recorded format. Especially when you have real people dedicating years of their lives to their craft, only to "share the stage" with some hacks that will do anything for a perfect representation of themselves.
> 
> There's a reason most musicians are on the same side as Tom G. Sometimes, it's worth looking inward.


What the fuck ever happened to bands playing the shit together live in the studio when they record? We've gone from painting on a canvas to mimicking a general facsimile of such in photoshop. Except instead, we went from bands doing it live in the studio with minimal overdubs to manipulating the shit out of a "performance" because "string noise is icky" and "Well, I'll just have my teacher show me how to do it."

Now, if people are using tracks to mime to (COUGH KISS, MOTLEY CRUE COUGH) then fuck em. If they are using tracks to be able to do something such as allow Eddie to play guitar instead of juggling a keyboard, then fine. Now, if Eddie was miming to that keyboard part, then I'd have an issue with it.

Then again, it doesn't surprise me that metal fans don't give a shit. A lot of them listen to bands whose drummers use performance girdles known as triggers. Generally doesn't work for me. I'd rather hear a real kit.


----------



## USMarine75

As someone who actually enjoys Berried Alive, RoS, Within the Ruins, etc. Charlie is incredibly talented. I think his music is actually quite amusing and not just noise (YMMV).

But... guitarists like that are completely different from _traditional _guitarists. Precisely what makes guys like Nick Johnston good are the dynamics, inflections, articulations, changes, etc.


^
Here is an example. He repeats the melody lines, but always subtly different each time. That is what is missing with guitarists like Charlie (Berried Alive) that cut+paste+speedup all of their music. 

Anywho... I like them both, but for different reasons.


----------



## BIG ND SWEATY

Eptaceros said:


> I'm sorry if you feel that's elitist, but I'm just being really real. This is a fundamental matter that I base my life around, and it's something I've dedicated myself to til the grave. I think it's bonkers that you get the same exact feeling listening to RoS/AB, because the two are extremely different on a fundamental level. Bands like RoS are a slap in the face to bands that actually play their songs while recording. And bands like this get encouragement from an audience that doesn't appreciate the HUGE difference between real and fake, creating a vicious cycle of plastic garbage. And I'm not talking about all music. I love electronic music of all kinds, but that music is inherently not "live format" music. We're talking about music that stems from a group of people getting together and physically making noise. The organic give and take of imperfection is literally what rock/metal/etc IS.
> 
> I debated even writing anything in this thread because I've had this same conversation for over a decade with many people, and nothing ever changes. It's the same as the conversation about bands that heavily use backing tracks during live performances, etc. It's all a fucking sham, and it's truly disheartening to see people not give a shit how something as visceral as metal is expressed in a live/recorded format. Especially when you have real people dedicating years of their lives to their craft, only to "share the stage" with some hacks that will do anything for a perfect representation of themselves.
> 
> There's a reason most musicians are on the same side as Tom G. Sometimes, it's worth looking inward.


They're really not all that different to me. Far be it from me to tell you about the ethos of your own band but both are out to make interesting music that people want to listen to and both accomplish that, just in different ways. I'm not saying I don't appreciate the immense amount of time and dedication that it takes to reach certain levels of playing because I really am wowed by guys who spend their time trying to be the best player that they can be, I'm saying I don't care if someone uses studio trickery to create something that's creative and interesting to listen to. Whether they want to lie about it and get exposed is up to them, it makes no difference to me what kind of claims they artist wants to make about their abilities. If the music is good that's all that matters to me. Calling people who like that particular aesthetic of metal/music emotionally inept is flat out dumb.


----------



## akinari

Eptaceros said:


> I honestly feel bad for people who couldn't care less whether they're listening to real guitar playing or not, because it means that they can't emotionally process what they're hearing to the same degree that others do.



Same could be said for those that do care. I think the important thing is that people are capable of feeling a response to both, but understand the nuances and differences between each. As listeners, we owe it to other artists to use our judgment regarding aesthetics and production sparingly, and only in the context of their work specifically, because the choices they make regarding them are logically what they feel benefits the composition, the thing our ears should be looking to judge above all else. 

For instance, when I heard the autotune-esque vocal effect on the new Kayo Dot (nice username btw ) I was a little thrown off, but I realized that my reaction had zero importance in the grand scheme of the album, got over it, and continued trying to absorb the music and form my opinion of it based on its own merit objectively, and not factor in my personal aesthetic preferences into the equation. Once I made the effort to disregard my reactions to small things I personally would have handled differently, I was able to better appreciate the music, the effort that went into making it, and the unique identity and chemistry of the artists behind it. 

All that said, I see where you're coming from and I do think it's important that people continue to really value the human element of music as it becomes more and more diluted through studio trickery and robotic perfection becoming a very common trait that albums across all sorts of genres share, but there's nothing sad about widening the scope of our appreciation in the process. If anything, it adds a certain nature of specificity to the way we differentiate robot vs. human, and that specificity makes both all the more special.


----------



## USMarine75

What about where metal bands are using triggered samples?


----------



## Fred the Shred

I see backing tracks mentioned here and I think there's a bit of confusion going on: quite a few bands rely on orchestral stuff that is logistically not feasible to pull off outside ridiculous budgets, and Wintersun springs to mind as an example of that. They are super capable, and quite proficient musicians, but I don't find it remotely reasonable to expect them to simply forego touring because they can't afford to bring along a full orchestra and a choir. I won't deny backing tracks are quite likely to be used to disguise one's inadequacies, as it is quite simple to make that happen, and there are actually well known instances of this, but I tend to disagree with blanket statements such as this as it's obviously not the universal use.

I don't get moved emotionally by super robotic playing, some do, and I'm absolutely cool with whatever it is one may fancy. Just don't BS people, that's all.


----------



## USMarine75

Fred the Shred said:


> I see backing tracks mentioned here and I think there's a bit of confusion going on: quite a few bands rely on orchestral stuff that is logistically not feasible to pull off outside ridiculous budgets, and Wintersun springs to mind as an example of that. They are super capable, and quite proficient musicians, but I don't find it remotely reasonable to expect them to simply forego touring because they can't afford to bring along a full orchestra and a choir. I won't deny backing tracks are quite likely to be used to disguise one's inadequacies, as it is quite simple to make that happen, and there are actually well known instances of this, but I tend to disagree with blanket statements such as this as it's obviously not the universal use.
> 
> I don't get moved emotionally by super robotic playing, some do, and I'm absolutely cool with whatever it is one may fancy. Just don't BS people, that's all.



False.

When I go see Angel Vivaldi, I expect to see dancers and Crossfit Nita.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

HungryGuitarStudent said:


> On the other end of the spectrum, gotta admire super clean "phone speaker" recordings of guys like Taranto. I like the (minuscule) imperfections in his playing, considering the incredible note choices and technique involved.



He's an absolute fuckin monster. one of the few IG guitarists that I'm consistently impressed by besides Nick Johnson/Ichika Mo


----------



## Eptaceros

BIG ND SWEATY said:


> I'm not saying I don't appreciate the immense amount of time and dedication that it takes to reach certain levels of playing because I really am wowed by guys who spend their time trying to be the best player that they can be, I'm saying I don't care if someone uses studio trickery to create something that's creative and interesting to listen to.



This two part statement feels contradictory to me. If you ultimately don't care, then you really don't appreciate the effort.



BIG ND SWEATY said:


> Calling people who like that particular aesthetic of metal/music emotionally inept is flat out dumb.



"Emotion" may have been a wrong choice of words on my part. I'm not quite sure how to express what I'm thinking of...visceral? Physiological depth? Feel? It's really not something that can be put into words, kinda how programmed guitars will never have the same feel as a human's touch. And for anyone who doesn't stress the difference between those two, I still stand by the thought that there's something lacking in how they're listening to music. I know that sounds fucked up, but this is how I see the world. I know music is subjective and all, but there are layers of objectivity here, like the audio-physical difference in frequencies and waveforms coming from a human's touch and something fake.


----------



## brector

Eptaceros said:


> I know music is subjective and all, but



And here lies your problem


----------



## A-Branger

saw this on my facebook feed and I knew there was a tread around here to trow it



my mate on FB put it as fake sound and all the coments were people saying its a MIDI track. ITs not MIDI, the video has been speed up. Video starts normal, cuts to a logo, then the fast solo section till the end which has been clearly speed up. Go on youtube and click the settings tab and watch the video at 0.75 speed, you would see him playing at normal speed, his hands and camera movement would feel/look normal and natural. And its a speed thats actually possible to play what hes playing. It only sounds like "MIDI" as the audio has been speedup

WHAT A FUCING JOKE

the solo is impressive as its, why the fucking need to speed it up?. This guy just lost any kind of respect as a musician, what a fucking wanker of a guitar player


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

A-Branger said:


> saw this on my facebook feed and I knew there was a tread around here to trow it
> 
> 
> 
> my mate on FB put it as fake sound and all the coments were people saying its a MIDI track. ITs not MIDI, the video has been speed up. Video starts normal, cuts to a logo, then the fast solo section till the end which has been clearly speed up. Go on youtube and click the settings tab and watch the video at 0.75 speed, you would see him playing at normal speed, his hands and camera movement would feel/look normal and natural. And its a speed thats actually possible to play what hes playing. It only sounds like "MIDI" as the audio has been speedup
> 
> WHAT A FUCING JOKE
> 
> the solo is impressive as its, why the fucking need to speed it up?. This guy just lost any kind of respect as a musician, what a fucking wanker of a guitar player



This guy is a great example of what I think the OP is getting at. This mans followers think he is an amazing next level player. Unfortunately that level is too high for him to even play. I respect his compositional(?) skills. But theres about as much substance as a bread sandwich. I love jazz, but it really sounds like a hodge podge of different ideas with no flow whatsoever. I dub thee DingleBerriedAlive.


----------



## GunpointMetal

A-Branger said:


> saw this on my facebook feed and I knew there was a tread around here to trow it
> 
> 
> 
> my mate on FB put it as fake sound and all the coments were people saying its a MIDI track. ITs not MIDI, the video has been speed up. Video starts normal, cuts to a logo, then the fast solo section till the end which has been clearly speed up. Go on youtube and click the settings tab and watch the video at 0.75 speed, you would see him playing at normal speed, his hands and camera movement would feel/look normal and natural. And its a speed thats actually possible to play what hes playing. It only sounds like "MIDI" as the audio has been speedup
> 
> WHAT A FUCING JOKE
> 
> the solo is impressive as its, why the fucking need to speed it up?. This guy just lost any kind of respect as a musician, what a fucking wanker of a guitar player



He also puts synth tracks on almost ALL of the guitar parts that aren't open notes, so there's definitely MIDI augmenting it.


----------



## efiltsohg

Guitar wank sounds terrible even if it is real, makes the fake stuff that much more sad. Just pointless, non musical vomit flurry of notes


----------



## GunpointMetal

While agree with the original intent of the thread, why do musicians (guitarists especially) seem to state preference as absolute fact?


----------



## Fred the Shred

It's not just guitarists - I see this from all sorts of people, and it's super typical of a social norm where empathy is typically relegated to a very secondary plane and is replaced by this really exaggerated self importance. This sort of thing is typical of the consumerism paradigm, as self indulgence and elevating oneself above the others are an impressive driving force for purchasing goods. 

It's really nothing new at all - hell, I remember being a teen and this sort of opinion turned fact approach entering conversations of the most varied natures, and it's often done with no malice whatsoever.


----------



## GunpointMetal

Fred the Shred said:


> It's not just guitarists - I see this from all sorts of people, and it's super typical of a social norm where empathy is typically relegated to a very secondary plane and is replaced by this really exaggerated self importance. This sort of thing is typical of the consumerism paradigm, as self indulgence and elevating oneself above the others are an impressive driving force for purchasing goods.
> 
> It's really nothing new at all - hell, I remember being a teen and this sort of opinion turned fact approach entering conversations of the most varied natures, and it's often done with no malice whatsoever.


You're probably right. I spend most of time around other musicians and it seems like (for the most part, IME) that other musicians will have strong feelings about something being good or bad, but they leave it at "That sucks, I hate it." and guitarists always take it the next step to "That sucks, I hate it, and you're some sort of *insert ableist slur here* for enjoying that." or "That sucks, I hate it and it has absolutely no value whatsoever."


----------



## Seabeast2000

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Speaking of, Hollywood is apparently so bereft of ideas that they are making a new film with James Dean with the help of CGI. Because, you know, people are just dying for that.


I guess one formula is: good original , bad sequel, bad reboot, good redemption, bad redemption sequel. After 40 years repeat.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

A bit late to this thread! I saw that the whole "call out guitarists miming to midi" has exploded up on Facebook recently thanks to Fountainhead. Personally I've zero problem with doing what you want on albums as long as it sounds good and you can play it live. The new Rings of Saturn is very fatiguing because of the midi guitars and I haven't been able to finish listening to it.

On the other hand I find it a bit pathetic when there are guys on instagram miming to midi and 50% recorded guitars as if they are next Jason Becker. It's creating an unrealistic level of guitar playing and tricking people into thinking that level of polish is possible on guitar. To the point those guys are compared to Stephen Taranto and Rick Graham. I get that social media nowadays is exhausting and editing your own Serrena style piece together will get you to the front but its still dishonest. 

It's worth noting that all these guys delete and ban anyone who calls them out so anyone coming along will only see positive comments. Also because of how IG works a big part of their fan base aren't guitar players or musicans so they aren't going to know. 



A-Branger said:


> my mate on FB put it as fake sound and all the coments were people saying its a MIDI track. ITs not MIDI, the video has been speed up. Video starts normal, cuts to a logo, then the fast solo section till the end which has been clearly speed up. Go on youtube and click the settings tab and watch the video at 0.75 speed, you would see him playing at normal speed, his hands and camera movement would feel/look normal and natural. And its a speed thats actually possible to play what hes playing. It only sounds like "MIDI" as the audio has been speedup



Listen to the first tapping part. Every note is sampled and then copy pasted together. Thats why people are calling it MIDI because thats what MIDI sounds like when it is triggering samples. That is just an incredibly edited piece of music. Like all of his Berried Alive videos he rarely plays more than a few notes in a row when recording. Its mostly samples he glues together one-by-one. Exhausting but thats what gives him that guitar pro midi sound.

He was called out a lot recently and didn't really say anything to defend himself. He's clearly an incredible player underneath it so I don't get why he resorts to midi for every video. I'd love to see him play normally and do the Skype interview Fountainhead wanted to do with him.


----------



## Eptaceros

brector said:


> And here lies your problem



Way to willfully ignore the rest of the sentence. You know, the part that was the main point. Subjectivity and objectivity exist in parallel with each other.



Fred the Shred said:


> It's not just guitarists - I see this from all sorts of people, and it's super typical of a social norm where empathy is typically relegated to a very secondary plane and is replaced by this really exaggerated self importance. This sort of thing is typical of the consumerism paradigm, as self indulgence and elevating oneself above the others are an impressive driving force for purchasing goods.



If this is in response to my posts, you're incredibly off the mark with your sweeping generalizations. Having conviction and being passionate about my craft is a symptom of self-exaggeration? Get real. Everything I've said here is as much about listening to music as it is about playing it. It's unreal to me that I'm being labeled as an elitist for defending reality.


----------



## mikernaut

So the band Unprocessed was mentioned before and the one IG vid looked questionable with just the guitarist shredding. They seem to have a series of these play through vids. Pretty Djenty stuff but looks like they can play?


Although I much prefer this song ( although it is a music vid) which leans more towards a Polyphia-type vibe and less screaming.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

I'm not big on the guys tone, even at 0.75 speed, and don't get why it has had the speed increased anyways. I think we can thank Vinnie Vincent for this with that awful Boyz R Gonna Rock song.


----------



## GunpointMetal

mikernaut said:


> So the band Unprocessed was mentioned before and the one IG vid looked questionable with just the guitarist shredding. They seem to have a series of these play through vids. Pretty Djenty stuff but looks like they can play?
> 
> 
> Although I much prefer this song ( although it is a music vid) which leans more towards a Polyphia-type vibe and less screaming.



I think this is actually my biggest problem with a lot of the dudes who fall into this category. They're incredibly talented players as it is, and for some reason they still feel the need to produce music to the point of sounding like shitty guitar pro playback for some reason. Charles Caswell is a killer guitarist, there's no need to pretend to be better than he is. Same with dude from Unprocessed. Obviously an excellent guitar player, and the stuff would be just as good at 115 BPM as it is as 160BPM.


----------



## Ordacleaphobia

Eptaceros said:


> I'm sorry if you feel that's elitist, but I'm just being really real. This is a fundamental matter that I base my life around, and it's something I've dedicated myself to til the grave. I think it's bonkers that you get the same exact feeling listening to RoS/AB, because the two are extremely different on a fundamental level.* Bands like RoS are a slap in the face to bands that actually play their songs while recording*. And bands like this get encouragement from an audience that doesn't appreciate the HUGE difference between real and fake, creating a vicious cycle of plastic garbage. And I'm not talking about all music. I love electronic music of all kinds, but that music is inherently not "live format" music. We're talking about music that stems from a group of people getting together and physically making noise. The organic give and take of imperfection is literally what rock/metal/etc IS.
> 
> I debated even writing anything in this thread because I've had this same conversation for over a decade with many people, and nothing ever changes. It's the same as the conversation about bands that heavily use backing tracks during live performances, etc. It's all a fucking sham, and it's truly disheartening to see people not give a shit how something as visceral as metal is expressed in a live/recorded format. Especially when you have real people dedicating years of their lives to their craft, only to "share the stage" with some hacks that will do anything for a perfect representation of themselves.



One thing that a lot of people seem to consistently forget is that music is *A R T. *Art is infinitely interpretive, and will affect literally every person on the planet differently. That's why when my girlfriend sends me whatever new song she's listening to, I say "It's not for me," rather than "This song sucks." I won't shit on SUNN O))) for sounding like someone left their guitar sitting on top of their amp and took a break, I won't dunk on random plural-titled djent bands for sounding generic, and I won't bash Taylor Swift for writing the same song a dozen times. Everyone involved in every one of those projects created something that they were proud enough of to share with the world, and they all deserve some baseline level of respect.

Granted, it's definitely a different story when you start to be a dick. Fake playthrough videos, botched live sets and the like aren't cool, because now it isn't about the music, it's about your ego. Roast these guys all you want. I do have a big issue with statements like the bolded bit here, because Lucas _can play_. Not only that, but he's good natured enough to roll with the joke. I don't like his sound, and I don't like his band, but I respect his ability and his faithfulness to his vision. Statements like that are only true if you yourself turn playing music into some kind of pissing contest. They aren't disrespecting you, 'cheating,' or phoning it in. I will stan The Ghost Inside until the day I fall over, but their music isn't intrinsically any more valuable than Lucas', yours, or whatever schlep I come up with. 

Something something just have fun with it.


----------



## Eptaceros

Ordacleaphobia said:


> One thing that a lot of people seem to consistently forget is that music is *A R T. *Art is infinitely interpretive, and will affect literally every person on the planet differently. That's why when my girlfriend sends me whatever new song she's listening to, I say "It's not for me," rather than "This song sucks." I won't shit on SUNN O))) for sounding like someone left their guitar sitting on top of their amp and took a break, I won't dunk on random plural-titled djent bands for sounding generic, and I won't bash Taylor Swift for writing the same song a dozen times. Everyone involved in every one of those projects created something that they were proud enough of to share with the world, and they all deserve some baseline level of respect.



I can see where you're coming from, but I'm not going to walk on eggshells regarding my personal opinion of other peoples' artwork. This is akin to the whole "everyone gets a participation trophy" mentality, and I'm not about it. I want to make it clear that I'm not approaching this from a competitive "pissing contest" lens, either. It's simply a matter of people taking things way too personally, when they really shouldn't. I'm of the belief that when you put something out in the public, you are willingly making yourself vulnerable to all the possible praise *and criticism* that is to be expected. I've read plenty of criticism regarding my band's music, and I love seeing what people have to say, good or bad. I welcome it.

Having said that (cue Larry David gif), my original post in this thread has nothing to do with subjective opinions, I'm not sure why people are taking that as such. I'm talking about pure human feel, which is undeniably and *objectively* real and tangible. And when you're listening to programmed/MIDI guitars, that feel is simply not there. This is not an opinion, it's a fact. One of the big reasons why Defeated Sanity is largely considered a God-tier death metal band is because they record live (essentially) and their music *emphasizes* the organic play between rhythmic imperfection and calculated insanity.


----------



## tedtan

Eptaceros said:


> This two part statement feels contradictory to me. If you ultimately don't care, then you really don't appreciate the effort.



Not having a preference for one over the other ≠ a lack of appreciation for the effort, it's simply saying that there is a place for both.


----------



## c7spheres

BIG ND SWEATY said:


> This is one of the most elitist things I've seen posted on this site. I get the exact same feeling while listening to Rings of Saturn's hyper-edited guitar playing as I do when I listen to your band. It has absolutely nothing to do with being able to emotionally process(insert mega-eyeroll here) riffs and everything to do with how well the riffs are written and the personal preference of the listener.



I think people that can actually play on a high level of technicality albeit fast,slow, experimental etc are in an elite category and are an authority of sorts regarding it, imho, and can feel certain things at a different level too. It's not like someone who works in an art reproduction factory is on the original aritists level (usually). People doing the highly edited/speeding up thing to make themselves look better are possibly better at editing and produciton side of music making and maybe/maybe not so much at guitar playing. I think the problem I have with it is when it's a misrepresentation to the point of lying about having that ability, not admiting when called out on it, deleting posts etc. Just a thought.



Eptaceros said:


> I'm sorry if you feel that's elitist, but I'm just being really real. This is a fundamental matter that I base my life around, and it's something I've dedicated myself to til the grave. I think it's bonkers that you get the same exact feeling listening to RoS/AB, because the two are extremely different on a fundamental level. Bands like RoS are a slap in the face to bands that actually play their songs while recording. And bands like this get encouragement from an audience that doesn't appreciate the HUGE difference between real and fake, creating a vicious cycle of plastic garbage. And I'm not talking about all music. I love electronic music of all kinds, but that music is inherently not "live format" music. We're talking about music that stems from a group of people getting together and physically making noise. The organic give and take of imperfection is literally what rock/metal/etc IS.
> 
> I debated even writing anything in this thread because I've had this same conversation for over a decade with many people, and nothing ever changes. It's the same as the conversation about bands that heavily use backing tracks during live performances, etc. It's all a fucking sham, and it's truly disheartening to see people not give a shit how something as visceral as metal is expressed in a live/recorded format. Especially when you have real people dedicating years of their lives to their craft, only to "share the stage" with some hacks that will do anything for a perfect representation of themselves.
> 
> There's a reason most musicians are on the same side as Tom G. Sometimes, it's worth looking inward.



I just listened to one of your albums on YouTube. That's some crazy level man. I really dig it. 



GunpointMetal said:


> You're probably right. I spend most of time around other musicians and it seems like (for the most part, IME) that other musicians will have strong feelings about something being good or bad, but they leave it at "That sucks, I hate it." and guitarists always take it the next step to "That sucks, I hate it, and you're some sort of *insert ableist slur here* for enjoying that." or "That sucks, I hate it and it has absolutely no value whatsoever."



It's because guitarists are the most expressive musicians there are. We ain't no stinking bass player or drummer!


----------



## tedtan

Eptaceros said:


> Way to willfully ignore the rest of the sentence. You know, the part that was the main point. Subjectivity and objectivity exist in parallel with each other.



I think you missed his point, namely that the "but" in your sentence negates everything prior to it.




Eptaceros said:


> Having said that (cue Larry David gif), my original post in this thread has nothing to do with subjective opinions, I'm not sure why people are taking that as such. I'm talking about pure human feel, which is undeniably and *objectively* real and tangible. And when you're listening to programmed/MIDI guitars, that feel is simply not there. This is not an opinion, it's a fact.



I agree that there is an obvious difference in sound between the two, but you went on to say that people who don't clearly prefer the more organic vibe were unable to "emotionally process" the music correctly, and there is a big difference between the two.


----------



## Eptaceros

c7spheres said:


> I think people that can actually play on a high level of technicality albeit fast,slow, experimental etc are in an elite category and are an authority of sorts regarding it, imho, and can feel certain things at a different level too. It's not like someone who works in an art reproduction factory is on the original aritists level (usually).



Thank you for putting this concept forward in a succinct manner. I was starting to think I was the only one here. I don't consider myself an elite player (there is always a world's worth left to learn ahead of you) but I'd be an idiot to not openly acknowledge that I've attained a level of guitar playing that can only be accomplished with a decade plus worth of practice. This ties back to when I said there's a reason most musicians will side with Tom G on the matter of importance of human feel in musicianship. This has nothing to do with subjectivity.



tedtan said:


> I think you missed his point, namely that the "but" in your sentence negates everything prior to it.



Like I've already said after that post, subjectivity and objectivity do not exist separately. The world is not black and white. Just because I wrote the word "but", doesn't mean that I contradicted myself. I'm pointing out the duality of what we're talking about here.




tedtan said:


> I agree that there is an obvious difference in sound between the two, but you went on to say that people who don't clearly prefer the more organic vibe were unable to "emotionally process" the music correctly, and there is a big difference between the two.



Again, as I've said afterwards, "emotion" was a misfire. I don't really know what word to choose here, but I still stand by my point. And it's not a matter of processing music correctly, but about processing music to its fullest potential. Which is what Tom G. touches upon with his facebook posts when he brings up the topic of children/young impressionable people. If this kind of overprocessed metal is what young people identify with as "normal", it's going to lead to some seriously dissonant cognition, and ultimately stifle their fundamental understanding and appreciation of it.


----------



## Ordacleaphobia

Eptaceros said:


> I can see where you're coming from, but I'm not going to walk on eggshells regarding my personal opinion of other peoples' artwork. This is akin to the whole "everyone gets a participation trophy" mentality, and I'm not about it. I want to make it clear that I'm not approaching this from a competitive "pissing contest" lens, either. It's simply a matter of people taking things way too personally, when they really shouldn't. I'm of the belief that when you put something out in the public, you are willingly making yourself vulnerable to all the possible praise *and criticism* that is to be expected. I've read plenty of criticism regarding my band's music, and I love seeing what people have to say, good or bad. I welcome it.



I'm not asking you to. I'm just saying that an album is not without merit or lesser by default because it was recorded in half time / punched in / whatever manner of studio wizardry. Some of my favorite albums were tracked this way. Ironically, I agree with this whole paragraph- my response was predicated on the assessment that you were taking these bands' success personally. Criticism is great. "I thought this measure sucked," or "your tone is sterile as fuck, try letting some dirt back in there," are totally fine in my book. Personally, I just wouldn't consider bashing someone who runs a studio project and doesn't tour because it isn't feasible to play live as criticism; at least not most of what you see posted on line, anyway. Most of that stuff is just personal attack after personal attack. Which to be fair, yeah- if you're putting anything out for the world to see, be prepared for that kind of thing; but that doesn't make it justified imo. 

If said guy pulls a HAARP Machine though, acts like they can walk the walk (when they can't) and tries to cheat their way through the public; again, that's a different story. 



> Having said that (cue Larry David gif), my original post in this thread has nothing to do with subjective opinions, I'm not sure why people are taking that as such. I'm talking about pure human feel, which is undeniably and *objectively* real and tangible. And when you're listening to programmed/MIDI guitars, that feel is simply not there. This is not an opinion, it's a fact. One of the big reasons why Defeated Sanity is largely considered a God-tier death metal band is because they record live (essentially) and their music *emphasizes* the organic play between rhythmic imperfection and calculated insanity.



Bro this is 100% an opinion. _The Violent Sleep of Reason_ was my favorite Meshuggah album and a lot of that was probably because of the way it was recorded, but there are absolutely studio tracks that have feel.


----------



## tedtan

Eptaceros said:


> The world is not black and white.



I agree. I guess my point is that your posts have come across as if you are approaching this as a black and white issue, even if that is not what you intended to convey.




Eptaceros said:


> Again, as I've said afterwards, "emotion" was a misfire. I don't really know what word to choose here, but I still stand by my point. And it's not a matter of processing music correctly, but about processing music to its fullest potential. Which is what Tom G. touches upon with his facebook posts when he brings up the topic of children/young impressionable people. If this kind of overprocessed metal is what young people identify with as "normal", it's going to lead to some seriously dissonant cognition, and ultimately stifle their fundamental understanding and appreciation of it.



I'm not sure I agree with this, though.

People said the same things about Yngwie, Gilbert, Becker, Petrucci, et. al. and what ended up happening is that it raised the bar for modern players, who still have a human feel in their playing (at least until edited to death in a DAW). Perhaps this new editing approach will similarly raise the bar for young players. And the elite players will always have dynamics and feel in their playing; it's part of what makes them elite players.

I'd say a bigger issue with young players is that most young people I meet these days are much more accustomed to instant gratification than prior generations, so they may not be as willing to put in the time and effort to become elite players given all the distractions they face that do provide the instant gratification they crave.


----------



## BIG ND SWEATY

Eptaceros said:


> This two part statement feels contradictory to me. If you ultimately don't care, then you really don't appreciate the effort.
> 
> 
> 
> "Emotion" may have been a wrong choice of words on my part. I'm not quite sure how to express what I'm thinking of...visceral? Physiological depth? Feel? It's really not something that can be put into words, kinda how programmed guitars will never have the same feel as a human's touch. And for anyone who doesn't stress the difference between those two, I still stand by the thought that there's something lacking in how they're listening to music. I know that sounds fucked up, but this is how I see the world. I know music is subjective and all, but there are layers of objectivity here, like the audio-physical difference in frequencies and waveforms coming from a human's touch and something fake.



Its not contradictory at all, I was just nerding out about Stephen Taranto with some friends thanks to this thread. All of us were seriously impressed by his skill and compositions but that doesn't mean we can't also be wowed by stuff like Berried Alive(even though none of us like it) or Anup Sastry's solo project because they're still musically interesting and impressive just in a different way. Having programmed guitars or midi songs doesn't take anything away from the actual music for me. There's a separation between the artist and the music that happens with the fake stuff where the end goal is all I care about. I can very easily tell when something is punched in/recorded at half-speed/pre-programmed which is where the separation applies. The same goes for when I listen to a band like Burzum, is Varg a complete shit-heel? Absolutely, but does that affect how the music makes me feel? No, because I'm able to completely separate the music from the artist.

I know the feeling you're talking about and you're right, emotion isn't the right word and it is hard to put into words but I get the same feeling while listening to the rawest of the raw black metal recorded by some guy in the woods under a full moon as I do when its just a guy in his well lit room pasting in notes to make his song/album. If the music makes me feel something that's all that matters. Its literally all down to the listeners preference, just because you happen to like the more human approach to music doesn't make you or anyone else superior to those that don't and vice versa.


----------



## efiltsohg

Fred the Shred said:


> It's not just guitarists - I see this from all sorts of people, and it's super typical of a social norm where empathy is typically relegated to a very secondary plane and is replaced by this really exaggerated self importance. This sort of thing is typical of the consumerism paradigm, as self indulgence and elevating oneself above the others are an impressive driving force for purchasing goods.
> 
> It's really nothing new at all - hell, I remember being a teen and this sort of opinion turned fact approach entering conversations of the most varied natures, and it's often done with no malice whatsoever.



making fun of wanker shredders has nothing to do with empathy


----------



## Eptaceros

BIG ND SWEATY, you put that super eloquently and I'm starting to see where you're coming from. I can't fathom having the same appreciation as you do for stuff that is blatantly fake and also advertised as real. To me, that's more akin to looking at a piece of sheet music and appreciating it as much as the final product. But I fully respect your take on it, and your patience with an aging fart like me who will cling to truth and integrity until I die. 

I gotta say, I've really enjoyed this conversation with you all thus far. It's the most active I've been on any message board in years, and I'm glad we can all keep this chain going in a civil manner.


----------



## BIG ND SWEATY

I think the preference all comes down to what lens you're viewing the music through. I'm a music fan first and a musician second so all I really look for in music is if the composition is interesting and gives me _that_ feeling and then I take into account if its actually played or not, more appreciation points are awarded to the guys actually playing their shit (since that actually is my preference) but I can still appreciate the guys who put the time into punching in notes to create an entirely different but not necessarily playable piece of music. Whereas more old-school minded musicians like yourself need the human element in music because that's what you're used to hearing and looking for in music.

I think we both share the same worry though and that's for the fans who can't tell the difference between something actually being played and something being mimed to on Instagram or programmed because they don't know the more human sounding side of extreme/technical music. It could lead to a whole new wave of insane players though. At the end of the day the guys who fake and lie about their playing will be found out eventually and they'll face whatever repercussions that brings but some people will still have an appreciation for the compositional skills of that particular artist.


----------



## stockwell

Musicians have this issue where we often pay more attention to the process of making music over the actual experience of listening to it. We're all broken and useless because of it. It's hard to evaluate something honestly when your dumb brain wants to pay attention to how hard it is to make/perform/record. When you hear a new song, do you have to mentally calculate how many hours the musicians have practiced? Can you enjoy something before you see the playthrough? If it turns out the drums were programmed, or the guitars were edited, do you decide to shut down your enjoyment because it used forbidden techniques? 

It's like all those people who get infuriated by the existence of press-play DJs. They can't fathom how people could enjoy something that isn't difficult to create. But nobody on the dance floor (except dweebs like me) is counting the hours the track took to produce, or the way the DJ prepared the set. They hear music, they like it or they don't like it, and they respond accordingly. That's more honest than doing mental calculations to decide that a song is worthy. Music isn't a pissing contest. 

If your band/project's only impact or contribution to the music scene is how difficult your songs are to perform, you might be overcompensating for other deficiencies. I would never say technical music is less "musical" or less "innovative" than less technical music, but being difficult doesn't innately make it better. Technicality is a tool to unlock an aesthetic that you like. It doesn't necessarily make your music more meritorious than someone else's. You can't guitar exercise your way out of unoriginality or being boring. 

Music performance has as much to do with athletic prowess as it does with art. Which is fine, athleticism is also a cool thing, but music isn't a competition. But creative vision and technical ability shouldn't be conflated. Tons of legendary bands had relatively sloppy musicians. Tons of amazing music took little time and effort to produce. Paranoid is still Sabbath's biggest song, and it was written during a lunch break as a filler track.


----------



## Fred the Shred

efiltsohg said:


> making fun of wanker shredders has nothing to do with empathy



Of course, as evident as it is, but my comment isn't about "making fun of" as much as it is "my opinion is fact", and the moment you put things like this...



efiltsohg said:


> Guitar wank sounds terrible even if it is real, makes the fake stuff that much more sad. Just pointless, non musical vomit flurry of notes



...you're not making fun, you're just categorically stating something that stems from your personal tastes, i.e. an opinion. 

Personally, when songs become mere vehicles for things I'd play as a warm up exercise, I can't really be excited about them, usually they have quite the opposite effect on me, but I don't think dismissing the validity of it because [insert what I like here] is so much better is the best way to go about it. If people are all excited about going as fast as humanly possible even if that occurs in detriment of the song for a listener like me, then fuck it - it's their prerogative and I hope they have fun doing it. For as long as there are people willing who want to listen to it, why shouldn't they?



allheavymusic said:


> do you decide to shut down your enjoyment because it used forbidden techniques?



I read this with those phoney 70's Kung Fu movies' accent and it was magnificent. 



allheavymusic said:


> Music performance has as much to do with athletic prowess as it does with art. Which is fine, athleticism is also a cool thing, but music isn't a competition. But creative vision and technical ability shouldn't be conflated. Tons of legendary bands had relatively sloppy musicians. Tons of amazing music took little time and effort to produce. Paranoid is still Sabbath's biggest song, and it was written during a lunch break as a filler track.



Absolutely, and I even find the focus on perfection or showcasing technical proficiency to be a way to stilt your ability as a composer in general, as you'll likely overcomplicate a really good riff and wreck it or insert a ton of hard to execute stuff for the sake of it and risk severely impacting the flow of a song negatively or even not take any risks on a song as it may be "perceived" poorly by listeners.


----------



## lurè

Fred the Shred said:


> Absolutely, and I even find the focus on perfection or showcasing technical proficiency to be a way to stilt your ability as a composer in general, as you'll likely overcomplicate a really good riff and wreck it or insert a ton of hard to execute stuff for the sake of it and risk severely impacting the flow of a song negatively or even not take any risks on a song as it may be "perceived" poorly by listeners.



I can't agree with this enough since I find Is my main weakness as a musician.
Most of the time the most epic riffs are fairly simple but some players have the urge to over complicate things to stand out as good musicians.
Now that we're surrounded by super technical YouTube or IG guitarists, every means Is lawful to be considered good, even speeding up solos.
People have traded musicality to self accomplishment just to be considered acceptable.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

That being said, in my personal tastes, there’s a hierarchy between what I consider technical uninspired scalar runs or riffs with boring note/rhythmic choices as opposed to complex tasty licks and riffs. All personal tastes and not absolute facts, I know.

Example: upon first listening to Stephen Taranto’s Permanence EP, I found it way too dense and did not like it that much. After a couple listens, I found more stuff that I liked. Months later, I love it. For me, complex music takes time to unpack. Same for Paul Wardingham, etc. As a general personal rule, if I find myself mentally humming a melody, however complex or simple, it’s a good sign.

Opposite end of the spectrum: however how often I listen to Rusty Cooley’s stuff I can’t seem to like it. I’m not branding it as “bad”, but as complex stuff I just don’t like. I respect the work ethic it must have taken to get that technically proficient, but my heart and ears prefer the phrasing of someone like Per Nilsson than Rusty’s.


----------



## sharedEQ

Its about integrity.

OK, so you are one of those people who don't care if "tricks" were used to make the music. Its either good music or bad music. Ok.

What about the case where a musician pays someone else to ghost write and produce their songs? (Taylor Swift, many others) The song is good, so what does it matter?

Imagine identifying with a musician, only to find out that their rich daddy paid for teams of people to write and produce songs so they could be famous? Do you have a problem with that?

I read that greater than 70% of college kids admit to cheating on exams. If the majority of people think cheating is OK, then certainly there will be people who dont care about faking guitar skills.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

I'm with @Spaced Out Ace and Fountainhead on faking guitar skill, it's all about transparency, i.e. being honest about it. If you set unhealthy expectations by lying to unsuspecting young guitarists, then I don't like that.

Having a ghost writer happens everywhere. When it's not transparent, I don't like it, but it's not illegal. Educating unsuspecting people on the topic goes a long way IMO.

I put a lot of value on integrity, but that's a personal value choice. I also put a lot of value on not judging people or forcing my values down other people's throats. But that's just me.


----------



## Fred the Shred

sharedEQ said:


> Its about integrity.
> 
> OK, so you are one of those people who don't care if "tricks" were used to make the music. Its either good music or bad music. Ok.
> 
> What about the case where a musician pays someone else to ghost write and produce their songs? (Taylor Swift, many others) The song is good, so what does it matter?
> 
> Imagine identifying with a musician, only to find out that their rich daddy paid for teams of people to write and produce songs so they could be famous? Do you have a problem with that?
> 
> I read that greater than 70% of college kids admit to cheating on exams. If the majority of people think cheating is OK, then certainly there will be people who dont care about faking guitar skills.



I don't find that relevant at all - if the song is in fact good, then that's about it. It would be a whole different matter to have Taylor Swift talking about her writing process and the usual romantic blurb to embelish things only for people to find out it was all BS and the songs were, in fact, ghost written.

I am a session musician, meaning I'm involved in many a hired gun activity, which in the studio can imply redoing all the arrangements or coming up with completely new parts in addition to the usual sit down and track the album stuff side of things. Producers in particular can and will often simply deconstruct a track and put it back together in a way that they believe will be better, be it for commercial reasons, artistic or both. Where is the line drawn? I won't even tell you of some of the "dirty work" we are sometimes called upon to do, but let's say that some artists' "really ON take" was perhaps someone else's. 

Speaking from my own experience, it is all about honesty in the end, whereas "rich daddy" or not is utterly irrelevant. Djent / prog has its share of "trust fund kids" as I've heard them called and I don't see exactly why that would somehow make them "inferior" or "dishonest" when they simply utilized means that were legitimately at their disposal.


----------



## Ordacleaphobia

sharedEQ said:


> Its about integrity.
> 
> OK, so you are one of those people who don't care if "tricks" were used to make the music. Its either good music or bad music. Ok.
> 
> What about the case where a musician pays someone else to ghost write and produce their songs? (Taylor Swift, many others) The song is good, so what does it matter?
> 
> Imagine identifying with a musician, only to find out that their rich daddy paid for teams of people to write and produce songs so they could be famous? Do you have a problem with that?
> 
> I read that greater than 70% of college kids admit to cheating on exams. If the majority of people think cheating is OK, then certainly there will be people who dont care about faking guitar skills.



No, honestly; I don't think I would. For the same reason you state- it's all about integrity.
Like Fred said, if we were to ask Taylor about her writing process and how she puts all of these songs together and she starts lying to our faces, yes; I have a problem with her. But that'd be because she's a liar, not because she used a ghost writer.

I also don't think that her accomplishments are invalid because of said ghost writer, because it was _her performance_ that marketed the song and created the hit. It's the same way that I can have a ton of respect for certain YouTube guitarists that don't really compose but can shred the hell out of any cover you throw at them. Their performance is incredible and every individual has their own style, even if you're trying for a 1 to 1 cover you're going to sound _a little bit_ different, a tiny bit of your style is going to bleed through.

So no, I wouldn't really care about some djentboi in his bedroom 'faking' guitar skills; up until the point where he becomes a liar. Then all bets are off


----------



## sharedEQ

Ordacleaphobia said:


> No, honestly; I don't think I would. For the same reason you state- it's all about integrity.
> Like Fred said, if we were to ask Taylor about her writing process and how she puts all of these songs together and she starts lying to our faces, yes; I have a problem with her. But that'd be because she's a liar, not because she used a ghost writer.
> 
> I also don't think that her accomplishments are invalid because of said ghost writer, because it was _her performance_ that marketed the song and created the hit. It's the same way that I can have a ton of respect for certain YouTube guitarists that don't really compose but can shred the hell out of any cover you throw at them. Their performance is incredible and every individual has their own style, even if you're trying for a 1 to 1 cover you're going to sound _a little bit_ different, a tiny bit of your style is going to bleed through.
> 
> So no, I wouldn't really care about some djentboi in his bedroom 'faking' guitar skills; up until the point where he becomes a liar. Then all bets are off


There is an assumption that guitar parts were played. If they don't actually say they were faked, it's a lie. A lie of omission.


----------



## Fred the Shred

It's more than an assumption - more often than not, it's proactively suggested by the author as he "plays" the track on video, even though it's as BS as it gets. Without a single word, they are, in fact, stating they did play the part as you hear it, and then tend resort to all sorts of semantics and excuses to defend themselves, because they didn't explicitly write it all down.


----------



## Eptaceros

allheavymusic said:


> Music performance has as much to do with athletic prowess as it does with art. Which is fine, athleticism is also a cool thing, but music isn't a competition. But creative vision and technical ability shouldn't be conflated. *Tons of legendary bands had relatively sloppy musicians.* Tons of amazing music took little time and effort to produce. Paranoid is still Sabbath's biggest song, and it was written during a lunch break as a filler track.



The part I bolded is exactly what I've been going on about. To me, that human "slop" factor is what catches my ear all the time, and coincidentally, all the metal I love features that human slop/feel/touch heavily. I don't actively try to calculate or predict how real something is, it jumps out as clear as day as soon as it's heard. Similarly, when I hear stuff like RoS/Berried Alive, I can immediately tell that something is missing. It has nothing to do with "shutting down my enjoyment because it used forbidden techniques" (LOL).


----------



## penguin_316

I don’t think anyone cares about whether the music is good or not, what we take issue with is the blatant “if you practice like me, one day you might be good” comments/remarks.

Plenty of these people speed up tracks/quantize to hell/single note punch in’s and don’t say it’s ultra processed. Yet, when a YouTube comments pops up like “man how did you learn to play like this?” And the response is “play 10+ hours a day etc”.

Yea, that’s an issue for me.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

penguin_316 said:


> Yet, when a YouTube comments pops up like “man how did you learn to play like this?” And the response is “play 10+ hours a day etc”.
> 
> Yea, that’s an issue for me.



That does indeed suck. That being said, I’ve never encountered that (but I don’t spend time reading all YT comments). Got specific examples (for pure entertainment value)?

Edit: never mind I just read the comments on Charles Caswell’s latest IG post. One guy even straight out asked him if it was sped up, how he could abuse the whammy (without muting anything) while getting no string noise and if his lines are dubbed with midi/synths. I’ll grab popcorn when he answers.


----------



## GunpointMetal

HungryGuitarStudent said:


> That does indeed suck. That being said, I’ve never encountered that (but I don’t spend time reading all YT comments). Got specific examples (for pure entertainment value)?
> 
> Edit: never mind I just read the comments on Charles Caswell’s latest IG post. One guy even straight out asked him if it was sped up, how he could abuse the whammy (without muting anything) while getting no string noise and if his lines are dubbed with midi/synths. I’ll grab popcorn when he answers.


He'll probably provide a smart-ass non-answer, then delete the comment and block the guy if he presses it. I've watched him rage-quit a handful of FB guitarist groups over the last few years over similar things.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

I've watched more of his videos. The sounds suggest he has the best left and right hand muting technique in the world (besides doing synth/midi dubs, punching in notes, speeding licks up and abusing noise gates/compression), yet his hands are all over the place. It's depressing to see how many people think he's not using trickery and see him answer that he practices 6 hours a day.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

Reading and deleting the endless comments from people constantly calling you out has got to be tiring. 

A lot of these guys get really annoyed but what else do they expect. A good example was the guy who almost won first place in a big guitar competition until someone pointed out he was miming to a guitar pro track. He was disqualified and the prizes moved to the next in line. He defended his playing to the ground and ranted on FB for the next month about how everyone was a liar and jealous of his skills. He couldn’t acknowledge he was the one in the wrong.


----------



## GunpointMetal

Lorcan Ward said:


> Reading and deleting the endless comments from people constantly calling you out has got to be tiring.


 I know right, it would probably make life easier to just say "I come up with these ideas on guitar, I create them in my DAW, guitar is my instrument so I use it in my videos. It's produced the way it is to create the desired auditory effect." and most people would just leave him alone.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

@Lorcan Ward That actually happened? I always thought it was urban legend since I couldn’t find anything on the topic. That’s why I like contests where finalists go play live like Guitarist of the Year (although the concept of a music contest is kinda weird).


----------



## c7spheres

All I have to say is fuck Billie Joel. Fuck you Billie Joel for what you did to the band that made you. Asshole, poser, dipshit. But I digress, If you don't know the story you can watch the NetFlix movie "Hired Guns".


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

So I asked DingleBerriedAlive this. Let’s see what happens.


----------



## Jonathan20022

@HungryGuitarStudent 

It did, Amin Saffar



Then in the description of this video they describe the misunderstanding without naming him and that they disqualified him.



This is the only situation I dispise people faking their playing, literally everything else is fair game in my eyes. The problem with people's arguments is it's never consistent or fair to other players, Funnily enough the boomers who hate all sped up/studio trickery as a whole tend to be the people with the most solid argument. My counter is that I don't care unless someone does what happened above and attempts to undercut someone else in a situation where you're being directly judged on your literal skill.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> View attachment 74433
> So I asked DingleBerriedAlive this. Let’s see what happens.



He wants the controversy. That's the shtick. Without the drama he's just another YouTube shredder.

You're literally helping him and his brand.

He played you better than he mimes guitar.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

MaxOfMetal said:


> He wants the controversy. That's the shtick. Without the drama he's just another YouTube shredder.
> 
> You're literally helping him and his brand.
> 
> He played you better than he mimes guitar.


I could see that. Wouldn’t be the first time that the joke was on me.


----------



## BenjaminW

I don't mean to self-promote myself or anything, but I would honestly call myself a fake shredder.

I've always found it easy for me to blindly abuse pentatonic shit when I'm playing along to a song and it gets to a fast part that I can somewhat cover my mistakes in, but my true skills honestly do come out when I really sit down and think about what a solo for a song I'm making will sound like since shredding like there's no tomorrow honestly isn't gonna work in all kinds of music. Some guys like Neal Schon can make it sound good in other genres, but not so much a guy like Yngwie.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

BenjaminW said:


> I don't mean to self-promote myself or anything, but I would honestly call myself a fake shredder.
> 
> I've always found it easy for me to blindly abuse pentatonic shit when I'm playing along to a song and it gets to a fast part that I can somewhat cover my mistakes in, but my true skills honestly do come out when I really sit down and think about what a solo for a song I'm making will sound like since shredding like there's no tomorrow honestly isn't gonna work in all kinds of music. Some guys like Neal Schon can make it sound good in other genres, but not so much a guy like Yngwie.


Not really a fake shredder. Just one who falls back on a crutch as do the rest of us.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

Jonathan20022 said:


> @HungryGuitarStudent
> 
> It did, Amin Saffar
> 
> 
> 
> Then in the description of this video they describe the misunderstanding without naming him and that they disqualified him.
> 
> 
> 
> This is the only situation I dispise people faking their playing, literally everything else is fair game in my eyes. The problem with people's arguments is it's never consistent or fair to other players, Funnily enough the boomers who hate all sped up/studio trickery as a whole tend to be the people with the most solid argument. My counter is that I don't care unless someone does what happened above and attempts to undercut someone else in a situation where you're tbeing directly judged on your literal skill.




Thanks for the info man, much appreciated. It’s sad to see and hear. It’s crazy that the guy could think that nobody would notice that each note was quantized and had perfect intonation and volume.

Personally, I’ve only done 2-3 solo contests. Following a suggestion by Ola Englund, I first record my solo in Logic (no tricks) and then do a (zillion) live take(s) recorded through a mic (pic sounds and all), during which I film the video. I then pan both the recorded and live take in the final video, so that the audio is not too horrendous but also honest.

I’ve always practiced technique like a madman and I find it insulting that someone would compete in such a contest with a fake solo. The organizers took the high road by stating a “rules misunderstanding”.


----------



## sharedEQ

Lorcan Ward said:


> Reading and deleting the endless comments from people constantly calling you out has got to be tiring.
> 
> A lot of these guys get really annoyed but what else do they expect. A good example was the guy who almost won first place in a big guitar competition until someone pointed out he was miming to a guitar pro track. He was disqualified and the prizes moved to the next in line. He defended his playing to the ground and ranted on FB for the next month about how everyone was a liar and jealous of his skills. He couldn’t acknowledge he was the one in the wrong.



Double down. Triple down. Quadruple down.


----------



## penguin_316

I think the issue is people are so obsessed with attention that they will do anything to get it. Cheating, blatantly lie, etc has become the moto of the times. Not only do they not feel bad about doing it, when caught they do exactly what you described.

They double down, go even deeper into the lie. The very people they seek to impress are the ones that best know they are full of shit. 

It’s the same as people up-badging their vehicles, as if a 2012 challenger sxt with hellcat logos and stickers all over it gets more than an eye roll from someone into cars.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

Kmac doing his thing


----------



## Bdtunn

Lorcan Ward said:


> Kmac doing his thing




hahahahahaha


----------



## penguin_316

Kmac gets it haha
“Unexpected item in the bagging area”


----------



## skmanga

Bdtunn said:


> hahahahahaha


aaahhaahaha
just woke up to this, too good


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

Lol that was great. What'd make this greater is what DingleBerried Alive's response was.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Lol that was great. What'd make this greater is what DingleBerried Alive's response was.


That parody was the shit! Oh you know he isn’t going to like it.


----------



## downburst82

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Lol that was great. What'd make this greater is what DingleBerried Alive's response was.



What was his response?

*never mind I misread*


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> That parody was the shit! Oh you know he isn’t going to like it.


Yeah, for sure. The ghosting of the GP6 logo in the Berry logo during the intro was spectacular.


----------



## skmanga




----------



## lurè

skmanga said:


>




Wow such an amazing reaction.
#qualitycontent


----------



## MaxOfMetal

All these YouTube personalities acting like they're "feuding", it's all bullshit. It's a soap opera to get clicks, ad revenue, freebies, etc.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

MaxOfMetal said:


> All these YouTube personalities acting like they're "feuding", it's all bullshit. It's a soap opera to get clicks, ad revenue, freebies, etc.


Only Onision has real drama and a group of people trying to get him rightfully deplatformed.


----------



## narad

HungryGuitarStudent said:


> On the other end of the spectrum, gotta admire super clean "phone speaker" recordings of guys like Taranto. I like the (minuscule) imperfections in his playing, considering the incredible note choices and technique involved.




Does....does he know he's an ad??


----------



## feilong29

Not in defense of this guy or anything, but I was curious to see if there were any "live" takes of his playing. It seems he has the mechanics to play all that stuff, just not as clean as the recording (obviously), skip to 4:30


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

That sounded kinda bad. The pro tools musician is really carrying a lot of dead weight to make that work.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

I’m not one to criticise someone’s playing ability but compare him playing that up to speed against Sims Cashion playing one of his similar-ish riffs
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfSM-ezFTAI/?igshid=12il6ncdilyyc

Or Jason Richardson 
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc6NK0dDmmh/?igshid=k0kcofdzvll6

For a guy who’s branding himself as the next Paganini he’s not remotely near the level of these two players.


----------



## feilong29

Lorcan Ward said:


> I’m not one to criticise someone’s playing ability but compare him playing that up to speed against Sims Cashion playing one of his similar-ish riffs
> https://www.instagram.com/p/BfSM-ezFTAI/?igshid=12il6ncdilyyc
> 
> Or Jason Richardson
> https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc6NK0dDmmh/?igshid=k0kcofdzvll6
> 
> For a guy who’s branding himself as the next Paganini he’s not remotely near the level of these two players.



Oh, no doubt! I was thinking all along "all that stuff he is cheating on, Jason could play it as [he] intended" lol


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

feilong29 said:


> Not in defense of this guy or anything, but I was curious to see if there were any "live" takes of his playing. It seems he has the mechanics to play all that stuff, just not as clean as the recording (obviously), skip to 4:30




Which is my main gripe (besides giving unrealistic goals to new guitarists): his intonation, timing and muting isn’t remotely on the level of his recordings. Notice his non-existent pick attack compared to the recording?

Look at videos of J. Richardson or Stephen Taranto doing playthroughs at Namm. They can actually play what’s on their albums to a level that is very close to their recordings.


----------



## stockwell

The complaint about unrealistic goals for new guitarists seems odd. I've always been of the opinion that if you push for the impossible and miss, you'll still achieve more than if you'd set your expectations low. For example, I've heard Eyal Levy talk about the new generation of drummers who grew up listening to heavily edited drum recordings but never knew they were edited. They thought the edited recordings were the standard to reach. The result is drummers like Alex Rudinger who are insanely consistent and precise. 

Berried Alive seems like a fast player with very sloppy technique. This is why I think the issue will correct itself. His only possible fanbase is youtube/instagram people who like ultra wanky prog but don't realize that he can't play it. That's a tiny audience. He's not going to make much if he doesn't tour, and if he tours, he'll either have to pull it off live or be a joke. Either way, drama only increases his presence. I had no idea who he was until this thread.


----------



## c7spheres

Everyone, even people that can shred thier butt's off usually are missing the enitre point, imo. Long ago after they reached half thier ability they shoul dhave been focusing on other things like wirting something good. Good is not subjective, it's only what I like deem good : ) I'm an expert on whether I like it or not. Just kidding, but seriously I think all these people are just mising the point and need to grow some soul.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

@allheavymusic I have a similar reaction (i.e. motivation) when hearing JR, Taranto, Wardingham, etc.. 

Judging from the multitude of « I’ll never be able to play this » or « with hours of practice I can’t get that sound » comments that Berrie’s posts generate, I extrapolated that it discourages some people. Maybe I’m wrong.

In any case, quantized midi guitar is not pleasing to my ears and I’m not super into people claiming to be things they aren’t. These are all personal preferences. To each his own.

@c7spheres : For my tastes, there are a lot of shredders that are good at composing (some also suck). That’s all personal, like the choice to invest time in technique rather than do something else. I choose to pursue technique to some degree because I still feel limited and can’t play some of the stuff that’s in my head. My 2 cents...


----------



## prlgmnr

allheavymusic said:


> The complaint about unrealistic goals for new guitarists seems odd. I've always been of the opinion that if you push for the impossible and miss, you'll still achieve more than if you'd set your expectations low. For example, I've heard Eyal Levy talk about the new generation of drummers who grew up listening to heavily edited drum recordings but never knew they were edited. They thought the edited recordings were the standard to reach. The result is drummers like Alex Rudinger who are insanely consistent and precise.



Art Tatum teaching himself to play by ear from piano rolls that he didn't realise had been recorded by more than one person at once is a good example of this sort of thing.


----------



## Xaios

Lorcan Ward said:


> For a guy who’s branding himself as the next Paganini he’s not remotely near the level of these two players.


Never has their been a more apropos prompt to show history repeating itself.


----------



## GRUNTKOR

Xaios said:


> Never has their been a more apropos prompt to show history repeating itself.


Alex Gregory is cringe as fuck... He did have a cool Fender Custom Shop seven string Strat with a high A string though which is kinda cool


----------



## GRUNTKOR

I also remember a guitar store in Leeds, England had a bunch of custom BC Rich "celloblaster" guitars, which were long scale five-string guitars tuned in fifths


----------



## GRUNTKOR

Also Alex Gregory guitars. Sorry for three posts, you can't edit on here and I pressed post too quickly


----------



## stockwell

@HungryGuitarStudent I wouldn't read too much into youtube comments. I've seen the "wow I couldn't play half this good if I sold my soul to every devil in hell" or "I put my guitar through a woodchipper after watching this" type comments on basically every shredder channel. Even on some channels that are just okay. There might be people who get discouraged by amazing (or in this case, fake amazing) playing, but I think that's a minority. Anyone who would have quit cause they saw Berried Alive would have quit before they reached a high level anyway. And it's not like quitting (or adopting a less time-intensive style) is a big deal. I quit trying to shred a long time ago and I'm happier for it. 

And either way, actually playing amazingly well gets the same discouraged reactions as fake amazing playing. Once you reach a certain level of skill, it's hard to process the relatively small steps. Going from 90% to 99% of your potential looks more impressive than going from 99.5% to 99.9% , even if the second jump is harder.


----------



## A-Branger

a bit of a rant, but he also does examples of it. Playing the same riff at speed vs at 2x speedup from a slow take vs midi+real audio

its a bit extreme as many as those fake shreders only slowdown their tracks a bit not that much, but still it gives you an idea on why things sound real/fake and why I lost any type of respect for them. For the MIDI sound or MIDI+real I dont mind, its their "sound" their tone is more synth based or whatever, but the why the need for play their tracks slow and then speed up the foootage is the worse cheat you can do, specially when they do ahve the skills to play at speed, or even worse when their takes already sound great at 0.75 speed. Its like a 14yr old playing master of puppets slow and speeding up the footage to show it to his friends with "see? I told you I can play it!!"...."no you are not, you play it slow"....."your mom is slow!!".....


----------



## KnightBrolaire

A-Branger said:


> a bit of a rant, but he also does examples of it. Playing the same riff at speed vs at 2x speedup from a slow take vs midi+real audio
> 
> its a bit extreme as many as those fake shreders only slowdown their tracks a bit not that much, but still it gives you an idea on why things sound real/fake and why I lost any type of respect for them. For the MIDI sound or MIDI+real I dont mind, its their "sound" their tone is more synth based or whatever, but the why the need for play their tracks slow and then speed up the foootage is the worse cheat you can do, specially when they do ahve the skills to play at speed, or even worse when their takes already sound great at 0.75 speed. Its like a 14yr old playing master of puppets slow and speeding up the footage to show it to his friends with "see? I told you I can play it!!"...."no you are not, you play it slow"....."your mom is slow!!".....



you literally posted the same vid as the OP 10 pages later lol


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

A Banger should've posted Vinnie and his sloppy ass playing. Or the clip where he says you can just add every note to a solo and it'll be fine. His video was absolutely worthless at learning anything, whereas Bruce Kulick's videos and Marty Friedman's videos are great.


----------



## BornToLooze




----------



## Spaced Out Ace

Jimcarreygags.gif


----------



## BornToLooze

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Jimcarreygags.gif



If it makes you feel any better, after looking up that one Vinnie Vincent video, my youtube recommendations think I love him as much as you hate him.


----------



## Spicypickles

Those Jason Richardson vids are fucking ridiculous. I posted some BS quick vid of periphery’s marigold riff earlier and it was aggravating how many takes I did before posting something I was halfway comfortable with.


----------



## Avedas

narad said:


> Does....does he know he's an ad??


He'd be pretty dumb not to. If you could just keep doing the same thing you've always been doing, but put a couple of brand product placements somewhere and make a bunch of extra money and get free stuff, who would say no?


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

@allheavymusic I hear ya. I can definitely relate to how hard it is to improve by X% after you reach a certain threshold. I’ve been slowly doing that for a couple of years, 1
BPM at a time hehe.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

BornToLooze said:


> If it makes you feel any better, after looking up that one Vinnie Vincent video, my youtube recommendations think I love him as much as you hate him.


My apologies. He creeps me out; I think there is something sinister about him that we don't know, perhaps of a Greg Jackson (aka Onision) nature.


----------



## A-Branger

KnightBrolaire said:


> you literally posted the same vid as the OP 10 pages later lol


LOL 

fuck!, oh well....... sorry


----------



## Lorcan Ward

Spicypickles said:


> Those Jason Richardson vids are fucking ridiculous. I posted some BS quick vid of periphery’s marigold riff earlier and it was aggravating how many takes I did before posting something I was halfway comfortable with.



How he pulls it off in a live setting is just insane.


----------



## USMarine75




----------



## SlamLiguez

Thoughts?


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

Sounds a lot better than how poor that "lesson" video was played.


----------



## JSanta

SlamLiguez said:


> Thoughts?




I'm not sure (i.e. I may have missed) where people said the Dingleberry guy couldn't play. It's what he does with the audio/miming that's problematic.


----------



## penguin_316

So after playing Kmacs video, he says “wow, cool. Good job.” Etc. 

He never once admits that he fakes his content the exact same way as the video. This is the doubling down I spoke of earlier...to me, it bothers me specifically because we’re supporting a culture of sociopaths with no limits.


----------



## penguin_316

That video is also sped up and mimed with a guitar pro file. Hmm...


----------



## isispelican

SlamLiguez said:


> Thoughts?




Sorry but wtf is this? This is definitely not live, it's processed audio playing in the background and on top of that there is some string and pick noise from the camera but only on the slow parts, on the fast runs he is barely hitting the strings? Please tell me I'm not the only one noticing that.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

penguin_316 said:


> So after playing Kmacs video, he says “wow, cool. Good job.” Etc.
> 
> He never once admits that he fakes his content the exact same way as the video. This is the doubling down I spoke of earlier...to me, it bothers me specifically because we’re supporting a culture of sociopaths with no limits.


Well, people support Onision, so what do you expect? Obviously not a musician (I mean, he's tried to make "music," but it is all cringey as fuck), but still a sociopath. People also support Vinnie, who has done similar in the studio and is a total odd ball.


----------



## penguin_316

He can barely play it at a much slower tempo than the original, while also speeding up his playthrough. Guitar pro playing throughout way louder than his “guitar playing”.


isispelican said:


> Sorry but wtf is this? This is definitely not live, it's processed audio playing in the background and on top of that there is some string and pick noise from the camera but only on the slow parts, on the fast runs he is barely hitting the strings? Please tell me I'm not the only one noticing that.



You aren’t the only one, this is a joke. I’ve said it before, some of his compositions/riffs/whatever are cool. The “watch me play this” stuff is lame as fuck. If you want to see how he actually plays look up play throughs of his old band.


----------



## stockwell

At this point I just want to see someone lean into the programmed aspect of it all. I listen to electronic music and metal equally. Just embrace the MIDI life. I wonder what someone can do if they really push arrangements using electronic stuff. I don't think the best way to do that would be super techy, but I'd love to see some real insanity when you're freed from the limitations of actual instruments. 

Wait, I think I just described MASTER BOOT RECORD


----------



## Chokey Chicken

I'll admit to liking the berried alive stuff, but my first thoughts on seeing that video was "why didn't he mute the guitars in the backing track or at least make it not drown out the real stuff."

It seems faked, which is fine if it wasn't being passed off as "look how talented my playing is." Do some solo playthrough stuff with no backing track, then maybe I'll find it more interesting as a skill piece.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

A friend just texted me this. Sums up my thoughts exactly.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

We went from guitar gods in the 80s to guitar frauds in the "teens." But hey, the 80s guitarists wore silly clothes, so this is obviously light years better.


----------



## Science_Penguin

Jesus...

And you know where this is going too. He posts a video claiming it's "raw" with these obvious mistakes so, when people inevitably call him out, he can brush it off with, "Ugh, there's just no pleasing you people! Forget it, clearly you're just going to go digging to find something wrong with any video I post about it, so I'm not going to bother."


----------



## lurè

He's also written a book: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/635182


----------



## Lorcan Ward

Chris Feener posted a video pointing out how he’s playing(miming?) notes that aren’t there and at other times he’s quickly moving to the next position but there’s no slide noise from his “live” guitar while the loud backing track is still playing notes from the run.

He’s clearly got chops, that’s obvious from his videos when he’s playing along but this is far from a raw or live track.

The guy has the perfect chance to post a video playing and earn back some respect or win over some doubters but this only makes it worse for himself and attracts more negativity for him to deal with.


----------



## MrWulf

Reading the youtube comments, seems like about 100s of them get hook, line and sinker from this "raw" performance. 

Kind of expected, really


----------



## couverdure

I'm surprised no one has brought up the fact that the rhythm tracks sound just as fake as the lead tracks, because this thread reminded me of this funny video from Andrew Baena.


----------



## BornToLooze

couverdure said:


> I'm surprised no one has brought up the fact that the rhythm tracks sound just as fake as the lead tracks, because this thread reminded me of this funny video from Andrew Baena.




One of the comments on that gave me an idea. Can you autotune shitty vibrato?


----------



## USMarine75

couverdure said:


> I'm surprised no one has brought up the fact that the rhythm tracks sound just as fake as the lead tracks, because this thread reminded me of this funny video from Andrew Baena.


----------



## Cynicanal

allheavymusic said:


> At this point I just want to see someone lean into the programmed aspect of it all. I listen to electronic music and metal equally. Just embrace the MIDI life. I wonder what someone can do if they really push arrangements using electronic stuff. I don't think the best way to do that would be super techy, but I'd love to see some real insanity when you're freed from the limitations of actual instruments.
> 
> Wait, I think I just described MASTER BOOT RECORD


This is pretty much what Gabber and SpeedCore are.


----------



## Boofchuck

Science_Penguin said:


> Jesus...
> 
> And you know where this is going too. He posts a video claiming it's "raw" with these obvious mistakes so, when people inevitably call him out, he can brush it off with, "Ugh, there's just no pleasing you people! Forget it, clearly you're just going to go digging to find something wrong with any video I post about it, so I'm not going to bother."


----------



## Blasphemer

Spaced Out Ace said:


> But hey, the 80s guitarists wore silly clothes, so this is obviously light years better.



Maybe not light years...


----------



## IbanezDaemon

Real!!


----------



## stockwell

Cynicanal said:


> This is pretty much what Gabber and SpeedCore are.



Not really. Gabber is a term for the culture around oldschool hardcore techno. A gabber was a fan of hardcore in the 90s. The term fell out of use although hardcore still persists. Hardcore doesn't really have any relation to metal. It's based on techno, and uses a heavily distorted kick on every beat as the bass and percussion. Nobody listening to Ophidian, Angerfist, I:gor, Nosferatu, N-Vitral, etc. would hear much metal influence at all. Speedcore is an internet term that doesn't show up much among hardcore fans. 

I'm thinking of a music that evolves from taking metal programming to its logical extreme.


----------



## coreysMonster

The only context I've ever heard Gabber in is Gabber Gandalf from Lord of the Weed.

Regarding fake shredders, it's an annoying thing that's happening to every part of social media. Instagram models who photoshop their pictures, fitness guys on Youtube who say they're natty but are obviously on four different roids, and of course guitarists who fake how well they can play. If people are upfront and honest about it obviously it's different, but the current thing of pretending obviously fake, unnatural or assisted results in any area of skill or physical attribute or performance as real or unassisted is really annoying. All it does is give people who are new to or unfamiliar with a skill a false sense of what is realistically achievable.

But again, if you're faking shredding and admit it, that's totally fine though. Using computers to make music that humans can't has obviously been a thing for decades now. If it sounds cool then the composition is still valid.


----------



## Jonathan20022

The frustrating part about Charles is that he IS a great guitarist. Beyond all the hate he's getting, I was a huge fan of Reflections back in high school and used to really enjoy their play through and videos. I honestly never checked out Berried Alive due to the annoying Facebook marketing and the short clips I would see didn't really catch my ear very much at all, although it doesn't bother me as much as the folks on here get riled up about it, it certainly isn't the kind of music I like to sit down and jam to after a long day of work nor during it's too distracting and kills my focus.

But the reason he doubles down every time he's called out is due to the overwhelming amount of support he gets on all of his content because the average consumer literally couldn't care less if a video is mimed or recording at half time and sped up as long as it tickles their personal tastes. The nitpicky debating bedroom guitarists like all of us are in the extreme minority and he doesn't have to acknowledge or entertain the BS unless it personally gets to him enough to respond to all it. The truth is a 12 page thread on apparently a lot of people that bother the guys in this thread is only doing one thing, exposing his music to more people. So if the objective is to not support him, it's accomplishing the opposite.

The consensus here seems to be against what he does, and that's fair but it doesn't really accomplish a whole lot in the way of being against his fake guitar skills.

I scooped through his channel, and it seems like 2018 he stopped caring about trying to convince people in the most obvious way to hide the quantization/slow down bs because this video sounds infinitely more real and better to me, if not just because I can hear the minor nuances in the vibrato and pick attack. The only part that is obviously hyper produced is the run in the intro. But in general the phrasing in this vid is pretty great, I could totally enjoy some of his music if the guitars sounded more real like in this video but it all just sounds hyper guitar pro-like in all of his recent videos so I'll still pass.



In response to the damage he's potentially doing to young guitarists is a really stupid point to make, nothing Charles is playing is impossible by any measure of the word. To actually pull off the harder stuff he does requires an immense amount of practice, and I'd wager he inspires more people than he puts down demonstrated by the severe lack of call out comments in the sea of positive responses he gets to all of his content. There's definitely value in being genuine about your playing, but the amount of folks upset over this is kind of worrisome. Just focus all of the attention on the underappreciated talent all over the internet that would love even a few posts discussing them and their music. But the only kinds of posts that get double digit pages are controversial topics/bands, and very popular musicians groups.

This kid personally blew me away looking at the entries to the Kiesel contest last night for any hidden gems in the entries.



More positivity folks, less drama


----------



## Señor Voorhees

I mean, I like berried alive and never knew about the project until it was brought up here so I'm kind of glad people throw fits. I think it's a little disingenuous to pretend like you're some super guitar playing robot, but I do er more on the side of "I like music even if it's all vst's pretending to be guitars and real instruments." I don't care how it's made, only that it's good to my ear.


----------



## ThePIGI King




----------



## coreysMonster

Jonathan20022 said:


> There's definitely value in being genuine about your playing, but the amount of folks upset over this is kind of worrisome.


Worrisome how


----------



## Jonathan20022

coreysMonster said:


> Worrisome how



Exactly how I laid it out, people are trying to play narratives about how damaging this stuff is to the youth to quantify how negative of an impact it has. The only person Charles and bands/people that do this are clowning are themselves, always has been. I remember speeding up one of my own old covers on my youtube channel and it was the biggest pain in the ass to do it instead of just practicing licks and riffs until they're tight and you can record the riffs up to speed. But I value my own personal guitar milestones more than the minor amount of people that watch my videos, so I put more time into my covers and personal playing. 

Even if I put the exhaustive effort into half speed recording my guitar playing just to impress randoms online, the only person negatively impacted in that situation is myself  that's just the truth.


----------



## stockwell

Obviously it's possible to play what he plays. It won't sound like it does when you do, though, because a human can't get that perfect pick attack and note clarity. Which is why Necrophagist recorded the way they did in the first place. 

The reason people get frustrated by this is obvious. They feel like it cheapens the work they've put into a very difficult task. Why try to get better if someone can fake their way and get the same or more attention? And I don't have a good answer besides to only do something that is intrinsically valuable to you and let everything else follow from that. You can never invalidate someone's work because the ability to grind is as important as the skill it develops.


----------



## coreysMonster

Hey guys it's me coreysMonster, just letting you know that I am actually this buff and haters will say I'm fake and not actually this buff. This is not true, they are haters. I can lift seventeen mules with ease. For reals.







I can also shred guitar like crazy but I can't do it live because it would melt your face off. Literally. My Flight of the Bumblebee 400bpm video is of course real, why would it not be. You will never be on my level unless you can play that, and lift seventeen mules.

To get as buff and fast as me buy my whey protein and my speed-o-clock signature guitars and instructional dvds. This is not a SCAM, this is real.


----------



## Jonathan20022

Sure, but it doesn't really make a difference how close you can get. If you can accomplish Richardson/Taranto level cleanliness and learn those links you can get 90% there and cap out before you're satisfied with your runs.

I think the frustration is understandable, but I to me it's personally not. It's more of a mild annoyance and I get over it because I don't gauge my success on the attention others have gotten legitimately or not. Don't we always tell people to not compare yourselves to others and just work on your own craft instead. All time spent stressing about people like this is completely and utterly wasted if your end goal is to find success and better your craft.

I also don't think Charles' shift in direction production and musically discredits his own skill in guitar. He's absolutely not clean as he's portraying with the impossible guitar pro standard. But he can play guitar pretty adeptly, and seeing his attempts to portray himself as anything other than what he is doesn't make me feel bad about my growth as a guitarist. Because at the end of the day the "genuine" insane shredders are still bigger and will stay relevant for longer. 

Like I said, they hurt no one but themselves. I can't obviously invalidate your feelings on the matter, but I'm just telling you it's kind of a waste of time to spend the energy on someone you think doesn't deserve attention in the first place.


----------



## c7spheres

I prefer the 80's over the top clothes compared to the stuff like shown above. At least it wasn't


coreysMonster said:


> Hey guys it's me coreysMonster, just letting you know that I am actually this buff and haters will say I'm fake and not actually this buff. This is not true, they are haters. I can lift seventeen mules with ease. For reals.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I can also shred guitar like crazy but I can't do it live because it would melt your face off. Literally. My Flight of the Bumblebee 400bpm video is of course real, why would it not be. You will never be on my level unless you can play that, and lift seventeen mules.
> 
> To get as buff and fast as me buy my whey protein and my speed-o-clock signature guitars and instructional dvds. This is not a SCAM, this is real.


 DUDE! You are the best man. Such an inspiration. I'm all over buying your merch and all I have to say to all the haters is "fuck you haters!" I love you buffy.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

It's all perfectly harmless, if not a little annoying.

It's not like he (or any of these other YT dinguses) are headlining MSG while all the honest guitarists starve. 

He's got a mediocre (in the scheme of things) following on a platform that's quickly de-monetizing clicks for creators and an ugly signature guitar from a company that's more punchline than instrument builder. 

If some folks dig it, let them. It really has no bearing otherwise. Life is too short to get so bent out of shape over someone who doesn't matter. 

Ignoring him and his ilk is the best strategy, but we all know you messy fucks love the drama.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

Max, would you shut up? People are trying to light pitchforks and shake our torches at these big fat phonies!


----------



## USMarine75

Saw this in another thread...

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99816993

"Violinist Itzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, pianist Gabriela Montero, and clarinetist Anthony McGill performed in the frigid midday air - or so it seemed. Now, it turns out that what people on the Mall and at home actually heard was a recording."


----------



## MaxOfMetal

USMarine75 said:


> Saw this in another thread...
> 
> https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99816993
> 
> "Violinist Itzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, pianist Gabriela Montero, and clarinetist Anthony McGill performed in the frigid midday air - or so it seemed. Now, it turns out that what people on the Mall and at home actually heard was a recording."



This is really nothing new for the industry.

I think there's a difference between playing to a dub for a live performance (one that the performer could, without a doubt do under somewhat ideal conditions) vs. miming performances in front of your computer because you can't do it for real (and couldn't under any circumstances). 

That said, both are a form of deception, and thus, I feel both are morally wrong.


----------



## USMarine75

MaxOfMetal said:


> That said, both are a form of deception, and thus, I feel both are morally wrong.



It's not morally wrong... I usually pay extra for deception.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

USMarine75 said:


> It's not morally wrong... I usually pay extra for deception.



Is it deception if you know you're being deceived?


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

MaxOfMetal said:


> This is really nothing new for the industry.
> 
> I think there's a difference between playing to a dub for a live performance (one that the performer could, without a doubt do under somewhat ideal conditions) vs. miming performances in front of your computer because you can't do it for real (and couldn't under any circumstances).
> 
> That said, both are a form of deception, and thus, I feel both are morally wrong.


I find both to be wrong and boring. I can understand Motley Crue using a guitar track so Mick can go into and out of solos while the rhythm guitar remains smoother, but they were using tracks for Neil's voice and other shit too. I ultimately prefer warts and all Live versus "live" or miming. I was 10 or so when I rented a bootleg of KISS during the Alive! Tour when they played Cobo Hall circa January 1976, and that was the reason I wanted to play guitar, begging for one for four years. I want to see a band really do it, not pretend to do it, or use a musical girdle, or mime, or any of that shit.

Lots of bands fake shit live, in play throughs, and in the studio. Live, I miss the spontaneity, the danger, the hiccups and blemishes, the bum notes, the clammed parts, etc. who gives a fuck about seeing a show where every gig is the same as the last, preplanned from house lights going off to the band bowing at the end and everything in between. Every show is basically the same shit, and it's all so regimented and played to a click to stay locked in to the backing tracks.

In closing, I'd just like to say fuck you Paul Stanley. You should've retired over a decade ago, and now you sound like such a hoarse cunt you're miming to tracks. This, of course, after like a decade of putting down others for doing just that. Eat a bowl of dicks.


----------



## Wildebeest

Jonathan20022 said:


> but I'm just telling you it's kind of a waste of time to spend the energy on someone you think doesn't deserve attention in the first place.


I disagree 100%. BS deserves to be called out. This whole attitude of "who cares man, let it be" leads to lower and lower standards, every single time. I don't care if more people with poor taste choose to go listen to Chris just because they heard the name Berried Alive for the first time in this thread. The more fake shredders are shamed, the less of them we will see.


----------



## gunshow86de

coreysMonster said:


>



You need to start mewing bro, jaw gains are lagging.


----------



## GunpointMetal

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Live, I miss the spontaneity, the danger, the hiccups and blemishes, the bum notes, the clammed parts, etc. who gives a fuck about seeing a show where every gig is the same as the last, preplanned from house lights going off to the band bowing at the end and everything in between. Every show is basically the same shit, and it's all so regimented and played to a click to stay locked in to the backing tracks.


I get if you're at a jam band show, you don't wanna hear the same solo, or the same arrangement, but if I go to see a tech death/deathcore/*insert other tight/technical genre I really don't wanna hear the lead guitarist newest interpretation of the solo or whatever. And unless you can afford to hire a light guy, the only way to do a synced up show is with a click track as far as lights/graphics/etc. If I wanna hear some dudes in jeans and Morbid Angel shirts play rough versions of songs they kind of know, I have lots of friends I can visit in their basement. If I'm paying $20+ for a show, I expect there to be some serious forethought into the production AS WELL as the music.


----------



## Jonathan20022

Wildebeest said:


> I disagree 100%. BS deserves to be called out. This whole attitude of "who cares man, let it be" leads to lower and lower standards, every single time. I don't care if more people with poor taste choose to go listen to Chris just because they heard the name Berried Alive for the first time in this thread. The more fake shredders are shamed, the less of them we will see.



Missing the entire point of what I said, you think shaming him has any impact when it doesn't. If you receive some kind of self inflicted sense of duty by calling him out then by all means. But pretending you're doing nothing but adding to his metrics by commenting that you think hes a fraud while he can just ignore or delete your message is like I've outlined, pointless.

Can you quantify this lowering of standards? Because AFAIK that seems like BS in and of itself, the majority of musicians are heavily traditional and would blanket a lot of artists they deem 'soulless' and incomprehensible garbage because Tech Death isn't their jam.

Same discussion, different variables. If you can pinpoint any real world impact on a major level, I'll keep saying ignore the gimmicky bedroom shredder with the quirky name and song titles and he'll get less attention and be less relevant. You're doing him more good than bad by trying to be righteous and put him down, how is that so hard to comprehend?


----------



## R34CH

Jonathan20022 said:


> This kid personally blew me away looking at the entries to the Kiesel contest last night for any hidden gems in the entries.



Shoot I didn't know Dustin from Stranger Things could shred like that! His powers must be hidden in the hipster glasses. All jokes aside though, I thought that was _fantastic_. Thanks for sharing.


----------



## Fred the Shred

I don't really think going for his throat specifically is beneficial in any way, as I simply acknowledge how much I despise the inherent dishonesty of this sort of thing and move on. If he wants to be a pantomime of sorts and play make believe with his "guitar parts", it's his choice, as is the other horde of hacks out there passing heavily quantized half speed shit as actual playing and doing Instagram "shred" clips. Where I disagree with Jonathan is on the side effects of this, as you'll find plenty of people lauding the living GuitarPro emulators' praises and creating unrealistic expectations of where one's playing should be if he's after technical proficiency.

Personally, I have better shit to do than to go after these people's videos calling them out - they will become as irrelevant as it gets as time goes on anyway, and I'm certainly not willing to contribute to their exposure or online presence via drama and the like. I think Kmac's hilarious video did a far better job than I could with words, to be honest.  

So, all this talk about Marty made me want to give old Megadeth a listen, anyway, so BRB!


----------



## Riffer

I remember seeing this video ages ago. It's a little different then what's being discussed as far as sped up shredding is concerned but it's in the same vain. This guy did it as a joke but I can see it's turned into a whole thing now.


----------



## Wildebeest

Jonathan20022 said:


> Missing the entire point of what I said, you think shaming him has any impact when it doesn't. If you receive some kind of self inflicted sense of duty by calling him out then by all means. But pretending you're doing nothing but adding to his metrics by commenting that you think hes a fraud while he can just ignore or delete your message is like I've outlined, pointless.
> 
> Can you quantify this lowering of standards? Because AFAIK that seems like BS in and of itself, the majority of musicians are heavily traditional and would blanket a lot of artists they deem 'soulless' and incomprehensible garbage because Tech Death isn't their jam.
> 
> Same discussion, different variables. If you can pinpoint any real world impact on a major level, I'll keep saying ignore the gimmicky bedroom shredder with the quirky name and song titles and he'll get less attention and be less relevant. You're doing him more good than bad by trying to be righteous and put him down, how is that so hard to comprehend?


Clearly shaming works if he felt the need to post a "live" video after people kept on shitting on him. That's all I'll add to this. I disagree with your posts, but they are well written and I don't have the time to give you a longer response that they deserve at the moment, I'm at work at currently. Don't tell my boss.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

Judging from what I've seen on Facebook his image has been irreparably damaged after he was called out by Fountainhead and countless other high profile players. Instead of lots of comments praising his playing there's endless "midi, fake etc" ones. As much as you can delete comments on your own pages there's nothing you can do on re-shares. 

If you're going to cheat expect to be eventually called out. I'm surprised this didn't happen years ago. I can't imagine having that much negative attention pointed at you. I think most people would be content if him and others were just honest that they surgically edit their playing and posted actual raw camera audio every know and then.


----------



## Jonathan20022

I respect the other side of the discussion in regards to the folks that disagreed with me. Although we dont see eye to eye on the need to call him out and shame him. I think Science Penguin put it best



Science_Penguin said:


> Jesus...
> 
> And you know where this is going too. He posts a video claiming it's "raw" with these obvious mistakes so, when people inevitably call him out, he can brush it off with, "Ugh, there's just no pleasing you people! Forget it, clearly you're just going to go digging to find something wrong with any video I post about it, so I'm not going to bother."



This is just a card to impress the people who can't tell the difference and dont care and chalk all the controversy to 'haters' in a cringey teenage rant about the negativity pointed towards him. I commented on my friends post yesterday I think, why didnt he just turn down the midi if the point of the live raw take was to prove a point. Hes hiding behind it 100%, but I'm personally not upset over it.

I dont spend as much time on Facebook since guitar groups on there are hot unmoderated echo chamber garbage dumps. But I did see Fountain Heads video on my feed, crazy if he directed it at Charles and ruined his rep to that extent.


----------



## lurè

I think he can only impress very young people or someone who has less then a year of playing.
The vast majority of experienced players can see from a mile how he's faking and don't even bother to bash him.

Unless you're looking for the internet drama, you can simply ignore him and go back listening to the "sloppy" ones like Friedman.


----------



## Seabeast2000

USMarine75 said:


> It's not morally wrong... I usually pay extra for deception.



Your hair is TD4!!!


----------



## BornToLooze

Jonathan20022 said:


> I remember speeding up one of my own old covers on my youtube channel and it was the biggest pain in the ass to do it instead of just practicing licks and riffs until they're tight and you can record the riffs up to speed. But I value my own personal guitar milestones more than the minor amount of people that watch my videos, so I put more time into my covers and personal playing.
> 
> Even if I put the exhaustive effort into half speed recording my guitar playing just to impress randoms online, the only person negatively impacted in that situation is myself  that's just the truth.



That's the thing I don't get. Pretty much everything I've recorded is just hit record and play the song. I've tried to go back and edit one track I've recorded and it wound up more fucked up sounding than it was before I started messing with it.

Also, semi relevant


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

BornToLooze said:


> That's the thing I don't get. Pretty much everything I've recorded is just hit record and play the song. I've tried to go back and edit one track I've recorded and it wound up more fucked up sounding than it was before I started messing with it.
> 
> Also, semi relevant



Is this Top of the Pops or some shit? I think taking the piss like this is pretty funny.


----------



## Charlie Foxtrot 3rd

Hollowway said:


> Yeah, but the issue isn't the recorded music. I'm with you on that - if it sounds good, then great. The issue that the guy brings up is that there are people on youtube who are putting up play through videos that they're not actually playing through. It just seems weird to say, "Look at me play this fast passage - betcha can't do this!" and then find out that the guy didn't actually play it. I'm not sure how much it matters to me, in that I'm pretty sure I can't play as well as ANY youtube guitarist , but I do hate liars and people who pretend they're something they're not.


Totally agree, I lose all respect for a person who lies about their abilities or just in general. Earn the skill and you’ll earn my respect and appreciation. 

Charlie Foxtrot 3rd


----------



## ICSvortex

BornToLooze said:


> Also, semi relevant




Well i read about this incident somewhere and the station that they played for insisted on a track playing and the band just acting along, but since they didnt want that, they just made a joke out of it, which i think is amazing 

But my 2 cents about this topic are that honestly, who cares?
i mean, there was never a shred of doubt in my mind that the berried alive dude was just using gp6. Same with lucas mann and also i never thought that jason richardson recorded that at full speed (even if he can play it live after a while). Sure some people will be fooled but those are the same people who think ariana grande is hitting those high notes perfectly every concert or britney spears can do those dances without it affecting the voice even in the slightest...


----------



## Chokey Chicken

ICSvortex said:


> Well i read about this incident somewhere and the station that they played for insisted on a track playing and the band just acting along, but since they didnt want that, they just made a joke out of it, which i think is amazing
> 
> But my 2 cents about this topic are that honestly, who cares?
> i mean, there was never a shred of doubt in my mind that the berried alive dude was just using gp6. Same with lucas mann and also i never thought that jason richardson recorded that at full speed (even if he can play it live after a while). Sure some people will be fooled but those are the same people who think ariana grande is hitting those high notes perfectly every concert or britney spears can do those dances without it affecting the voice even in the slightest...



Nirvana did the same on Top of the Pops only they gave Kurt a live mic. Best rendition of Smells Like Teen Spirit out there. I suggest looking it up if you haven't seen it yet. I'd post it here now, but mobile is clunky for me at 5am.


----------



## Jonathan20022

Something I thought about last night, what are people's takes on Protest the Hero?

Specifically Kezia, because although that's a beloved album by anyone who really digs that band, they openly admitted to writing stuff that was above their paygrade and practiced until they got it tight. That album might not have existed without tools for tabbing to lay out their creative minds down and write what they truly wanted to write, at worst they probably played a few months worth of shoddy live renditions of the songs and by the time it came to record they were most of the way there. It's far more mild obviously, but curious what folks think considering how binary some people's thoughts on the topic are.


----------



## Eptaceros

Compositional tools are just that, every generation works with what they have. PtH wrote difficult songs, practiced their butts off, and then played it for real when it came time to record. Nothing but respect for that. Some of the guys in Meshuggah write like this a lot of the time, they write it out first and then learn it. What do you think orchestral composers do, play every individual instrument first?


----------



## GunpointMetal

Eptaceros said:


> What do you think orchestral composers do, play every individual instrument first?


They also don't post videos of themselves pretending to play every instrument attempting to gain the respect of each niche instrument fans. The deception/issue isn't that they're using modern tools to compose, its that they're pretending they didn't in some capacity.


----------



## skmanga

Jonathan20022 said:


> Something I thought about last night, what are people's takes on Protest the Hero?
> 
> Specifically Kezia, because although that's a beloved album by anyone who really digs that band, they openly admitted to writing stuff that was above their paygrade and practiced until they got it tight. That album might not have existed without tools for tabbing to lay out their creative minds down and write what they truly wanted to write, at worst they probably played a few months worth of shoddy live renditions of the songs and by the time it came to record they were most of the way there. It's far more mild obviously, but curious what folks think considering how binary some people's thoughts on the topic are.



Damn PTH..
Thinking about all of this on the 1 hand makes me feel like beating myself up for beating myself up over the years. I put a lot of pressure on myself to live up to the the music I was hearing from other artists as a guitarist. Come to find out things aren't like I imagined.

I've spent a lot of my guitar playing life looking up to artist that likely could not play what they wanted, they way they wanted, while also being someone who couldn't play what I wanted to, the way I would have liked on my instrument.
In a hard headed way I pushed and pushed even while achieving minimal results, until some small "breakthrough" would happen and it got me one tiny step closer to living up to the idea of the type of guitarist I think I should be in my head.

From that perspective it stings to find out that even beloved albums like "Kezia" weren't recorded "naturally", whatever that means in this day and age!?..
But at the same time its refreshing to realize on some level at least, that I don't have to beat myself up and it contributes towards freeing me to become the guitarist I can be, without thinking about what or how anyone else achieves what they achieve.
It's been quite the trap for me.

I guess its just me.
I love listening to Berried alive from time to time, but then hearing that its "fake" in any way brings out a kind of refreshing resentment lol...

I guess the healthiest way for me to look at this issue is, "you do you, imma do me" and try not to focus on the accomplishments of others and how they achieve what they achieve.
That should empower my path and give me the room I need to continue to grow to be exactly the kind of guitarist that I would like to be.

EDIT: Thanks for reminding me about how badass Kezia is!
Got the album playing as I write this


----------



## Eptaceros

GunpointMetal said:


> The deception/issue isn't that they're using modern tools to compose, its that they're pretending they didn't in some capacity.



I know, we're saying the same thing here, bud. Compositional tools are just compositional tools. I don't think there's any parallel to be drawn here with half-assed mimers.

Not really sure what Jonathan20022 is getting at here. Are you looking down at bands that write complex stuff before they can play it? How do you think music is composed half the time? You think the guys in Defeated Sanity just come up with their german frank zappa riffs on the spot with instruments at hand??


----------



## GunpointMetal

Eptaceros said:


> I know, we're saying the same thing here, bud. Compositional tools are just compositional tools. I don't think there's any parallel to be drawn here with half-assed mimers.
> 
> Not really sure what Jonathan20022 is getting at here. Are you looking down at bands that write complex stuff before they can play it? How do you think music is composed half the time? You think the guys in Defeated Sanity just come up with their german frank zappa riffs on the spot with instruments at hand??


Ah, I see, I see. Yeah, I would HOPE most musicians making technical music would be pushing what they're capable of. For me personally, I write stuff all the time that is outside my ability, or shit that I can play sitting down, but not standing on stage because I can't climb over the guitar like I do at my computer, and then we practice till we can do it live (or at least accurately enough that it sounds like we know what we're doing, lol). 


Jonathan20022 said:


> Something I thought about last night, what are people's takes on Protest the Hero?
> 
> Specifically Kezia, because although that's a beloved album by anyone who really digs that band, they openly admitted to writing stuff that was above their paygrade and practiced until they got it tight. That album might not have existed without tools for tabbing to lay out their creative minds down and write what they truly wanted to write, at worst they probably played a few months worth of shoddy live renditions of the songs and by the time it came to record they were most of the way there. It's far more mild obviously, but curious what folks think considering how binary some people's thoughts on the topic are.


Composing something beyond your ability and then woodshedding till you get it isn't the same thing as writing beyond your ability and then just pretending you put in the work.


----------



## Eptaceros

skmanga said:


> From that perspective it stings to find out that even beloved albums like "Kezia" weren't recorded "naturally", whatever that means in this day and age!?..



Why do you think it wasn't recorded naturally? It's a real recording.


----------



## Jonathan20022

Eptaceros said:


> I know, we're saying the same thing here, bud. Compositional tools are just compositional tools. I don't think there's any parallel to be drawn here with half-assed mimers.
> 
> Not really sure what Jonathan20022 is getting at here. Are you looking down at bands that write complex stuff before they can play it? How do you think music is composed half the time? You think the guys in Defeated Sanity just come up with their german frank zappa riffs on the spot with instruments at hand??



Holy shit dude, PtH is legitimately one of my favorite bands of all time, I'm not telling them off for it. It's a discussion point since the nuances after the fact are different but composition wise they used their tools to write music outside of their scope in the same way I some of these modern guys are but they are being disingenuous in their presentation of their product. The orchestra thought was nice to begin with but also a terrible comparison since generally flashy and fast musical pieces aren't associated with Orchestra compositions (although they can be). 

It just seems like you missed my point, clearly Charles is writing music and riffs/leads he can't cleanly play but by metric is it ever acceptable? 

This was my point a few pages ago, consistency in an argument matters and some of the people responding are 100% against the use of any technology to facilitate writing. And in this discussion being about Berried Alive most people here aren't really invested or longtime fans, so no loss and mostly everyone couldn't give a shit about it. You throw a more beloved band in the mix and there's suddenly more leniency and flexibility in the argument, it's just not consistent and THAT was my point in bringing up PtH. They did nothing wrong, but they BEGAN doing the same thing I'm sure Charles is doing. People can be against tool assisted musical performances, but if you're not against all of it then the argument falls flat IMO. Lying after the fact and being deceptive does not go hand in hand with someone writing overly complex music and using different tricks and methods in the studio to perform/record their tracks.


----------



## Avedas

Jonathan20022 said:


> Something I thought about last night, what are people's takes on Protest the Hero?
> 
> Specifically Kezia, because although that's a beloved album by anyone who really digs that band, they openly admitted to writing stuff that was above their paygrade and practiced until they got it tight. That album might not have existed without tools for tabbing to lay out their creative minds down and write what they truly wanted to write, at worst they probably played a few months worth of shoddy live renditions of the songs and by the time it came to record they were most of the way there. It's far more mild obviously, but curious what folks think considering how binary some people's thoughts on the topic are.


PTH plays a lot of their songs simplified live. Forget Kezia, look at Fortress. A lot of the guitar lines on the record are way trickier than what Luke especially plays live. They still do play their songs live though and it sounds awesome, so no harm no foul there.

Also BTBAM writes everything in Guitar Pro. It's no big deal.


----------



## skmanga

Eptaceros said:


> Why do you think it wasn't recorded naturally? It's a real recording.


Every music recording is real in the sense that it is a physical capture of sound.
How each of us personally define what constitutes whether or not an artist "cheats", is what constitutes a "natural"/"real" recording in my opinion.
It is a big part of what this topic is about.

Regarding PTH, I am going by live videos of them playing in the few years after the release of the album Kezia.
In the video's I have seen its like they're struggling to keep up live, and some sound really bad to be honest.
To me that signals some potential fuckery going on, though I was not there when they recorded in the studio.

That's also why I said "whatever that means in this day and age!?..".
I imagine very few artists record entire songs in single takes with the "benefits" of digital recording.
Though I am not criticizing recording methods or the different "tools" that artist use to capture their albums.
I'm sharing my struggle and how the whole "fake playing" concept fucked with my head as a person who plays the guitar.


----------



## Fred the Shred

Jonathan20022 said:


> Something I thought about last night, what are people's takes on Protest the Hero?
> 
> Specifically Kezia, because although that's a beloved album by anyone who really digs that band, they openly admitted to writing stuff that was above their paygrade and practiced until they got it tight. That album might not have existed without tools for tabbing to lay out their creative minds down and write what they truly wanted to write, at worst they probably played a few months worth of shoddy live renditions of the songs and by the time it came to record they were most of the way there. It's far more mild obviously, but curious what folks think considering how binary some people's thoughts on the topic are.



I love them to bits. They are also super damn tight live, as you know. I don't know if people here are so binary as to consider compositional / notation tools as "cheating" or at least that wouldn't make sense to me. If you can't play a given part you've idealized yet at speed and want to preview how it would sound or have a readily available practice / compositional tool would be considered deceitful.


----------



## Drew

Spaced Out Ace said:


> In all honesty, all Tech death bores me to hell and back.


Preach. 

I'm with you. I like my players to sound human.


----------



## Eptaceros

Jonathan20022 said:


> Holy shit dude, PtH is legitimately one of my favorite bands of all time, I'm not telling them off for it. It's a discussion point since the nuances after the fact are different but composition wise they used their tools to write music outside of their scope in the same way I some of these modern guys are but they are being disingenuous in their presentation of their product. The orchestra thought was nice to begin with but also a terrible comparison since generally flashy and fast musical pieces aren't associated with Orchestra compositions (although they can be).
> 
> It just seems like you missed my point, clearly Charles is writing music and riffs/leads he can't cleanly play but by metric is it ever acceptable?
> 
> This was my point a few pages ago, consistency in an argument matters and some of the people responding are 100% against the use of any technology to facilitate writing. And in this discussion being about Berried Alive most people here aren't really invested or longtime fans, so no loss and mostly everyone couldn't give a shit about it. You throw a more beloved band in the mix and there's suddenly more leniency and flexibility in the argument, it's just not consistent and THAT was my point in bringing up PtH. They did nothing wrong, but they BEGAN doing the same thing I'm sure Charles is doing. People can be against tool assisted musical performances, but if you're not against all of it then the argument falls flat IMO. Lying after the fact and being deceptive does not go hand in hand with someone writing overly complex music and using different tricks and methods in the studio to perform/record their tracks.



This discussion was never about composition, it was about execution and a lack of transparency regarding the execution. I don't see the two as comparable by any means. One is conceptual and one is pragmatic. The whole point of this thread is not "why are people writing such cRaZy music??" It's "Why are people blatantly lying to the public about their physical actions?" Compositional tools and genuinely playing your instrument are not at all related on any ethical grounds. And your whole "argument" is based on that parallel....The fact that you keep equating the facilitation of writing and the facilitation of playing makes me think that YOU are the one that's missing the entire point of this discussion.

Just because you don't associate flashy music with orchestral/classical pieces, doesn't make my comparison "terrible". People were shredding their asses off before electricity was invented, dude. Listen to this (skip to 13:20 for the 3rd suite which is the one with most shredding):



This piece was written by Ravel, but he never performed it. The guy probably wrote this out on paper with an ink jar and quill, without the intention of ever playing it personally. Does that make him a hack in your eyes? The blatant answer is no. Because there's a total fundamental difference between composing and playing.

You keep saying PtH was doing what Charles is doing, but....they never did this hyper-edited quantized garbage. They did what 99% of musicians from all history did: they wrote music, they practiced it, and then they recorded it. And the fact that they're butchering those songs live now means that they're taking full responsibility of at least trying to play it for real. No backing track crutches, etc. Just pure human mistakes, which I'll take any day over a band that tours with backing tracks in place of members.


----------



## Jonathan20022

Eptaceros said:


> This discussion was never about composition, it was about execution and a lack of transparency regarding the execution. I don't see the two as comparable by any means. One is conceptual and one is pragmatic. The whole point of this thread is not "why are people writing such cRaZy music??" It's "Why are people blatantly lying to the public about their physical actions?" Compositional tools and genuinely playing your instrument are not at all related on any ethical grounds. And your whole "argument" is based on that parallel....The fact that you keep equating the facilitation of writing and the facilitation of playing makes me think that YOU are the one that's missing the entire point of this discussion.



Alright, no just no. You joined the conversation directly responding to my comment, you want to bring the discussion back to questioning why all this wacky technical metal is being produced nowadays be my guest. But the discussion has taken turns in the last 15 pages and so has the specific talking points as others chime in, and you came in on page 15 on my comment ABOUT composition and the use of tools to write music/writing music out of your technical scope. So the current conversation I'm personally having is about those specific talking points which does fall under the umbrella of the thread.

The whole point of bringing my comment on PtH is to evoke a response from people who would generally denounce the use of of tools and composition that you, at moment of writing cannot play cleanly. That band is beloved by many, and it sparked conversation because the truth is the boys in PtH could NOT play Kezia cleanly until later in their careers. If you're going to be consistent then someone who is against presenting yourself disingenuously (And note my wording) CAN make the argument that writing an album that insane and performing it poorly in a live context is also disingenuous but FAR less heinous. But in general people will give a pass to artists they have a larger connection to their tastes.

Conceptually what PtH and Charles did had the same purpose with perhaps a different intent, Kezia was a beautiful album and you can hear passion behind it. Charles COULD have written his music with the intent of displaying skills that he did not quite have, but we don't know that for sure although it's a reasonable deducation.

Hope that clears that up.



Eptaceros said:


> Just because you don't associate flashy music with orchestral/classical pieces, doesn't make my comparison "terrible". People were shredding their asses off before electricity was invented, dude. Listen to this (skip to 13:20 for the 3rd suite which is the one with most shredding):
> 
> 
> 
> This piece was written by Ravel, but he never performed it. The guy probably wrote this out on paper with an ink jar and quill, without the intention of ever playing it personally. Does that make him a hack in your eyes? The blatant answer is no. Because there's a total fundamental difference between composing and playing.






Jonathan20022 said:


> a terrible comparison since *generally *flashy and fast musical pieces aren't associated with Orchestra compositions *(although they can be)*.



I wasn't born yesterday, and I thought I made my point very clear but apparently not 

I'm not a classical buff, and I never said I was. Showing me a complex piece and saying that technical composition existed before is anecdotal and not really addressing any point I mentioned, just trying to educate me that something obviously exists. (Listening to it while I respond to this, pretty wild)



Eptaceros said:


> You keep saying PtH was doing what Charles is doing, but....they never did this hyper-edited quantized garbage. They did what 99% of musicians from all history did: they wrote music, they practiced it, and then they recorded it. And the fact that they're butchering those songs live now means that they're taking full responsibility of at least trying to play it for real. No backing track crutches, etc. Just pure human mistakes, which I'll take any day over a band that tours with backing tracks in place of members.





Jonathan20022 said:


> *They did nothing wrong*, but they *BEGAN* doing the same thing I'm sure Charles is doing. People can be against tool assisted musical performances, but if you're not against *all* of it then the argument falls flat IMO. Lying after the fact and being deceptive *does not go hand in hand* with someone writing overly complex music and using different tricks and methods in the studio to perform/record their tracks.



I never said Protest did anything deceptive, in fact I acknowledged that you can technically make that claim from their own statements and early shows to back it up but it's a MILD instance of it at best and easily overlooked because it's an incredible album and they quickly pulled up to their own raised bars. I don't think you realize we actually have similar stances, because I'm not a fan of robotic compositions, I just don't let it disgruntle me or stifle my own progress and time spent on my own skillset.

Your point of most musicians might be true, but every guitarist I've personally jammed with the exception of two guys have ever taken the approach of compose and play later. Most guitarists I've seen will noodle and produce riffs/leads while playing which uses their current skills, If I can't alternate pick at I don't try to alternate pick at 200+bpm and immediately default to composing a riff that contains those aspects and try to learn it afterwards. I rely on my playing as it is now to produce music that I can play at that point in time. Same as most of the musicians I've personally run into.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

Jonathan20022 said:


> Something I thought about last night, what are people's takes on Protest the Hero?



It took them a LONG time to get their live show up to good enough level to play songs from Fortress live. They openly admit it was beyond their abilities to play those songs live. Rody and Luke mostly and since then they've toned the vocals down and wrote guitars more suited to a live setting. I got to show Luke some covers I had on my phone and he said he can't play some of those parts live and has to simplify them.

It's common for musicians to do this. Joe Satriani says he struggled playing The Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing live. Paul Gilbert used a looper one time I saw him because he couldn't play some some patterns he wrote in sequence without messing up. Alexi Laiho even in his prime couldn't nail all his solos live. Dragonforce's live show fell apart with Inhuman Rampage and was a lesson in using studio tricks to create ridiculous guitar parts.....and also playing blind drunk is a bad idea. I can think of countless singers who are pushed to their limits live trying to sing their earlier material.


I don't mind what you do in the studio as long as it sounds good. Example the Haarp Machine album sounds great but Rings of Saturn's new album sounds awful. Both surgically edited to the microsecond but very different sounding results in my opinion. On the other hand something like Polyphia works so much better having several guitar lines to play one guitarist's part, having all the layers means other notes get to ring out and cut off as needed., I get pretty much everyone is doing this in the studio so it should be ok for Charles or anyone else to do something similar to create the music they are writing. I've no problem with him making the music he wants to and its really cool he's built such a fanbase for it. You really have to do something ridiculous nowadays to get above the oversaturated average content on social media.

It's when you are creating guitar videos to show off your "guitar chops" that I draw a line at. Perfect example is here, the guy is miming to a guitar pro file. This is rampant across Instagram and Facebook.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BzOPGrLnOUz/


----------



## jco5055

It's funny, I noticed a thing that follows this discussion in that when I was a teenager and obsessed with "being the best guitarist in the world", I would practice stuff like Michael Romeo string skipping tapping and like never progress beyond like 40bpm or something because I needed to have no string noise at all to consider myself able to play it, but since I've actually practiced not nearly as obsessively thanks to life/job/other hobbies I think I've gotten better because now I know that 99% of these pros would use a string dampener for recordings and then live accept some string noise here and there. So I'm fairly certain I would have gotten better/learned more licks/songs/solos if I had this less than perfect mindset because I didn't realize that even the pros "cheated" (though i don't think of it as cheating when recording especially if it's not the one note at a time this main discussion is about).


----------



## Eptaceros

@Jonathan20022 You pretty much ignored most of my last post. The only reason I brought up the classical shred is to follow up on your "compositional tool" argument. Yet, you literally just took it at face value and thought I shared it in order to say that "technical composition existed before". I don't know how else to elaborate on this subject, so here's my final attempt:

writing music that you can't play and then working really hard to play it well = trying.
writing music that you can't play and then punching in notes/layering with MIDI/recording in half speed, and then lying about the process = not trying.

It has nothing to do with preferring one artist over the other, PtH falls into the first category, Berried Alive falls in the other. They're not similar, in fact, they're opposites. If you don't see that, then we're going to be talking in circles about this over and over, and I'd rather just end it here rather than beat a dead horse.

Regarding how your friends write music. Writing music that you struggle to play is literally how you make yourself a better player, unless you resort to studio trickery. The way your friends write music does not dictate how it happens on a larger scale. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Any genre of music that tends to feature instrumental acrobatics and fast playing, be it jazz/metal/fusion/whatever, I guarantee you most players try to push their limits when writing. I recommend you and your friends try it.


----------



## tedtan

Eptaceros said:


> writing music that you can't play and then working really hard to play it well = trying.
> writing music that you can't play and then punching in notes/layering with MIDI/recording in half speed, and then lying about the process = not trying.
> 
> It has nothing to do with preferring one artist over the other, PtH falls into the first category, Berried Alive falls in the other. They're not similar, in fact, they're opposites. If you don't see that, then we're going to be talking in circles about this over and over, and I'd rather just end it here rathen than beat a dead horse.



That's the same point that he's been making, though.


----------



## GunpointMetal

tedtan said:


> That's the same point that he's been making, though.


Originally the point was "oh its fine when a band you like does it, but no when these guys do it." then it turned into "I guess they don't do it AS much, so maybe its not the same thing" and now its "how is not being the same mean its not the same?". At least with my limited reading comprehension skills, anyways.


----------



## Cynicanal

jco5055 said:


> I would practice stuff like Michael Romeo string skipping tapping and like never progress beyond like 40bpm or something because I needed to have no string noise at all to consider myself able to play it


If I could go back in time, I'd find the guy who said "mAkE sUrE yOu CaN pLaY iT sLoW bEfOrE sPeEdInG iT uP~~~" and slap him across the face. Playing "beyond" your comfortable speed is a super-critical part of practicing to be able to play better, playing fast engages the muscles differently than super-slow clean, and just trying to stay in super-clean slow zone will stunt development like crazy until you start going faster.


----------



## Eptaceros

tedtan said:


> That's the same point that he's been making, though.



Was it? Cause that's not what Jonathan's first post sounded like:



> Something I thought about last night, what are people's takes on Protest the Hero?
> Specifically Kezia, because although that's a beloved album by anyone who really digs that band,* they openly admitted* to writing stuff that was above their paygrade *and practiced *until they got it tight. *That album might not have existed without tools for tabbing to lay out their creative minds down* and write what they truly wanted to write, at worst they probably played a few months worth of shoddy live renditions of the songs and by the time it came to record they were most of the way there. It's far more mild obviously, but curious what folks think considering how binary some people's thoughts on the topic are.



Yeah, how is openly admitting something the same as blatantly lying about it? What is this, opposite day? And most of my posts after that have also tried to dispell this weird notion that compositional tools are somehow to be looked down upon, as if people hadn't been writing music that exceeds their physical limitations since the beginning of time. Reading through this thread honestly has me feeling like:








What most likely happened with PtH is they recorded their songs riff by riff and took the best takes and used those. And that's fine! I understand studio time costs a lot of money, and at the end of the day, they just want to put out their music. It doesn't sound like there's any quantization/MIDI syncing/etc., and that's where people should draw the line, IMO. Because that kind of editing fundamentally changes the sound (literally the aural physics) of what you're hearing. IMO, at that point, people should just hang up their guitars and use synths/midi to create their music if they're going to edit their guitars to the point of not sounding like real guitars.


----------



## Mathemagician

Some creators admit they can’t play it live, and others lie their asses off. Either way it doesn’t detract from your art. 

Trends come and go and fans aren’t zero-sum.


----------



## Lrrrr

Cynicanal said:


> If I could go back in time, I'd find the guy who said "mAkE sUrE yOu CaN pLaY iT sLoW bEfOrE sPeEdInG iT uP~~~" and slap him across the face. Playing "beyond" your comfortable speed is a super-critical part of practicing to be able to play better, playing fast engages the muscles differently than super-slow clean, and just trying to stay in super-clean slow zone will stunt development like crazy until you start going faster.



If I remember correctly his name is John Petrucci. Regardless of who it actually is, I've never agreed with something so much on this website. Eff that guy.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

I always took the "make sure you can play it slow" thing as meaning, "If you try playing it fast or faster than you're comfortable with and it's not precise enough, then slow it down to work on it." Maybe not what was meant, but that's always how I've done it.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

Cynicanal said:


> If I could go back in time, I'd find the guy who said "mAkE sUrE yOu CaN pLaY iT sLoW bEfOrE sPeEdInG iT uP~~~" and slap him across the face. Playing "beyond" your comfortable speed is a super-critical part of practicing to be able to play better, playing fast engages the muscles differently than super-slow clean, and just trying to stay in super-clean slow zone will stunt development like crazy until you start going faster.



My 2 cents:

1. Starting slow helps getting the intonation, string muting and hand synchronisation down.

2. Increasing tempo gradually helps your brain get used to all the info in point 1.

3. Playing at the limit of your abilities (i.e. near the threshold where things fall apart) helps progress.

In my technically oriented practice sessions, I try to cover all these points and not stick to point 1 exclusively, i.e. it’s kinda dumb not to try to see where your limit is and not to practice near it, which I think is your point.

That being said, shit intonation, crap string noise muting and bad hand sync at slow speed will obviously carry over to higher speeds.


----------



## tedtan

Cynicanal said:


> If I could go back in time, I'd find the guy who said "mAkE sUrE yOu CaN pLaY iT sLoW bEfOrE sPeEdInG iT uP~~~" and slap him across the face. Playing "beyond" your comfortable speed is a super-critical part of practicing to be able to play better, playing fast engages the muscles differently than super-slow clean, and just trying to stay in super-clean slow zone will stunt development like crazy until you start going faster.



This has been my experience, too. I never got very fast (16th notes at 130 bpm) trying to play slow and clean when picking across the strings. In order to get to the higher speeds, I had to work at playing faster than I could cleanly, then slowing it down a bit to work on cleanliness, then repeating the process, ratcheting up the speed along the way.




Lrrrr said:


> If I remember correctly his name is John Petrucci. Regardless of who it actually is, I've never agreed with something so much on this website. Eff that guy.



Actually, I think Petrucci was the first person I'd seen say that you had to push past the point of playing cleanly in order to develop speed in his Rock Discipline video.


----------



## tedtan

Eptaceros said:


> Was it? Cause that's not what Jonathan's first post sounded like:
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah, how is openly admitting something the same as blatantly lying about it?



It's not, but then he didn't claim it was. His point was that PtH used the available tools to compose and play their music beyond their abilities, but then went practiced it in order to be able to play it.

That's not the same thing as what we see in the OP, where the BA guy is pretending to play something he can't actually play, hoping to pass it off as having actually played it.


----------



## BornToLooze

HungryGuitarStudent said:


> My 2 cents:
> 
> 1. Starting slow helps getting the intonation, string muting and hand synchronisation down.
> 
> 2. Increasing tempo gradually helps your brain get used to all the info in point 1.
> 
> 3. Playing at the limit of your abilities (i.e. near the threshold where things fall apart) helps progress.
> 
> In my technically oriented practice sessions, I try to cover all these points and not stick to point 1 exclusively, i.e. it’s kinda dumb not to try to see where your limit is and not to practice near it, which I think is your point.
> 
> That being said, shit intonation, crap string noise muting and bad hand sync at slow speed will obviously carry over to higher speeds.



That's what I've been working on. I used to always slow stuff down to half speed in Guitar Pro, and just slowly ratchet up the speed 5 bpm at a time. I'd always get to a certain point and get finger tied, but it seems like going back and forth between practicing slow to clean it up and as fast as I can without completely butchering it is working a lot better for me.

Also, the string noise muting seems, at least to me, a byproduct of how in modern metal everyone uses so much gain you have to use a gate. I've noticed since I went back to just running my guitar straight into the amp with no pedals, my playing has gotten a lot cleaner because it _had _to.


----------



## will_shred

Spaced Out Ace said:


> I think this is a great video and reminds me of that one awful "band" that was posted on here a year or two back. Faking your guitar abilities is pretty lame, and I'd much rather listen to a "messier" solo like Friedman's at the end of the video than some perfect solo that sounds bland, soulless, and fake. The sad thing is that even guitarists in the 80s were doing this, and I'm sure most of you can name one right off the top of your heads.




I don't think "fake" solos are prevalent enough to justify 15 pages of discussion.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

will_shred said:


> I don't think "fake" solos are prevalent enough to justify 15 pages of discussion.



Well apparently it is.


----------



## c7spheres

Posers suck, but only if they admit they're posers. If they don't then they are assholes and really suck. This has been your 15 pg. summary of this thread. Have a nice day. : )


----------



## ThePIGI King

Unsure if you guys saying Dean and Toby of Archspire can't play their stuff, because they certainly can. Tons of live videos out there and I've stood 10' away and seen them nail their stuff. Those dudes are on another level.

As for catchy tech death? Majority of Inferi, Beyond Creation, Gorod, Revocation, just to name a few. Tech death gets stuck in my head and im tapping to it constantly. Catchier than this 4/4 at the same tempo stuff every rock and pop artist puts out.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

BornToLooze said:


> Also, the string noise muting seems, at least to me, a byproduct of how in modern metal everyone uses so much gain you have to use a gate. I've noticed since I went back to just running my guitar straight into the amp with no pedals, my playing has gotten a lot cleaner because it _had _to.



To build my muting chops, I always practice with headphones, no noise gate and a higher gain tone than when I record. (And I still suck.)

IMO, tapping arpeggios and fast position changes have always generated some string noise (except for bumbleberry), i.e. it’s not exclusive to modern metal.

@ the guy complaining about 15 pages: who are you, the thread length police?  There’s a lot of fakery on IG and YT. Personally I like the reactionary transparency it seems to generate.


----------



## Jonathan20022

@Eptaceros 

I didn't ignore your entire post, I tried to address most of it. I'll chalk it up to a difference of opinion even though I'm sure at the core of it we stand on the same side of the discussion. No point getting hung up on nuances, agree to disagree on those nuances and leave it at that. Cheers dude.

I don't think I've ever operated on slowing down and getting my playing cleaner, which probably hindered me more than anything but I'm just impatient and don't get enough time on the guitar as is. My instragram and youtube vids tend to have flubs because of this that probably bother me more than anyone who's ever watched them, but I don't really care. 

Like I posted a rough cover of Stabwound's Solo, and my roommate gave me shit for not getting it completely noise free and perfect prior but I just told him I didn't care and I'll post a completed version when I get it down. Then I can sit down and compare them back to back, if anything is more harsh for new guitarists it's pretending you can perfect licks and riffs in a short amount of time. I'm pretty average at best, and it still takes me several days to round out my playing.


----------



## c7spheres

I wonder what Hendrix would have sounded like if he did this when he was playing. Definite doing this sort of production is bad for techniques and sounds that only live playing can accomplish. All those happy accidents are just gone/overlooked and not built upon. People doing this propobably have less of a ear for that sort of thing I'd assume. To each his own, but at least be honest when asked about stuff I say. People that lie about things like this just have other self esteem or identiy issues it seems. I love when I like a song and it's raw sounding has mistakes, rhythm imperfections etc. It just has all that honest vibe. As a whole it much more enjoyable and "organic" to sound cliche.


----------



## mikernaut

Finally watched Fountainhead's video that was mentioned on the topic, and was pleasantly surprised to see a guest appearance by Kevin Heiderich. Kevin is such a talented player and deserves more attention than this Frankenberry guy!


----------



## InCasinoOut

mikernaut said:


> Finally watched Fountainhead's video that was mentioned on the topic, and was pleasantly surprised to see a guest appearance by Kevin Heiderich. Kevin is such a talented player and deserves more attention than this Frankenberry guy!



If you've ever wondered if modern tech-death has already reached it's peak human-playable tempo, Kevin Heiderich is one of the few who can prove that it can still get faster. I can't believe how clean his playing always is too, and I love it when he shreds on that Ibanez GIO!


----------



## iamaom

ThePIGI King said:


> Unsure if you guys saying Dean and Toby of Archspire can't play their stuff, because they certainly can. Tons of live videos out there and I've stood 10' away and seen them nail their stuff. Those dudes are on another level.


I've seen them live twice, and while they can definitely play everything they write, they do have a lot of intros, outros and background effects that are played from a laptop which to a non-musician might come across as "faking it"; but its understandable because at that level of playing I wouldn't want to mess with a giant pedal board. (example would be the human mumuration video posted back, I distinctly remember they don't even try to mime along with it and instead just get in position for their actual playing parts)


----------



## Necropitated

InCasinoOut said:


> If you've ever wondered if modern tech-death has already reached it's peak human-playable tempo, Kevin Heiderich is one of the few who can prove that it can still get faster. I can't believe how clean his playing always is too, and I love it when he shreds on that Ibanez GIO!



Haha, that GIO will go into retirement soon. The frets are just worn out and overall it's pretty banged up after 10 years of regular playing. It also has ridiculous action because of that. BUT, I'll be using it for one final video which I hope will give me more exposure ;-)


----------



## Politics of Ecstasy

Spaced Out Ace said:


> I think this is a great video and reminds me of that one awful "band" that was posted on here a year or two back. Faking your guitar abilities is pretty lame, and I'd much rather listen to a "messier" solo like Friedman's at the end of the video than some perfect solo that sounds bland, soulless, and fake. The sad thing is that even guitarists in the 80s were doing this, and I'm sure most of you can name one right off the top of your heads.



IDK about this video man - like what is the TRUE point....is there a hidden agenda WITHIN the transparency, Mr. Ragdoll, sir?? Hm???

Now, this guy isn’t bad, he’s got the guitars, the gear, “the look,” and we all pay more attention to him AUTOMATICALLY because he sounds “English” to us American Goons! Lol j/k (NB: God bless America, and thank you to our Troops, honestly, because i think lately people need to remember we ARE ONE nation, but anyway, only side tracked because i realized there are non Americans here, which is so American of me to presume in the first place )

But - is he REALLY telling us anything us shredders didn’t know? Or really anyone reading this? I mean I definitely know the last of the true shredders (Vai, Petrucci, Malmsteen, Friedman, Becker, Gilbert) came from the 80’s shred scene.

Shred itself was like neo-classical in nature, so this post-modern addiction to “shred” pseudo chops In the name of, what I would dub psuedo neo shred or pseudo shred [sounds like a Sudafed.....and it sounds like i took too much Sudafed lol] is as ragdoll says, it imitates and falsifies the true art and discipline it takes a guitarist to actually play. It is itself self-reflexive: its Fake shred, and they arent shredders....and if they are doing THESE tricks, then holy shit, I cant beleive what Ive been listening to lately, and by lately, i mean shit like since 2010 or something, is REALLY “auto tuned” slop......which i suspected, but couldnt prove, as he did (and all they do is copy licks from YouTube’s free Rock Discipline from JP)

Now while its upsetting, and i appreciate his effort to confirm these suspicions we shredders had, as we know what it sounds like to practice it, play it, and then hear it recorded alone and then with a mix on top of it....so what the hell is my point?

I think this video is just self-promotion because he can shred, and he wants us to know it.

So Mr Ragdoll, we get your point - not only do you know how to rock rigs, you are a real shredder, mad props (freakin show off, lol j/k)

Awesome video, thanks for posting!


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

Here’s what a raw take really sounds like (and it’s still mind boggling):


----------



## c7spheres

What's the point? I can't see any of these links for some reason, but I've seen these types of shred olympics type guys and they need to get some feeling. They are missing the entire point. It would be like comparing Bruce Lee to some random guy that can punch ten times faster than Bruce Lee. One understands and one doesn't. It's also like comparing a great novelist to someone who can memorize the dictionary. The guy who memorized the dictionary probably knows more words, but there's no point. He's just a biological robot, essentially. He just doesn't understand. Then there's these shred olympic's people and then those who can actually feel music or write music. No. Really.. Actually, feel.. music. Most great emotionally charged songs are not on a high technical level of playing ability. There are songs that are better and it's really just not an opinion whether it's better once you really "get" it, imo. Usually the farther back in time you go during the 20th century, the better it gets. It peaked between the 1920's to 2005 or so, regarding flat out songs that are more in touch with the real human race. Even the shredders from that era where mostly still emotionally involved. It's my bias and opinion sure, but nothing greater than that period in human history will probably ever happen again. It was the modern day equivalent of what other cultures already developed, such as India, China, Japan, Mongolia, and pretty much everywhere else on Earth other than modern Europe and America. It was the last real evolution of music because music theory and techiniques etc were still being figured out largely, and now even though there is still new concepts and such, pretty much eveything has been tried to a certain extent. The world is now ready to mix everything and anything it wants into it's music. Techincal ability isn't as important as self expression and creating the art/music itself. This is what is going to be and starting to be the new frontier in musical exploration (mixing styles and cultures) along with new instruments and sounds as well. This will lead to new types of theory eventually, but the old theory at this point is more like a proof rather than a thoery. Just a thought.


----------



## Avedas

c7spheres said:


> What's the point? I can't see any of these links for some reason, but I've seen these types of shred olympics type guys and they need to get some feeling. They are missing the entire point. It would be like comparing Bruce Lee to some random guy that can punch ten times faster than Bruce Lee. One understands and one doesn't. It's also like comparing a great novelist to someone who can memorize the dictionary. The guy who memorized the dictionary probably knows more words, but there's no point. He's just a biological robot, essentially. He just doesn't understand. Then there's these shred olympic's people and then those who can actually feel music or write music. No. Really.. Actually, feel.. music. Most great emotionally charged songs are not on a high technical level of playing ability. There are songs that are better and it's really just not an opinion whether it's better once you really "get" it, imo. Usually the farther back in time you go during the 20th century, the better it gets. It peaked between the 1920's to 2005 or so, regarding flat out songs that are more in touch with the real human race. Even the shredders from that era where mostly still emotionally involved. It's my bias and opinion sure, but nothing greater than that period in human history will probably ever happen again. It was the modern day equivalent of what other cultures already developed, such as India, China, Japan, Mongolia, and pretty much everywhere else on Earth other than modern Europe and America. It was the last real evolution of music because music theory and techiniques etc were still being figured out largely, and now even though there is still new concepts and such, pretty much eveything has been tried to a certain extent. The world is now ready to mix everything and anything it wants into it's music. Techincal ability isn't as important as self expression and creating the art/music itself. This is what is going to be and starting to be the new frontier in musical exploration (mixing styles and cultures) along with new instruments and sounds as well. This will lead to new types of theory eventually, but the old theory at this point is more like a proof rather than a thoery. Just a thought.


Music peaked with Free Bird. It's all over now.


----------



## BornToLooze

Avedas said:


> Music peaked with Free Bird. It's all over now.



As much as a love Free Bird...


----------



## USMarine75

c7spheres said:


> What's the point? I can't see any of these links for some reason, but I've seen these types of shred olympics type guys and they need to get some feeling. They are missing the entire point. It would be like comparing Bruce Lee to some random guy that can punch ten times faster than Bruce Lee. One understands and one doesn't. It's also like comparing a great novelist to someone who can memorize the dictionary. The guy who memorized the dictionary probably knows more words, but there's no point. He's just a biological robot, essentially. He just doesn't understand. Then there's these shred olympic's people and then those who can actually feel music or write music. No. Really.. Actually, feel.. music. Most great emotionally charged songs are not on a high technical level of playing ability. There are songs that are better and it's really just not an opinion whether it's better once you really "get" it, imo. Usually the farther back in time you go during the 20th century, the better it gets. It peaked between the 1920's to 2005 or so, regarding flat out songs that are more in touch with the real human race. Even the shredders from that era where mostly still emotionally involved. It's my bias and opinion sure, but nothing greater than that period in human history will probably ever happen again. It was the modern day equivalent of what other cultures already developed, such as India, China, Japan, Mongolia, and pretty much everywhere else on Earth other than modern Europe and America. It was the last real evolution of music because music theory and techiniques etc were still being figured out largely, and now even though there is still new concepts and such, pretty much eveything has been tried to a certain extent. The world is now ready to mix everything and anything it wants into it's music. Techincal ability isn't as important as self expression and creating the art/music itself. This is what is going to be and starting to be the new frontier in musical exploration (mixing styles and cultures) along with new instruments and sounds as well. This will lead to new types of theory eventually, but the old theory at this point is more like a proof rather than a thoery. Just a thought.



Please re-submit with paragraphs, so I can read this without my mind SCREAMING and my eyes burning.


----------



## GuitarBizarre

c7spheres said:


> Usually the farther back in time you go during the 20th century, the better it gets. It peaked between the 1920's to 2005 or so


I'd really love to know how you came to this timescale spanning 85 years and thought that was specific enough to call it where music "peaked". 

Was the peak, in your opinion, Bebop Jazz, Smooth Jazz, Psytrance, Rockabilly, Trance, Happy Hardcore, Techno, Gabber, Punk, AOR Rock, Fusion, The Exploratory works of John Cage, the Serial Method of Schoenberg in the late 1940s, the development of the synthesiser in the 80s, sampling in Hip-Hop, R&B, Crunk, Boom Bap, Hyphy Rap, Funk, Soul, Shred Metal, Glam Rock, Phantom of the Opera, Sweeney Todd, Avenue Q, The Picard Song, Never Gonna Give You Up, or the 2001 classic, "Pay Me For Sex" by Venetian Snares and Speedranch, of which I have provided a video below?



Please. I have to know which of these wildly disparate subgenres that all came into being between 1920 and 2005, you meant when you claimed music peaked! Is it Gabber? It's probably Gabber, right?


----------



## prlgmnr

GuitarBizarre said:


>




FUCK my speakers were on too loud, I'm dead now


----------



## c7spheres

GuitarBizarre said:


> I'd really love to know how you came to this timescale spanning 85 years and thought that was specific enough to call it where music "peaked".
> 
> Was the peak, in your opinion, Bebop Jazz, Smooth Jazz, Psytrance, Rockabilly, Trance, Happy Hardcore, Techno, Gabber, Punk, AOR Rock, Fusion, The Exploratory works of John Cage, the Serial Method of Schoenberg in the late 1940s, the development of the synthesiser in the 80s, sampling in Hip-Hop, R&B, Crunk, Boom Bap, Hyphy Rap, Funk, Soul, Shred Metal, Glam Rock, Phantom of the Opera, Sweeney Todd, Avenue Q, The Picard Song, Never Gonna Give You Up, or the 2001 classic, "Pay Me For Sex" by Venetian Snares and Speedranch, of which I have provided a video below?
> 
> 
> 
> Please. I have to know which of these wildly disparate subgenres that all came into being between 1920 and 2005, you meant when you claimed music peaked! Is it Gabber? It's probably Gabber, right?



No not gabber, it's mumble rap all the way! My point was more that this time period covers basically everything. After 2005 there's not much "newcoming out" the experimenting has been done and now the next phase will be the combination of cultures and styles and instruments along with new sounds. This time period is what almost everyone on the planet is listening too. Most aren't regularly into classical or old traditional music. Usually that would be one of the things thier into if anything. Most people are into music of this century. I think that this period of music will be more listeed to than somethign like classical though hundreds of years from now. It is special and unique to anything that iwll come after it and is a foundation for everything to come. The stuff to come may be good, but I serisously doubt will have the impact the 20th centurys' music had on the human race. Just an opinion.


----------



## Nicki

c7spheres said:


> No not gabber, it's mumble rap all the way! My point was more that this time period covers basically everything. After 2005 there's not much "newcoming out" the experimenting has been done and now the next phase will be the combination of cultures and styles and instruments along with new sounds. This time period is what almost everyone on the planet is listening too. Most aren't regularly into classical or old traditional music. Usually that would be one of the things thier into if anything. Most people are into music of this century. I think that this period of music will be more listeed to than somethign like classical though hundreds of years from now. It is special and unique to anything that iwll come after it and is a foundation for everything to come. The stuff to come may be good, but I serisously doubt will have the impact the 20th centurys' music had on the human race. Just an opinion.



Just wait 30 years when the stuff we're listening to now will be recategorized as "classic rock"...


----------



## GunpointMetal

Staring into the past, wishing it was the future. Fixed it for you.



c7spheres said:


> What's the point? .......{oldmanyellsatcloud.gif}


----------



## GuitarBizarre

c7spheres said:


> No not gabber, it's mumble rap all the way! My point was more that this time period covers basically everything. After 2005 there's not much "newcoming out" the experimenting has been done and now the next phase will be the combination of cultures and styles and instruments along with new sounds. This time period is what almost everyone on the planet is listening too. Most aren't regularly into classical or old traditional music. Usually that would be one of the things thier into if anything. Most people are into music of this century. I think that this period of music will be more listeed to than somethign like classical though hundreds of years from now. It is special and unique to anything that iwll come after it and is a foundation for everything to come. The stuff to come may be good, but I serisously doubt will have the impact the 20th centurys' music had on the human race. Just an opinion.


Except that your time period completely ignores Vaporwave, which is a fundamentally distinct, anti-commercial genre that seeks to render moot the commercialisation of rebellion that ultimately became the death knell of punk? 

What you're saying doesn't do anything but betray your ignorance of contemporary subgenres and movements in artistic thinking. You're stuck in the past because it's all you're able to appreciate. The reason you're able to appreciate it is because there's plenty of analysis of it that other people have put in front of you over time and you've not had to think about how that music works, you've just absorbed the opinions of others, many of whom stopped looking forward themselves once they found something they enjoyed.


----------



## GuitarBizarre

prlgmnr said:


> FUCK my speakers were on too loud, I'm dead now


The same album this comes from, also features a cover of stairway to heaven, constructed entirely out of pitch-shifted samples of screaming. It's called "Halfway up the stairway of mucus".


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

c7spheres said:


> What's the point? I can't see any of these links for some reason, but I've seen these types of shred olympics type guys and they need to get some feeling. They are missing the entire point. It would be like comparing Bruce Lee to some random guy that can punch ten times faster than Bruce Lee. One understands and one doesn't. It's also like comparing a great novelist to someone who can memorize the dictionary. The guy who memorized the dictionary probably knows more words, but there's no point. He's just a biological robot, essentially. He just doesn't understand. Then there's these shred olympic's people and then those who can actually feel music or write music. No. Really.. Actually, feel.. music. Most great emotionally charged songs are not on a high technical level of playing ability. There are songs that are better and it's really just not an opinion whether it's better once you really "get" it, imo. Usually the farther back in time you go during the 20th century, the better it gets. It peaked between the 1920's to 2005 or so, regarding flat out songs that are more in touch with the real human race. Even the shredders from that era where mostly still emotionally involved. It's my bias and opinion sure, but nothing greater than that period in human history will probably ever happen again. It was the modern day equivalent of what other cultures already developed, such as India, China, Japan, Mongolia, and pretty much everywhere else on Earth other than modern Europe and America. It was the last real evolution of music because music theory and techiniques etc were still being figured out largely, and now even though there is still new concepts and such, pretty much eveything has been tried to a certain extent. The world is now ready to mix everything and anything it wants into it's music. Techincal ability isn't as important as self expression and creating the art/music itself. This is what is going to be and starting to be the new frontier in musical exploration (mixing styles and cultures) along with new instruments and sounds as well. This will lead to new types of theory eventually, but the old theory at this point is more like a proof rather than a thoery. Just a thought.



Isn’t it kind of obvious that feeling is subjective ?

I don’t want to be a dick, but making a blanket statement lumping together a bunch of guitarists based on technique or BPMs is akin to a 90 year old saying metal all sounds the same, that is has no musical merit and that these angry kids should all grow up and play the violin.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

mikernaut said:


>




Damn that first take riff and tapping at the end was tight. 



HungryGuitarStudent said:


>




Dude is such an insane player. I need to check out more of his music and not just his guitar videos. 

And I seriously need to do some woodshedding this Winter.


----------



## Drew

c7spheres said:


> What's the point? I can't see any of these links for some reason, but I've seen these types of shred olympics type guys and they need to get some feeling. They are missing the entire point. It would be like comparing Bruce Lee to some random guy that can punch ten times faster than Bruce Lee. One understands and one doesn't. It's also like comparing a great novelist to someone who can memorize the dictionary. The guy who memorized the dictionary probably knows more words, but there's no point. He's just a biological robot, essentially. He just doesn't understand. Then there's these shred olympic's people and then those who can actually feel music or write music. No. Really.. Actually, feel.. music. Most great emotionally charged songs are not on a high technical level of playing ability. There are songs that are better and it's really just not an opinion whether it's better once you really "get" it, imo. Usually the farther back in time you go during the 20th century, the better it gets. It peaked between the 1920's to 2005 or so, regarding flat out songs that are more in touch with the real human race. Even the shredders from that era where mostly still emotionally involved. It's my bias and opinion sure, but nothing greater than that period in human history will probably ever happen again. It was the modern day equivalent of what other cultures already developed, such as India, China, Japan, Mongolia, and pretty much everywhere else on Earth other than modern Europe and America. It was the last real evolution of music because music theory and techiniques etc were still being figured out largely, and now even though there is still new concepts and such, pretty much eveything has been tried to a certain extent. The world is now ready to mix everything and anything it wants into it's music. Techincal ability isn't as important as self expression and creating the art/music itself. This is what is going to be and starting to be the new frontier in musical exploration (mixing styles and cultures) along with new instruments and sounds as well. This will lead to new types of theory eventually, but the old theory at this point is more like a proof rather than a thoery. Just a thought.


"Area Man Shakes Fist At Clouds." 

"...until 2005 or so." You didn't happen to be in your mid-30s around then or so? It's just this thing where every generation thinks music peaked right around the time THEY were settling into adulthood, and these kids today with their loud rock music and their, idunno, I guess now it's skinny jeans, just don't _understand_, man. Music just isn't what it used to be, man. etc etc etc. 

I have my own biases and preferences when it comes to shred, and one of them is that thanks to guys like Rusty Cooley it's increasingly hard to impress people purely with technique, because technique-heavy players have come SO far that it's an amazingly high bar you have to hit now (certainly not one I'll ever be able to touch, myself). But, whatever, if someone digs listening to someone very technique-heavy, as long as they can physically pull off the stuff they claim they can that's cool in my book. And there are plenty of contemporary shredders post-2005 who have a ton of "feel," whatever that means, in their playing - Nick Johnston has quickly become a favorite of mine, and honestly I think Angel Vivaldi's melodicism has increased substantially in his most recent albums - I love some of the solos on his last two, and he's a dude who could get by on pure technique if he had to. 

It's all music. There's a lot I don't get, but if I'm going to condemn any genre for lack of musicality, it's going to be mumble rap, not extremely technical shred.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

@Drew : Totally agree with you. Other shredsters like Per Nilsson and Paul Wardingham also have really nice melodic lines in their solos. 

@c7spheres : Although I’m an old fart who grew up with Satriani and Vai, I stay up to date on shred and prog metal (and other genres). I find myself listening to current music 90% of the time.

It does wonders for music appreciation, breaking out of a rut and opening up new technical/compositional perspectives.



Lorcan Ward said:


> Dude is such an insane player. I need to check out more of his music and not just his guitar videos.
> 
> And I seriously need to do some woodshedding this Winter.



His EP is incredible. I thought it was too dense at first, but it grows on you. 

I have the same reaction; he makes me want to step up my game with his original note choices and weird stretches.


----------



## c7spheres

GunpointMetal said:


> Staring into the past, wishing it was the future. Fixed it for you.


 Not at all what I was saying. 



GuitarBizarre said:


> Except that your time period completely ignores Vaporwave, which is a fundamentally distinct, anti-commercial genre that seeks to render moot the commercialisation of rebellion that ultimately became the death knell of punk?
> 
> What you're saying doesn't do anything but betray your ignorance of contemporary subgenres and movements in artistic thinking. You're stuck in the past because it's all you're able to appreciate. The reason you're able to appreciate it is because there's plenty of analysis of it that other people have put in front of you over time and you've not had to think about how that music works, you've just absorbed the opinions of others, many of whom stopped looking forward themselves once they found something they enjoyed.



- I'm not stuck in the past. I can listen to something and decide on my own if I'm into it or not. 
- As a guitarist I can appreciate the ability certainly, but when I'm listening to music I don't take that into account. I take into account how it moves me emotionally. 
- Most people of today do not have the feeling or spirit in their music the people of the past did. Probably because most people of today are domesticated. It's not an insult, but a reality and a privlage for them. 
- Someone like BB King's music is filled with emotion and rawness, whereas a bedroom shredder that grew up in the burbs music just isn't in comparison. It comes through in the music. 
- What generation you're from does have something to do with it though because the more domesticated you are the bigger emotional impact minimal things have on you, whereas someone who is more "hardened" from the past won't even perceive it. So I guess you could say that later genterations are more sensitive to these things, sure. This could be interpreted as more honed or evolved to the finer nuances within music.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

something interesting to note: Dan Griffin just happened to start posting raw takes of his playing right around when Berried Alive got called out for miming to midi by Fountainhead and others. I'm just glad not to see him pantomiming to fucking midi piano rolls anymore.


----------



## GunpointMetal

KnightBrolaire said:


> something interesting to note: Dan Griffin just happened to start posting raw takes of his playing right around when Berried Alive got called out for miming to midi by Fountainhead and others. I'm just glad not to see him pantomiming to fucking midi piano rolls anymore.


Is he playing the lightspeed tap stuff live now on IG? He would post live videos sometimes, but it was always just riffs with lots of open chugs.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

Ola talked about "fake guitarists" in one of his most recent FAQs. He said he has pre-recorded riffs or whatever and then mimed to them for videos. Not exactly the same thing, but honesty is appreciated. I figured all of the "produced" bits of his earlier demos were pre-recorded miming, sort of like a music video. I think that is quite different from manipulating the speed via DAW or otherwise, or even flat out using midi tracks.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

GunpointMetal said:


> Is he playing the lightspeed tap stuff live now on IG? He would post live videos sometimes, but it was always just riffs with lots of open chugs.


it's a mix of stuff, some of it tapping but nowhere near as technical looking as his midi videos tbh.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

So a lot of people are fine with doing it in the studio and even some were ok with miming to surgically edited tracks in your room/studio.

But how about miming to a guitar pro file live?
https://www.facebook.com/142914828462/posts/10158029288708463?vh=e&d=n&sfns=mo

For anyone who doesn’t have Facebook that’s Lucas from Rings of Saturn miming to a backing track live. That is a whole new level of dishonesty.


----------



## Eptaceros

the comments section, oh lord...

"HOW ARE YOU THAT CLEAN?!"
"It's called practice"
"Actually, it's cause he's using the fretwrap"


----------



## Avedas

c7spheres said:


> - Most people of today do not have the feeling or spirit in their music the people of the past did. Probably because most people of today are domesticated. It's not an insult, but a reality and a privlage for them.
> - Someone like BB King's music is filled with emotion and rawness, whereas a bedroom shredder that grew up in the burbs music just isn't in comparison. It comes through in the music.
> - What generation you're from does have something to do with it though because the more domesticated you are the bigger emotional impact minimal things have on you, whereas someone who is more "hardened" from the past won't even perceive it. So I guess you could say that later genterations are more sensitive to these things, sure. This could be interpreted as more honed or evolved to the finer nuances within music.


As "old man" as this sounds I do kind of agree with it in a sense. That's why hip hop is probably the most interesting and diverse genre of music.


----------



## c7spheres

Avedas said:


> As "old man" as this sounds I do kind of agree with it in a sense. That's why hip hop is probably the most interesting and diverse genre of music.


 Hip hop? How so? Can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. I honestly get practically nothing out of hip hop. I did get into some of the older (oG) stuff back when it came out like NWA, Easy E, Dr Dre, Too Short, Public Enemy etc. To me that was coming froma real place and not fake. Stuff I hear nowadays mostly just makes me laugh, which is nice, but the problem is it's not supposed to be funny. These people are actually serious but I can tell they're full of shit. I can feel it in their voice if they're real or not. It's hard to explain. Not trying to get into an argument or anything, just being honest. That being said. Some of the production work in some of the modern hip hop songs is good. I can always appreciate a good fidelity. There just seems to be a lack of true representation in every style nowadays. It's like everyone is just doing because it's their day job and they hate it. Going through the motions etc.


----------



## Avedas

c7spheres said:


> Hip hop? How so? Can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. I honestly get practically nothing out of hip hop. I did get into some of the older (oG) stuff back when it came out like NWA, Easy E, Dr Dre, Too Short, Public Enemy etc. To me that was coming froma real place and not fake. Stuff I hear nowadays mostly just makes me laugh, which is nice, but the problem is it's not supposed to be funny. These people are actually serious but I can tell they're full of shit. I can feel it in their voice if they're real or not. It's hard to explain. Not trying to get into an argument or anything, just being honest. That being said. Some of the production work in some of the modern hip hop songs is good. I can always appreciate a good fidelity. There just seems to be a lack of true representation in every style nowadays. It's like everyone is just doing because it's their day job and they hate it. Going through the motions etc.


No, I'm not being sarcastic. It has a huge grassroots scene because anyone can mix a decent track on their laptop with nothing more than a MIDI keyboard and the voice recording app on their iPhone. There's a large overlap with RnB, funk, jazz, soul, gospel, blues and other styles. It's not all centered around a single instrument like the electric guitar. There are a billion subgenres. "Gangsta" rap probably doesn't even make up 1%.


----------



## BornToLooze

c7spheres said:


> Hip hop? How so? Can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. I honestly get practically nothing out of hip hop. I did get into some of the older (oG) stuff back when it came out like NWA, Easy E, Dr Dre, Too Short, Public Enemy etc. To me that was coming froma real place and not fake. Stuff I hear nowadays mostly just makes me laugh, which is nice, but the problem is it's not supposed to be funny. These people are actually serious but I can tell they're full of shit. I can feel it in their voice if they're real or not. It's hard to explain. Not trying to get into an argument or anything, just being honest. That being said. Some of the production work in some of the modern hip hop songs is good. I can always appreciate a good fidelity. There just seems to be a lack of true representation in every style nowadays. It's like everyone is just doing because it's their day job and they hate it. Going through the motions etc.



I'm not too big on hip hop, but I'm sure it's the same as rock/metal or country. All the Guchi Gang stuff is their version of Nickleback and Luke Bryan. The stuff they play on the radio is shit, and you have to do some digging to find the good stuff.


----------



## SlamLiguez

Any genre is a lake with the least dense shit at the top; you're gonna have to look a lot deeper to find stuff with substance. I mean ghostemane (imo) achieved what most rappers try to imitate only through aesthetic alone with his latest music and live set, most of them just adopt a "punk/metal" aesthetic in their attire and music solely for the sake of being "different" but you can tell when it's genuine, and just as in metal there are fake performances all OVER mainstream radio, I remember hearing a "country" song somewhere and the male singers notes were hilariously perfect, but where's the line when there's extra distortion added on a screamed vocal or a solo is recorded in parts? If you can do it live then there's not really a problem. 

Part of the whole argument about having authentic takes is about what makes metal what it is culturally, something raw and difficult that someone poured hours of practice into and can prove it through the barest of mediums, because (I think) if metal went mainstream the way of Poppy you bet your ass there'd be a room of Grammy-winning producers locked into Guitar Pro ready to make the next hit. Most guitar-based music is largely based on merit, and overprocessing and cleanliness mentally puts it closer to something formulaic and sterile for me. It takes the sword out of the hand and replaces it with a mouse and keyboard, and that ain't metal.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

SlamLiguez said:


> or a solo is recorded in parts


"Comping" solos is pretty common even on old records from what I've gathered.


----------



## BornToLooze

It like a video I've seen that Upchurch posted. He's explaining the meaning of one of his songs, and the lines are 'Cause I'm connected to the time and ya'll connected to the phones
How many followers are all ya'll gitting? How many hoes ya'll takin' home?. And it's a stab at the hip hop community because all he's heard on the radio is songs about bitches and hoes and shit that doesn't matter, and he just wants to hear song about you.



Spaced Out Ace said:


> "Comping" solos is pretty common even on old records from what I've gathered.



I don't really have a problem with that. I get that solos are hard to play perfect in one take, especially because you're your own worst critic. But on the other hand, I like playing guitar a lot more than trying to edit shit together, so I don't bother trying to record stuff. I'd rather spend the time playing along to a song and trying to improvise shit than sitting there trying to record the perfect take.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

BornToLooze said:


> I don't really have a problem with that. I get that solos are hard to play perfect in one take, especially because you're your own worst critic. But on the other hand, I like playing guitar a lot more than trying to edit shit together, so I don't bother trying to record stuff. I'd rather spend the time playing along to a song and trying to improvise shit than sitting there trying to record the perfect take.


Some of it is done as a way to write the solo, with some different stuff in each of three takes for example.


----------



## BornToLooze

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Some of it is done as a way to write the solo, with some different stuff in each of three takes for example.



I know. I've played plenty of stuff I wish I'd recorded because it's probably one of the coolest things I've came up with, but it was heat of the moment and I have no clue what I actually played and never have figured out what I played.


----------



## c7spheres

The more I ponder this fake shredding thing the more I realise there's really 3 things at play here. 1.) What role or function is actually at work? 2.) Is what's being portrayed actually guitar playing? 3.) Are the people being honest about it?
- What I'm saying is that regardless if the person actually can play or not when people are using midi and Guitar Pro to write or record a performance then it is technically a production or arrangers role and not guitar playing at all. It's a programmers function/role, not a guitarist role. When people fake it to a video or live performance then that is an actor or stage performers role. Either a concert or play can be a performance, techincally so when it's faked then what we are actually witnessing is a play/production, not a live concert. If people are lying about not fake playing when they are then it is akin to somebody like Robert Downey Jr. saying he actually did all that stuff in the IronMan movies and it was not fake. I just think it of small character when people lie about it. If they were more up front like in that Ola example that was given then people take it for what it is and move on, but then again, maybe that's the entire point. Get people talking and arguing so they can get more views or something. The whole bad publicity is still good publicity thing.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Ola talked about "fake guitarists" in one of his most recent FAQs. He said he has pre-recorded riffs or whatever and then mimed to them for videos. Not exactly the same thing, but honesty is appreciated. I figured all of the "produced" bits of his earlier demos were pre-recorded miming, sort of like a music video. I think that is quite different from manipulating the speed via DAW or otherwise, or even flat out using midi tracks.



If I recall correctly, Fountainhead and other YT guitarists have been open about miming to studio tracks from time to time.

Fountainhead states similar reasons to Ola, i.e. not having the time to do 100 live takes for every video, specially when you have to do a few videos per week, studio work and other studf. I totally understand that.

Comping in the studio also makes a lot of sense for similar reasons and to get the best sounding performance.

Miming to Guitar Pro and speeding up lines while passing it as raw playthroughs is another story.


----------



## USMarine75

HungryGuitarStudent said:


> If I recall correctly, Fountainhead and other YT guitarists have been open about miming to studio tracks from time to time.
> 
> Fountainhead states similar reasons to Ola, i.e. not having the time to do 100 live takes for every video, specially when you have to do a few videos per week, studio work and other studf. I totally understand that.
> 
> Comping in the studio also makes a lot of sense for similar reasons and to get the best sounding performance.
> 
> Miming to Guitar Pro and speeding up lines while passing it as raw playthroughs is another story.



Nothing wrong with miming to a track you made.

Nothing wrong with over-engineering tracks with auto-tune, speeding up, etc. On its face, I like the Berried Alive stuff.

Everything wrong with miming or engineering your tracks, but intentionally lying or obfuscating whether you can legitimately play those tracks.


----------



## GuitarBizarre

Avedas said:


> No, I'm not being sarcastic. It has a huge grassroots scene because anyone can mix a decent track on their laptop with nothing more than a MIDI keyboard and the voice recording app on their iPhone. There's a large overlap with RnB, funk, jazz, soul, gospel, blues and other styles. It's not all centered around a single instrument like the electric guitar. There are a billion subgenres. "Gangsta" rap probably doesn't even make up 1%.


Agreed. If you aren't getting anything out of hip hop you're not fucking listening. Plenty of it is astonishingly technical.

How about Dan Bull making an entire track using nothing but homophones?
<>

What about Arsonal, delivering the alphabet in rhyme?


What about Dan Bull again, delivering an entire verse using nothing but anagrams of "The Nightmare" at the end of his KSI diss track?


What about the rhyme density of any given eminem verse?


----------



## Sogradde

Ctrl+F no results for either Hopsin or NF. I'm super disappointed in y'all.





Depression Rap is best Rap.


----------



## Ordacleaphobia

Sogradde said:


> Ctrl+F no results for either Hopsin or NF. I'm super disappointed in y'all.



So off-topic but The Search really was such a great album. NF really pulled it together on this one.


----------



## Boofchuck

I feel like this all comes down to being honest and not lying.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

USMarine75 said:


> Nothing wrong with miming to a track you made.



Anyone who has a problem miming to your own recorded songs has never tried to record a guitar video. Just trying to get a good angle where light isn't shining off your guitar is a challenge in itself. Never mind trying to get a track ready, camera ready and do a perfect take suitable for a final recording all at once is a nightmare to sync up on your own. Then not only are you dealing with the phenomenon of forgetting how to play when you record it’s doubled forgetting how to play in front of a camera.


----------



## USMarine75

Sogradde said:


> Ctrl+F no results for either Hopsin or NF. I'm super disappointed in y'all.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Depression Rap is best Rap.





Totally unrelated... but the best rap song of all time!


----------



## Drew

Lorcan Ward said:


> Anyone who has a problem miming to your own recorded songs has never tried to record a guitar video. Just trying to get a good angle where light isn't shining off your guitar is a challenge in itself. Never mind trying to get a track ready, camera ready and do a perfect take suitable for a final recording all at once is a nightmare to sync up on your own. Then not only are you dealing with the phenomenon of forgetting how to play when you record it’s doubled forgetting how to play in front of a camera.


I've definitely recorded plenty of live videos. I always play live rather than miming. I feel like if I was watching it, I'd rather see a "human" performance, warts and all, than a mimed immitation of a perfect one done in studio conditions. And yeah, I definitely suffer from redlight-itis, too, so it's a struggle.


----------



## Eptaceros

Yeah, I'm not sure what Lorcan Ward is getting at. Every single cover video I've done has been live. Some took 7 takes, some took 57 takes. That's part of the deal. It's what makes a good playthrough video special. Not how many sick angles you can cut into the video.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

Eptaceros said:


> Yeah, I'm not sure what Lorcan Ward is getting at. Every single cover video I've done has been live. Some took 7 takes, some took 57 takes. That's part of the deal. It's what makes a good playthrough video special. Not how many sick angles you can cut into the video.


Well, Ola used to pre record the music part of things, then do the video like a music video basically, but found it took too much time and he changed how he did things.


----------



## Eptaceros

Yeah, I guess if you're forced to pump out content because it's your job, you need to do what you need to do. I was referring more to playthrough videos where the focus is seeing how the song is played.


----------



## c7spheres

Lorcan Ward said:


> Anyone who has a problem miming to your own recorded songs has never tried to record a guitar video. Just trying to get a good angle where light isn't shining off your guitar is a challenge in itself. Never mind trying to get a track ready, camera ready and do a perfect take suitable for a final recording all at once is a nightmare to sync up on your own. Then not only are you dealing with the phenomenon of forgetting how to play when you record it’s doubled forgetting how to play in front of a camera.



That's why you wear dark sunglasses. It's not just to look cool and hide blootshot eyes. They have a function. Write them off on taxes as a business expense!


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

c7spheres said:


> That's why you wear dark sunglasses. It's not just to look cool and hide blootshot eyes. They have a function. Write them off on taxes as a business expense!


Just don't try to write your entire house off as a business expense because you record in each of its rooms.


----------



## c7spheres

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Just don't try to write your entire house off as a business expense because you record in each of its rooms.


 Yeh, That's when it gets to be a slippery slope.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

Eptaceros said:


> Yeah, I'm not sure what Lorcan Ward is getting at. Every single cover video I've done has been live. Some took 7 takes, some took 57 takes. That's part of the deal. It's what makes a good playthrough video special. Not how many sick angles you can cut into the video.



I’m talking about original videos, like where you do a play through video of one of your own songs. Any I’ve done I’ve recorded and mixed already, if I’m happy with it then I think I should do a video for some kind of visual, easiest way to draw people on to watch it. When musicians who’s job it is say they don’t have time to record original videos live then you can understand someone who doesn’t even get to play everyday not being able to do that. All it is is a really cheap(and crappy) music video. It beats going out into a forest to make one. 

For covers they should be live of course.


----------



## Chokey Chicken

I don't even think covers need to be live. Like you said, it's basically just cheap visuals to accompany the actual work. 

It's something I don't even do anymore because people in comment sections suck. I usually just do visualizations. Or nothing at all and horde my music to myself.


----------



## JoeyJoJoJrShabadoo

Jonathan20022 said:


> This kid personally blew me away looking at the entries to the Kiesel contest last night for any hidden gems in the entries.




Both the playing and the hair is insane.


----------



## JoeyJoJoJrShabadoo

Jonathan20022 said:


> Something I thought about last night, what are people's takes on Protest the Hero?
> 
> Specifically Kezia, because although that's a beloved album by anyone who really digs that band, they openly admitted to writing stuff that was above their paygrade and practiced until they got it tight. That album might not have existed without tools for tabbing to lay out their creative minds down and write what they truly wanted to write, at worst they probably played a few months worth of shoddy live renditions of the songs and by the time it came to record they were most of the way there. It's far more mild obviously, but curious what folks think considering how binary some people's thoughts on the topic are.



I enjoy PTH, Volition especially, but there's no denying absurd amounts of trickery in that production. I think it's one of the first places I ever really started noticing it. But they are also extremely tight players who back it up every time they play live. Pacific Myth returned to a more real sounding album, but unfortunately it sounds like ass to me. The mix, not the playing. Just listen to Ragged Tooth's initial release compared to the album version. They destroyed what was previously a really nice production.


----------



## Avedas

OliOliver said:


> I enjoy PTH, Volition especially, but there's no denying absurd amounts of trickery in that production. I think it's one of the first places I ever really started noticing it. But they are also extremely tight players who back it up every time they play live. Pacific Myth returned to a more real sounding album, but unfortunately it sounds like ass to me. The mix, not the playing. Just listen to Ragged Tooth's initial release compared to the album version. They destroyed what was previously a really nice production.


Wew, I just realized I had only ever listened to the original releases of each track. That Ragged Tooth remix is brutal.


----------



## dreamspace

For me, music is not a competition (well, unless it _explicitly_ is a competition, like gear comps etc...), but I DO think there's a meritocratic element to music. 

We've had lightning fast shredders for 40 years now, people that played as fast and complex then, as people do today. Shawn Lane played insane licks back then, only 17 years old, live with a band. Holdsworth did it too. We've seen top notch Shrapnel shredders like Vinnie Moore etc. play licks so tight they sound like midi sequencers, but live through f**king 8w Peavey practice combos. 

Point is - these guys did not have the luxury of modern equipment, recording opportunities, etc. They had to practice, practice, practice, get things down as tight as humanly possible, then hit the studio and record stuff 'til they nearly passed out of exhaustion, because the meter was ticking. They did not have the luxury of doing 150 takes on 30 sec segment, punching in solos note for note, etc. 

So if these guys could make all that amazing and timeless stuff through nothing but hard work, why can't many of these new IG heroes do the same? 

Now, I don't feel "cheated" if I watch / listen to something knowing that it's been created through studio magic. But if the guitarists can't play their own material live, then it doesn't feel real to me. It's like meeting some chick on Tinder who looks nothing like her pictures. 

With that said, technical guitar proficiency is not something you just pick up once, and then you're set for life - it's something that you need to keep sharp all the time, if you plan on being able to play the material you wrote / recorded. In my experience, most guitarists only reach their personal peak once, or if lucky, a couple of times in their lifetime. 

It's a perfect storm of motivation, drive, time to practice, physical abilities, etc. It's the same as with athletes, really. Most only have a finite window of time to really record their best stuff, before things start to wane. 

Here's a vid of Shawn Lane tearing it up at the tender age of 17.


----------



## eggy in a bready

When it comes to shredding, or any technically proficient music, there are two boxes that the artist must tick for me to give a shit:

-Thoughtful and interesting compositions
-Able to reproduce their material live

Bonus points if they didn't name their project some beyond whack name like "Berried Alive"


----------



## SlamLiguez

eggy in a bready said:


> Bonus points if they didn't name their project some beyond whack name like "Berried Alive"



What's wrong man, you don't like the JAMS? Sounds like you're just JELLY. Maybe SPREAD out your musical tastes and you might be able to appreciate the FRUITS of his efforts. He's not hurting anyone, what's the MARM in PRESERVING a good image?

...... Chutney.


----------



## KnightBrolaire




----------



## Drew

Chokey Chicken said:


> I don't even think covers need to be live. Like you said, it's basically just cheap visuals to accompany the actual work.
> 
> It's something I don't even do anymore because people in comment sections suck. I usually just do visualizations. Or nothing at all and horde my music to myself.


It really depends on the point, IMO. If the finished product to you is a recording of a cover song, then the performance aspect is kinda incidental, though I'd have to wonder if YouTube is really the venue for that more so than Soundcloud. 

If it's a "watch me play this song" thing, then absolutely, you shouldn't be miming to pre-recorded tracks.


----------



## gunshow86de

Once again, burying the live take in the mix.


----------



## GunpointMetal

gunshow86de said:


> Once again, burying the live take in the mix.



Lol, yesterday was funny. He kicked a bunch of people of IG, replied to like a dozen comments on a post in Prog Snob FB group about how he's "maintaining a community of positivity" on his social medias (forgetting that he called a bunch of people bitches/assholes/"bananas" before booting them), then goes and posts a half pissed-up video that TOTALLY missed the point, lol. Nobody was ever salty about modern production techniques in the music, numbnuts.


----------



## Jonathan20022

The irony of being able to almost not hear his voice in that restaurant is hilarious 

Jared Dines jumped on the train because it reached his mainstream eyes, and he decided to add Stephen Taranto to the list of "accused" fake players. The clickbait is so real, he doesn't really know shit because he gives Charles a pass because he's clearly making the movements to match the music and that it's simply pre-recorded.




What are these comments  GET A BETTER SPEAKER. He's almost inaudible, jesus.


----------



## cwhitey2

gunshow86de said:


> Once again, burying the live take in the mix.



Douche bag...he's a douche bag.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace




----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

Jonathan20022 said:


> The irony of being able to almost not hear his voice in that restaurant is hilarious
> 
> Jared Dines jumped on the train because it reached his mainstream eyes, and he decided to add Stephen Taranto to the list of "accused" fake players. The clickbait is so real, he doesn't really know shit because he gives Charles a pass because he's clearly making the movements to match the music and that it's simply pre-recorded.
> 
> View attachment 75081
> 
> 
> What are these comments  GET A BETTER SPEAKER. He's almost inaudible, jesus.



Conspiracy theorists like to think Stephen Taranto is faking.

When you bring up the fact that he was at NAMM and played in front of people there and with Helix Nebula, they say his lips are twitchy in his videos, which they are in real life.

This is a perfect example of a valid movement having dumb consequences and people trying to fit a narrative.


----------



## Randy

Read "conspiracy" and immediately thought you guys were talking about Kris *P*aranto


----------



## Boofchuck

You know, this whole thing really bothered me at first. But now I'm soooo over it. I don't care for sped up videos, nor do I really care for sped up music. So I'm just going to focus on my music and the stuff that I actually do like. Because this is just getting sad.


----------



## Metropolis

Bradley has a confession to make... and it's the complete opposite


----------



## mikernaut

and-


----------



## KnightBrolaire

john browne put up a pretty funny vid making fun of midi fakery: https://www.instagram.com/p/B5Y549MAQMd/?igshid=1k2dhd9615y29


----------



## couverdure

Jonathan20022 said:


> Jared Dines jumped on the train because it reached his mainstream eyes, and he decided to add Stephen Taranto to the list of "accused" fake players. The clickbait is so real, he doesn't really know shit because he gives Charles a pass because he's clearly making the movements to match the music and that it's simply pre-recorded.


Did you watch the same video as the one I watched or not at all? Sounds like you were talking about the first guy and not Charles, and Jared said that he can tell that Charles' parts are harmonized and physically impossible, and he actually gave praise to Taranto because he was surprised that it sounded very real.


----------



## Konfyouzd

jaxadam said:


> If you ain’t cheatin’ you ain’t tryin’!


Sadly, that seems to be the way in everything...


----------



## Jonathan20022

couverdure said:


> Did you watch the same video as the one I watched or not at all? Sounds like you were talking about the first guy and not Charles, and Jared said that he can tell that Charles' parts are harmonized and physically impossible, and he actually gave praise to Taranto because he was surprised that it sounded very real.



Yes I did, clearly.

It's actually insulting to put a player as insane as Stephen in the mix of this conversation when the only people accusing him of faking that I've personally seen are traditional guitar players who haven't kept up with musicians in the last 3 decades. Jared may have known about Stephen, but even if he didn't he should have done some research before slapping him on the thumbnail of the "Let's look at some accused guitarists who fake their playing".

He did more harm than good, that's the point. That's like throwing Steve Vai or Paul Gilbert on the list because a few randos who don't know about them will immediately assume they are faking.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

I await to hear more takes from random YouTube "guitarists", for those are truly the opinions that matter.


----------



## mikernaut

I thought this part was pretty on point.


----------



## aesthyrian




----------



## Lorcan Ward

^I’ve never seen Miles get that worked up before. He's an incredible player so I can understand it really annoying him.



Jonathan20022 said:


> It's actually insulting to put a player as insane as Stephen in the mix of this conversation when the only people accusing him of faking that I've personally seen are traditional guitar players who haven't kept up with musicians in the last 3 decades. Jared may have known about Stephen, but even if he didn't he should have done some research before slapping him on the thumbnail of the "Let's look at some accused guitarists who fake their playing".



Jared really held back when it came to Charles and Lucas. He's obviously friends with them and didn't want to say anything negative, purposely using the more vague footage and not the blatant fake ones. He should really do a live Skype interview with Stephen to prove he's the real deal and to introduce him to a bigger audience.

Its understandable people will start questioning Stephen's playing. A lot of guys are probably confused, they've learned a bunch of players they follow on IG aren't actually playing what they hear in their videos. So when they look around they see this absolutely insane player. If you don't understand midi or guitar editing then you might not understand what raw audio sounds like either. I think it's funny we are back to the early days of youtube where anything shred was labelled as fake and sped up. 



gunshow86de said:


> Charle's response video



It's a positive message he's conveying but he's completely avoiding answering any of the actual accusations against him. Either he can't grasp what people are annoyed at or he has an ability to just admit his playing isn't real.


----------



## GuitarBizarre

Lorcan Ward said:


> Its understandable people will start questioning Stephen's playing. A lot of guys are probably confused, they've learned a bunch of players they follow on IG aren't actually playing what they hear in their videos. So when they look around they see this absolutely insane player. If you don't understand midi or guitar editing then you might not understand what raw audio sounds like either. I think it's funny we are back to the early days of youtube where anything shred was labelled as fake and sped up.


Remember those videos of Francesco Fareri in the early days, playing his 7 string through that rack setup, with a friggin stopwatch on all the time so people wouldn't accuse him of faking?


----------



## couverdure

Jonathan20022 said:


> Yes I did, clearly.
> 
> It's actually insulting to put a player as insane as Stephen in the mix of this conversation when the only people accusing him of faking that I've personally seen are traditional guitar players who haven't kept up with musicians in the last 3 decades. Jared may have known about Stephen, but even if he didn't he should have done some research before slapping him on the thumbnail of the "Let's look at some accused guitarists who fake their playing".
> 
> He did more harm than good, that's the point. That's like throwing Steve Vai or Paul Gilbert on the list because a few randos who don't know about them will immediately assume they are faking.


Looks like he made a response video about your point and also changed the thumbnail on the other one to avoid looking like he made accusations towards Taranto for faking.


----------



## lurè

Some of these respond videos around the internet are even worse than all the fake shredding thing.


----------



## SlamLiguez

lurè said:


> Some of these respond videos around the internet are even worse than all the fake shredding thing.



It's become quite a bandwagon, really. I get the purpose but there comes a point where people make videos just to get the clicks.


----------



## Politics of Ecstasy

Shred is dead. These “neo-shredders” are just trying to outplay, but not out do, each other. Real shredders write music and shred in their solos; they dont go on YouTube to make challenge videos....i literally can do the same thing at Impelliterri speed and people wouldnt give a shit....and neither would I...shred only matters if it means something, otherwise, its finger gynmanstics on a fret board instead of an olympics blue board or whatever it is lol. 

If you have the talent and enough time to master any techniques, you can play almost anything flawlessly; Steve vai and John Petrucci are two of the best examples; Steve shreds like a banshee, but he rarely EVER plays fast, and rarely employs it as an integral compositional style (i think he had one song called “speed?”), Steve is without a doubt maybe the most talented trick guitar shredder there is....Petrucci on the other hand isnt a trickster, he is a machinist.....he literally plays with near total precision, and its very important to his compositional style for the band, but his BEST stuff [besides those cool little speed runs] are his slow songs

Go figure


----------



## Splinterhead

Band wagon reaching critical mass. I teach kids guitar, when I see guys who "over produce" their tracks I do feel it conveys a bad message when they're selling it as the real deal. Its like the heroin chic models on IG or magazines...kinda wrecks a young girl's self image. These impossibly perfect takes have the potential to wreak havoc on a young student's self esteem. Let's face it, the guitar community can sometimes be a cruel one. I feel this aspect of it isn't making it any better. my .02


----------



## JK-PA




----------



## Politics of Ecstasy

JK-PA said:


>



Did this guy just SCAT the tabs to a sick solo he can’t even play?

WHAT SHREDDERS DONT KNOW THAT? Ya smug English bastard lol jk jk

most, and by most , I mean me and a lot of “old school shredders” so just that
In fact, I sometimes will tap ONE time,slide up and back down and pull off AND I’ll combine that with either a little four string sweep or maybe I would do a run, string skip, Tap once or twice and back

I mean did I miss the point of this guy? Is he shitting on this live solo because he only tapped once??????!

(PS If I did misunderstand Skatmetal man please correct me)


----------



## feilong29

Politics of Ecstasy said:


> Did this guy just SCAT the tabs to a sick solo he can’t even play?
> 
> WHAT SHREDDERS DONT KNOW THAT? Ya smug English bastard lol jk jk
> 
> most, and by most , I mean me and a lot of “old school shredders” so just that
> In fact, I sometimes will tap ONE time,slide up and back down and pull off AND I’ll combine that with either a little four string sweep or maybe I would do a run, string skip, Tap once or twice and back
> 
> I mean did I miss the point of this guy? Is he shitting on this live solo because he only tapped once??????!
> 
> (PS If I did misunderstand Skatmetal man please correct me)



I think he's pointing out how each note is articulated individually when it shouldn't be at certain points (taps sound picked), so it leads one to believe it is a pre-recorded track (via Guitar Pro or something) and he's miming to it.


----------



## Politics of Ecstasy

feilong29 said:


> I think he's pointing out how each note is articulated individually when it shouldn't be at certain points (taps sound picked), so it leads one to believe it is a pre-recorded track (via Guitar Pro or something) and he's miming to it.


AHHHH
Thank you for the explanation....
Also, if a band edits a video for release thats like understandable 

Now, Try this shit during a HOT LICKS video lesson, and well see who is playing and who’s using guitar-CPU/VST enhancement lol


----------



## SlamLiguez

Politics of Ecstasy said:


> Shred is dead. These “neo-shredders” are just trying to outplay, but not out do, each other. Real shredders write music and shred in their solos; they dont go on YouTube to make challenge videos....i literally can do the same thing at Impelliterri speed and people wouldnt give a shit....and neither would I...shred only matters if it means something, otherwise, its finger gynmanstics on a fret board instead of an olympics blue board or whatever it is lol.
> 
> If you have the talent and enough time to master any techniques, you can play almost anything flawlessly; Steve vai and John Petrucci are two of the best examples; Steve shreds like a banshee, but he rarely EVER plays fast, and rarely employs it as an integral compositional style (i think he had one song called “speed?”), Steve is without a doubt maybe the most talented trick guitar shredder there is....Petrucci on the other hand isnt a trickster, he is a machinist.....he literally plays with near total precision, and its very important to his compositional style for the band, but his BEST stuff [besides those cool little speed runs] are his slow songs
> 
> Go figure


----------



## DLG




----------



## lurè

DLG said:


>



These are the kind of replies that raise the level of the discussion and isn't a cringy video from another meme youtuber.


----------



## lurè

Every opinion matters but the focus of the majority of the videos I've watched Is all about justifying "authentic" shredding from "fake".


----------



## Seabeast2000

Shred Authentic®


----------



## Lorcan Ward

I saw Manuel Gardner has finally admitted he is miming. Although “I just do it for that extra 2% of perfection” is a bit laughable when he has surgically edited tracks to the micro second in his videos. No doubt he’s an awesome player in his live clips but it’s another example of not really understanding what you’re doing wrong. i see Jared is getting a lot of heat from doing the fake IG video with him in it. 

I’d be interested to see where this goes now. If things just go on the same and everyone forgets about this in a month or two.


----------



## Jonathan20022

Everyone will forget about it, that I'm sure of. But groups like us will always have this as a rotating topic, it's the first time it's hit guitar "mainstream" from what I can remember. It takes some famous musician making a statement to generally get any discussion rolling on that level for a decent amount of time.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

The first time this discussion of fake guitar shredding hit mainstream happened in the late 80s with Vinnie's stupid ass speeding up his leads. If memory serves, he played a lead in "F" over an E based riff because speeding up his leads resulted in the key raising a half step.


----------



## Politics of Ecstasy

Mini Moore was speeding up his leads!!!
Which album/song? This is blasphemous, heretical if true
Then.....his hot licks vids....dont tell me !?!?! Were they.....gulp....sped up too? *(u think?)


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

Vinnie Vincent, not Moore.


----------



## Hollowway

Jonathan20022 said:


> Everyone will forget about it, that I'm sure of. But groups like us will always have this as a rotating topic, it's the first time it's hit guitar "mainstream" from what I can remember. It takes some famous musician making a statement to generally get any discussion rolling on that level for a decent amount of time.


Even with the ridiculous amount of time I spend on here, I learned a lot from this thread. I knew Lucas Mann was miming to his Guitar Pro tracks, but I had no idea the guy was even miming in live performances. And there are a few other guys I've seen over the years that I assumed were actually playing the stuff, until I saw the "real" live videos. TBH it makes me feel a lot better about my playing. If I were just starting out, this would have a hugely positive effect on me, as it wouldn't make me as discouraged as the fake videos would.


----------



## DLG

lurè said:


> These are the kind of replies that raise the level of the discussion and isn't a cringy video from another meme youtuber.



all you need to do is listen to Control and Resistance, recorded on a small budget in 89, and then Ink Complete, recorded on a Tascam 4-track, to know where Ron is coming from. He put in the time to get his chops and inimitable style together, that's why he can't be bothered with fake shred.


----------



## skmanga

Am I missing something here?


----------



## BIG ND SWEATY

Are you asking if he mimed to it or something?


----------



## Spicypickles

Even the cymbals are triggered.


----------



## isispelican

1:50 hahah wtf


----------



## lurè

Lol they used the same sample for the kick and the toms; I can't hear the difference.


----------



## Chokey Chicken

Hollowway said:


> Even with the ridiculous amount of time I spend on here, I learned a lot from this thread. I knew Lucas Mann was miming to his Guitar Pro tracks, but I had no idea the guy was even miming in live performances. And there are a few other guys I've seen over the years that I assumed were actually playing the stuff, until I saw the "real" live videos. TBH it makes me feel a lot better about my playing. If I were just starting out, this would have a hugely positive effect on me, as it wouldn't make me as discouraged as the fake videos would.




He mimes live, too? Must have missed that and actually didn't think to look. Not surprising, but that's kinda the pinnacle of scummy as far as this whole fake shredder nonsense goes.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

^You don't need a FB account to watch it from this link.


Whats weird is I think thats the harmony guitar line we are hearing so some nights he might be playing his lead line, others he just mimes it. Either way we don't hear his guitar in this live clip and the last descending arpeggio timing is so off compared to what we hear proving he is just miming.



Jonathan20022 said:


> Everyone will forget about it, that I'm sure of. But groups like us will always have this as a rotating topic, it's the first time it's hit guitar "mainstream" from what I can remember. It takes some famous musician making a statement to generally get any discussion rolling on that level for a decent amount of time.



I took a look at the comments on IG and it’s just exploded now with everyone being called out. Glad to see the actual guys getting heat for it now but disappointing to see legit guys getting accused. I'm sure it will fade away quickly but at least if someone does it now they know they are going too be called out. I can't imagine how tiring it is right now for someone like Charles to try and moderate his socials the last few weeks. I'm mostly curious if he is going to keep making videos the way he normally does or he's going to woodshed for months and drop some Stephen Taranto level shred to prove he can play.


----------



## feilong29

Lorcan Ward said:


> ^You don't need a FB account to watch it from this link.
> 
> 
> Whats weird is I think thats the harmony guitar line we are hearing so some nights he might be playing his lead line, others he just mimes it. Either way we don't hear his guitar in this live clip and the last descending arpeggio timing is so off compared to what we hear proving he is just miming.




Maybe it's just the "essence" of it all in the air, but that video looks sped up too lol. But oddly enough, all of this has turned my attention to RoS, and the other guitarist, I'm actually really impressed with and I think he legit can play all that stuff (based on some lesson videos he produced). Interesting music though; I don't really care how it was made to be completely honest. I'm at a point in my life where I don't think I can get any better than I am (or don't have the drive to woodshed like I need), so it's a toss up on if I will keep playing guitar or not. I still enjoy the music though! Charles' stuff is interested, but his whole shindig just turns me off because of how blatantly obvious it is, and the people who grovel at the mouth for it makes my stomach hurt lol.


----------



## skmanga

BIG ND SWEATY said:


> Are you asking if he mimed to it or something?



Not sure if hes trying to troll or not, but that drumming video looks sped up as fehk


----------



## aesthyrian

Yo Onityan can't even play that part, why Lucas is cosplaying is beyond me. @ 11:26 because this forum won't let you post a time stamp.



This is all interesting because Lucas brought in Yo, and brought back Joel so that they could play guitar live as Lucas had missed a few tours, and then I guess he was actually going to play bass on the tour that Yo and Joel were going to play guitar for. No clue what ever happened, but now he is back to faking it live after already facing the truth that he can't pull it off so he hired others.


----------



## Jonathan20022

I think people need to really educate the public on what a sped up video really even is. 

*This video is mimed to, not sped up*


I've had people give me some major shit over 0:38 when my blinds start moving a little bit faster and accused me of speeding the video up. Does anyone even understand the logistics of recording a live one cut take and speeding up portions of it? I'd have to doctor the backing track and slow down the hard sections of the music I'm trying to play, practice switching tempo and speed completely to make it look even somewhat realistic (Which is harder than learning to play the song up to fucking speed, I challenge anyone to try this). Then speed up the audio video at those intervals where the song gets harder to play.

There would STILL be artifacts and signals that you sped it up, but in general all this has done is give people random little things that do occur in videos for people with no understanding of video recording and production to invalidate players with. Everyone here already knew who faked their playing, because they get all this attention for their awesome music (sometimes obviously faked) and you put them in a live context and this is the result.

*Go to 7:05*


I know because this was one of the largest disappointments I ever had with a player, I loved the album and one of the first live performances killed a good amount of my interest in the band. You will always be able to call out a musician who bit off more than they can chew, but now people are going to be pointing the finger at legitimate players even moreso now because their "hair looked funny", or some unfounded bullshit like that. 

Even that Manuel guy is now playing the clips people gave him flack for live to show that he can indeed play what he was implying he could.


----------



## jaxadam

The only people I can get behind miming live is Milli Vanilli


----------



## KnightBrolaire

aesthyrian said:


> Yo Onityan can't even play that part, why Lucas is cosplaying is beyond me. @ 11:26 because this forum won't let you post a time stamp.
> 
> 
> 
> This is all interesting because Lucas brought in Yo, and brought back Joel so that they could play guitar live as Lucas had missed a few tours, and then I guess he was actually going to play bass on the tour that Yo and Joel were going to play guitar for. No clue what ever happened, but now he is back to faking it live after already facing the truth that he can't pull it off so he hired others.



I've seen Yo play on IG before but just watching him noodle/shred that effortlessly really makes me want to woodshed like a motherfucker


----------



## gunch

DLG said:


> all you need to do is listen to Control and Resistance, recorded on a small budget in 89, and then Ink Complete, recorded on a Tascam 4-track, to know where Ron is coming from. He put in the time to get his chops and inimitable style together, that's why he can't be bothered with fake shred.



Hate 99% of prog but Control and Resistance and Skeptic's Universe are 100% unfuckwithable


----------



## metal4life71

Yeah these fakers annoy me as well. At least on my YT channel, all of my guitar playing is 100% real and authentic me. I am not the greatest player but I have fun and share my experiences. Most of videos get hated on but so what?


----------



## c7spheres

I hope these bands aren't saying stuff like "live in concert" in any advertising. To be accurate they should say "live performance", as in a live theatrical performance. Concert means a live performance of music.


----------



## Charlie Foxtrot 3rd

Ha I had some noise cancelling headphone on too bad they didn’t cancel this song out. That was rough going. Sounds like dial up Internet 


prlgmnr said:


> FUCK my speakers were on too loud, I'm dead now


----------



## penguin_316

The lamest thing is that I’ve been talking about all of this nonsense for years and no one really cared/put any thought into it. Now everyone has integrity for those YouTube views, hmm...

Most people do not care, let’s go ahead and wrap this thread up. The time to discus this was about 10 years ago. Even then, it would be long overdue.


----------



## Aumann

penguin_316 said:


> The lamest thing is that I’ve been talking about all of this nonsense for years and no one really cared/put any thought into it. Now everyone has integrity for those YouTube views, hmm...
> 
> Most people do not care, let’s go ahead and wrap this thread up. The time to discus this was about 10 years ago. Even then, it would be long overdue.



No suddenly everyone cares too much even, accusing genuinely good players of faking it. I think i preferred it when nobody cared rather than whenguitarists have to be scared to post stuff cause they know they will get accused


----------



## works0fheart

I'm surprised that in 2019 people are still trying to do this after all of the backlash surrounding it for years. Yes, the technology is there now to make it sound like you're playing it, but come time to do it live you're pretty boned.


----------



## lurè

You don't need to play live.
Most of this shredder live on IG, FB and release their EPs digitally.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

What baffles me is Manuel made a post admitting he pre-records and edits his video yet there’s countless comments saying things like “I knew you were the real deal, absolutely no fakery in your videos”. 



I think a big part is people want to believe. They don’t want to find out their fav guitarist is faking it. Like how the Berried Alive “raw” video was enough for a lot of people. 

If we could all get back to uploading videos with mistakes and natural human errors that would be great cause the majority of people don’t care for absolute perfection. We all know guitar is hard, unless your Yo. That dude is insane and needs to join some Nevermore style band.


----------



## Aumann

Lorcan Ward said:


> What baffles me is Manuel made a post admitting he pre-records and edits his video yet there’s countless comments saying things like “I knew you were the real deal, absolutely no fakery in your videos”.
> 
> 
> 
> I think a big part is people want to believe. They don’t want to find out their fav guitarist is faking it. Like how the Berried Alive “raw” video was enough for a lot of people.
> 
> If we could all get back to uploading videos with mistakes and natural human errors that would be great cause the majority of people don’t care for absolute perfection. We all know guitar is hard, unless your Yo. That dude is insane and needs to join some Nevermore style band.



I think you misunderstood the dude. Manuel refines his vids and does some edits and (like everyone almost) prerecords it, but he doesn't fake playing it. None of his videos are sped up.Look at his live videos. I have personally seen him play live and his hand looks like its glitching cause he is genuinely insane at guitar. His right hand is inhumanely fast.

Multiple youtubers have now issued excuses or made videos further elaborating his case, cause that dude looked fake on instagram but he IS legit.

I have no emotional investment in this, if he faked it, i'd flatout say it. But Manuel is the real deal and him being nominated for best prog guitarist of the year is no fluke.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

Aumann said:


> I think you misunderstood the dude. Manuel refines his vids and does some edits, but he doesn't fake playing it. Look at his live videos. I have personally seen him play live and his hand looks like its glitching cause he is genuinely insane at guitar. His right hand is inhumanely fast.
> 
> Multiple youtubers have now issued excuses or made videos further elaborating his case, cause that dude looked fake on instagram but he IS legit.
> 
> I have no emotional investment in this, if he faked it, i'd flatout say it. But Manuel is the real deal and him being nominated for best prog guitarist of the year is no fluke.



You can see his playing doesn't line up when he's miming, he's hitting harmonics that aren't there, he's playing single notes but chords are ringing out, you can hear the clear signs of sped up audio that was recorded at 50% speed, the surgical level of quantisation and copy pasting etc etc. How is that the real deal? He has a video where his guitar isn't even plugged in dude  

Yes he has live videos up that show he is an accomplished player and I understand this guy has a very passionate fanbase the are defending him regardless of the obvious evidence but the videos at home are Haarp Machine levels of editing and a completely unrealistic portrayal of his and guitar playing as a whole. I'm not sure what people aren't understanding here? He's one of the main guys which kicked off the whole stop faking your playing thing a few weeks back.


----------



## Aumann

Lorcan Ward said:


> You can see his playing doesn't line up when he's miming, he's hitting harmonics that aren't there, he's playing single notes but chords are ringing out, you can hear the clear signs of sped up audio that was recorded at 50% speed, the surgical level of quantisation and copy pasting etc etc. How is that the real deal? He has a video where his guitar isn't even plugged in dude
> 
> Yes he has live videos up that show he is an accomplished player and I understand this guy has a very passionate fanbase the are defending him regardless of the obvious evidence but the videos at home are Haarp Machine levels of editing and a completely unrealistic portrayal of his and guitar playing as a whole. I'm not sure what people aren't understanding here? He's one of the main guys which kicked off the whole stop faking your playing thing a few weeks back.


Haven't seen those videos, so maybe i am missing something. The videos i saw were entirely possible. Several youtubers also analysed his videos and concluded that he was indeed not speeding up even though it initially looked like it. Many of them ended up apologising to him for it, amongst which Jared.

Feel free to send me the clips where he's playing notes that aren't there. If he faked them, i'll gladly say it is so. 

About the guitar not being plugged in.... almost all playthrough videos are prerecorded and then the produced audio is put on to the playthrough vid. That has been standard practice for, well, always.

But having seen him live, i wouldn't see any reason for him to fake it. As his playing live is insanely tight and pretty much on par with his clips. It would totally beat me why he would fake it unless it's to put out videos faster.


----------



## wannabguitarist

Aumann said:


> Haven't seen those videos, so maybe i am missing something. The videos i saw were entirely possible. Several youtubers also analysed his videos and concluded that he was indeed not speeding up even though it initially looked like it. Many of them ended up apologising to him for it, amongst which Jared.
> 
> Feel free to send me the clips where he's playing notes that aren't there. If he faked them, i'll gladly say it is so.
> 
> About the guitar not being plugged in.... almost all playthrough videos are prerecorded and then the produced audio is put on to the playthrough vid. That has been standard practice for, well, always.
> 
> But having seen him live, i wouldn't see any reason for him to fake it. As his playing live is insanely tight and pretty much on par with his clips. It would totally beat me why he would fake it unless it's to put out videos faster.





This breaks one of his videos down pretty well.

The dude can clearly play based on his live videos, but he doesn't sound that clean and the miming in the video isn't accurate to what he's actually playing. This is less egregious than the Berried Alive and RoS dudes but it still feels a little cheap. Just record yourself playing


----------



## Lorcan Ward

Aumann said:


> Several youtubers also analysed his videos and concluded that he was indeed not speeding up even though it initially looked like it. Many of them ended up apologising to him for it, amongst which Jared.



The audio is sped up not the video. You can hear in the fast sections of his videos where audio has been recorded slower and sped up. When you speed up guitar it means the strings are vibrating twice as fast which gives it a really unusual sound, there’s no way around this but it can be disguised in a mix. A clear example is in the haarp machine Strandberg video. For an unaccompanied video you can’t hide the signs of it. 



Aumann said:


> Feel free to send me the clips where he's playing notes that aren't there. If he faked them, i'll gladly say it is so.



levi’s video above goes into detail. I’m not on my desktop so I won’t be able to post links but it’s evident in all the recent uploads on his IG, just have a look yourself. 



Aumann said:


> About the guitar not being plugged in.... almost all playthrough videos are prerecorded and then the produced audio is put on to the playthrough vid. That has been standard practice for, well, always.



Yes I’m aware of something I’ve posted about several times in this thread. That’s fine for music videos and general playthroughs but miming to super edited for every guitar video that is also serving as a technique and skill demonstration is where lots of guys draw the line. I want to hear your playing, not your computer playing back a guitar pro file. 



Aumann said:


> But having seen him live, i wouldn't see any reason for him to fake it. As his playing live is insanely tight and pretty much on par with his clips. It would totally beat me why he would fake it unless it's to put out videos faster.



This is what puzzles me and others the most. These guys are very accomplished players. Why do they feel the need to resort to such microscopic editing and studio tricks for so many of their videos, some guys it’s all their videos to the point it’s hard to find anything that’s actually raw audio. If you are putting so many hours into guitar why not let people hear you actually play it. 

I’m guessing it’s something you start to do in the studio to get your musical idea across. That’s perfectly fine. Do whatever you have to do to get the sound you want for your music but then one of these guys decides to make a video, naturally it blows up. So they keep doing it and the result is now being called out. At that stage it must be very hard to own up and let people know they haven’t been listening to you actually play guitar. 

I know it’s a big shock for people and a lot of guys just don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to be the “Santa isn’t real” guy but I’m just stating the facts here. The simple thing is guitars don’t sound like this and humans nor guitars aren’t physically capable of sounding like that.


----------



## NoodleFace

You k ow when Jared Dines finally cashes in on the crazy that it's hit critical mass


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

NoodleFace said:


> You k ow when Jared Dines finally cashes in on the crazy that it's hit critical mass


Are you talking about...

"Do you like... KOMBUCHA!? I Lo0o0o0o00o0o0ove KOMBUCHA! Drinks like pee and smells even worse!"
>spends next 3 days with greasy kombucha scented hair.


----------



## GunpointMetal

Lorcan Ward said:


> This is what puzzles me and others the most. These guys are very accomplished players. Why do they feel the need to resort to such microscopic editing and studio tricks for so many of their videos, some guys it’s all their videos to the point it’s hard to find anything that’s actually raw audio. If you are putting so many hours into guitar why not let people hear you actually play it.


This is so annoying because they are good guitar players, they're just not superhuman, and that's okay. I'd rather hear a plink or two in a "live video" and have it be live. 



Lorcan Ward said:


> I know it’s a big shock for people and a lot of guys just don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to be the “Santa isn’t real” guy but I’m just stating the facts here. The simple thing is guitars don’t sound like this and humans nor guitars aren’t physically capable of sounding like that.


Is this the guy from "Unprocessed"? If so a bunch of the clips I've seen have obviously sped up audio. There's one earlier in the thread that has audio that was sped up more than a little bit and its easy as hell to notice it if you listen to the vibrato. It sounds so fake you'd think coins were being collected on screen.


----------



## lurè

GunpointMetal said:


> Unprocessed



Pretty accurate name


----------



## bostjan

People are just insane now by default. In 2019, hardly anyone gives a shit about guitar anyway, people only care about clickbait. I guess people want to


wannabguitarist said:


> This breaks one of his videos down pretty well.
> 
> The dude can clearly play based on his live videos, but he doesn't sound that clean and the miming in the video isn't accurate to what he's actually playing. This is less egregious than the Berried Alive and RoS dudes but it still feels a little cheap. Just record yourself playing




People get their knickers in a twist over this a lot.

That clip totally sounds sped up. I think some people just don't know what sped up sounds like. That's fine, but I think I know what it sounds like and I strongly believe that is sped up. ...and I don't think it's really that big of a deal. If it sounds fake like that, it's just not my thing. But this isn't new to the digital era. Go back and listen to hair bands from the 80's or even the (how dare anyone criticize them) Led Zeppelin. You can tell that they recorded at a slower tape speed and went up for playback. It's a trick, just like a lot of other tricks that are far less reprehensible than some people make them out to be, but, I mean, it isn't supposed to fool anyone, right? I mean, for most (maybe only some?) of us, it sounds obvious.

It's not like these bands will have any of the other studio tricks in concert: autotune (everyone in pop music uses it these days), a $4500 reverb plugin, an orchestra, punch-ins, blah blah etc. I sure as hell am not going to redo an entire take if I think I can punch in smoothly.

But my point is that when something sounds _this_ fake, I don't really enjoy it anymore...


----------



## MaxOfMetal

bostjan said:


> People are just insane now by default.



A more accurate description for the world we live in does not exist.


----------



## NoodleFace

My question is who is even paying attention to these dudes? Is it some Instagram fad or some shit?

Plenty of real guitarists out there I'd rather listen to


----------



## Jonathan20022

I think to call Instagram and even Zoomer haven Tik Tok a fad is doing them both a massive disservice. They're huge social media platforms and these musicians are the first ones in marketing and influencing younger demographics because a good amount of older folks aren't on either platform. Seriously look at the statistics and size of either platform, there's an insane amount of hidden talent out there and maybe there are more people moving to this doctored style of guitar writing and recording.

But to come back to it, I still strongly believe the "setting impossible standards" argument is a complete fucking cop-out. I think that's giving kids a reason to feel bummed out about their guitar playing over just being inspired about something they like, I don't have to perform every single thing I listen to because everyone's playing and techniques are different. I can't sweep pick for shit cleanly, I'm not going to listen to players who can and cry about it. But that's the argument some of these youtubers are hinging on once the doctoring argument falls apart because most people doctor at some point on the spectrum bordering from cleaning minor noise, to faking their playing. Technically Shawn Lane, Paul Gilbert, and Allan Holdsworth "set impossible standards" with their genetic benefits that lean them into guitar playing, but all listening to them does for me is inspire me to play guitar.

I think I've seen maybe a handful of kids start saying that players miming/doctoring their playing made them feel inadequate as a player, and to no surprise it's right after the garbage clickbaiting youtubers plant that seed in their head.

Live and let live, Manuel is actually a hilariously good example of something I mentioned earlier. If you get famous on social media for playing your instrument, eventually you're going to be thrust on a stage and have to perform it live, if you can't do it you will lose all your credibility and deservedly be humiliated. Manuel did the opposite, and performed several clips he got a staggering amount of negativity for proving people wrong that he can actually perform it.

Idk if people really want to fall on the fragility of the youth, you could even make the dumb argument that he might have felt pressured in a sea of "perfect" doctored musicians and felt inclined to speed up/doctor his own playing so he wouldn't get picked apart for the mistakes he would make. But again I don't buy that argument, and attest that to the overwhelming positivity that surrounds any player that we end up critiquing in this thread.


----------



## c7spheres

I'm going to be the greatest athlete anyone has ever seen. I will win gold in all events from now until the end of time, and if you don't accept my production methods when I run a marathon in 0.00000000000000000001 seconds, can lift a billion lbs with my pinky, and jump a thousand feet into the air, then you're all just haters. I will also be the best at everything else too, once I buy the right programs. Haters gonna hate! Just kidding.


----------



## cip 123

NoodleFace said:


> My question is who is even paying attention to these dudes? Is it some Instagram fad or some shit?
> 
> Plenty of real guitarists out there I'd rather listen to


Brands.

They're paying attention. 70K followers? Signature guitar. Have a sig Pick too. Oh btw would you like a pickup endorsement? 

Lets put aside the ego and perfectionism, why play real guitar when you can fake it and a sig guitar?


----------



## bostjan

Which pickup makes my guitar sound like a cheap general midi guitar sped up 200%?


----------



## Splinterhead

Jonathan20022 said:


> But to come back to it, I still strongly believe the "setting impossible standards" argument is a complete fucking cop-out. I think that's giving kids a reason to feel bummed out about their guitar playing over just being inspired about something they like, I don't have to perform every single thing I listen to because everyone's playing and techniques are different. I can't sweep pick for shit cleanly, I'm not going to listen to players who can and cry about it. But that's the argument some of these youtubers are hinging on once the doctoring argument falls apart because most people doctor at some point on the spectrum bordering from cleaning minor noise, to faking their playing. Technically Shawn Lane, Paul Gilbert, and Allan Holdsworth "set impossible standards" with their genetic benefits that lean them into guitar playing, but all listening to them does for me is inspire me to play guitar.



my .02
I'm inspired by guys like Allan Holdsworth as well. But he was truthful with his playing, good or bad, and I've seen both. Being inspired by someone who fakes their playing and tries to pass it off as real doesn't send a good message. 

Additionally what I'm concerned about is young kids seeing these "impossible standards" and figuring since they can't beat them...might as well join 'em. I just think it lowers the value of hard practice, sacrifice and dedication in becoming a good guitarist.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

Didn't see this posted yet, so here it is.



He's got a lot of good points.


----------



## Necropitated

Lorcan Ward said:


> This is what puzzles me and others the most. These guys are very accomplished players. Why do they feel the need to resort to such microscopic editing and studio tricks for so ...



I think there's a few reasons for it. I had a few mimed videos as well and since I record my videos live for a few years now I know the differences between both (mentally). When you upload a video you want to show the "perfect" side of your playing. Doing that live requires a lot of practice. My recent Beneath the massacre video took a whole morning and 200 takes for the final video and it's not even perfect. It has flaws. I did record my practice takes which is the reason it took a while to get clean but the message is the same. Playing songs tight from start to finish is a lost art since the beginning of punch ins. So, let's assume you just pre-record your audio. One reason that speaks for it is that it's way more comfortable. You don't have to care about being sloppy and you can just focus on getting a nice video. What I hated about that is you have to mime your slides and vibratos perfectly so no one notices that it might be just a playalong. But apparantly people don't even notice that lol.
What annoys me hard and what's probably the reason for this whole miming. The playing on records is not real anymore. So even if you punch in and punch in hard like beat for beat or even a half beat, it is still played for real. It still has the sound of real playing. But in the recent years note for note editing and speeding up has been a thing. And that's the problem. People think you can sound like that. No you can't. It is artificial. And now another problem which I noticed with this Manuel Gardner, The HAARP Machine and even Jason Richardson. Because of those recording techniques you have these days people write music that only works when recorded like that. It might not be impossible to play but it sounds way different when played for real. And that's what I noticed in Manuels fake video that Levi analysed. That riff is way too fast and intricate to have that sort of sound when played for real and thus it might even sound like shit when played for real, even when it's played really good.
Same with Jason Richardson in my opinion, even though he is one of the best if not the best fast shredder right now. But I still remember on some forum, someone asked for guitar players similiar to Jason on a technical level and someone recommended me. Then the person that wanted recommendations said I'm way too sloppy to be compared to him. And dude while this might be true, that he's cleaner, I still play for real and show my real playing with a direct recorded signal, not just some phone quality audio or audio drowned in backing tracks. Please don't compare people to studio records or pre-recorded videos. I'll probably get flak for talking about Jason because he's highly regarded but I transcribed enough solos by him to know that.
We're in an era in the guitar scene where we have the same problem as the beauty or sports industry. Selling fake things as the real deal, and instead of openly admitting to those helping techniques, people who are in the know just say nothing. And that way young people think it's normal. Same with steroids in the weightlifting industry.


----------



## dreamspace

I blame the ever-increasing production standards and demand / content output. 

Basically, if you want to make it today on social media - which happens to be the main (if only) place of revenue for many of these guitarists, you pretty much need:

- Top notch production quality, both audio and video 
- Relatively frequent release of content 
- Follow the current musical trends, or push things to the next level.

It's basically the musicians version of IG beauty standards.

Any musician that's ever written and recorded anything, knows that it's really fucking hard to always be pushing out new fresh content. 

So you begin taking short-cuts, with the first being to just mime over "play-through" vids, etc. 

Some people will argue that miming over a video is no big deal, because after all, every artist under the sun does that for their music videos - I disagree, a bedroom guitar video is not a music video. (But I understand why people do it - I have myself spent probably 50 takes on recording 4 min live vids, from start to stop)

Then the next step is to get more cams / angles, so that things look more interesting, but also so that you don't need to spend many takes on getting things down perfect / well-enough for people not to notice. 

And finally you start cutting up material into smaller pieces / sections, so that you can get more bang for the buck and filler material - and you'll be posting on IG anyway. 

These days I vastly enjoy vids from (and in the style of) Stephen Taranto, Jon Björk, etc. It all just sounds and feels real.


----------



## ArtHam

That message from Miles made my stomach churn. The guy is a goddamn hypocrite since the sole reason he has a 'career' at all is his collaboration with THE main culprit of all this nonsense. He himself has even done this edit nonsense. Fuck that guy. And he singles out a guy who, while still an egregious example, is nowhere near as bad as his buddy Lucas. But not a single mention of that. Seriously, Miles.



Necropitated said:


> And dude while this might be true, that he's cleaner, I still play for real and show my real playing with a direct recorded signal, not just some phone quality audio or audio drowned in backing tracks. Please don't compare people to studio records or pre-recorded videos. I'll probably get flak for talking about Jason because he's highly regarded but I transcribed enough solos by him to know that.
> We're in an era in the guitar scene where we have the same problem as the beauty or sports industry. Selling fake things as the real deal, and instead of openly admitting to those helping techniques, people who are in the know just say nothing. And that way young people think it's normal. Same with steroids in the weightlifting industry.



The problem is though that because you don't write ANY of your own music, have no discernible style or voice of your own or are affiliated with ANY artist that carries weight nobody gives a damn. You're a great cover band guitarist, but since you look like you're doing your taxes while playing and only use one camera only the die-hardest of fans care. (Don't get me wrong, I admire your technique, but it doesn't seem to ever get you anywhere, except a very very embarrassing show with HAARP machine).

Almost everybody these days seems to only be able to LOOK at music. The better the production of your videos, the more people watch, the less production, the less people watch. Same with being awkward or 'funny' (Steve T). That's why a (by todays' standards certainly) sub par player like Ola Englund or Jared Dines gets millions of views. The production of their videos is great, they are funny and entertaining.
Another example is this Dragonforce 'cover video' on youtube by Cole Rolland. Almost 9 million views, not a single note played for real. From note 1 it's obvious. But it looks good, so it's popular and gets viewed like crazy.

People want to be ENTERTAINED. They want drama, high production or funny videos.
Example: Geldschlager. His playing videos get watched only a tiny bit compared to this soapbox threads or videos. What makes me nauseous is his whole approach. He openly admits to doing the SAME thing, but now he gets all high and mighty and calls people out. Nobody cares about his musical output (except for the comparatively tiny number of sycophants that agree with every single fart he rips), but anytime he creates drama people jump on it.

I think that, at a certain point, one has to decide what one wants to be. For now, there seems to be the same difference there used to be between tv actors and movie actors. If you acted in movies, you were almost never in tv series and vice versa. There's a definite difference between a 'youtube musician' and a 'real musician'. In general, most musicians who are 'on youtube' don't really tour or play live (Steve T has even copped to the fact he can't play live because of anxiety, which feels extra wrong because his most popular videos are when he makes fun of people who fucked something up live, something he can't even do) and most musicians out in 'the real world' might occasionally get something online, but the hugest number don't.

I KNOW this is a guitar forum, but come on, with keyboard players having been able to do this since the 80's and drummers doing this since the 90's (I GUARANTEE you that 90% of every metal album and 100% of every extreme metal album you heard this year had sampled drums and performances were beat detectived to hell. You're listening to a computer performing music) this is really not that big a deal anymore. Crying foul about it isn't going to change anything about production aesthetics. As soon as multi-tracking became a thing the whole 'performing music for real completely from start to finish' became something that is solely relegated to jazz and classical music. The end performances of every single popular music artist are rendered inhuman. Watch any movie of the last 10 years (Disney movies being the most obvious ones) and hear how computers perform every note. Every single vocal note is autotuned.

Everybody here has been listening to computers performing their music for years and don't pretend that's not true.

As for me, I'm on the fence. While I admire skill, the fact that almost nothing that gets released is 'real' kind of makes me jaded. Movies get edited to death and digitally enhanced, why shouldn't music?

The main thing here seems to be driven by jealousy. 'he gets a guitar for free but he doesn't deserve it', but the main problem seems to be: 'he thought of it first'.

Let's face it everybody, this is never going to go away.


----------



## Charlie Foxtrot 3rd

ArtHam. It’ll go the other way soon enough. It will swing the other way, everyone will be all about lowFi guitar and recording you know the “REAL” shit, the “fakers” will be shunned eventually. Trends come and go but emotive music will always be popular.


----------



## ArtHam

Charlie Foxtrot 3rd said:


> ArtHam. It’ll go the other way soon enough. It will swing the other way, everyone will be all about lowFi guitar and recording you know the “REAL” shit, the “fakers” will be shunned eventually. Trends come and go but emotive music will always be popular.


It won't because it would mean that all metal will go back to sounding like it did in the 1980's, when almost everything had to be performed for real and also had to be mixed that way.


----------



## c7spheres

ArtHam said:


> It won't because it would mean that all metal will go back to sounding like it did in the 1980's, when almost everything had to be performed for real and also had to be mixed that way.


 We can always have dreams. I would love for that to happen!


----------



## ArtHam

c7spheres said:


> We can always have dreams. I would love for that to happen!


Me too, but an entire cult of 'nail the mix' disciples and modern 'mixing gurus' will never let that happen, because these days their 'vision and sound' matters too (if not more).

Of course in that scene you have the real mixers who have real skill and 'unskilled preset users', too.

Being a musician used to be entirely reserved for the ultra-talented. With technological advances even the most physically incapable (meaning people who don't play and instrument for 10000+ hours) can make music. It has its pros (almost every single electronic music artist) and its cons (people who can't actually play but pretend to be able to).

I'm a code programmer and this profession has the exact same problems. People copying code, people who aren't adept at all but scour the internet for templates. The 'real ones' and the 'fake ones'. Thankfully in this profession being really good has its actual financial rewards and our managers soon find out if you're 'real' or 'fake'. But you know what? In music there's no longer anyone who warrants that quality.


----------



## Aumann

Lorcan Ward said:


> The audio is sped up not the video. You can hear in the fast sections of his videos where audio has been recorded slower and sped up. When you speed up guitar it means the strings are vibrating twice as fast which gives it a really unusual sound, there’s no way around this but it can be disguised in a mix. A clear example is in the haarp machine Strandberg video. For an unaccompanied video you can’t hide the signs of it.
> 
> levi’s video above goes into detail. I’m not on my desktop so I won’t be able to post links but it’s evident in all the recent uploads on his IG, just have a look yourself.
> 
> Yes I’m aware of something I’ve posted about several times in this thread. That’s fine for music videos and general playthroughs but miming to super edited for every guitar video that is also serving as a technique and skill demonstration is where lots of guys draw the line. I want to hear your playing, not your computer playing back a guitar pro file.
> 
> This is what puzzles me and others the most. These guys are very accomplished players. Why do they feel the need to resort to such microscopic editing and studio tricks for so many of their videos, some guys it’s all their videos to the point it’s hard to find anything that’s actually raw audio. If you are putting so many hours into guitar why not let people hear you actually play it.
> 
> I’m guessing it’s something you start to do in the studio to get your musical idea across. That’s perfectly fine. Do whatever you have to do to get the sound you want for your music but then one of these guys decides to make a video, naturally it blows up. So they keep doing it and the result is now being called out. At that stage it must be very hard to own up and let people know they haven’t been listening to you actually play guitar.
> 
> I know it’s a big shock for people and a lot of guys just don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to be the “Santa isn’t real” guy but I’m just stating the facts here. The simple thing is guitars don’t sound like this and humans nor guitars aren’t physically capable of sounding like that.




It's not really that i don't want to believe it, i know a lot of shit happens. But yeah, i'm just baffled as to why they would do it if they were accomplished. I saw him live first, i guess that is also why i assumed he played everything for real even though it sounded weird in his clips. My brain just naturally thought: why the heck would he fake it, he's amazing live.

If i have to guess, i really think its the output of videos. Social media game needs to be consistent, you have to upload a lot. So in order to keep up, they do this to put out clips much faster instead of always having having to learn it perfectly in a short amount of time. As some mentioned before, it's all about clickbait now and playing the social media game. People eat that shit up anyway, fake or not. In the end i blame the viewers more than the guy himself. 

I don't condone this though, i prefer worse playing but it being natural. I'm not a shreddy type of guy anyway. Never cared about it. I want to hear good songwriting, you can't fake that


----------



## Necropitated

ArtHam said:


> The problem is though that because you don't write ANY of your own music, have no discernible style or voice of your own or are affiliated with ANY artist that carries weight nobody gives a damn. You're a great cover band guitarist, but since you look like you're doing your taxes while playing and only use one camera only the die-hardest of fans care. (Don't get me wrong, I admire your technique, but it doesn't seem to ever get you anywhere, except a very very embarrassing show with HAARP machine).



My "fame" or lack of that and that I have not released any original music has nothing to do with what I have said in that post. It was solely about playing and that's it, otherwise I wouldn't have said anything. It's that people shouldn't compare real or live playing with what you hear on studio records these days. That's what my post was about. It has nothing to do with my reputation or my lack of musical identity. But thank you for your kind words. I know exactly why I normally don't engage in these topics. I'll probably have to do taxes instead. And btw, getting asked by accomplished bands to fill-in definitely counts as "getting somewhere" for me and that's all I ever wanted.


----------



## Necropitated

It's an annoying topic but I wonder why some people have such strong words and opinions on other musicians. I love elitist metalheads


----------



## Lorcan Ward

Wow your playing really hits some nerves with that guy. How long has he been holding that rant in lol


----------



## Necropitated

Lorcan Ward said:


> Wow your playing really hits some nerves with that guy. How long has he been holding that rant in lol


What I find especially interesting is that one of his favourite bands Alkaloid asked me this year to fill-in for them. And yes, he can have his opinion on me having no style, no voice, no released original music which when you only know me from youtube is totally true, but saying I'm not affliated with bands that anyone gives a damn or that I'm not getting anywhere is just not true. And if he's talking about people not giving a damn about my youtube or my youtube being too small, well youtube has never been my focus up until now. It was just a platform to upload videos to to show bands that I can play their material. Nothing more. And that was always my goal, playing as a session guy for bigger bands. Considering that I had a music break of 3 years and just came back I feel pretty good how my career is going.


----------



## GunpointMetal

If metal goes back to sounding like the 80s I'm starting an electronic band. Fuck that shit.


----------



## ArtHam

Necropitated said:


> It's an annoying topic but I wonder why some people have such strong words and opinions on other musicians. I love elitist metalheads


My language was no stronger than what you said about Jason Richardson, so no reason to act all triggered. 
You started projecting this whole issue on your own situation, totally ignoring the issue as a whole. Has nothing at all to do with elitism.
None of it was an attack on you as a person or your technique (I'll once again repeat you have great technique). Just an observation. You give your opinion, I give mine.

When did you play with Alkaloid? I love them, but I saw their two shows this summer and you certainly weren't there.
I'd be excited if you did fill in for them. And I do wish you success. Me wondering out loud why I only got to see you play once in, possibly, one of the worst train wrecks I've ever witnessed on stage, was not an insult.

Why is this an annoying topic to you? You're IN that Geldschlager video. You affiliated yourself with it, of your own volition. You reply in this topic. You apparently used to do this, but now have a problem with it. You are somehow beyond reproach?



Lorcan Ward said:


> Wow your playing really hits some nerves with that guy. How long has he been holding that rant in lol



About 1 minute. Didn't want to say anything about it. Like I said, love his technique.

How is 3 lines a rant?

What I did notice though is that the ones complaining are generally hobby guitarists complaining about the success of others. Success, free gear etc has never ever been a game of 'the fastest, cleanest best guitarist'. 'This guy has success and he doesn't deserve it'. 'Jason Richardson is clean, but not that clean'.

If you mean my comment about Miles, I stand 100% by it. He called out the Berried guy, but owes his 'success' to his bandmate Lucas who's the most famous example of this nonsense. And the only reason he gets all worked up is because people have started calling him out because of the RoS link.


----------



## Necropitated

ArtHam said:


> My language was no stronger than what you said about Jason Richardson, so no reason to act all triggered.
> You started projecting this whole issue on your own situation, totally ignoring the issue as a whole. Has nothing at all to do with elitism.
> None of it was an attack on you as a person or your playing. Just an observation.
> 
> When did you play with Alkaloid? I love them, but I saw their two shows this summer and you certainly weren't there.
> I'd be excited if you did fill in for them.
> 
> Why is this an annoying topic to you? You're IN that Geldschlager video. You affiliated yourself with it, of your own volition.
> 
> 
> 
> About 1 minute. Didn't want to say anything about it. Like I said, love his technique.
> 
> How is 3 lines a rant?
> 
> What I did notice though is that the ones complaining are generally hobby guitarists complaining about the success of others. Success, free gear etc has never ever been a game of 'the fastest, cleanest best guitarist'. 'This guy has success and he doesn't deserve it'. 'Jason Richardson is clean, but not that clean'.
> 
> If you mean my comment about Miles, I stand 100% by it. He called out the Berried guy, but owes his 'success' to his bandmate Lucas who's the most famous example of this nonsense. And the only reason he gets all worked up is because people have started calling him out because of the RoS link.



I have and had no strong language on Jason and neither am I projecting anything. Jason is the example of a great guitar player that still doesn't sound exactly like on CD even if he already is one of the cleanest and best out there. And the whole message of my post where you probably think I'm projecting is that you can't compare peoples real playing to a CD and that's what someone did with my playing. And the comment Jason is clean, but not that clean, that you just said, well if that is my opinion, what's wrong about that? It applies to a lot of guitar players when you're comparing them to their playing on cd's. I knew exactly why it's a bad idea to take Jason as an example. He totally deserves his success and is one of the greatest right now. But let me guess, you're one of the people that hate fake playing but as an artistic choice it's totally okay right?

So sorry, but I am allowed to feel insulted, right? Especially by your exceptional observation skills that have deduced that I'm not getting anywhere. And this is the only part of comment that I'm feeling butthurt about. The part about my playing? Sure you can totally say that. I have not put anything original to the table. But getting this far, being asked by Defeated Sanity, The HAARP Machine and Alkaloid in one year to fill in has been a lot of work over the years and is one hell of an accomplishment for me. Apparantly I'm not the only one that thinks your comment could be interpretated as offending. You could've said that with different, nicer words and getting your message across without that nonsense. And this whole comment about hobby guitarists complaining feels directed at me again, because well, it is the answer to my post. Don't know why you are acting that way. And hey man, I'm sharing your opinion on why and what's getting succesful on youtube and social media. You're right on that. People are selling entertainment and music is just secondary these days. But the thing is, I don't mind the success of other musicians. They all probably deserve it. Getting there, no matter how is a lot of work. If it's Ola and Jared as "Entertainers" and all other ventures they have or Jason Richardson as an exceptional musician. They all deserve that and I have no ill-feeling about that.

Alkaloid, they asked me to fill-in for Danny for their Metal Days show. Danny was originally supposed to fill-in for Aborted on their summer festival tour and that's why he couldn't play. In the end, for reasons I will not disclose here, Danny decided to not play the Aborted tour and that way he would've been able to play that show I was supposed to fill-in. At that point they said they'll play with Danny and I don't have to learn the songs anymore. The problem was, the same reason that Danny decided to not play the Aborted shows prevented him from playing the Alkaloid shows in the end and then it was already too late for me to learn the songs and they decided to play the show without Danny or a fill-in. If you don't believe me, feel free to ask anyone of the band. I'm still (music) friends with them and we all respect each other as musicians, even if I'm just a cover guitarist. 

To Toms video, yes, I can understand why you say that. But just because I am in that video, as a silent guitar player, doesn't mean I'm agreeing with everything Tom says or with this whole current controversy, right? I understand that you think that, and this one goes on me. But I am and was silent most of the time about that subject and I have a different opinion which I don't feel like sharing anymore. My only part in this video was the playing, nothing more. I did not say a single word in the video and on social media I don't talk about that. It's good that Tom made people aware about that but I don't like that fingerpointing and how this controversy has spread. And just right now I know why I usually don't say anything.


----------



## GunpointMetal

@Necropitated you don't have anything to prove to anyone on this board, for sure. You could walk into just about any tech/death/heavy/whatever band and be the best musician in the band without every writing a lick.


----------



## ArtHam

Necropitated said:


> But let me guess, you're one of the people that hate fake playing but as an artistic choice it's totally okay right?
> 
> So sorry, but I am allowed to feel insulted, right?
> 
> To Toms video, yes, I can understand why you say that. But just because I am in that video, as a silent guitar player, doesn't mean I'm agreeing with everything Tom says or with this whole current controversy, right? I understand that you think that, and this one goes on me. But I am and was silent most of the time about that subject and I have a different opinion which I don't feel like sharing anymore. My only part in this video was the playing, nothing more. I did not say a single word in the video and on social media I don't talk about that. It's good that Tom made people aware about that but I don't like that fingerpointing and how this controversy has spread. And just right now I know why I usually don't say anything.



No absolutely not. I think to each their own. But I can't stand the hypocrisy involved with people who HAVE done so and are now pointing fingers and acting all high and mighty when other players' popularity has passed them by.

You are absolutely allowed to be insulted.

The last paragraph explains everything. Allow me to offer my sincere apologies. I really didn't mean to insult you as I admire your technique. I can see how my message when read with an annoyed tone might come across as pointed at you. It really wasn't meant as insulting. More as a 'this one take playing stuff with one camera isn't interesting to the large majority'. Gotta chalk it up to the limitations of just the written medium and English not being my first language.

The hobby guitarist comment was just a general comment directed at the crowd at large who seem to get really upset. This whole witch hunt and all the soapbox drama Geldschlager seems to initiate every couple of months is getting on my nerves.


----------



## efiltsohg

c7spheres said:


> I'm going to be the greatest athlete anyone has ever seen. I will win gold in all events from now until the end of time, and if you don't accept my production methods when I run a marathon in 0.00000000000000000001 seconds, can lift a billion lbs with my pinky, and jump a thousand feet into the air, then you're all just haters. I will also be the best at everything else too, once I buy the right programs. Haters gonna hate! Just kidding.



you joke, but there is a valid comparison here -

anybody who is best in the world at something physical in the post-steroids age is performance enhancing one way or another

anybody who is fastest/cleanest guitarist in the post-protools age...

I can't wait until youtube/instagram guitar scene is just nothing but cheaters all pointing fingers at each other like olympic athletes or tour de france


----------



## Drew

dreamspace said:


> I blame the ever-increasing production standards and demand / content output.
> 
> Basically, if you want to make it today on social media - which happens to be the main (if only) place of revenue for many of these guitarists, you pretty much need:
> 
> - Top notch production quality, both audio and video
> - Relatively frequent release of content
> - Follow the current musical trends, or push things to the next level.
> 
> It's basically the musicians version of IG beauty standards.
> 
> Any musician that's ever written and recorded anything, knows that it's really fucking hard to always be pushing out new fresh content.
> 
> So you begin taking short-cuts, with the first being to just mime over "play-through" vids, etc.
> 
> Some people will argue that miming over a video is no big deal, because after all, every artist under the sun does that for their music videos - I disagree, a bedroom guitar video is not a music video. (But I understand why people do it - I have myself spent probably 50 takes on recording 4 min live vids, from start to stop)
> 
> Then the next step is to get more cams / angles, so that things look more interesting, but also so that you don't need to spend many takes on getting things down perfect / well-enough for people not to notice.
> 
> And finally you start cutting up material into smaller pieces / sections, so that you can get more bang for the buck and filler material - and you'll be posting on IG anyway.
> 
> These days I vastly enjoy vids from (and in the style of) Stephen Taranto, Jon Björk, etc. It all just sounds and feels real.


I mean, the natural answer to all of this is a combination of 1) calling out guys who ARE editing and/or miming videos (as is happening here), and 2) to praise the guys who ARE doing impressive but clearly human and unedited non-mimed and single camera playthroughs, and start latching on to the things that make their performances human as a _desirable_ attribute.

The thing that, as a guitarist, concerns me the most about this thread is that while I welcome the backlash to guitarists "faking" performance getting some legs, there's an awful lot of discussion about what the "acceptable" level of faking is. The devil, as they say, is in the details, and if we're focusing on those details, then we're already damned.


----------



## GunpointMetal

Drew said:


> The thing that, as a guitarist, concerns me the most about this thread is that while I welcome the backlash to guitarists "faking" performance getting some legs, there's an awful lot of discussion about what the "acceptable" level of faking is. The devil, as they say, is in the details, and if we're focusing on those details, then we're already damned.


I don't think music/playing should be a competition, and the creation of art should only be limited by what you're capable of with the tools you have, including comping/editing/programming/half-speed, etc. The "acceptable level" is admitting it. Fake all you want to make the art you wanna hear, just don't blow smoke up everyone's ass when they notice you're claiming accomplishments you haven't actually achieved. I'm working on two EPs right now for two different bands. Both of them will have a variety of "performance enhancers" on pretty much every instrument in the mix, and if anyone asks me, I will have no problem pointing out exactly where I tightened things up, or punched in 1000 times, because both of these bands are going to go out and play all of the material live without tracks for any of the live instruments. I'm not gonna feel bad about making my recorded output sound exactly how I want it to because I'm not going to lie or obfuscate people regarding my ability, should the question arise.


----------



## efiltsohg

This thread also reminds me, I remember reading like a decade ago about Zakk Wylde having a shitfit because Ozzy said they just assembled all the songs on (whatever album had just come out) in protools


----------



## Seabeast2000

bostjan said:


> Which pickup makes my guitar sound like a cheap general midi guitar sped up 200%?



Your Fishman AND EMG sig set will both get you there.


----------



## Drew

GunpointMetal said:


> I don't think music/playing should be a competition, and the creation of art should only be limited by what you're capable of with the tools you have, including comping/editing/programming/half-speed, etc. The "acceptable level" is admitting it. Fake all you want to make the art you wanna hear, just don't blow smoke up everyone's ass when they notice you're claiming accomplishments you haven't actually achieved. I'm working on two EPs right now for two different bands. Both of them will have a variety of "performance enhancers" on pretty much every instrument in the mix, and if anyone asks me, I will have no problem pointing out exactly where I tightened things up, or punched in 1000 times, because both of these bands are going to go out and play all of the material live without tracks for any of the live instruments. I'm not gonna feel bad about making my recorded output sound exactly how I want it to because I'm not going to lie or obfuscate people regarding my ability, should the question arise.


I'll even wade into the waters here and draw a line between recording, and video performance. I'm more inclined to accept SOME editing in an album, though recording slowed down and speeding up is, IMO, a step too far. 

Video, though... It's, literally, a chance to WATCH someone play something. You can split hairs all you want about wanting to make records perfect, but as soon as you start editing the audio in a video and/or miming along to pre-recorded tracks, what you're seeing is no longer what you're hearing. 

In my entire... god, seven years of doing YouTube videos, I've only on one single occasion done any more "editing" than cutting out the hum of an amp before a performance or fading it out at the end, when in a playthrough video I accidently played a note on the A string instead of the D, or maybe vice versa, and replaced that one note with a correct one from an alternate take in the audio track. I disclosed it clearly in the video description, but even then I felt dirty. 

But, if the idea here is you're supposed to be posting something to let someone see you play and watch what you're doing, if you're doing any editing to the performance, you're lying.


----------



## GunpointMetal

Drew said:


> I disclosed it clearly in the video description, but even then I felt dirty.
> 
> But, if the idea here is you're supposed to be posting something to let someone see you play and watch what you're doing, if you're doing any editing to the performance, you're lying.


I think that's the point, though. That disclosure. Just don't lie about it. For me, I can see the value in having a "performance" video that includes album audio because A) it sounds better B) it's higher quality and will likely entice better reach and C) if you're trying to DIY a band/music career you're gonna have a lot more to do than sit and try and record 500 takes of a song to get a near perfect one (if that is what it takes). We did a performance video for my band and we definitely labeled it as ALBUM AUDIO because there was no way I was comping 10 camera angles with multi-track audio and 5-10 takes per person without getting paid, lol.


----------



## dreamspace

It should also be mentioned that IG compression makes all audio sound like hot garbage. If you want to fake it by miming over guitar pro tracks, then IG is the place to do it.


----------



## Drew

GunpointMetal said:


> I think that's the point, though. That disclosure. Just don't lie about it. For me, I can see the value in having a "performance" video that includes album audio because A) it sounds better B) it's higher quality and will likely entice better reach and C) if you're trying to DIY a band/music career you're gonna have a lot more to do than sit and try and record 500 takes of a song to get a near perfect one (if that is what it takes). We did a performance video for my band and we definitely labeled it as ALBUM AUDIO because there was no way I was comping 10 camera angles with multi-track audio and 5-10 takes per person without getting paid, lol.


Eh, I think miming to pre-recorded audio is a copout. I'd be more inclined to accept it if it was clearly labeled, sure, but it makes me wonder why you're even bothering to shoot "performance" video. If you want to do that, just go all in and make it some sort of music video rather than a video of you pretending to play your guitar. 

And of course because the world works in mysterious ways I'll probably find myself in a situation in the next five years where I DO have a reason to mime a part.


----------



## GunpointMetal

Drew said:


> Eh, I think miming to pre-recorded audio is a copout. I'd be more inclined to accept it if it was clearly labeled, sure, but it makes me wonder why you're even bothering to shoot "performance" video. If you want to do that, just go all in and make it some sort of music video rather than a video of you pretending to play your guitar.
> 
> And of course because the world works in mysterious ways I'll probably find myself in a situation in the next five years where I DO have a reason to mime a part.


An actual music video requires time, usually money, pre-planning/writing, a script, actors, a location (or at least planning for a location you already have), and a lot more editing. All a performance video requires is a rehearsal spot and a band. The most involved part is the editing.


----------



## BenjaminW

GunpointMetal said:


> If metal goes back to sounding like the 80s I'm starting an electronic band. Fuck that shit.


Oh come on. I like 80s metal.


----------



## GunpointMetal

BenjaminW said:


> Oh come on. I like 80s metal.


To each their own, I say. I just want nothing to do with that level of sticky, gooey, processed cheese.


----------



## Drew

GunpointMetal said:


> An actual music video requires time, usually money, pre-planning/writing, a script, actors, a location (or at least planning for a location you already have), and a lot more editing. All a performance video requires is a rehearsal spot and a band. The most involved part is the editing.


My point though is that's basically the same for a mimed playthrough to an edited performance.


----------



## GunpointMetal

Drew said:


> My point though is that's basically the same for a mimed playthrough to an edited performance.


It's really not though, all you need is the band, a camera or two, and like an hour to shoot.


----------



## c7spheres

This reminds me. I really need to revist my old W.A.S.P albums. They kicked some ass.


----------



## bostjan

GunpointMetal said:


> To each their own, I say. I just want nothing to do with that level of sticky, gooey, processed cheese.


 Why not both? Fake shredded processed cheese?

Seriously, though, some of those 80's shredders sped up their recordings, too, but, I think we are talking ~110% not 200%+ speed.



c7spheres said:


> This reminds me. I really need to revist my old W.A.S.P albums. They kicked some ass.


Still do, right?


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

GunpointMetal said:


> To each their own, I say. I just want nothing to do with that level of sticky, gooey, processed cheese.


If I want processed cheese, I'd buy some Tech Death. Lol


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

c7spheres said:


> This reminds me. I really need to revist my old W.A.S.P albums. They kicked some ass.


They kicked ass up til KFD. KFD was garbage. They've done some great stuff since then, but doesn't quite measure up to the pre-KFD stuff.


----------



## Jacksonluvr636

Seems like this has become quite the popular meme. I have not read all these pages so im sorry if this was discussed.

I saw a live vid of Rings of Saturn recently where the guitarist was clearly playing silently over a backing track. Absolutely pathetic. There is a fine line IMO when it comes to this crap. 

My take on it is if you need to slow down a part here and there to play something completely flawlessly for a recording ok, not the coolest thing in the world but I get it. People have bad days and studio time is pricey.

But to do it consistently and pass it off like you can actually play it when you can't? Lame. And playing over backing tracks live because you literally just cannot play it? IMO it is BS. I try not to get angry but I am sorry there are a lot of talented folks on here who can play their shit and their shit is very good but they don't get the recognition they deserve, while some dingbat has a huge following and a career off being a hack. Pfft.


----------



## c7spheres

Spaced Out Ace said:


> They kicked ass up til KFD. KFD was garbage. They've done some great stuff since then, but doesn't quite measure up to the pre-KFD stuff.


 I liked pretty much everything through and including Crimson Idol. I think they are really overlooked. Everything from the guitars and Blackies voice is really good ,imo. Blackies voice especially is underrated. Remember the "happy camper" . totally not into his new stuff but really glad he got sober. I think it got a lot of people really thinking about their lives.


----------



## BenjaminW

GunpointMetal said:


> To each their own, I say. I just want nothing to do with that level of sticky, gooey, processed cheese.


True. But to be fair, it produced some pretty sick riffs here and there.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

Chris is a decent guitarist, but that Penelope Spheeris interview was apparently somewhat fake. Kind of lame. I'm glad he has his shit together now though.


----------



## Charlie Foxtrot 3rd

This is the art
To shred, its only emotion


----------



## Aumann

I don't know why this thread swung to ad hominem critique.

Honestly, as i said before: i blame the viewers more than the musicians. Why? Because they are trying to make a living and doing that means meeting the impossible standards people have gotten used to.
Being able to output clips at this rate with that level of perfection is bound to force some trickery at some point.

Internet culture can be a cancer sometimes, it really forces people to go for the flashy, over the top stuff that can go viral instead of just making quality music.

Even Manuel, he faked videos, but clearly it was a good move for his career (up until this point maybe), because his clips were shared far and wide and his band was picking up speed quickly. At the end of the day, even though he faked, he's still a good musician, playing good music live trying to make a career.

Heck, i think that if i was in that position, i'd do it too. Even though i am opposed to this. And i think a lot of us who are critiquing them right now, would do it as well if it meant an opportunity to boost their career and make music their main living.

TL;DR.: Yes, we should not encourage faking, but i don't think we have to start taking down every guitar player that ever did this. It has become a standard. Make the message clear that you want authentic playing, scream it loudly, but don't go all cancel culture on guitar players trying to make a living, please.


----------



## Charlie Foxtrot 3rd

Heck, i think that if i was in that position, i'd do it too. Even though i am opposed to this.


Which is it?. Dichotomy is rife on this topic.


----------



## Aumann

Charlie Foxtrot 3rd said:


> Heck, i think that if i was in that position, i'd do it too. Even though i am opposed to this.
> 
> 
> Which is it?. Dichotomy is rife on this topic.



It is as i said. People doing what they would normally not condone is pretty common when the result of that is something they strongly desire.

No matter how strong people claim their moral compass is, most would give in when such an opportunity arises. I think we'd best be honest enough to admit that, even though that doesn't mean we think its ok.

The context is important. As always


----------



## NoodleFace

Fake it til you make it.. then fake it some more so you keep getting paid


----------



## Drew

Charlie Foxtrot 3rd said:


> This is the art
> To shred, its only emotion


Speed = emotion
Blinkie lights = toan. 

Two equations almost as old as this site.


----------



## Seabeast2000

Drew said:


> Speed = emotion
> Blinkie lights = toan.
> 
> Two equations almost as old as this site.


It's TRUE. That Flight of the Bumblebee guy at 1000 bpm was pure emoting.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

Necropitated said:


> So sorry, but I am allowed to feel insulted, right? Especially by your exceptional observation skills that have deduced that I'm not getting anywhere.



If you ever feel insulted from criticism just remember back in the early MySpace/YouTube days people used to call Guthrie Govan an “unoriginal basement shredder who would never play live”.


----------



## Jonathan20022

Aumann said:


> No matter how strong people claim their moral compass is, most would give in when such an opportunity arises. I think we'd best be honest enough to admit that, even though that doesn't mean we think its ok.



That's honestly the annoying part of discussions like this, everyone preaches integrity and I can pinpoint among the folks that I know that genuinely mean it. But this entire discussion is so far from black and white, everyone's standard and line to cross before going into unacceptable territory is all over the place. If anything the response from these "accused" musicians isn't very far from the right one, who gives a single fuck what anyone thinks?

A lot of people keep throwing around the "tell us that you slowed it down and it's ok to do what you do" excuse for them to do what they do but that will never be enough and everyone knows it. And not only that other people will STILL give them shit for admitting it, so what's the incentive to give anyone the time of day? Manuel's response was my favorite one, he just performed the clips or similar riffs in a live context and left condescending messages in his uploads not directed at anyone.

This is just a mild version of cancel culture, and over what on a spectrum of bad is just about one of the pettiest things to ruin careers over.


----------



## Aumann

Lorcan Ward said:


> If you ever feel insulted from criticism just remember back in the early MySpace/YouTube days people used to call Guthrie Govan an “unoriginal basement shredder who would never play live”.


What? You're kidding right? What the actual heck


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Aumann said:


> What? You're kidding right? What the actual heck



To be fair, at that point he was really just making short videos copying (in very tasteful, incredibly well done context) various guitarists' styles and didn't have an album credit to his name. It wasn't long before he really started to stand out though. 

According to the YT comment cesspool everyone is terrible.


----------



## Aumann

MaxOfMetal said:


> To be fair, at that point he was really just making short videos copying (in very tasteful, incredibly well done context) various guitarists' styles and didn't have an album credit to his name. It wasn't long before he really started to stand out though.
> 
> According to the YT comment cesspool everyone is terrible.


I don't know where this hostility comes from in the guitar world. Too many guitar players maybe ? Haha.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Aumann said:


> I don't know where this hostility comes from in the guitar world. Too many guitar players maybe ? Haha.



I don't think it's a guitar, or really anything, specific thing. Anytime individual taste is involved there will be potential for disagreement, and when there's anonymity you get the worst of people.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

Aumann said:


> I don't know where this hostility comes from in the guitar world. Too many guitar players maybe ? Haha.



That was at a time when guitar forums were full of very angry people. Thankfully things calmed down a lot since then, mostly because of the lack of anonymity now with FB and IG but it used to be brutal back then. 

Back then I noticed it was players getting angry at others mostly because they were uploading videos and making music. It wasn't really a jealousy thing but simply another was succeeding by taking the step to share their playing where they weren't. No surprise a bunch of guys who were very outspoken back then gave up guitar a few years later. It must be a personality thing where you are more suited to something competitive like sports or academia where there can be clear winners.


----------



## Aumann

Lorcan Ward said:


> TIt must be a personality thing where you are more suited to something competitive like sports or academia where there can be clear winners.


Yeah, that especially. I see that a lot of guitar players nowadays treat it more like a sport rather than an art. And its fine if they do, i just don't think it's worth fighting over.

i'd prefer if we treat guitar like art again and look at creativity before anything else


----------



## GunpointMetal

Aumann said:


> i'd prefer if we treat guitar like art again and look at creativity before anything else


I agree, but you wouldn't want someone taking pictures with their iPhone, running it through a watercolor filter, then selling prints and telling everyone they painted the original, right? That's essentially what the whole thread is about, but with music.


----------



## Aumann

GunpointMetal said:


> I agree, but you wouldn't want someone taking pictures with their iPhone, running it through a watercolor filter, then selling prints and telling everyone they painted the original, right? That's essentially what the whole thread is about, but with music.


Which i agree with and that sentence said nothing about, i don't really get the quote here


----------



## Drew

Jonathan20022 said:


> A lot of people keep throwing around the "tell us that you slowed it down and it's ok to do what you do" excuse for them to do what they do but that will never be enough and everyone knows it. And not only that other people will STILL give them shit for admitting it, so what's the incentive to give anyone the time of day?


I'm not sure I follow, but if your conclusion is "faking it but being honest about it is still going to get a backlash, so just don't fake it," then I agree. 

If your conclusion is "let's all just shut up about this, who cares if they're recording solos at half time and miming to them at tempo," then I strongly disagree. At some point whether something is real or fake DOES matter, and if you're recording at half speed, comping together a DI, and then speeding it up "but of course I could record it at speed if I wanted to, I just do this for the production and sound, man," then the playing is still complete bullshit. 

Let's be honest, guys who get into "shred" care VERY much about the ability to perform a part. If we're going to throw that out the window, we may as well all burn our guitars and start focusing on MIDI programming.


----------



## Frostbite

I'll be honest, this is pretty comprehensive


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

FYI, if you guys want to partake in an interesting/depressing discussion, Troy Grady (Cracking the Code) and some of his followers are arguing that some of Stephen Taranto's IG videos are fake (on the cracking the code forums).

Until now, IMHO their line of argumentation is pretty weak.

Levi Clay just adressed Taranto in his live AMA about Lucas Mann. He doesn’t see anything wrong about his videos and thinks he’s legit. I guess Troy is being honest but needs to get out more.

Props to Lucas Mann for trying to address this. As for his line of argumentation, I'll need to watch the whole video.


----------



## Jonathan20022

Drew said:


> I'm not sure I follow, but if your conclusion is "faking it but being honest about it is still going to get a backlash, so just don't fake it," then I agree.
> 
> If your conclusion is "let's all just shut up about this, who cares if they're recording solos at half time and miming to them at tempo," then I strongly disagree. At some point whether something is real or fake DOES matter, and if you're recording at half speed, comping together a DI, and then speeding it up "but of course I could record it at speed if I wanted to, I just do this for the production and sound, man," then the playing is still complete bullshit.
> 
> Let's be honest, guys who get into "shred" care VERY much about the ability to perform a part. If we're going to throw that out the window, we may as well all burn our guitars and start focusing on MIDI programming.



I'd say a little bit of both? Manuel can play so why did he bother? Faking still requires like dozens of takes to do properly, and recording a video well synced enough between making your vibrato look like how it sounds and all the other nuances is probably harder than perfecting the real music you're trying to play IMO.

But at the same time, what benefit is there in saying "Hey I mimed in this video to my audio track/Guitar audio was recorded note for note/half speed". There's none dude, it's probably more backlash than just doubling down or ignoring the criticism objectively. If it was truly the opposite then I could see your point, but it's really not how the world works.

But yeah personally, I think all musicians mentioned so far can play guitar to some degree, and of course they'd be better off just performing their music in true honest fashion.


----------



## Indigenous

Frostbite said:


> I'll be honest, this is pretty comprehensive




I'l be the first to admit I totally thought he was miming in the video that was posted earlier, but he categorically debunks pretty much every argument out there. It's hard to argue with him playing that lick in real time plus the audio recordings of their live shows, and he was pretty nice about the whole thing too. I think the big takeaway from this is that I need to practice more.


----------



## Jonathan20022

Good on Lucas for going in depth like that to actually start a discussion, thats how you actually go about doing that. And of course another big Youtuber takes advantage of their "buddies" just for clickbait huge surprise there 

If Jared was such good buddies with Lucas of all the people he called out he should have just recorded some kind of interview where they talked about it instead of throwing him and several others he doesn't know into the video as clear clickbait. But the damage is done, and barely anyone will see the response and far more people have negative opinions of all names mentioned.


----------



## Lord Voldemort

Initially I'm a little saddened that he's blown an endorsement deal, and it does seem like he can at least play his parts well enough to play on stage with reasonable accuracy. Even after that video, though, I do suspect some fuckery afoot. The allusion of 'studio techniques' and bringing out backing tracks live combined with the packing and selling virtuosic ability leave me a bit uneasy. I am not familiar with RoS, like at all, never heard them, so I don't know how they promote themselves or advertise, whatever, so I'm not necessarily referring to them unless they coincidentally apply.

I think it's crucial that people stop acting like the athletic ability of guitar playing is not competitive, and exists for the sake of art, because it's an objective fact that people cruise Instagram/YouTube/etc looking for incredible guitar playing. When you package up a 45 second clip of yourself miming over a studio recorded shred acrobatics, acquire a fanbase almost exclusively from doing this and then can't even play the parts...that shit don't make no sense. People are following certain guitarists because they are capable of the extraordinary-that _is _the art.

There's nothing wrong with mimed playthroughs or videos though, at all. I just did one the other day. But it's when people mime shit they can't bust out with reasonable accuracy and then say it's about the art where it's like...the art itself via this medium is 90% the imagery and concept that you can do that.

People act like it don't be what it be, but it do.


----------



## Hollowway

Indigenous said:


> I think the big takeaway from this is that I need to practice more.



 My thought, too! In fact, I right after watching his video I went on UG and got the tab for that long run so I could practice it. I’ve seen it a bunch from all of this talk of fakery, so I may as well practice it!


----------



## Necropitated

Edit: Deleted first part of post for my own sanity. In short, I think Lucas' video is purposely misleading but people will probably tell me to eat shit or anything, so yeah.

But here's something else, not for the "fakers" (How I hate that word) but for the listeners and players that might feel inadequate after comparing themselves to that kind of not real playing. TIMING. I feel people should transcribe more and not just rely on tab, so they hear how a real guitar sounds like, especially when slowed down, which helps when transcribing. So what about the timing: no human will be 100% on the grid. EVER. And that's what happens with faked recordings. They have perfect timing. Try it out. Get your favourite records and slow them down to 50% and listen if it has perfect timing. That for me is the biggest takeaway if someone uses helping techniques in the studio, which by the way is totally fine. This has been a thing in studio for years now. What irks me is that people just don't want to admit that they used it, at least in the studio. For the timing: transcribe a solo by Ron Jarzombek or Jeff Loomis and listen closely. They are not on the grid. They have some sloppiness and timing issues too. (only noticable when slowed down of course)


----------



## BIG ND SWEATY

Necropitated said:


> Edit: Deleted first part of post for my own sanity. In short, I think Lucas' video is purposely misleading but people will probably tell me to eat shit or anything, so yeah.


What seems misleading about it? Everything he said is believable and more than likely true. I've seen him play live so I know he can handle all the riffs he writes even though he uses a bit of studio trickery to get an inhuman sound on record, which is the aesthetic of RoS in the first place.


----------



## Charlie Foxtrot 3rd

It’s not like this is Richard Benson we’re talking about.


----------



## Necropitated

BIG ND SWEATY said:


> What seems misleading about it? Everything he said is believable and more than likely true. I've seen him play live so I know he can handle all the riffs he writes even though he uses a bit of studio trickery to get an inhuman sound on record, which is the aesthetic of RoS in the first place.



Exactly that, the inhuman Sound. This is my opinion but with that phone/camera audio one could argue that he tries to hide the fact that he doesn't have that sound. And not everyone knows that and that's the big Problem of that controversy. You might be educated and intelligent enough to know the difference between studio and live sound but not everyone is and that's why I think it's misleading. Also the thing about the fret Wrap was weird, because as far as I Understand, Levis argument about His live Video was not that he didn't play the notes but that he had tapped and played legato notes that Had pick Attack Sound.
And I'm not saying Lucas can't Play. He can, it shows in that Video but He doesn't have that sound and frankly, no one has. That's what I find misleading because a lot of people still think you can Sound like that.


----------



## Chokey Chicken

I can respect the video. The guy can obviously play. However, that doesn't change the fact that the newer albums sound like poorly programmed midi guitar. Skill is great and all, but I'm still of the train of thought that good music is more important than how you've gotten that sound. I'll take great sounding midi tracks over sterile mechanical live recordings any day. 

I'd love to have his skills, as if I did I'd be able to write and play so much more than I do. Also worth noting, older RoS albums sound so much better.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

Good he did a video explaining his side of things but he and fans can't be annoyed at people for accusing him of miming when the video was purposely and blatantly misleading.

His guitar is inaudible - True
We hear a midi track - True
What he's playing isn't what we hear - True
What we hear isn't what he's playing - True

The video was used as promotion where countless people thought thats what he was playing live. It's a misleading representation of their shows. At least I hope it is and the midi tracks aren't way above the volume of his guitar like that. 

At 08:00 the live clip shows he does play it live so why in the world would you upload a promotional video that looks like you are miming to midi guitar live? Especially when you are already known for miming to midi in your guitar videos already. Some people really don't make life easy for themselves. 

On a side note playing material like that live and with a 9 string guitar is just insane. 



Necropitated said:


> I feel people should transcribe more and not just rely on tab, so they hear how a real guitar sounds like





This is the biggest thing I'm learning from this whole thing. So many people can't tell the difference between sampled midi guitars and a genuine recording. When I first heard Al Mumin was speeding up his tracks I didn't believe it at first but after looking back so many of the songs I've tabbed suddenly made sense. I remember tabbing a solo from a well known death metal player and it went 12h13h15h17 perfectly all on the same string and I couldn't understand how that was possible. In the context of the solo and the speed it was played at not even Shawn lane could have pulled it off. Turned out it was just sampled hammer ons edited together which also explained why the solo was inhumanely perfect to the grid. 

Slowing down older records you can hear all the human nuances, the timing errors, notes having to cut off so they can jump to the next part etc. That said tabbing modern music is so much easier cause everything is surgically perfect. There's so many Loomis solos that you just can't transcribe correctly cause they are played the old fashioned way.


----------



## Flappydoodle

Lorcan Ward said:


> Good he did a video explaining his side of things but he and fans can't be annoyed at people for accusing him of miming when the video was purposely and blatantly misleading.
> 
> His guitar is inaudible - True
> We hear a midi track - True
> What he's playing isn't what we hear - True
> What we hear isn't what he's playing - True
> 
> The video was used as promotion where countless people thought thats what he was playing live. It's a misleading representation of their shows. At least I hope it is and the midi tracks aren't way above the volume of his guitar like that.
> 
> At 08:00 the live clip shows he does play it live so why in the world would you upload a promotional video that looks like you are miming to midi guitar live? Especially when you are already known for miming to midi in your guitar videos already. Some people really don't make life easy for themselves.
> 
> On a side note playing material like that live and with a 9 string guitar is just insane.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is the biggest thing I'm learning from this whole thing. So many people can't tell the difference between sampled midi guitars and a genuine recording. When I first heard Al Mumin was speeding up his tracks I didn't believe it at first but after looking back so many of the songs I've tabbed suddenly made sense. I remember tabbing a solo from a well known death metal player and it went 12h13h15h17 perfectly all on the same string and I couldn't understand how that was possible. In the context of the solo and the speed it was played at not even Shawn lane could have pulled it off. Turned out it was just sampled hammer ons edited together which also explained why the solo was inhumanely perfect to the grid.
> 
> Slowing down older records you can hear all the human nuances, the timing errors, notes having to cut off so they can jump to the next part etc. That said tabbing modern music is so much easier cause everything is surgically perfect. There's so many Loomis solos that you just can't transcribe correctly cause they are played the old fashioned way.



Totally agree.

I think we all know and agree that Jared is a tool. He wants clicks, and he threw his "friend" under the bus for attention with zero hesitation. All while playing the "victim" and saying he's calling out people because it's hurting the kids. LOL.

You're totally right that using that clip as "promotion" was stupid, if you weren't hearing his guitar being played. He was presumably happy to have people believe he was playing what you heard. So that IS misleading in my book.

His video gave a reason why that might be the case... but I still think there's something dodgy with it. The "you're hearing stage monitors playing the harmony" simply doesn't sound true to me. Firstly, why would you have only the harmony blasting out from the monitor? That's weird. 

It's also notably NOT the excuse he used while talking to Jared, so it sounds like that excuse was probably created later as a nice way for it to be explained after the fact.

With all that said, clearly he can play it, and I think the live demonstration and the DI proves it.


----------



## NoodleFace

People are all worried kids will be quitting guitar over these impossible videos

Where's the worry about ol noodleface quitting the guitar when he hears jeff loomis play


----------



## Choop

Flappydoodle said:


> His video gave a reason why that might be the case... but I still think there's something dodgy with it. The "you're hearing stage monitors playing the harmony" simply doesn't sound true to me. Firstly, why would you have only the harmony blasting out from the monitor? That's weird.
> 
> It's also notably NOT the excuse he used while talking to Jared, so it sounds like that excuse was probably created later as a nice way for it to be explained after the fact.
> 
> With all that said, clearly he can play it, and I think the live demonstration and the DI proves it.



It's possible he just had not noticed that it wasn't his guitar coming through the monitor, if the track coming through that was prerecorded was just a harmony. Afaik he said the only thing not in his own monitor is his guitar. I dunno, the guy can clearly play his own stuff very well, so I dunno what the purpose of miming it could really be. The fact that he isn't picking the descending part of the runs when he is using the wrap probably throws off the listener more than anything.


----------



## Drew

Necropitated said:


> Get your favourite records and slow them down to 50% and listen if it has perfect timing. That for me is the biggest takeaway if someone uses helping techniques in the studio, which by the way is totally fine. This has been a thing in studio for years now. What irks me is that people just don't want to admit that they used it, at least in the studio. For the timing: transcribe a solo by Ron Jarzombek or Jeff Loomis and listen closely. They are not on the grid. They have some sloppiness and timing issues too. (only noticable when slowed down of course)


Quoting this because I'm in the middle of doing this with Satriani's "Summer Song," a solo I've tried and failed to play a couple times over the years but think I can probably pull off now. There's two specific points in the "main" solo where the official transcription I have seems accurate, but doesn't really tell the whole picture in that it seems like it's capturing what _actually_ came off the guitar reasonably well, but also comparing it to live recordings and how the rest of the run was, how to say it, "functioning," I guess, it seems like the notes as notated were inadvertent. In two particular points, there's the pedalpoint lick off the G string where right before jumping a few octaves and pedaling off the high e 15th fret, there's some stuff around the 19th-21st frets where I'm pretty sure some of the slides and weird pull-offs were accidental, and then there's one extra pull off to the 15th fret coming after the wide-stretch 22-15 21-15 20-15 stuff where it pulls to the 15 before starting the next motif with the 18-20-118-15 stuff, which I'm reasonably sure was accidental - it doesn't fit in with the melodic or rhythmic pattern Satch was playing, and seems like it was probably just done accidentally while holding the 15th down but transitioning into the new lick. 

I'd been killing myself trying to get these accents excactly right in he middle of a lick that's already blisteringly fast, but I think if you accept the fact that this wasn't an intentional "lick" by Satriani so much as a byproduct of what he was playing, and play based on a reasonable interpretation of what he was _trying_ to play, it becomes a (somewhat) more managable run. 

Idunno. Sure, use tabs... But use your ears and use your brain.


----------



## Drew

HungryGuitarStudent said:


> FYI, if you guys want to partake in an interesting/depressing discussion, Troy Grady (Cracking the Code) and some of his followers are arguing that some of Stephen Taranto's IG videos are fake (on the cracking the code forums).
> 
> Until now, IMHO their line of argumentation is pretty weak.
> 
> Levi Clay just adressed Taranto in his live AMA about Lucas Mann. He doesn’t see anything wrong about his videos and thinks he’s legit. I guess Troy is being honest but needs to get out more.
> 
> Props to Lucas Mann for trying to address this. As for his line of argumentation, I'll need to watch the whole video.


I'm not a big fan of trying to spill arguments from one board over into another, and I think the one person who made a very oblique reference to this thread handled that well.

But, if you're going to bring it up, at least be fair - the discussion there is that ONE of his videos sounds like the audio might have been sped up, and that this one particular video has some weird audio artifacts and sounds tonally very different from a lot of the other videos being posted of his playing in that thread. No one in that conversation is seriously questioning that the guy is an extremely talented player, but there's definitely something weird going on in that _one_ video.

I think trying to get people in _this_ thread to go over to _that_ thread to back you up isn't really a good idea.


----------



## Lord Voldemort

NoodleFace said:


> People are all worried kids will be quitting guitar over these impossible videos
> 
> Where's the worry about ol noodleface quitting the guitar when he hears jeff loomis play



Well, people can tangibly achieve Jeff Loomis ability. Nothing that Jeff does is unobtainable, it's just really hard to reach that level. There's a difference between that's really hard, I quit, and that's impossible, I quit.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

Drew said:


> I'm not a big fan of trying to spill arguments from one board over into another, and I think the one person who made a very oblique reference to this thread handled that well.
> 
> But, if you're going to bring it up, at least be fair - the discussion there is that ONE of his videos sounds like the audio might have been sped up, and that this one particular video has some weird audio artifacts and sounds tonally very different from a lot of the other videos being posted of his playing in that thread. No one in that conversation is seriously questioning that the guy is an extremely talented player, but there's definitely something weird going on in that _one_ video.
> 
> I think trying to get people in _this_ thread to go over to _that_ thread to back you up isn't really a good idea.



I'm not a big fan of lending me intentions I did not have.

What was meant as an inclusive message to partake in a discussion was interpreted as negative.

Apologies for that and apologies to Troy for the tongue in cheek comment - referencing the self-admitted fact that Troy did not know Taranto or Richardson.

Next time ask me instead of lending me intentions I did not have. I would have gladly explained. I guess that’s a limitation of forum discussions vs talking IRL.

I actually enjoy the discussion, which is why I spent time replying here and on the other thread.

Where did I state that people should come back me up?

Why do you think I said "FYI, *if* you guys want to partake in an *interesting/depressing* discussion, Troy Grady (Cracking the Code) and some of his followers are arguing that *some of Stephen Taranto's IG videos are fake* (on the cracking the code forums)."

Did I not mention that the discussion was in reference to "some of his videos"? Yes I did.

"Interesting" to some, "depressing" to others, since the opinions on this thread and like in every other forum, are varied.

If I wanted an echo chamber, I'd have decided to discuss in an environment where I cherry picked people for their opinions.

I even stated this in the thread you reference, even in reply to you.

Why do you think I said "I enjoy a totally civil discussion and enjoy the fact that you’re taking the time to explain your views."?

Why control a discussion and not let everyone discuss a topic?

@Drew Anyhow, I have nothing against you or your opinions, on the contrary, your opinions add value to my comprehension of things.


----------



## Drew

We addressed this on the other board, and frankly I don't have the emotional investment that you evidently do, but since you posted this here, too - while in general I don't love trying to spill arguments across multiple boards, I think the thing that rubs me the wrong way about this the most is your use of "some." It's not. That thread is a lot of discussion about _one specific video_ where his tone is audibly different than normal, his playing is more mechanically precise than normal, and there's something odd about the timbre and attack of the guitar. 

It's not like the CtC forum is having an argument about how there's some vast conspiracy to make this dude (frankly whose name I don't even remember) seem better than he is and this is widespread - rather, a couple videos were posted in that thread, most sound great, but a number of participants in that discussion flagged _one_ video as sounding strange. No one's saying the dude can't play, just that something weird is going on with the performance in that one. You're suggesting that the discussion is a lot more widespread than it really is.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

I think Levi hit the nail with the Lucas Mann live video. Why did he knowingly post a video where the audio was from a monitor playing a backing track?

@Drew: I'm sick, at home with a cold. So yeah, I got free time.

I also like this discussion - but not where it's at with you now, which I find unfortunate.

My genuine interest was really to bring people together to discuss this. Which is also why I asked a more general question on fakery to Ola Englund in one of his recent FAQs - which spurred him to answer it and make a poll on the topic.

Your talk of my "emotional investment" seems to convey the fact that you know my intent, which you don't. I agree with all you're saying except your interpretation of my intent and with the specific videos' veracity.

Note that my original question on the CtC forum was about picking patters lol. I did not go fishing for conflict.

I'm sorry that my use of some words rubbed you the wrong way (no scarcasm here).

I don't understand the underlying aggressiveness and willingness to interpret my words negatively. Maybe I'm wrong in my perception here. EDIT: I was indeed wrong in perceiving this (after having discussed with you).

If we must, let's continue this in PM, as I suggested elsewhere.

Anyhow, it's all good on my end man (i.e. no animosity).


----------



## Drew

HungryGuitarStudent said:


> @Drew: I'm sick, at home with a cold. So yeah, I got free time.



 I'm sorry to hear that. Feel better, man. Go pick up a guitar, which is what I'd be doing if I was at work. 

I don't think I'm being aggressive at all, far from it, and evidently you don't think you're being aggressive either, which IMO is a pretty good reason for us both to agree to disagree. End of the day I don't care if this video was edited or not - it sounds odd as hell, but the extend it impacts my life is it's now been a big part of a discussion I've been part of for 24 hours, and I figure that's already too much time.


----------



## lurè

Every single band posts live clip with pre-recorded music to promote something like an album or a tour.
Are we getting to the point where people will debunk music videos claiming that the musicians are miming over their own pre-recorded music?

Anyway this situation is getting to soap opera level.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

@lurè Yeah, I hear you. I think Levi was annoyed because Lucas advertised it as live guitar audio (I could be wrong here).

Anyhow, personally it doesn't affect me either way. To each his own.

Advertising raw audio but using trickery is lame to me, but at the end of the day, life is short and I'd rather choose more relevant battles.



Drew said:


> I'm sorry to hear that. Feel better, man. Go pick up a guitar, which is what I'd be doing if I was at work.
> 
> I don't think I'm being aggressive at all, far from it, and evidently you don't think you're being aggressive either, which IMO is a pretty good reason for us both to agree to disagree. End of the day I don't care if this video was edited or not - it sounds odd as hell, but the extend it impacts my life is it's now been a big part of a discussion I've been part of for 24 hours, and I figure that's already too much time.



Misunderstanding then 

Good suggestion about playing guitar. I'm actually waiting for my guitar to be refretted. Hopefully I get it back in a few hours. In the mean time, I'm messing around with a demo of the Abasi NeuralDSP plugin reamping DI tracks.

I agree, the impact of such disagreements doesn't merit what they bring. Come to think of it they bring absolutely nothing.

I said it elsewhere and I'll say it here as well, good job on the album man, it sounds great and I like the compositions/melodies/playing.


----------



## Drew

Thanks man, though that just really reminds me how badly I need to get going on a followup!  I appreciate your saying that though. 

Bigger frets or just replacing worn ones? Good luck either way!


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

Drew said:


> Thanks man, though that just really reminds me how badly I need to get going on a followup!  I appreciate your saying that though.
> 
> Bigger frets or just replacing worn ones? Good luck either way!



Bigger frets indeed and going from Nickel to SS.

All the best with the composition and recording for the new album.


----------



## NoodleFace

Lord Voldemort said:


> Well, people can tangibly achieve Jeff Loomis ability. Nothing that Jeff does is unobtainable, it's just really hard to reach that level. There's a difference between that's really hard, I quit, and that's impossible, I quit.


Oh you take me too seriously. The big difference to me is Jeff plays very raw and writes good music (AT SPEED). These guys speeding up clips all sound awful.


----------



## Seabeast2000

I'm ok with fake shredding but only to briefly impress any guests at the house.


----------



## Charlie Foxtrot 3rd

WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS?

Firstly, LOL. 

I have 4 children, all of which are learning guitar from me. We have a group lesson Friday afternoons and they practice individually during the week. So yesterday we practiced for an hour or so and as is often the case I reference videos on YouTube as a learning tool to help teach them better than I can certain things. Keep in mind their musical tastes range from Johnny Cash to Slipknot, they’re aged from 10 to 17. I showed them the video of Lucas playing, miming or whatever, I gave no context before hand just said have a look at this. After he played the sequence on stage I stopped the video and asked them their thoughts and all of them said “yeah it’s pretty cool I guess” then my son goes “ let’s jam”

ZERO FUCKS GIVEN. 

they DIDN’T care for the music, they DIDN’T care weather it was real or not and they DIDN’T throw their guitars on the floor in a pile and set them alight. 

After we jammed together for a while “which was awesome BTW” we talked about the video real quick my 17 year old said “seems like the “kids” on the Internet are the ones being affected by it” and by “kids” she is talking about us.


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

The soap opera continues with a Jared Dines reaction to Lucas Mann’s reaction to Jared’s initial reaction video...


----------



## SamSam

The guy can play great. But I find it very strange that the " live DI tracks" sound way cleaner than the videos of him the studio. 

Three harmonies on stage pretty much perfect but his live take has noise? Is it just me?


----------



## Lord Voldemort

Charlie Foxtrot 3rd said:


> WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS?
> 
> Firstly, LOL.
> 
> I have 4 children, all of which are learning guitar from me. We have a group lesson Friday afternoons and they practice individually during the week. So yesterday we practiced for an hour or so and as is often the case I reference videos on YouTube as a learning tool to help teach them better than I can certain things. Keep in mind their musical tastes range from Johnny Cash to Slipknot, they’re aged from 10 to 17. I showed them the video of Lucas playing, miming or whatever, I gave no context before hand just said have a look at this. After he played the sequence on stage I stopped the video and asked them their thoughts and all of them said “yeah it’s pretty cool I guess” then my son goes “ let’s jam”
> 
> ZERO FUCKS GIVEN.
> 
> they DIDN’T care for the music, they DIDN’T care weather it was real or not and they DIDN’T throw their guitars on the floor in a pile and set them alight.
> 
> After we jammed together for a while “which was awesome BTW” we talked about the video real quick my 17 year old said “seems like the “kids” on the Internet are the ones being affected by it” and by “kids” she is talking about us.



But can they even shred though lmao


----------



## Charlie Foxtrot 3rd

Not yet. 


Lord Voldemort said:


> But can they even shred though lmao


----------



## prlgmnr

I'm not really into this until like a hundred videos pop up from people with 48 subscribers or so.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

prlgmnr said:


> I'm not really into this until like a hundred videos pop up from people with 48 subscribers or so.



Need more opinions from 22 year olds who communicate in memes.


----------



## lurè

prlgmnr said:


> I'm not really into this until like a hundred videos pop up from people with 48 subscribers or so.



Dude, don't miss Levi Clay 2h livestream talking about Lucas Mann synth sample being very loud to cover his sloppyness.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

time to woodshed more boys
https://www.instagram.com/p/B5xK74gn2yG/?igshid=13m9gcd6ypr7s


----------



## lurè

KnightBrolaire said:


> time to woodshed more boys
> https://www.instagram.com/p/B5xK74gn2yG/?igshid=13m9gcd6ypr7s



Waiting for a reaction video or a 4h debunking live stream.


----------



## couverdure

Is is that hard to just grab a decent-sounding practice amp and play their parts through it? I realized it's kinda unnecessary to use the same exact studio tone if they're going to do a "live" playthrough.


----------



## prlgmnr

As long as it doesn't turn out that that cat that says "Well _hi_" in a Southern accent is faked, I can rest easy.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

prlgmnr said:


> As long as it doesn't turn out that that cat that says "Well _hi_" in a Southern accent is faked, I can rest easy.


i don't care if the vid is faked, that cat was adorable regardless


----------



## ramses

HungryGuitarStudent said:


> The soap opera continues with a Jared Dines reaction to Lucas Mann’s reaction to Jared’s initial reaction video...




Someone apologized on the Internet. What's going on?


----------



## HungryGuitarStudent

ramses said:


> Someone apologized on the Internet. What's going on?



It’s like watching a derailing train trying to fix itself.



KnightBrolaire said:


> time to woodshed more boys
> https://www.instagram.com/p/B5xK74gn2yG/?igshid=13m9gcd6ypr7s



I hope people watch Stephen’s live stream and that all this crap is put to rest so that everyone gets back to actual playing.


----------



## JoeyBTL

The worst part about the Lucas Mann video that bothers me the most is how he talks about how bad the people are calling all these fakers out, pretty much implying they have something going on mentally/emotionally and acts like its sickening to him, yet still sits there talking like he has done nothing wrong. He obviously knew that the live vid in question is an inaccurate representation of his playing. It clearly has a track over it that he isn't playing, as he even says, but proceeds to play the lick in a way that is not even close to being as perfect as the live backing track. If he really wanted to provide exact proof here, he could have played it absolutely perfectl while he was sitting down in his home studio, with as many takes as he needed to shut people up. But it is in no way the guitar pro like, perfectly on the grid playing that it should be. Left alone the fact that each note sounds like its picked and he only hammers on the descending portion.

I don't have a problem with whatever recording techniques some may use (well sort of, because ROS records sound like straight up midi) but anyway, I feel like the live playing needs and should be as good as that recording. Whoever is doing it. Otherwise it is faking it. If you can't play it like an inhuman robot would play it, then don't play live and act like there's nothing wrong. Because this takes away from some of the few players out there who do things that you want to think aren't real because its so ridiculously good, but you know are just because they still have a certain human element to it. I'm not saying Lucas can't play that line in some sort of way. But this is the problem, people see him muffing through it and are like "SEE!! HE CAN DO IT!!!1!!1!!111". No. It sounds like someone covering the perfect recording of it and not coming quite close enough. Because its pretty much impossible.


----------



## HeHasTheJazzHands

prlgmnr said:


> As long as it doesn't turn out that that cat that says "Well _hi_" in a Southern accent is faked, I can rest easy.





KnightBrolaire said:


> i don't care if the vid is faked, that cat was adorable regardless





Posting the video to clean out the stank that is metal meme youtube influencers.


----------



## Dayn

KnightBrolaire said:


> time to woodshed more boys
> https://www.instagram.com/p/B5xK74gn2yG/?igshid=13m9gcd6ypr7s


Oof. His album already hit me right in the motivation, but seeing this has really lit a fire under me.


----------



## _RH_

I haven't read this whole thread, but saw some of the recent shenanigans on YouTube. Out of curiosity, would I be in the minority if I said "I'd rather not ANY backing tracks be played at live shows"?


----------



## jbaxter

_RH_ said:


> I haven't read this whole thread, but saw some of the recent shenanigans on YouTube. Out of curiosity, would I be in the minority if I said "I'd rather not ANY backing tracks be played at live shows"?



Probably.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

_RH_ said:


> I haven't read this whole thread, but saw some of the recent shenanigans on YouTube. Out of curiosity, would I be in the minority if I said "I'd rather not ANY backing tracks be played at live shows"?


There's really no need to read the whole thread, it's basically a consensus that miming for a music video= fine. using midi/guitar pro to write is acceptable, but not if you're using it to pretend that you can play better than you can (like HAARP/Rings of Saturn/Dan James Griffin/etc)

I agree, backing tracks are kind of lame unless it's something that they can't reasonably do on tour eg orchestral stuff/non-guitar riffs . I remember when I first saw After the Burial in 2009 and they used backing tracks for the sick classical guitar riffs that in some songs. I was super bummed since I wanted to compare how they played them versus how I was playing them by ear. Same thing happened at a couple other shows (Behemoth, Tyr, Winds of Plague, Born of Osiris, Rivers of Nihil).


----------



## Bloody_Inferno

_RH_ said:


> Out of curiosity, would I be in the minority if I said "I'd rather not ANY backing tracks be played at live shows"?



No. I'm on the same mentality.

Music nowadays are heavily focused on production to the point where a lot of bands are forced to rely on backing tracks to recreate the recording quality. And for the most part, dense backing tracks really kill a lot of the energy and rush of a live performance. I don't mind some here and there but not to the pointof over reliance on them.

I saw a band earlier this year, 4 piece band, similar to Evanescence. 90 percent of their music were keyboards through a backing track. The live performance was just so limp and through the motions it killed the energy in the room. It was made more painfully obvious when Meshiaak played afterwards and erased them. Just raw no nonsense live performance.

And seeing Mateus Asato live was another good show with just a power trio jamming. Probably only 1 or 2 songs with minimal synth backing track and it was still live and in your face. And yes Asato is the real deal if anyone dares to point the finger of accusation.


I've manages to get together a killer rhythm section for my next album and agonised for a long time on how I'm planning to present my stuff in a live performance. Ultimately I'll probably just go the Satriani route and strip down to the bear essentials and make the other musos work harder. Because to me it's more fun watching musicians work than just stand there duing the "orchestral parts".


----------



## Hollowway

Yeah, I prefer that the music all be played live, if possible. I mean, even if you have to drop something. The idea of a live show is not to hear the album with people moving around on stage. It's a one time interpretation of the songs. When some bands play, you can hear parts missing, or drop out, etc., because there just aren't enough people to reproduce the recorded version. And how they choose to do it live is what's worth seeing. Or, you could be like Geddy Lee, and play bass pedals, a keyboard, and sing at the same time, and really try to nail it.


----------



## Lord Voldemort

I always kind of figured that if you were in a band and you played live, you'd have to play your stuff live?

I remember when my old technical, djenty band that wrote half our stuff in guitar pro (A Sense of Gravity, make sure to hit that like button and subscribe ALSO RING THE BELL FOR NOTIF) had to play live it could be really nerve wracking because like, between the six of us there were so many fucking little mistakes in our playing. I'd probably mess up at least once each song, probably more in a live, dark, drunk setting, and the other guys were the same. But who fucking cares? It was a genuine representation of our abilities and music!

All of this faking and 'studio editing' creates this horrific obsession with impossible perfection to honestly a much higher degree that you see in more vane and forgettable genres like modern pop, because the music is so much more complex...

People need to stop being such perfectionists and allow themselves to be vulnerable to combat this culture, or face the inevitable repercussions when people take notice that you're doing shit like this and naturally dislike it. People like genuinity, they relate to vulnerability and generally people dislike liars.


----------



## c7spheres

Hollowway said:


> Yeah, I prefer that the music all be played live, if possible. I mean, even if you have to drop something. The idea of a live show is not to hear the album with people moving around on stage. It's a one time interpretation of the songs. When some bands play, you can hear parts missing, or drop out, etc., because there just aren't enough people to reproduce the recorded version. And how they choose to do it live is what's worth seeing. Or, you could be like Geddy Lee, and play bass pedals, a keyboard, and sing at the same time, and really try to nail it.




I agree. I saw Pantera a few times back around thier prime. They were incredible. I couldn't imagine Dimebag playing to a backing rhythm guitar track over his solos or miming his solos. Same with every other band I've ever seen. It just wouldn't be and isn't the same. I could understand things like certain sound fx or orchestra parts that are momentary, like Iron Maiden started doing with the voice over on the Rime Of the Ancient Mariner songs spoken word quote etc. Little things for enhancement, not entire main lead parts. It's just to weird and you might as well be at the air guitar competition or karaoke show or something. I can see that at any bar on almost any given night if I wanted.


----------



## gnoll

_RH_ said:


> I haven't read this whole thread, but saw some of the recent shenanigans on YouTube. Out of curiosity, would I be in the minority if I said "I'd rather not ANY backing tracks be played at live shows"?



I agree on the backing tracks...

If you need three guitar tracks, maybe you should have three guitar players?

The "live" aspect of live music seems to become less and less important. Click tracks, backing tracks, and focus on making it sound as much as the recording as possible.

But hey, if that's what people want, why not just put the record on? Press play, and you're good. The band doesn't even need to be there.


----------



## Charlie Foxtrot 3rd

At 21:53 Dime gets asked when he’s playing live does he have a backing track for rhythm guitar while he solos and he says “just let Rex handle it you know, no problem, same thing like Van Halen, old Van Halen Fugg it”.


----------



## Hollowway

If a band has 3 guitar tracks on a song, I’m totally ok with them dropping one in the live performance. And like Dime said above, I normally expect a single guitar band to drop the rhythm guitar part during the guitar solo. How bands approach this sort of thing is what makes live shows cool. Ages ago I saw Tom Petty in concert and they did Breakdown. As soon as he started singing, “It’s alright if you love me...” he motioned to the audience, and everyone started singing. Then, he stepped back from the mic, and the whole band just played, but none of them sang. The audience, though, sang the rest of the song, and knew all of the words. It was a super cool experience. And apparently it was done routinely on that tour. I’d never seen that before - where the audience sang the whole thing by themselves. So they made a choice to do that for that particular song, and that made it way cooler than if they had just tried to reproduce the album version. I’ve seen loads of shows where the band altered stuff from the album because they thought it would work cool live, and most of the time it makes the experience well worth going to see.

Edit: I found a clip of Petty doing Breakdown. This is waaaaaay before I saw them, but they did some of it here. You can tell it would be pretty cool to be at the show.


----------



## dreamspace

Also, one relatively easy way to make your guitar sound a lot tighter / impressive is to lay some other instrument over it. 

This is obviously not cheating, and has been going on since the birth of music - but having a sequenced synth lead (or whatever) layered with your own, masks sloppy playing pretty decently.


----------



## bostjan

My opinion, since zero people care:

As a band, I want my live shows to be as ENGAGING as possible. I believe backing tracks limit engagement, therefore, I try to avoid them. But there can be exceptions. For example, with my bird band, I have a robot drummer. It's part of the schtick. Obviously, no one with an iota of attention to the show thinks there is a live human drummer when a pile of wires and servos are connected to the drum set, especially when the thing stops working mid-set.

I don't think anyone using a backing track is committing a sin against the rock gods, but it's not ideal.

For example, Rings of Saturn, per the video referenced in the Dines/Mann feud... Who wouldn't think it totally awesome to see and hear two tight super fast sweep harmony parts performed live? What about the main part with just one harmony? If you answered "That's lame," see me after class!  To me, the backing track there isn't necessary, and obviously, quite a few people thought it made the entire performance sound fake. I have further questions about Lucas's explanation that make zero sense, but assuming that's all there is to it, in hindsight, I think you have the perfect case to NOT use a backing track in that sort of situation.

If you don't have a drummer or bass player, I'd honestly rather see a creative idea around that than a backing track, but maybe I'm in the minority.

Things like intros with orchestral parts or sound clips of effects or whatever, maybe add something, but again, I don't personally use them.


----------



## p0ke

[QUOTE="bostjan, post: 5078045, member: 
If you don't have a drummer or bass player, I'd honestly rather see a creative idea around that than a backing track, but maybe I'm in the minority.
[/QUOTE]

I agree with you, at least! I mean, it might be fine for some one-off show or something but in the long term, I'd acquire actual players...


----------



## op1e

I don't care what bands are running off their Macbook if it's not egregious. It's hard enough to get people to care about anything or get to shows. Make things as awesome as you can.
But on a sidebar; if you're gonna run harmonies to leads or whatever maybe do it as a synth so people don't start this whole debacle topic mess again. Just an idea.


----------



## jaxadam

Lorcan Ward said:


>




So is this real or fake?


----------



## op1e

It's real, he just had a harmony track to go along his arpeggio part to spice it up. The misunderstanding is where the person filming wasn't hearing stage volume cause they go FOH and then were hearing his monitor, which was playing the backing part.


----------



## jaxadam

op1e said:


> It's real, he just had a harmony track to go along his arpeggio part to spice it up. The misunderstanding is where the person filming wasn't hearing stage volume cause they go FOH and then were hearing his monitor, which was playing the backing part.



Got it. I was getting ready to be a much better guitarist there for a minute...


----------



## bostjan

op1e said:


> It's real, he just had a harmony track to go along his arpeggio part to spice it up. The misunderstanding is where the person filming wasn't hearing stage volume cause they go FOH and then were hearing his monitor, which was playing the backing part.


Isn't it interesting, though, that you can't hear Lucas's guitar _at all, _until the next section of the song? You can also hear the vocals and other instruments just fine during the next section.
But not to call him out, because I don't really care either way about the backing track or whatever, but I do get offended when people bullshit me, and the explanation he gave about FOH speakers and stage monitors was bullshit.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

jaxadam said:


> So is this real or fake?



Yes and no.

What we hear isn’t him playing, it’s a backing track of midi guitar he plays over. It comes across as miming but he made a video showing that his guitar was inaudible in that clip.



bostjan said:


> Isn't it interesting, though, that you can't hear Lucas's guitar _at all, _until the next section of the song? You can also hear the vocals and other instruments just fine during the next section.
> But not to call him out, because I don't really care either way about the backing track or whatever, but I do get offended when people bullshit me, and the explanation he gave about FOH speakers and stage monitors was bullshit.



I was thinking that too. A lot of things don’t ad up and he doesn’t answer why a duel guitar part played by both players has an additional backing guitar track. There’s no need for it for many reasons.


----------



## Cynicanal

BIG ND SWEATY said:


> What seems misleading about it? Everything he said is believable and more than likely true. I've seen him play live so I know he can handle all the riffs he writes even though he uses a bit of studio trickery to get an inhuman sound on record, which is the aesthetic of RoS in the first place.


Replying to old posts here, but I've been a bit confused by RoS's mention here; I remember when they first broke big, there was a huge "scandal" about the fact that they couldn't really play their parts at full speed, and they just faked the whole thing by playing at half-speed. What the hell has changed that they're suddenly "legit"?

(Also, huge "lol" at piping in a guitar harmony recorded in a studio and claiming your live performance is real. What a gigantic load of bullshit. You didn't play that live, stop pretending that you're not faking it.)


----------



## aesthyrian

I just remember ages ago Misha said something along the lines that if their macbook got stolen or the hard drive failed or whatever. then they wouldn't be able to play their set live.

I don't know how you can say that and not realize the problem.

These days we just watch bands play along to their own CD live. Same tempo, same samples, it's not even a live performance. It's so automated and clinical, people don't even click on their own effects or channel changes. It's really sad honestly, and may be one of the reasons I don't care to devote my time and energy to see bands live when it's just the exact show as every other night of the tour. Nothing special, no surprises, no human input.. just boring ass perfection which I already own as an mp3. So why see a live show? You can literally download a live show since its the same as the CD.

You don't need any of this, Dream Theater used samples, and played music much more complicated than any of these bands and they never used a click track when Portnoy was in the band. The difference is DT are musicians, not bedroom guitarist looking for every shortcut possible to get that internet cred. DT put in the time together.. that's such a lost concept. Everyone who plays 

I just think it's fucking lazy, and offensive to the audience. But I know I'm a large minority, unfortunately.

Live music is pretty much dead as far as metal goes. Kinda ironic how similar it is to huge pop acts, where everything is backing tracks because perfection is the goal, not performance.

R.I.P.


----------



## gnoll

Yeah, I can't believe people are okay with paying to see these "live" shows.


----------



## c7spheres

A live concert is different than a live performance/show. A concert is a musical performance/show simultaneously, but a live performance/show doesn't have to be a concert. When a band just says "live" or "performance" then it's not necessarily a concert. If a band says "live in concert" than I wonder if they are really aware what they are advertising. I wonder if there's any legal impications about misrepresentation if they say "live in concert" and actually put on a "performance" or "show" of a concert, rather than an actual concert. It's all definitions of word play.


----------



## bostjan

Key word, though, is "live", not "concert".


----------



## c7spheres

bostjan said:


> Key word, though, is "live", not "concert".


 Yeah, but if you see "live performance" it doesn't mean the music is being played live, only the performance is at lest live. It could mean something akin to a "play" of a concert, "concert" is defined as a musical performance, whereas "live performance" just means the performing (including acting in a play or the like) is "live" or in person. It's all word play and gets wierd, but when I google all the different definitions it makes more sense to me. Based on the definitions it would seem that the words "live" and "concert" must be together to actually define a live musical performance. Wierd. Just a thought.


----------



## BIG ND SWEATY

Cynicanal said:


> Replying to old posts here, but I've been a bit confused by RoS's mention here; I remember when they first broke big, there was a huge "scandal" about the fact that they couldn't really play their parts at full speed, and they just faked the whole thing by playing at half-speed. What the hell has changed that they're suddenly "legit"?
> 
> (Also, huge "lol" at piping in a guitar harmony recorded in a studio and claiming your live performance is real. What a gigantic load of bullshit. You didn't play that live, stop pretending that you're not faking it.)


I mean Lucas has released a few videos showing that he can play everything he writes and like I said earlier I've seen them live so I know he's able to actually play. He said he's going to put out another video showing the tricks he uses in the studio. I still don't care about the alleged half-speed playing, I just care about the music. The harmony thing doesn't seem like bullshit to me either but I also don't have the seething hatred for backing tracks like some people in this thread do.

It also seems weird to me that people would complain about bands not having a huge pedal board for all of their effects. No one wants to lug around all those pedals, especially not a touring musician. I see nothing wrong with that stuff being switched automatically through whatever program does that.


----------



## aesthyrian

BIG ND SWEATY said:


> It also seems weird to me that people would complain about bands not having a huge pedal board for all of their effects. No one wants to lug around all those pedals, especially not a touring musician. I see nothing wrong with that stuff being switched automatically through whatever program does that.



Like I said, lazy. Shit is smaller and lighter now than ever and people are sill using every excuse imaginable to automate everything. That's fine. I'm too lazy to see those sorts of bands live anyway so it all works out, I suppose.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

One common thing is metal bands using laptops and Axe-Fx/kemper etc that automatically change without the need for a pedal board sound really bad the majority of the time. The backing tracks mess up the sound mix and the patches are badly volume balanced, often fail to cut through at all from being to bloated or thin and are sometimes hard panned(which is one of the worst live mixing mistakes you can make). I find the sound is very muddy and I’m struggling to hear certain instruments throughout the show. 

Compared to when I see bands with physical amps and pedal boards. The performance isn’t as tight but the sound is always better. It’s fuller and cuts through more. 

You’d think it would be the opposite but it’s like sound is starting to get worse at gigs with the move towards a digital setup.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

I seem to remember -- though I could be wrong and remembering incorrectly -- that I got a lot of shit for saying that holograms and other fraud tactics were detrimental to live performances a year or two ago. So I guess that's what we have to look forward to. Mechanical perfection to the point of boredom, dwindling returns, a total lack of anything out of the ordinary happening, and preprogrammed boredom in a nice, lovely package.


----------



## BIG ND SWEATY

aesthyrian said:


> Like I said, lazy. Shit is smaller and lighter now than ever and people are sill using every excuse imaginable to automate everything. That's fine. I'm too lazy to see those sorts of bands live anyway so it all works out, I suppose.


I don't see the problem with this at all. Its still a pain in the ass to carry around and tedious to tap dance on stage just to switch effects. I see no reason why they shouldn't automate it if they want to.


----------



## op1e

It all started with whole "Nobody wants to pay a keyboardist anymore" thing. So many djent bands have synths and drops layered in. Children of Bodom and Dream Theater and other older school bands have the guy to play it. I guess I'm going back on my own opinion here. But I guess what I'm saying is, Make Keyboard Great Again!!! Support your local electronic musician FFS.


----------



## aesthyrian

BIG ND SWEATY said:


> I see no reason why they shouldn't automate it if they want to.



Me either, do what you want. It's their career, not mine. I just know that if a band needs a laptop to "perform" live, then I'm perfectly fine just listening to the mp3's at home.



Spaced Out Ace said:


> ..preprogrammed boredom in a nice, lovely package.



Yep. So metal! So afraid to make a mistake that any chances of expression are completely removed. I'll stop harping on this, but it's really fucking sad especially if you are old enough to have seen amazing bands play live with no click, no backing tracks(of if there were they were triggered by the drummer manually), ya know, dudes stomping on pedals to change channels. Cool stuff to watch.


----------



## Science_Penguin

op1e said:


> It all started with whole "Nobody wants to pay a keyboardist anymore" thing. So many djent bands have synths and drops layered in. Children of Bodom and Dream Theater and other older school bands have the guy to play it. I guess I'm going back on my own opinion here. But I guess what I'm saying is, Make Keyboard Great Again!!! Support your local electronic musician FFS.



I can get behind that! Bring the keytar back too!


----------



## couverdure

This conversation has turned into "old man yells at cloud" or "I was born in le wrong generation" quickly, but I do agree that there are things that wouldn't translate well from the studio to the stage unless you can find ways to not compromise your own live environment.

Also I'll give a plus on the keyboardists thing, I'm starting a band and one of our members is taking the role of a keyboardist to give our sound extra layers.


----------



## Cynicanal

You guys just need to stop going to so many fancy shows at nice venues and go to more local shows at dive bars if you want to see more bands actually playing everything instead of using backing tracks.

(The talk of keyboards reminds me of when I saw Baxaxaxa, and they brought a guy just to do a theremin solo at the end of their set. That was cool.)


----------



## Sogradde

couverdure said:


> This conversation has turned into "old man yells at cloud" or "I was born in le wrong generation" quickly


This so much. I wonder if the same people are willing to shell out 3-5 times the cash for a ticket to see bands with the appropriate number of musicians on stage to have everything played live.


----------



## Jonathan20022

It's so weird to me that music and particularly guitar seems to have a weird obsession with the idea of traditionalism in one sense or another. This niche group gets up in arms about any kind of quality of life changes that actually make live performances an infinitely better experience and want people to revert to basically jamming live without any shred of stability.

But they also want to mock and humiliate musicians who can't perform live or mess up in a live set, what's the deal? I get it that Metallica was fun back in the day when they would go out and tour and play their music 120% faster than the recording and it was great despite how imperfect those performances are. But yeah gonna file this one under the "you can't win" folder, Musicians in the metal genre weirdly want their favorite acts to play some kind of tight rope show with a million more factors that could go wrong. But I guarantee those same people would come online and thrash the bands for making mistakes live.

Even that legal crap people were talking about on the previous page, Musicians make less than ever and you want to take them to court over the logistics of the ratio of live instrumentation played and backtracked ones?  What a shitty attitude to have.


----------



## BIG ND SWEATY

Cynicanal said:


> (The talk of keyboards reminds me of when I saw Baxaxaxa, and they brought a guy just to do a theremin solo at the end of their set. That was cool.)


You don't even know how jealous of you I am right now. I listen to Hellfire at least twice a week.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Jonathan20022 said:


> It's so weird to me that music and particularly guitar seems to have a weird obsession with the idea of traditionalism in one sense or another. This niche group gets up in arms about any kind of quality of life changes that actually make live performances an infinitely better experience and want people to revert to basically jamming live without any shred of stability.
> 
> But they also want to mock and humiliate musicians who can't perform live or mess up in a live set, what's the deal? I get it that Metallica was fun back in the day when they would go out and tour and play their music 120% faster than the recording and it was great despite how imperfect those performances are. But yeah gonna file this one under the "you can't win" folder, Musicians in the metal genre weirdly want their favorite acts to play some kind of tight rope show with a million more factors that could go wrong. But I guarantee those same people would come online and thrash the bands for making mistakes live.
> 
> Even that legal crap people were talking about on the previous page, Musicians make less than ever and you want to take them to court over the logistics of the ratio of live instrumentation played and backtracked ones?  What a shitty attitude to have.



Eh, enthusiast communities like this are just that way. I wouldn't worry too much about it. 

The rest of the 99% of folks listening really don't care.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

"A better live experience" Recorded tracks and miming along is not rock, at all. Rock music performed in front of an audience is meant to be performed live, not mimed to. Otherwise, why pay a crew a bunch of money each show to load in/out heavy equipment just so you can pretend to play music Top of the Pops style? Hell, why tour at all at that point.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

MaxOfMetal said:


> The rest of the 99% of folks listening really don't care.


Is that why a lot of crowds sound and act so bored these days compared to 20-30 years ago? I'm just curious.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Is that why a lot of crowds sound and act so bored these days compared to 20-30 years ago? I'm just curious.



I don't think there's any correlation between how staged vs. real the music is at a live show to the reaction of the majority of the crowd.

That's going to come down to the audience and just how the band plays to the room, which is a skill all in itself.


----------



## Hollowway

Count me among those who couldn’t figure out how Lucas’s guitar cant be heard on the FOH system, but every other instrument could. I get what he was saying that the camera was picking up just the harmony part in his stage monitor, but A) I could hear other instruments, too, and B) that’s kind of a weird set up - why would Lucas have his monitor pointed at the audience? It’s supposed to be back at himself. So if it were facing the stage, it would have to be insanely loud to hear from the audience position, and you’d expect a more muffled sound. 
Anyway, I’m not sure exactly what is going on there. Based on other YouTube play- throughs he’s done, I definitely think there is some miming. But, he can unquestionably play it himself. Maybe he doesn’t like the unprocessed sound?


----------



## prlgmnr

It's a perfectly natural explanation, swamp gas from a weather balloon reflected a beam of electro-magnetic interference from Venus that blocked the sound just of his guitar from being picked up by microphones for the duration of that solo.


----------



## Charlie Foxtrot 3rd

I thought the monitor sound explanation was pretty weak too.


----------



## Aumann

Charlie Foxtrot 3rd said:


> WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS?
> 
> Firstly, LOL.
> 
> I have 4 children, all of which are learning guitar from me. We have a group lesson Friday afternoons and they practice individually during the week. So yesterday we practiced for an hour or so and as is often the case I reference videos on YouTube as a learning tool to help teach them better than I can certain things. Keep in mind their musical tastes range from Johnny Cash to Slipknot, they’re aged from 10 to 17. I showed them the video of Lucas playing, miming or whatever, I gave no context before hand just said have a look at this. After he played the sequence on stage I stopped the video and asked them their thoughts and all of them said “yeah it’s pretty cool I guess” then my son goes “ let’s jam”
> 
> ZERO FUCKS GIVEN.
> 
> they DIDN’T care for the music, they DIDN’T care weather it was real or not and they DIDN’T throw their guitars on the floor in a pile and set them alight.
> 
> After we jammed together for a while “which was awesome BTW” we talked about the video real quick my 17 year old said “seems like the “kids” on the Internet are the ones being affected by it” and by “kids” she is talking about us.



That's great to read.

Although, there is some kids caring. It's a niche. I remember in my hometown there were a few shredders. Always busy trying to prove they were the best guitar player and the fastest and most technical. That was when we were 13-18. Now, at 26 they are still stuck in there, scarred for life by the shred competition. None of them could write a song or improvise.


----------



## Sogradde

Spaced Out Ace said:


> "A better live experience" Recorded tracks and miming along is not rock, at all. Rock music performed in front of an audience is meant to be performed live, not mimed to. Otherwise, why pay a crew a bunch of money each show to load in/out heavy equipment just so you can pretend to play music Top of the Pops style? Hell, why tour at all at that point.



Hurr, why don't you grow a tree for twenty years so you can chop it down, make wood and craft a guitar out of it? Also unearth some ore, smelt it, create various metals and compounds and make your own amplifier. If you don't do that, you're a fake poser!


----------



## Charlie Foxtrot 3rd

Don’t worry there’s plenty of competition amongst the 4 of them which is a good thing, it will drive them to learn and practice but I don’t let it get toxic. The problem I have is I don’t really know how to teach guitar, I just do the “like this, do that” type of thing. I’ve only had a handful of lessons over the last 25 years. So that’s a limitation. I’d say my 15 year old daughter let’s call her “P”, she’s gonna be a sick metal guitarist, IF, I can keep her interested. You know how it is with people who have natural talent, they don’t care about it till they care about it. 


Aumann said:


> That's great to read.
> 
> Although, there is some kids caring. It's a niche. I remember in my hometown there were a few shredders. Always busy trying to prove they were the best guitar player and the fastest and most technical. That was when we were 13-18. Now, at 26 they are still stuck in there, scarred for life by the shred competition. None of them could write a song or improvise.


----------



## c7spheres

Jonathan20022 said:


> Even that legal crap people were talking about on the previous page, Musicians make less than ever and you want to take them to court over the logistics of the ratio of live instrumentation played and backtracked ones?  What a shitty attitude to have.



If you were referring to my earlier comment, I'm not sure if you were, but to clarify I said I wonder if there's legal implications to it, not sue or take anyone to court. I don't see that mentioned anywhere by anybody. If anything, it's wording that acts that do use this should be aware of so they don't ge sued by someone for misrepresentation. Wording in advertising a product is important. By purposely lying they would be setting themselves up for potential problems and considering there's thousands of people, one person is bound to take some type of action at some point it would seem. I would not take any action personally speaking.


----------



## bostjan

Cynicanal said:


> You guys just need to stop going to so many fancy shows at nice venues and go to more local shows at dive bars if you want to see more bands actually playing everything instead of using backing tracks.
> 
> (The talk of keyboards reminds me of when I saw Baxaxaxa, and they brought a guy just to do a theremin solo at the end of their set. That was cool.)


Honestly, those are the only shows I've been to over the past 10-ish years, and those are the _only_ shows where I've seen this sort of nonsense, other than maybe one festival that I played at where the main act did it as well.

Shitty local bands have been using backing tracks for at least 5 or 6 years now, to cover up the dact that they can't confidently play their songs live. The saddest part is that some of their prerecorded parts are full of mistakes, too.


Jonathan20022 said:


> It's so weird to me that music and particularly guitar seems to have a weird obsession with the idea of traditionalism in one sense or another. This niche group gets up in arms about any kind of quality of life changes that actually make live performances an infinitely better experience and want people to revert to basically jamming live without any shred of stability.
> 
> But they also want to mock and humiliate musicians who can't perform live or mess up in a live set, what's the deal? I get it that Metallica was fun back in the day when they would go out and tour and play their music 120% faster than the recording and it was great despite how imperfect those performances are. But yeah gonna file this one under the "you can't win" folder, Musicians in the metal genre weirdly want their favorite acts to play some kind of tight rope show with a million more factors that could go wrong. But I guarantee those same people would come online and thrash the bands for making mistakes live.
> 
> Even that legal crap people were talking about on the previous page, Musicians make less than ever and you want to take them to court over the logistics of the ratio of live instrumentation played and backtracked ones?  What a shitty attitude to have.


Who said anything about court or brought up legal issues?!


----------



## GraemeH

Musicians shouldn't be allowed to use light shows live unless they can actually produce those effects with their own bodies live using bio-luminescence. Otherwise it's giving a misleading impression.


----------



## Bloody_Inferno

aesthyrian said:


> I just remember ages ago Misha said something along the lines that if their macbook got stolen or the hard drive failed or whatever. then they wouldn't be able to play their set live.
> 
> I don't know how you can say that and not realize the problem.
> 
> These days we just watch bands play along to their own CD live. Same tempo, same samples, it's not even a live performance. It's so automated and clinical, people don't even click on their own effects or channel changes. It's really sad honestly, and may be one of the reasons I don't care to devote my time and energy to see bands live when it's just the exact show as every other night of the tour. Nothing special, no surprises, no human input.. just boring ass perfection which I already own as an mp3. So why see a live show? You can literally download a live show since its the same as the CD.
> 
> You don't need any of this, Dream Theater used samples, and played music much more complicated than any of these bands and they never used a click track when Portnoy was in the band. The difference is DT are musicians, not bedroom guitarist looking for every shortcut possible to get that internet cred. DT put in the time together.. that's such a lost concept. Everyone who plays
> 
> I just think it's fucking lazy, and offensive to the audience. But I know I'm a large minority, unfortunately.
> 
> Live music is pretty much dead as far as metal goes. Kinda ironic how similar it is to huge pop acts, where everything is backing tracks because perfection is the goal, not performance.
> 
> R.I.P.



While I sounded down on backing tracks in my post earlier, I totally understand that it's much easier to tour with that arrangement. Especially internationally, where less gear and less members can save a lot of expenses. And lugging less heavy gear around is certainly a plus.

That said, an engaging live performance is an engaging live performance with or without backing tracks. Nine Inch Nails and Tism (don't judge me on the latter ) are my personal gold standards of an amazing live band with backing tracks. Both bands are certainly not automated nor boring. I guess I'm just biased from being raised on large doses of Rush, where 3 guys juggling multiple parts sound like a full live band while enjoying themselves.

Also for the record, since Dimebag was mentioned in this thread; all his pedal switching sans wah were done by his tech. All the channel switches, the whammy parts on Becoming were outsourced so Dime can concentrate on tearing the stage apart.


----------



## bostjan

GraemeH said:


> Musicians shouldn't be allowed to use light shows live unless they can actually produce those effects with their own bodies live using bio-luminescence. Otherwise it's giving a misleading impression.





Bloody_Inferno said:


> While I sounded down on backing tracks in my post earlier, I totally understand that it's much easier to tour with that arrangement. Especially internationally, where less gear and less members can save a lot of expenses. And lugging less heavy gear around is certainly a plus.
> 
> That said, an engaging live performance is an engaging live performance with or without backing tracks. Nine Inch Nails and Tism (don't judge me on the latter ) are my personal gold standards of an amazing live band with backing tracks. Both bands are certainly not automated nor boring. I guess I'm just biased from being raised on large doses of Rush, where 3 guys juggling multiple parts sound like a full live band while enjoying themselves.
> 
> Also for the record, since Dimebag was mentioned in this thread; all his pedal switching sans wah were done by his tech. All the channel switches, the whammy parts on Becoming were outsourced so Dime can concentrate on tearing the stage apart.


I know a lot of this discussion is starting to take a turn for the absurd, but, if you are on stage as "guitar player," I would strongly prefer an audiovisual experience of you actually playing guitar. If your role in the band is as "light tech," then I expect you to have something to do with the lights. If your job it "pedal stomper," then you stomp pedals. If Lucas from RoS officially changed his role in the band to "bullshit reason provider," then I'd gladly go see their shows when they come to town.


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## GraemeH

Yeah I'm being absurd. But to me it comes down to reasonable expectations, and not trying to force every band to be the same.

When I go see The Aristrocrats, I'd be super surprised to hear stuff on backing track.
When I go to see Periphery I expect to see 16 guitarists on stage, to not be able to discern what most of them are doing, and still have half the sound coming from playback.
If I were to go see some alien sounding tech-death band that go for that ultra-fake aesthetic like RoS, I don't expect to hear three dudes jamming unchained and natural. I wouldn't go home cursing Lucas Mann's name over it.

All live performances should be free to be different. 100% raw live music isn't going away. We just have diversity.


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## GunpointMetal

op1e said:


> It all started with whole "Nobody wants to pay a keyboardist anymore" thing. So many djent bands have synths and drops layered in. Children of Bodom and Dream Theater and other older school bands have the guy to play it. I guess I'm going back on my own opinion here. But I guess what I'm saying is, Make Keyboard Great Again!!! Support your local electronic musician FFS.


That's a great idea if you have all the time keys. I'd love to have a keys player that just popped up on stage for the 4-5 sections in a set where they're needed, but the guys who can do it for what a metal band can afford to pay will require someone to teach them the parts because they don't read music, and the ones that do read music, want more money just to rehearse than the average local metal band makes in a month (unless you're playing covers in a "Big four" tribute act).


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## dr_game0ver

op1e said:


> It all started with whole "Nobody wants to pay a keyboardist anymore" thing. So many djent bands have synths and drops layered in. Children of Bodom and Dream Theater and other older school bands have the guy to play it. I guess I'm going back on my own opinion here. But I guess what I'm saying is, Make Keyboard Great Again!!! Support your local electronic musician FFS.


As a European, you can't even imagine how wrong that sound. Here, a keyboard is as essential as a drummer. I can't even begin to list you all of the bands where the keyboard player is the composer, manager, producer...


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## Fred the Shred

GraemeH said:


> Yeah I'm being absurd. But to me it comes down to reasonable expectations, and not trying to force every band to be the same.
> 
> When I go see The Aristrocrats, I'd be super surprised to hear stuff on backing track.
> When I go to see Periphery I expect to see 16 guitarists on stage, to not be able to discern what most of them are doing, and still have half the sound coming from playback.
> If I were to go see some alien sounding tech-death band that go for that ultra-fake aesthetic like RoS, I don't expect to hear three dudes jamming unchained and natural. I wouldn't go home cursing Lucas Mann's name over it.
> 
> All live performances should be free to be different. 100% raw live music isn't going away. We just have diversity.



Where I disagree is that when the backing track replaces the dude playing the instrument you end up crossing the line as far as "live" and "concert" go. I have no issues with someone shoving some ridiculous or even humanly impossible part in a backing track. Miming to it is a different thing altogether, though - you are actually attempting (and often succeeding) to convince the audience that you ARE playing the part that way with that impossibly clean execution. I don't think this is as much about purists as it is about integrity, and selling tickets to a live performance of the band that is supposedly super technical only to have the super technical bit replaced by a machine and people miming to it doesn't really scream "integrity" to me, quite the opposite.

As for differences in live performance, from full-on raw performances to samples and BTs featuring a trillion orchestral parts and supplementary guitars and whatnot, again, nothing against that. If people are actually playing their parts, I'm good.


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## NoodleFace

Way behind, won't even attempt to stay current anymore. But I have to say, I did not know Lucas Mann could shred so hard. The band Rings of Saturn isn't for me, but I'd listen to that dude play guitar any day.


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## GunpointMetal

aesthyrian said:


> I just remember ages ago Misha said something along the lines that if their macbook got stolen or the hard drive failed or whatever. then they wouldn't be able to play their set live.
> 
> I don't know how you can say that and not realize the problem.


 Because production values and what an audience expects change over time. It's not a problem, its the natural progression of live performance.



aesthyrian said:


> These days we just watch bands play along to their own CD live. Same tempo, same samples, it's not even a live performance. It's so automated and clinical, people don't even click on their own effects or channel changes. It's really sad honestly, and may be one of the reasons I don't care to devote my time and energy to see bands live when it's just the exact show as every other night of the tour. Nothing special, no surprises, no human input.. just boring ass perfection which I already own as an mp3. So why see a live show? You can literally download a live show since its the same as the CD.


 This illustrates a cyclical problem. I remember in the early 2000s a lot of people in the metal scene were saying stuff like "Who wants to go see five dudes in cargos and Cannibal Corpse t shirts stand around in the dark?" So bands tried to make their show more of a production, and now people are mad that metal artists are aiming for the same level of production of a pop group. I'd rather go see a band that looks like they rehearsed to put on a SHOW versus a band that can't be bothered to worry about their aesthetic, personally. Outside of crust punk and the sloppiest of grind core, a majority of fans want more out of a live show than a group of dudes who show up and play like they're in their own basement. Automating some aspects of the show means you CAN have synced, professionally looking lights and not have to worry about getting back to your side of the stage to turn on a delay or something and you can focus on audience interaction and rocking out. Time is an arrow that only moves in one direction. Things aren't going to back to the way they were because they weren't better, just different.


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## GunpointMetal

double post


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## Cynicanal

GunpointMetal said:


> That's a great idea if you have all the time keys. I'd love to have a keys player that just popped up on stage for the 4-5 sections in a set where they're needed, but the guys who can do it for what a metal band can afford to pay will require someone to teach them the parts because they don't read music, and the ones that do read music, want more money just to rehearse than the average local metal band makes in a month (unless you're playing covers in a "Big four" tribute act).


People actually get paid for playing gigs now?

(Seriously, what happened to just finding a friend to help you out with the four or five parts? Surely you've got a friend that was forced to take piano lessons as a kid and remembers some of it; enlist them, and offer them a share of the drink tickets if you have to. You don't need to hire a pro for everything, this is fucking metal and you're playing shows for drunk people in dive bars.)


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## GunpointMetal

Cynicanal said:


> People actually get paid for playing gigs now?
> 
> (Seriously, what happened to just finding a friend to help you out with the four or five parts? Surely you've got a friend that was forced to take piano lessons as a kid and remembers some of it; enlist them, and offer them a share of the drink tickets if you have to. You don't need to hire a pro for everything, this is fucking metal and you're playing shows for drunk people in dive bars.)


 Well that may be true 99% of the time, we try a little harder so maybe occasionaly we'll play real venues for actual music fans, and holy crap, by giving 2% more of a shit about our show and presentation, we can actually ask for a decent guarantee for most shows (not enough to make a living, but enough to not cost us money to perform every time). All my friends with that level of interest in music dropped out of the scene a long time ago, and again, I'm not holding anyone's hand through learning their parts because nobody has time for that shit. I turned down a really, really excellent guitar player for one of the my band's because he refuses to rehearse on his own. I don't care how well you can play, if you can't take some tabs, some tracks with click/scratch guitar (Which I personally go to your house and load into your daw and setup everything for you) and learn the songs outside of "practice" hours, nobody has time for that shit. Same with "keyboard players" that can't take a piece of sheet music and learn the melodies/pads. If I have to spend hours showing you everything, its gonna be easier and way less frustrating for me to just track it and play to a click live.


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## Drew

GunpointMetal said:


> Because production values and what an audience expects change over time. It's not a problem, its the natural progression of live performance.


To that I'd counter, with djent bands increasingly choosing to identify as "prog" bands, and with musicianship having always been front and center of the progressive rock and progressive metal genres, there IS a reasonable expectation that a "prog" band should actually be able to play their own parts. Calling it a "production choice" is just a bait and switch.

And I realize we're talking about slighly different things here, Periphery flying in supporting backing tracks and overdubs, vs bands relying on piped-in audio because they don't have the chops to do the carefully constructed performances they did in a "studio" environment with the help of digital editing, but frankly I find a lot of that stuff kind of distracting live, too. I'll catch Steven Wilson on tour every time he comes through Boston, but I really wish he'd drop the pre-recorded vocal harmonies being piped over the loudspeakers along with the band. And when you get to bands like the HAARP Machine who are playing along to guitar studio performances to cover up some of the slop, then yeah, there's no excuse for that.

Possibly the minority here, but I've always enjoyed seeing how a band reinterprets a song live, when they can't rely on overdubs and have to play everything at once.


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## GunpointMetal

Drew said:


> To that I'd counter, with djent bands increasingly choosing to identify as "prog" bands, and with musicianship having always been front and center of the progressive rock and progressive metal genres, there IS a reasonable expectation that a "prog" band should actually be able to play their own parts. Calling it a "production choice" is just a bait and switch.
> 
> And I realize we're talking about slighly different things here, Periphery flying in supporting backing tracks and overdubs, vs bands relying on piped-in audio because they don't have the chops to do the carefully constructed performances they did in a "studio" environment with the help of digital editing, but frankly I find a lot of that stuff kind of distracting live, too. I'll catch Steven Wilson on tour every time he comes through Boston, but I really wish he'd drop the pre-recorded vocal harmonies being piped over the loudspeakers along with the band. And when you get to bands like the HAARP Machine who are playing along to guitar studio performances to cover up some of the slop, then yeah, there's no excuse for that.
> 
> Possibly the minority here, but I've always enjoyed seeing how a band reinterprets a song live, when they can't rely on overdubs and have to play everything at once.


I do agree that covering up what your playing by tracking it, or miming along to tracks is not fun to watch, I don't think MOST bands are doing that. IME playing lots of shows with lots of degrees of metal bands, most of them are using it for orchestral/backing elements, but I've definitely seen a few that have an "always on" rhythm guitar even when the guitarist onstage is playing the same riff, or the "we're too big for this venue we booked so we're not bring our amps in and just having the drummer play along to album audio" guys, but they're definitely the minority. For me, I often write around something stupid like a synth pad I got while dicking around on the computer, or a melody from some other instrument that I'd rather accompany with guitar than play that part on guitar, so while I could probably orchestrate that stuff to a 3pc band, it wouldn't sound the same, and would be disappointing for me to perform because it would be what I consider an unnecessary compromise because the technology is available to facilitate using all those layers and presenting the "finished" idea to an audience. I'm personally not a fan of "harmony guitars" on tracks (especially when its shreddy stuff) or the 36 layers of vocals some guys like to use, but if I see a band with no keyboard player and I hear keyboards, I don't feel like there's any deception going on, or a band without a bassist and hearing bass. Given whats available now there's no reason to wait around to find the right guy if you wanna play shows, there's no reason to compromise your live sound because someone quit the band.


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## Lord Voldemort

It just comes down to people's preferences, clearly.

Some people really want a genuine experience, and they expect the musicians to actually play their parts as organically as possible in an exposed way. Obviously those people are going to hate the idea that artists are manipulating their performances with backing tracks or any sort of crutch because to them it's not really 'live', it's more like 'in person but prerecorded'.

Other people don't give a fuck about that and just want to see a show. I think what we're seeing now is a lot of people going, 'oh shit we didn't even know that was happening', and a polarizing and vocal split between the two different mindsets as they get educated on the process.

Also, just a random anecdote, my wife and I recently saw Tesseract and were just amazed at how incredible they sounded. It was literally like the albums but live. In retrospect...well, Dan had backing layers and harmonies out of thin air, the drums had layers of obvious compression and reverb, the whole thing was clearly altered quite a bit and we hadn't even noticed until this all came up. My wife was annoyed because she thought they were perhaps the best live band ever, but...they weren't. The lack of genuinity really bothered her, and I get that.

Great fucking show though.


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## Jonathan20022

Spaced Out Ace said:


> "A better live experience" Recorded tracks and miming along is not rock, at all. Rock music performed in front of an audience is meant to be performed live, not mimed to. Otherwise, why pay a crew a bunch of money each show to load in/out heavy equipment just so you can pretend to play music Top of the Pops style? Hell, why tour at all at that point.
> 
> Is that why a lot of crowds sound and act so bored these days compared to 20-30 years ago? I'm just curious.



This is just an obnoxious take, and I'd love to see what acts you've taken the effort of seeing live at this point to validate that crowds in general are sleeping through concerts in the last 2 - 3 decades. Because that is completely and utterly false 



c7spheres said:


> If you were referring to my earlier comment, I'm not sure if you were, but to clarify I said I wonder if there's legal implications to it, not sue or take anyone to court. I don't see that mentioned anywhere by anybody. If anything, it's wording that acts that do use this should be aware of so they don't ge sued by someone for misrepresentation. Wording in advertising a product is important. By purposely lying they would be setting themselves up for potential problems and considering there's thousands of people, one person is bound to take some type of action at some point it would seem. I would not take any action personally speaking.





bostjan said:


> Who said anything about court or brought up legal issues?!



Legal action is the next move on that ladder, if you're asking someone to make sure they carefully word the product they're selling you're pretty much setting the premise that they'll get sued. Maybe not by you, but you're implying that some disgruntled asshole is going to leave a performance and attempt to suck whatever money a musician has in their possession because of backing tracks.

It's my perspective, but in the US everyone is pretty trigger finger ready to sue anyone over anything.



bostjan said:


> I know a lot of this discussion is starting to take a turn for the absurd, but, if you are on stage as "guitar player," I would strongly prefer an audiovisual experience of you actually playing guitar. If your role in the band is as "light tech," then I expect you to have something to do with the lights. If your job it "pedal stomper," then you stomp pedals. If Lucas from RoS officially changed his role in the band to "bullshit reason provider," then I'd gladly go see their shows when they come to town.



Dude everyone keeps talking about this shit, but anyone want to actually show some examples of a real performer fully miming to their music with zero output from the instrument they're holding? I know that RoS Lucas Mann video is long as shit, but he shows Front of House audio of him and his 2nd guitarist playing and that 3rd audio track performing an additional harmony. You guys keep talking like he was unplugged and that this is a regular occurrence, but Lucas proved that his guitar was plugged in and audio was coming out. You can call foul play, and discuss the potential for a discrepancy all you want, but this wide spread "live miming" ala Lip Syncing for pop artists just isn't happening.

Like Veil of Maya for example, Mark Okubo mastered the looper pedal and performed his live shows playing essentially two guitar parts himself whenever there was overlap and he could backtrack a melody or rhythm section. This was still imperfect and prone to errors, but most were forgiving because of how difficult it is to do that. It's not stepping on a chorus pedal instead of a flanger because you feel like it, he was recording two guitar parts LIVE and nailed the timing almost every time.

I'm not even an RoS fan here, people are using his potential miming before he explained himself to scapegoat the fact that modern metal has moved towards people standing on stage with a million backtracks and their volumes turned to 0. Completely false, and if it does happen and you find any example of it I will argue tooth and nail that it's in the minority.


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## Jacksonluvr636

Sogradde said:


> This so much. I wonder if the same people are willing to shell out 3-5 times the cash for a ticket to see bands with the appropriate number of musicians on stage to have everything played live.


Sorry, not trying to call YOU out in particular but this is basically the same argument everyone has that I have seen, for those who say backing tracks are OK.

Is it safe to say these past few pages came along about the RoS fiasco? In their case it is weak and in my opinion sad that they use them and I completely disagree with them doing so.

Hey don't get me wrong, they can do what they want. They are the pros and not me. Obviously Lucas Mann can shred his ass off and is an amazing player BUT I look at all the facts here.

They do not have horns, orchestra, missing band members and to my knowledge they don't use keys on their recording. This entire thing (and this is directly from Lucas) is because they do extra harmonies in the studio right? Well I am not buying it, sorry.

Correct me if I am wrong but I would imaging that these extra harmonies are every so often right? Not throughout 100% of their songs. I would probably be shocked if it was even 20%. With that said are they using these backing tracks ONLY during those parts? High doubt it. So what does that mean? That they are using pre recorded to perfection guitar tracks on the rhythm too. The parts that do not have harmonies. I am sorry but that is crap.

Also in the video I recall a part where Lucas said, look all you can hear is the pre recorded track. Well why is that? Does that mean their sound engineer purposely mixes the pre recorded to perfection guitar tracks louder then the others? Why would that be? 

Ever heard a perfect CD and then solo a guitar track to hear how it sounds perfect in the mix but not so great on its own performance wise? Adding layers will certainly cover up sloppiness, especially if those layers are louder in the mix.

Finally, let's look at what the ex band members said previously? They basically confirmed the dude is lazy, doesn't learn the parts, etc. etc.

I am sorry I am not buying the RoS Schpeel. To each their own but to me they are just using tight tracks to make themselves sound better and tighter than they would on their own. Hey I get it, it is pretty complex music and high difficulty but for me, if I can't play a riff I write, I practice over and over until I get it (Just like lucas did in the video) but if I fuck up live I won't care. It happens. I guess that is the stress you have to deal with when it is your career? Everything has to be perfect at all costs? IDK to each their own but not my style.


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## Sogradde

Jacksonluvr636 said:


> [...]


You're literally making a scenario up in your head to have something to argue against.
I have yet to meet a single band that uses backing tracks so they can chill out on stage and not to add something to their live performance that cannot otherwise be added in an economically feasable matter - and I have watched/played with loads of bands.


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## Jacksonluvr636

Sogradde said:


> You're literally making a scenario up in your head to have something to argue against.
> I have yet to meet a single band that uses backing tracks so they can chill out on stage and not to add something to their live performance that cannot otherwise be added in an economically feasable matter - and I have watched/played with loads of bands.


To each their own. A lot of my post was direct quotes from Lucas Mann. I have no idea why they do it but im not buying his reasoning. Entire set with pre recorded guitars for the occasional third harmony? Not to mention said tracks higher in the mix than real guitars? Surrrrre Dave.

Did I miss the part in the video where they attested to only using the tracks for the harmonies? Pretty sure they do it over entire songs even parts without harmony but maybe im wrong.


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## c7spheres

All this fake stuff comes down to is that those who use it seem to feel less watchable or listenable without it. It's like people who use makeup. Why they use it is out of a either a form of insecurity or as a form, self flattery, or as an enhancement/artistic form of expression. It's one thing to be open about the tools you use and another to lie. This is like the models who obviously have had a ton of plastic surgery done and swear they haven't. If you took it all away then they would feel people think they aren't good enough or sound bad live. Maybe that is true, maybe not. Fact is that either way it's not entirely live once that method has been implemented. Whether the observer cares or not is up to them, but whether they know if they're being lied to or not is another thing altogether.


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## aesthyrian

Jonathan20022 said:


> Like Veil of Maya for example, Mark Okubo mastered the looper pedal and performed his live shows playing essentially two guitar parts himself whenever there was overlap and he could backtrack a melody or rhythm section. This was still imperfect and prone to errors, but most were forgiving because of how difficult it is to do that. It's not stepping on a chorus pedal instead of a flanger because you feel like it, he was recording two guitar parts LIVE and nailed the timing almost every time.



Yeah, those were the golden days. I remember seeing that live and I'll always have immense respect for that entire lineup at the time. No click track(Marc said so in an interview at the time) and he used a looper to loop parts... that requires them to be so damn tight and really shows how damn solid Sam is as a drummer to keep such a solid tempo.

Now it's all backing tracks. I understand why, but the "wow" factor is gone and I really don't desire to see VoM in their current live state.


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## bostjan

Jonathan20022 said:


> This is just an obnoxious take, and I'd love to see what acts you've taken the effort of seeing live at this point to validate that crowds in general are sleeping through concerts in the last 2 - 3 decades. Because that is completely and utterly false





Jonathan20022 said:


> Completely false, and if it does happen and you find any example of it I will argue tooth and nail that it's in the minority.


I don't think anyone is recording those small local band shows with miming, but, like I mentioned, I've seen the first hand, and, usually, everyone at the show goes outside as soon as the mime band starts. It sucks for my band if we go on next and have to corral the audience back inside.

The last statement speaks for itself. You say there is no evidence, and if there is, you won't accept it. I guess that's as far as any meaningful discussion with you can get, then.


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## Jonathan20022

bostjan said:


> I don't think anyone is recording those small local band shows with miming, but, like I mentioned, I've seen the first hand, and, usually, everyone at the show goes outside as soon as the mime band starts. It sucks for my band if we go on next and have to corral the audience back inside.
> 
> The last statement speaks for itself. You say there is no evidence, and if there is, you won't accept it. I guess that's as far as any meaningful discussion with you can get, then.



*Minority *not *none.*

If you're gonna twist my words then I guess you aren't open to a real discussion either. Yeah that's a real bummer that bands that play with you frequently mime live, if you have any evidence and want to argue that it's a widespread problem, be my guest. But as of now you've presented none and you're sitting there twisting my statements to make it seem like I'm some unreasonable circular debater.

People often forget that if you make a statement "People are miming live", it's your responsibility to provide substance that it's true. Not for me to debunk your claim, because I'm not the one trying to prove that it's happening. Not my fault if you don't want to hold up the other part of your talking points


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## bostjan

Jonathan20022 said:


> *Minority *not *none.*
> 
> If you're gonna twist my words then I guess you aren't open to a real discussion either. Yeah that's a real bummer that bands that play with you frequently mime live, if you have any evidence and want to argue that it's a widespread problem, be my guest. But as of now you've presented none and you're sitting there twisting my statements to make it seem like I'm some unreasonable circular debater.
> 
> People often forget that if you make a statement "People are miming live", it's your responsibility to provide substance that it's true. Not for me to debunk your claim, because I'm not the one trying to prove that it's happening. Not my fault if you don't want to hold up the other part of your talking points


Where did I misquote you? You are saying it doesn't happen, which, given the mountain of evidence just in this discussion, is a little unreadonable.


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## Jonathan20022

bostjan said:


> Where did I misquote you? You are saying it doesn't happen, which, given the mountain of evidence just in this discussion, is a little unreadonable.





> Completely false, and if it does happen and you find any example of it I will argue tooth and nail *that it's in the minority.*


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## bostjan

Act like you never said, "Completely false." But whatever, time to move on.


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## Jonathan20022

bostjan said:


> Act like you never said, "Completely false." But whatever, time to move on.





> I'm not even an RoS fan here, people are using his potential miming before he explained himself to scapegoat the fact that modern metal has moved towards people standing on stage with a million backtracks and their volumes turned to 0. Completely false, and if it does happen and you find any example of it I will argue tooth and nail that it's in the minority.



What a colossal waste of time, "Completely false" was that this was common practice and a majority of musicians don't even play their OWN guitar live, it wasn't even directed at you. Nice dodge, such a boring way to not answer the question or prove anything on your side, of course you want to move on


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## Obsidian Soul

I feel like this whole discussion is a waste of time.It seems like the only people that really care and are wasting their time debating this are the same people that won't put in the time to practice.I bet Lucas probably has more skill with just one hand than some of these people with both.

I'm sorry,but I feel like there are better topics to talk about than to worry about someone else's skill.


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## Lord Voldemort

Jonathan20022 said:


> What a colossal waste of time, "Completely false" was that this was common practice and a majority of musicians don't even play their OWN guitar live, it wasn't even directed at you. * Nice dodge, such a boring way to not answer the question or prove anything on your side, of course you want to move on *



Why are you the way that you are?


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## Jonathan20022

Lord Voldemort said:


> Why are you the way that you are?



Because it's boring talking in circles when the person I'm talking to does only that  and a reaction to being misquoted and him doubling down what, 3x?


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## MaxOfMetal




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