# Necrophagist Recorded Epitaph Note for Note



## @zwen (Oct 16, 2019)

It’s why the album sounds inhumanly clean. Suicmez is still a brilliant musician and technically gifted, but I still found this factoid funny.


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## KnightBrolaire (Oct 16, 2019)

you're like 15 years late with that info. They recorded that way but live they could definitely play their material, unlike some other bands *cough* HAARP MACHINE, RINGS OF SATURN, DAN JAMES GRIFFIN* cough*


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## @zwen (Oct 16, 2019)

I don’t know why I never realized it until someone told me. Now I can’t unhear it.


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## @zwen (Oct 16, 2019)

KnightBrolaire said:


> They recorded that way but live they could definitely play their material, unlike some other bands *cough* HAARP MACHINE, RINGS OF SATURN, DAN JAMES GRIFFIN* cough*



Joel Omans from RoS is a legit musician, but Lucas seems to insist on speeding up his playthrough footage. HAARP Machine straight up re-amped MIDI guitars for their Strandberg promo vidoes. 

James Griffin is really disappointing to hear. I like his music.


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## KnightBrolaire (Oct 16, 2019)

@zwen said:


> Joel Omans from RoS is a legit musician, but Lucas seems to insist on speeding up his playthrough footage. HAARP Machine straight up re-amped MIDI guitars for their Strandberg promo vidoes.
> 
> James Griffin is really disappointing to hear. I like his music.


What's better is griffin tried to post some shit live footage and act like that was "proof" that he could play his shit live. Yeah ok bro, that's why all of your riffs sound exactly like midi piano rolls and shit.


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## Lozek (Oct 16, 2019)

No doubt they could play it live. I saw them in London and they were really late due to problems at the border, they walked into the venue, plugged in and started playing note perfect.


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## Lorcan Ward (Oct 16, 2019)

Despite the album being so old a lot of people don’t know or refuse to believe it was recorded that way. So many people are in denial that all their favourite bands have super edited guitars. Pretty much every djent, tech, death and shreddy IG guitarist nowadays does it. It’s almost getting rare to not hear it. Personally I love it for many reasons when it’s done right but if it sounds like guitar pro you need to work harder. 

As long as you aren’t putting up videos miming to super edited tracks as way to show off your “skill” and you can play it reasonably well live then it’s all fine.


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## GunpointMetal (Oct 16, 2019)

Fortunately that was done for a specific sound and not to cover up performance issues. I remember some old interview where he said that he basically wrote music that as at about 75% of his ability so it would be easy to pull off live, lol. I saw them on Robot Mosh Fest with Marco Minneman on drums and it was inhumanely tight.


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## GunpointMetal (Oct 16, 2019)

KnightBrolaire said:


> What's better is griffin tried to post some shit live footage and act like that was "proof" that he could play his shit live. Yeah ok bro, that's why all of your riffs sound exactly like midi piano rolls and shit.


Does it even matter if you play it well if you just double EVERY SINGLE GUITAR NOTE with a synth? I honestly like some of the music, but why bother even playing the guitar if you're gonna produce it that way?


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## Evil Chuck (Oct 18, 2019)

Can someone do a quick ELI5 for stupid people please? What do you mean when you say they recorded it note for note?


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## diagrammatiks (Oct 18, 2019)

Evil Chuck said:


> Can someone do a quick ELI5 for stupid people please? What do you mean when you say they recorded it note for note?



it means they played a bunch of single notes and edited it all together.


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## Lorcan Ward (Oct 18, 2019)

Evil Chuck said:


> Can someone do a quick ELI5 for stupid people please? What do you mean when you say they recorded it note for note?



You individually record all the notes you need. Like 5 7 8 on the low E string. Making sure each one has perfect attack, in tune and ringing properly. Then you cut before the note so it lines up perfectly at the start of a bar. Then you copy-paste that into a bar, cutting the note to a crotchet or semi-quaver depending on what’s needed. 

Do this for every note and voila, surgically tight guitars perfectly in time and every note ringing out clearly in tune. Since noted aren’t bleeding into one another tracks will sound clearer with every note audible and the micro tuning fluctuations from hitting a string already vibrating won’t happen. 

The lead guitars in the intro are a perfect example of this:


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## diagrammatiks (Oct 18, 2019)

Lorcan Ward said:


> You individually record all the notes you need. Like 5 7 8 on the low E string. Making sure each one has perfect attack, in tune and ringing properly. Then you cut before the note so it lines up perfectly at the start of a bar. Then you copy-paste that into a bar, cutting the note to a crotchet or semi-quaver depending on what’s needed.
> 
> Do this for every note and voila, surgically tight guitars perfectly in time and every note ringing out clearly in tune. Since noted aren’t bleeding into one another tracks will sound clearer with every note audible and the micro tuning fluctuations from hitting a string already vibrating won’t happen.
> 
> The lead guitars in the intro are a perfect example of this:




Then again this seems so inefficient from an actual recording standpoint.

why not just midi the recording. and then learn how to play it live properly. No problem.


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## StevenC (Oct 18, 2019)

diagrammatiks said:


> Then again this seems so inefficient from an actual recording standpoint.
> 
> why not just midi the recording. and then learn how to play it live properly. No problem.


It wouldn't take that long, it's just sampling after all. The extra effort from doing it that way is probably worth it for guitars that sound like guitars instead of guitar pro.


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## MaxOfMetal (Oct 18, 2019)

diagrammatiks said:


> Then again this seems so inefficient from an actual recording standpoint.
> 
> why not just midi the recording. and then learn how to play it live properly. No problem.



This reminds me of Rush and Alex Lifeson.

They'd go in the studio and record Alex playing tons of different leads and licks, then they'd throw them together to work best with the song Geddy hears in his head, and Alex would just learn what to play live off the finished track.

Fucking ridiculous.


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## diagrammatiks (Oct 18, 2019)

StevenC said:


> It wouldn't take that long, it's just sampling after all. The extra effort from doing it that way is probably worth it for guitars that sound like guitars instead of guitar pro.



so many notes. although I guess you can just repeat the repeated passages. win.


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## Pat (Oct 18, 2019)

Lorcan Ward said:


> You individually record all the notes you need. Like 5 7 8 on the low E string. Making sure each one has perfect attack, in tune and ringing properly. Then you cut before the note so it lines up perfectly at the start of a bar. Then you copy-paste that into a bar, cutting the note to a crotchet or semi-quaver depending on what’s needed.
> 
> Do this for every note and voila, surgically tight guitars perfectly in time and every note ringing out clearly in tune. Since noted aren’t bleeding into one another tracks will sound clearer with every note audible and the micro tuning fluctuations from hitting a string already vibrating won’t happen.
> 
> The lead guitars in the intro are a perfect example of this:




Is that definitely recorded note for note? You can quite clearly hear the difference between the legato and picked sections, you can hear the pick attack when he's alternate picking - same with some of the riffs in the album too. If it was recorded note for note then everything would sound alternate picked, which it doesn't.

I know Muhammed in the past has said he uses punch-ins - sevenstring.org/threads/necrophagist-new-album-gear-questions.88771/ "punch-ins are ok. never had a problem with it. the goal is to record the best album possible. anyone telling you the opposite is not telling the truth or is the next paganini.", but I don't think that equates to recording note-by-note. I think he just records different parts (riffs) at a time, pieces them together, then adds punch-ins where needed.


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## StevenC (Oct 18, 2019)

diagrammatiks said:


> so many notes. although I guess you can just repeat the repeated passages. win.


There's, what 49 notes on a guitar? 150 if you account for timbral differences between the repeated notes. Doesn't seem that hard.


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## Lorcan Ward (Oct 18, 2019)

Pat said:


> Is that definitely recorded note for note? You can quite clearly hear the difference between the legato and picked sections, you can hear the pick attack when he's alternate picking - same with some of the riffs in the album too. If it was recorded note for note then everything would sound alternate picked, which it doesn't.



Yep, 100%. Countless bands do that or half speed or tons of micro punch ins. 

So for legato you would record hammer ons instead of picking, what some guitarists do is cut the pick attack out beforehand so it sounds like legato. Same goes for palm mutes and individual slides, bends, pinch harmonics etc 

Really listen to that clip I posted and how you can hear every note is separate from one another. I refused to believe it at first but looking back I wonder how I didn’t pick up on it. Nobody likes to admit they record this way but it’s part of the sound of most genres nowadays.


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## Pat (Oct 18, 2019)

I don't believe you


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## chopeth (Oct 19, 2019)

^you should


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## MrWulf (Oct 19, 2019)

It is funny because at one poing i thought people were at least recorded section by section until when i start learning how to mix/record that i known "damn either bands are super edited or just do a lot of takes bar by bar". A bit disappointed but i can understand. For now i'm doing the bar to bar thing with my own demos but perhaps i should have a go at recording note by note, if only for the lulz and experienfe.


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## InCasinoOut (Oct 21, 2019)

What's nuts is the bois from CHON recorded an instrumental version of Stabwound for Alex Rudinger and it's insanely clean, with even far less gain. I've watched Mario and Erick live from 3 feet away, I have no doubt they can just nail it.


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## GunpointMetal (Oct 21, 2019)

MrWulf said:


> It is funny because at one poing i thought people were at least recorded section by section until when i start learning how to mix/record that i known "damn either bands are super edited or just do a lot of takes bar by bar". A bit disappointed but i can understand. For now i'm doing the bar to bar thing with my own demos but perhaps i should have a go at recording note by note, if only for the lulz and experienfe.


 There's no reason anyone needs to do it that way unless its the sound they want (or they can't actually play it), but if you're planning on recording others in the future, having more options isn't a bad thing.


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## Drew (Oct 21, 2019)

MrWulf said:


> It is funny because at one poing i thought people were at least recorded section by section until when i start learning how to mix/record that i known "damn either bands are super edited or just do a lot of takes bar by bar". A bit disappointed but i can understand. For now i'm doing the bar to bar thing with my own demos but perhaps i should have a go at recording note by note, if only for the lulz and experienfe.


Yeah, to reiterate @GunpointMetal 's point, this actually ISN'T the way most bands record, it's a pretty recent development, and is only really prevelant in a couple genres of technical metal. For the most part, bands generally record either entire passages at a time (say, if a distorted guitar comes in for a chorus, but then fades out for the verse, they'd likely record that chorus at one take), or sometimes the entire part in a single go. 

Personally, I don't have the patience to track note by note - it would drive me mad.


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## noise in my mind (Oct 22, 2019)

I always thought the robot sound on obscura's velocity solo was cool, and that's punched in. I think it's a neat effect when used in the right context.


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## Lorcan Ward (Oct 22, 2019)

MrWulf said:


> It is funny because at one poing i thought people were at least recorded section by section until when i start learning how to mix/record that i known "damn either bands are super edited or just do a lot of takes bar by bar". A bit disappointed but i can understand. For now i'm doing the bar to bar thing with my own demos but perhaps i should have a go at recording note by note, if only for the lulz and experienfe.



At first it really bothered me finding out that so many bands centred around technical guitar playing were essentially just using exported guitar pro files for tracks. But in the end it's a choice when it comes to recording and getting crystal clear sounding guitars. You have to separate performance and ability from how an album is recorded. For so many bands it wouldn't work if they recorded normally. 

I can understand recording guitars like this at half speed. The speed and precision needed just isn't possible without notes being cut off or getting muffled.


There's a limit you can achieve. If you listen back to Cacophony or Racer X there's lots of parts they go slightly out of time, or a part gets muddy cause a note rings into another or they didn't pick exactly and a note rings out oddly. It's all just natural human error. As long as you can play them live which of course we have all see bands who got a bit carried away writing technical pieces they couldn't perform live. 

Other reasons are for clarity in a mix. This wouldn't sound half as clear and punchy if it was recorded conventionally. This is where its really common across djent and low tuned metal to sample the lowest notes and paste them in as needed on another track you can separately EQ away from the other strings. 


This isn't just isolated to metal. In pop/rock its a common approach to tune to a chord, record said bar or length, re-tune to next chord and record the next bar. Countless pop bands have their vocals stitched together, never mind the amount of auto-tune used. It's always been standard to replace drum tracks with samples and tighten up their performances across all genres. There's so many different ways to edit performances beyond what is humanly possible and as time goes on it becomes part of the sound of the genre.


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## thrashinbatman (Oct 22, 2019)

My philosophy has always been to make the recording as perfect as possible, and focus separately on being able to play the songs live. My band is more than capable of playing our songs live, but when I'm recording I'm kind of a perfectionist, and I have an absurd ear for rhythm; I can tell when something is even a tiny bit off and it'll drive me mad. I still try to go riff by riff and get perfect takes of each, because I don't like going through note by note, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Focusing on getting one really solid take of a riff can take just as long as Frankensteining together some notes, so it's really more sonic preference. As long as you're playing the shit live, I don't give a fuck how you recorded it.


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## HANIAK (Oct 23, 2019)

Though I absolutely love Necrophagist's albums and all the impact they made on the genre, I must say nowadays I find perfection (or perfect takes) quite boring... 
Music edited to its guts is, most of the times, uninteresting imho...


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## Headbanger (Oct 23, 2019)

thats a lot of bullshit. Recording an album note for note would be extremely slow process and and end result wouldn't sound like it was actually played at all. I can't believe someone actually thinks they recorded an album that way.


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## Lorcan Ward (Oct 23, 2019)

Headbanger said:


> thats a lot of bullshit. Recording an album note for note would be extremely slow process and and *end result wouldn't sound like it was actually played at all*. I can't believe someone actually thinks they recorded an album that way.



Read this part and listen to the opening lead guitars of Only Ash Remains. Do it as many times as you need. Notice there is zero note bleed from one note to another, it’s surgically on the grid with every note perfect in length and every note pops out the same way a midi sampled instrument does. Once you know what to listen for it becomes really obvious and you wonder why you didn’t pick up on it before. 

I find it’s my non musician friends who pick up on it straight away. Asking why the guitars sound so unnatural to their ears.


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## GunpointMetal (Oct 23, 2019)

Headbanger said:


> thats a lot of bullshit. Recording an album note for note would be extremely slow process and and end result wouldn't sound like it was actually played at all. I can't believe someone actually thinks they recorded an album that way.


Lots of modern tech-death bands record this way (unfortunately, IMO). In some cases, its gonna be a lot quicker doing note by note and slapping it together on the grid than trying to either get the player to nail down parts that were written in Guitar Pro, or comp together a few dozen takes of each riff to fit the surgically-tight drums that were edited to the grid or straight-up programmed. I think it can be a cool effect when its not done for an entire album or you're pretending to make playthrough videos of stuff you're obviously not really playing *cough* Berried Alive/DJG/RoS/the natural harmonics guy *cough*


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## Drew (Oct 23, 2019)

Lorcan Ward said:


> There's a limit you can achieve. If you listen back to Cacophony or Racer X there's lots of parts they go slightly out of time, or a part gets muddy cause a note rings into another or they didn't pick exactly and a note rings out oddly. It's all just natural human error. As long as you can play them live which of course we have all see bands who got a bit carried away writing technical pieces they couldn't perform live.


Yes, but that's why Racer X was so much more exciting and energetic than the HAARP Machine, and also why Gilbert can pull this stuff off while the latter can't.  

I mean, "Technical Difficulties" will always absolutely own, and part of that is the driving, frantic energy behind it. Making it absolutely perfect by punching it in note-for-note wouldn't have the same effect, I'd think.


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## Headbanger (Oct 23, 2019)

Lorcan Ward said:


> Read this part and listen to the opening lead guitars of Only Ash Remains. Do it as many times as you need. Notice there is zero note bleed from one note to another, it’s surgically on the grid with every note perfect in length and every note pops out the same way a midi sampled instrument does. Once you know what to listen for it becomes really obvious and you wonder why you didn’t pick up on it before.
> 
> I find it’s my non musician friends who pick up on it straight away. Asking why the guitars sound so unnatural to their ears.



yeah it's a very clean recording but your claim that they recorded an entire album that way is still absurd and I don't believe it, not even for a second. Whats your source of information? random rumours on the internet?


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## Lorcan Ward (Oct 23, 2019)

Drew said:


> Yes, but that's why Racer X was so much more exciting and energetic than the HAARP Machine, and also why Gilbert can pull this stuff off while the latter can't.
> 
> I mean, "Technical Difficulties" will always absolutely own, and part of that is the driving, frantic energy behind it. Making it absolutely perfect by punching it in note-for-note wouldn't have the same effect, I'd think.



I got a lesson from Gilbert and it was jaw dropping seeing him play right in front of me. So much energy in his playing and he had this constant enthusiasm like he had just picked up a guitar for the first time enjoying every second. So many of those Racer X songs are monstrous, scarified is that perfect blend of technical intense playing and catchy hooks. 

During the acoustic solo in Mr. Big’s to be with you Gilbert says he was really nervous and messed up the final run. When he listened back he said he preferred that it sounded out of time and that playing freely can result in a phrase being more catchy when it’s not right on the beat.


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## Lorcan Ward (Oct 23, 2019)

Headbanger said:


> yeah it's a very clean recording but your claim that they recorded an entire album that way is still absurd and I don't believe it, not even for a second. Whats your source of information? random rumours on the internet?



Use you ears. I explained what was going on. The simple answer is guitars don’t sound like that. It’s not sonically possible nor is it physically possible to have guitar tracks like that. 

First time I saw someone point it out on Epitaph was Nolly on another forum and he explained in detail what was going on. Since Epitaph countless bands used that or half time or hundreds of punch ins. There was tons of threads on the andy sneap forum too. It wasn’t until the people called out Al from The Haarp Machine that he pointed out everyone has super edited guitars from the faceless to animals as leaders. The guitarist from August Burns Red has a good video how he will micro align everything. Joey Sturgis is a big user of note by note editing and half speed recording on his work. 

I get that people don’t like to hear that technical music they listen to is super edited. I know it bugged me at first but you have to look at it from a sound point and not performance.


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## Drew (Oct 23, 2019)

Lorcan Ward said:


> I got a lesson from Gilbert and it was jaw dropping seeing him play right in front of me. So much energy in his playing and he had this constant enthusiasm like he had just picked up a guitar for the first time enjoying every second. So many of those Racer X songs are monstrous, scarified is that perfect blend of technical intense playing and catchy hooks.
> 
> During the acoustic solo in Mr. Big’s to be with you Gilbert says he was really nervous and messed up the final run. When he listened back he said he preferred that it sounded out of time and that playing freely can result in a phrase being more catchy when it’s not right on the beat.


Yeah, Gilbert kills me. Dude is just too good. 

It's also, personal experience here, extremely _hard_ to play something wrong that you'd worked out a different way, and be able to in the moment listen back, self-asses, and realize that the mistake was better than what you'd intended to do. One of my favorite moments on my album was a solo that I struggled with all session, eventually just moved on, unsatisfied with my take but not wanting to keep beating myself up over it, and then when I went back and listened a month later (having forgotten what I was trying to do), actually really liked what I'd actually played, rather than what I'd tried to play.


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## GunpointMetal (Oct 23, 2019)

Lorcan Ward said:


> I get that people don’t like to hear that technical music they listen to is super edited. I know it bugged me at first but you have to look at it from a sound point and not performance.


When its production thing, its not a big deal (to me, anyways) because I've seen ABR, AAL, Necrophagist live and they are in no way compensating for a lack of ability, just overcoming the inherent disability of instrument in favor of a flawless recording. I've seen a few other bands where all the sweet guitar licks are either completely backtracked, or doubled on a backtrack to mask playing deficiencies and that sucks.


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## Pat (Oct 24, 2019)

I'm sorry but I just don't believe that the album was recorded that way - I think they definitely used punch ins, probably recorded riffs at a time, recorded overdubs etc but I have a hard time believing they recorded a bunch of individual notes, with different types of attack, recorded some as legato and some as picked, and then pasted them all together in the studio. 

You state that the intro to Only Ash Remains sounds precise, but I don't think it sounds much different to something that say, Yngwie Malmsteen would record - and nobody is claiming that he records his solos note-by-note.

Is there actually any proof anywhere that it was recorded this way? Has anybody spoken to the studio engineers, other members of the band, or Muhammed himself? As far as I can find, the only thing he mentions regarding the recording is using punch-ins, which does not equate to recording the album note by note. 

I will of course concede that I'm wrong if some proof is provided, but I just don't believe it at this point.


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## MaxOfMetal (Oct 24, 2019)

Why do folks get so weird about this? Like actually mad. 

It has no bearing on how great the album is or the skills of the musicians involved.


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## Pat (Oct 24, 2019)

MaxOfMetal said:


> Why do folks get so weird about this? Like actually mad.
> 
> It has no bearing on how great the album is or the skills of the musicians involved.


To be clear, it makes no difference to me at all and frankly I don't care either way - I would just like to know from someone with some actual knowledge of the recording process


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## Lorcan Ward (Oct 24, 2019)

Pat said:


> You state that the intro to Only Ash Remains sounds precise, but I don't think it sounds much different to something that say, Yngwie Malmsteen would record - and nobody is claiming that he records his solos note-by-note



I mean this in the nicest way but that’s on you if you can’t hear the difference. You need to work on your ears cause it’s night and day. Like the difference between a one shot snare sample and a live recording or regular vs autotune vocals. The biggest give away is when Yngwie/Gilbert/Looimis play one note bleeds into the next while if you listen to Necrophagist or Within the Ruins there is none, every note has a stop start sound like a keyboard triggering a sample. Thats always the biggest give away and what gives you that super clear surgically tight sounding guitars. 

I've explained it so many times already. Posted links to other bands and producers who do similar things. The only thing left is for you to really listen to this and other modern albums. Drag them into your DAW, slow them down, EQ them, try various recording methods to hear the difference in sound. If you still don't want to believe it then thats fine but this has been common knowledge for a long time.


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## stockwell (Oct 24, 2019)

Wasn't the lore that it took an extremely long time to record Epitaph? That'd make sense if they were doing it this way. 

Recording note by note works great for stuff that needs to be absurdly tight. Since someone mentioned Joey Sturgis, I'm thinking of all the breakdown-heavy bands he's recorded. It's not like chugging 0s is a huge test of skill, but if you get the rhythm guitars perfectly on grid and with perfect pick attack, they'll sound much tighter. So why wouldn't you record that note for note? That being said, comping lots of takes is probably more common. There's producers like Dave Otero who don't like to edit guitars much. And Dave produces for Cattle Decap and Archspire. Archspire! 

I'm fascinated by the topic. Since I started listening to a lot of electronic music years ago, I don't have the knee-jerk negative reaction that I did when I was younger. I'm more interested in albums that sound awesome to me than that fulfill some arbitrary constraints of production. Fortunately, we're in an era where you can listen to bands all along the spectrum from old-school to ultra-modern recording techniques. So anyone who feels bad about this should just find bands whose sound you prefer. I tend to naturally lean towards the more modern sound. 

Just remember: If you get the sound you want, there's no objectively wrong way to record an album. There is an objectively correct way, though, and it's anything Adam D does.


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## ikarus (Oct 24, 2019)

Can anybody explain to me what a "punch in" is?


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## GunpointMetal (Oct 24, 2019)

allheavymusic said:


> There is an objectively correct way, though, and it's anything Adam D does.


except wear a cape and cutoffs onstage and suck all the enjoyment out of the live show by acting like an attention-starved 8 year old.



ikarus said:


> Can anybody explain to me what a "punch in" is?


cant tell if serious


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## ikarus (Oct 24, 2019)

GunpointMetal said:


> cant tell if serious



Serious.


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## GunpointMetal (Oct 24, 2019)

A punch in is when you're recording and you get a really good take, minus a note or two, so you play back over that part have have your engineer (or you automate it) "punch in" at the spot where you made a mistake or weren't playing cleanly to get a better take of that small section of music versus redoing a whole track/song to try and fix a small error in an otherwise excellent performance.


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## DudeManBrother (Oct 24, 2019)

ikarus said:


> Serious.


Redoing a portion of an otherwise good take.


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## ikarus (Oct 24, 2019)

Ok and then you cut out the not so good note and crossfade the perfectly played note in?


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## InCasinoOut (Oct 24, 2019)

ikarus said:


> Ok and then you cut out the not so good note and crossfade the perfectly played note in?


You don't even have to crossfade it. If your timing is close enough, you'd be able to slice the section at whatever quarter/eighth/sixteenth note you need to paste the punch in into, and if you did it right, the two parts will have no discernable difference.


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## GunpointMetal (Oct 24, 2019)

ikarus said:


> Ok and then you cut out the not so good note and crossfade the perfectly played note in?


pretty much



InCasinoOut said:


> You don't even have to crossfade it. If your timing is close enough, you'd be able to slice the section at whatever quarter/eighth/sixteenth note you need to paste the punch in into, and if you did it right, the two parts will have no discernable difference.


 unless you're strip-silencing ahead of the note, crossfading is never a bad idea.


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## ikarus (Oct 24, 2019)

Ok thanks guys for clearing that up for me.


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## axxessdenied (Oct 24, 2019)

leave your ego at the door when entering the studio


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## GunpointMetal (Oct 24, 2019)

axxessdenied said:


> leave your ego at the door when entering the studio


This. So Much.
The ONLY thing I don't like about doing self-recording for my bands is 1) coaxing additional takes or doing things piece by piece and 2) the mix notes. I have to keep reminding the vocalist and the drummer that doubling parts/recording individual kit pieces isn't cheating and they're not the show and that turning them up isn't making anything better, it's just making them louder.


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## j3ps3 (Oct 25, 2019)

GunpointMetal said:


> This. So Much.
> The ONLY thing I don't like about doing self-recording for my bands is 1) coaxing additional takes or doing things piece by piece and 2) the mix notes. I have to keep reminding the vocalist and the drummer that doubling parts/recording individual kit pieces isn't cheating and they're not the show and that turning them up isn't making anything better, it's just making them louder.



While mixing, we had a rule with my band that you can't comment about the levels of your own instrument. Before that it was just a constant loudness war between everybody in the band


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## GunpointMetal (Oct 25, 2019)

j3ps3 said:


> While mixing, we had a rule with my band that you can't comment about the levels of your own instrument. Before that it was just a constant loudness war between everybody in the band


That's a good rule. I'm still doing everything but mastering for one project, but the other one I told the guys we're pitching and paying someone else to do it, because they're not gonna give them 40 mix revisions.


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## Drew (Oct 25, 2019)

axxessdenied said:


> leave your ego at the door when entering the studio


I'm an advocate of holding onto your ego while _tracking_ and drive yourself to record the best possible takes you can and track as if you can't change a goddamn thing in post-processing.... But, when the raw tracks are done, when you take off your "musician" hat and put on your "engineer" hat, check your ego and do whatever you need to do. 

For my own music, since I'm playing instrumental guitar, the performance is definitely a fairly important part of the recording, so while I did a decent amount of punching (I improvised every solo on my first album, so often I'd do a take, love the first half, not like the second, and keep the first half and then do a couple takes on just the second, or vice versa), the amount of actual "editing" of the lead guitars was pretty minimal - I think I tempo-aligned one sustained note on one solo, because it was a _little _behind the beat and didn't bother me while tracking but while working on the mix it became increasingly jarring to me. I did a bit more work to the rhythm guitars, and basically threw the book at the bass guitar, but I'm a shit bassist anyway. 

And, man, thinking back to the time I spent working on that project is making me REALLY want to get going on a follow-up.


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## @zwen (Oct 29, 2019)

Don’t get me wrong, I think the results sound excellent, and that’s all that matters, I just was astounded that Necro utilized this method.


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## works0fheart (Jun 1, 2022)

Had to a bit of searching for this thread, but here's a new interview with Christian and he actually goes into pretty good detail surrounding him joining Necrophagist and recording Epitaph. Super interesting listen.


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## Tree (Jun 1, 2022)

Cool video! I’ll take any content with Christian all day every day. Dude is just so cool and down to earth. 

Also, FWIW, I’m pretty sure Epitaph wasn’t literally recorded one note at a time. They played at half speed and spliced the notes up IIRC. The dude that recorded and mixed the album has said so at some point. You can hear some of this on Virvum’s debut album as well where they very clearly approached him wanting that “Epitaph sound”.


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## eaeolian (Jun 1, 2022)

KnightBrolaire said:


> you're like 15 years late with that info. They recorded that way but live they could definitely play their material, unlike some other bands *cough* HAARP MACHINE, RINGS OF SATURN, DAN JAMES GRIFFIN* cough*


Yeah, I saw Necrophagist on the Summer Slaughter Tour with Minneman. They could absolutely play it.


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## eaeolian (Jun 1, 2022)

HANIAK said:


> Though I absolutely love Necrophagist's albums and all the impact they made on the genre, I must say nowadays I find perfection (or perfect takes) quite boring...
> Music edited to its guts is, most of the times, uninteresting imho...


This. I think the Epitaph is about as far as you can go with that approach, and even then it's almost too perfect. Music is about how you blur the lines.


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## KnightBrolaire (Jun 1, 2022)

eaeolian said:


> Yeah, I saw Necrophagist on the Summer Slaughter Tour with Minneman. They could absolutely play it.


I also saw them back on Summer Slaughter Tour. They were the tightest and cleanest band there besides Dying Fetus.


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## ZXIIIT (Jun 6, 2022)

KnightBrolaire said:


> I also saw them back on Summer Slaughter Tour. They were the tightest and cleanest band there besides Dying Fetus.


Same, at one point, no one was moshing, just staring in awe, Muhammed noticed and requested some moshing. It was awesome to see them play so well.


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## MrBouleDeBowling (Jun 6, 2022)

I also saw them at Summer Slaughter in 2009. Can also confirm they could 100% play their material live. It was a glorious moment


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## Isaiah04 (Sep 8, 2022)

AlexCorriveau said:


> I also saw them at Summer Slaughter in 2009. Can also confirm they could 100% play their material live. It was a glorious moment


Late reply, but did they play Dawn And Demise when you saw them?


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## MrBouleDeBowling (Sep 16, 2022)

Isaiah04 said:


> Late reply, but did they play Dawn And Demise when you saw them?


I honestly can't answer, maybe they did but It's been a long time. I don't remember every song they played that night. I do have vivid memory of them playing Foul Body Autopsy, Stabwound, Diminished to B and Seven tho. It was fucking amazing.


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## wheresthefbomb (Sep 17, 2022)

I heard they actually got a different guitarist to play every single note. John Mayer, The Edge, the guy from Everclear - to name a few.


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## MaxOfMetal (Sep 17, 2022)

wheresthefbomb said:


> I heard they actually got a different guitarist to play every single note. John Mayer, The Edge, the guy from Everclear - to name a few.





This needs to be a Hard Times article.


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