Songwriting: How fast is inhumanly fast for a drummer?

DanLights

DanLights

Santa Hat Forever
Jul 28, 2008
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Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain
www.danlightsaudio.com
It's happened to me more than once, that I write cool riffs and tab'em up in Guitar Pro, so I set a tempo I think is appropriate, program the drums, bass, etc. and then I show it to a friend/co-writer and he's like "who the fuck's gonna play that on drums??" so it got me thinking, what would be a sensible limit for blastbeats to be played by a good drummer (like not something only 5 guys in the world could play)? I did 150 bpm and my buddy said I'm crazy, and thinking about it, it does sound a bit hard on the drummer, but it sounds so good that way it sucks to make it slower, I slowed the fast parts down to 135 and it's Ok, but faster made the riffs sound better. Has this ever happened to you?
 
Depends on the drummer, guys like Hoglan and Christy are 10 times faster then a Lombardo / Bostaph type drummer. If a drummer practices enough they can get up there.

Why not just take the double kick out of it, or cut the groove in half, riff is still the same speed, just the drums are playable.
 
Hmmm my band does this to me sometimes when I write new stuff and program the drums. Except it'll be like up around 200-220 bpm. Maybe I'm working with a drummer who's faster than I thought?
 
I would say reference drummers that are of a similar style of music that your doing. I wouldn't suggest referencing anyone like Nile or Behemoth or anything because drummers like that are obviously far and few (unless thats the style of music your going for). Its not so much about the speed of the drums that carry the song, its the groove
 
True, groove is great. Sometimes having that insane fast blast beat kind of driving the song is what makes it though. If the drummer wants to do it badly enough, he'll get there! Our drummer went to jail for 30 days then had 60 days house arrest just a few months ago. He practiced a LOT during house arrest, and honestly, came back to practice playing better than ever before. Fucking insanity!!!
 
guitarguru777 said:
Depends on the drummer, guys like Hoglan and Christy are 10 times faster then a Lombardo / Bostaph type drummer. If a drummer practices enough they can get up there.

Why not just take the double kick out of it, or cut the groove in half, riff is still the same speed, just the drums are playable.
Click to expand...

problem is the blastbeats, it's the snare that's too fast, and cutting it in half makes it sound like punk :lol:

roflsaurusrex said:
I would say reference drummers that are of a similar style of music that your doing. I wouldn't suggest referencing anyone like Nile or Behemoth or anything because drummers like that are obviously far and few (unless thats the style of music your going for). Its not so much about the speed of the drums that carry the song, its the groove
Click to expand...

yeah I actually am going for Nile reference. It's brutal death metal/slamming/goregrind stuff, so that's the issue, in some parts it's about the groove, but some parts it's about actual speed to go with the brutal riffing.
 
guitarguru777 said:
Well maybe its time to find a new drummer then ;)

If he cant blast WTF is he doing playing Grindcore / Death
Click to expand...

I've had people come up to me and say stuff like this. "So when you going to get a new singer?"

Like "Bro - when you gonna start your own band and then see how difficult it is to find good musicians in this area?!?!"

But, that band has long broken up and I'm much happier with the band I'm currently in. Not to mention the old drummers feet just didn't work right...AT ALL. Like he literally couldn't do any fast double kick work. =/ The type of drummer that couldn't even jam one of his own band songs unless he had the guitars playing too.
 
bryan_kilco said:
I've had people come up to me and say stuff like this. "So when you going to get a new singer?"

Like "Bro - when you gonna start your own band and then see how difficult it is to find good musicians in this area?!?!"

But, that band has long broken up and I'm much happier with the band I'm currently in. Not to mention the old drummers feet just didn't work right...AT ALL. Like he literally couldn't do any fast double kick work. =/ The type of drummer that couldn't even jam one of his own band songs unless he had the guitars playing too.
Click to expand...

yeah drummers are very weird about what they want to play. I know a drummer who, for the past 8 years of his drumming, literally only does blast beats and these really generic fills. He says fast double bass is over-rated, gravity blasts are for "fags" and breakdowns are too scene. WHAT THE FUCK?!
 
roflsaurusrex said:
yeah drummers are very weird about what they want to play. I know a drummer who, for the past 8 years of his drumming, literally only does blast beats and these really generic fills. He says fast double bass is over-rated, gravity blasts are for "fags" and breakdowns are too scene. WHAT THE FUCK?!
Click to expand...
Wow, that's lame. Our drummer gets inspired by challenges. Like, I'll program 220 bpm madness and show the band and he's like "I like that a lot, I can't wait to be able to play it"....and I'm usually like "It doesnt have to be played exactly how I programmed it!!" (I normally program random drums first, then freestyle guitars to that until I come up with riffs).....which I guess is bass ackwards but oh well, seems to work.
 
guitarguru777 said:
Well maybe its time to find a new drummer then ;)

If he cant blast WTF is he doing playing Grindcore / Death
Click to expand...

Don't have one! Haha this is a project I plan to record and then find a live band, after recording and releasing something. But I wanna make sure what I'm doing is humanly possible before spending what's left of my youth trying to find a drummer that can do them
 
Get in contact with Wormed, they may know someone, they replaced their own drummer recently.
So they probably know some names.
 
220 230bpm - alot can play
230-240bpm - top drummers can play
240-250bpm - only a small few can truly play.

So i would stay aound the 220-230 if you wish to get a drummer to play it.
 
ratsapprentice said:
Get in contact with Wormed, they may know someone, they replaced their own drummer recently.
So they probably know some names.
Click to expand...

My problem is I´m pretty far away from them, the scene in this city is kind of detached from the national scene, in other words it sucks, but I just might, you never know, thanks.

elapidae1 said:
220 230bpm - alot can play
230-240bpm - top drummers can play
240-250bpm - only a small few can truly play.

So i would stay aound the 220-230 if you wish to get a drummer to play it.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I´ll keep that guideline in mind. But I´m doing 150 with the snare blasting at 16th notes and my buddy tells me that´s insane (and we played together in a super fast goregrind band), so it kinda got me doubting. here´s a midi example, although you can just put some blastbeats at 150 with the snare doing 16ths: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/954292/Music samples-stems/Drums example putrid.mid (using the windows general midi engine works)
 
That's 300bpm if you're gonna call the hands 16th notes... 150bpm the hands are doing 32nds.
Clear away that confusion in your discussion and understanding.
Obviously you do get it, it's just the majority of drummer talk will refer to what the hands/feet are doing together, not in isolation ;)


So, this..
"220 230bpm - alot can play
230-240bpm - top drummers can play
240-250bpm - only a small few can truly play."
is accurate, but it's referring to the '16th notes' limit of the basic drum roll idea (hands or feet together)

It pretty closely correlates to tight chugging to tremolo picking on guitar obviously.. think of the speed limit of downstrokes (1 hand) then double that into tremolo (2 hands)

In your example the feet doing that is pretty much out of the question, but a good 'gravity' blaster could do the snare that fast at least, as the mechanics of that is the guy gets 2 hits in each stroke... basically pivoting of the rim... sorta
 
Yeah the only way is to gravity blast. And yeah its doable. Gravity blasts arent hard to do, just to time correctly.
 
150 bpm 16th note blasts? That's pretty damn fast man, atleast for long periods. However, there are some drummer which are capable of that (brodequin, spawn of possession, abysmal torment other brutal death bands of similar nature (the hits get pretty weak after a short while though)). However, finding a drummer that actually can play that fast would be really hard, I think. Still, for slamming brutal death stuff, 300 bpm isn't THAT usual tbh, but it's the ABSOLUTE limit (I've seen a vid of SoP's and brodequin's drummer hitting 310 bpm live) of what can be played. If you want it more realistic, I'd lower it to 130 or 140 bpm.
 
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