I’m going to hazard a guess and say that the backlash against drum samples started in the early 2000s. Metal was in its “douchey 20 year old” phase and something needed to be blamed for everything sounding like shit. It was the first era of all-digital metal production, so techniques like sample replacement were naturally in the crosshairs.
It was a logical equation: The music sounded sterile and lifeless because the bands succumbed to cheating with ProTools and drum samples. Right? Well hang on a second there old man. Drum samples were not a new thing. They were arguably already part of the fabric of metal.
1. Drum Samples Were Into Metal Before You Were, Poser
This came out in 1990 and the production on this album is iconic. Entombed and the producer Tomas Skogsberg set a unique musical aesthetic that has lasted through to the present day. It’s an album easily in most metal elitist’s top 10. And, what’s this?! Yep, there’s ddrum pads triggering a kick and snare sample on the whole thing.
“Well that must be a unique example for back then right? Drummers that could actually play didn’t need triggers or sample replacement.”
You shut your beautiful mouth.
2. “Cheating” Is A Stupid Way to Look At It
Released in 1992 and you’re goddamn right that the snare and kick are sample replaced. Have another listen to your favorite Morrisound Death Metal albums. Yep, triggered.
As far as “cheating” goes, I don’t think many would call the skills of Pete Sandoval into question (Editor’s note: check out our editorial “Is Using Drum Triggers Cheating?” for more on this). Nor most other OG Floridian Death Metal drummers that used samples. It was hardly the easy way out. In an analogue studio at the time of Blessed Are The Sick there was no quick way to sound replace.
Listen to mixing/mastering genius Jesse Cannon explain the painstaking process of sample replacement back then (skip to 35:05).
Triggering samples helped drum tracks cut through the grimey sludge of guitars and guttural gurgles in early death metal recordings. It’s the reason you can make out what the drums are doing in among that bassy fuzz wall. It’s the reason these early recordings don’t sound like complete shit.
But speaking of sounding like complete shit…
3. Triggers Are Cvlt
Mayhem always had a tinge of Industrial but jfc. Hellhammer’s triggered snare + kick combo is some pretty next level, ignant shit right here.
Listen, I get it acoustiphiles. This sounds like a gigantic robot masturbating. But that’s the sound. Just like Darkthrone had that tape-recorder-behind-a-stack-of-newspapers-in-momma-Fenriz’s-basement production. Both objectively sucked, but that’s Black Metal.
So basically tell your uncle to stfu the next time he harks back to the good ol’ days before triggers, sample replacement or programmed drums. Those techniques have always been around and the music that came out before them wasn’t even that heavy.
What’s your favorite kit sound on a metal album? Was it triggered, sound replaced, programmed or natty? Do you even care, kid?
funeraldoombuggy / October 12, 2016 2:30 pm
The Crowns Deathrace King was recorded without samples and I love the sound of that record.
Note: I have no issue at all with using samples.
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dan / October 12, 2016 6:54 pm
Don’t actually care if they’re used or not, but Lombardo claims to never use them. Gojira’s heaviest matter totally sounderstand like triggers, but great too.
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Refined-Iron Cranium / October 13, 2016 7:15 am
Are you people trying to be MetalSucks now?
Please don’t, these ‘edgy’ editorials should be contained in that cesspool.
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dadrockisstillbetter / October 13, 2016 11:30 am
haha a literal intern
triggers are a tool and have their place. id normally just leave a criticism but you saying that its “real metal” is just insulting. go back to listening to your shitty deathcore bands kiddo
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pheet007 / October 15, 2016 5:04 pm
We truly enter a contradictory world when we talk about music technology, and drum triggers are just the tip of the iceberg, and the last instrument outside of miking them in rock music to get the sampling treatment or lots of effects possibilities. Let’s be practical and reasonable for a few minutes as I explain:
I love old music – blues from as early as Blind Lemon Jefferson from the 1920’s, Charley Patton during the same period up into the early 1930’s, Lonnie Johnson’s early recordings from the late ’20’s, etc. These old scratchy records are of course sonically speaking horrible but it was the only technology in town, and up until the very early 1960’s, or at least when the Godfather of Guitar and Vocal Wizardry, Les Paul started using massive overdubs, messed around with tape speeds, echo, and other innovations, everything had to be cut live after much rehearsing. A recording artist could redo their parts, but they could not punch in, edit, or otherwise fudge with the tape. Or they didn’t until Brian Wilson, George Martin and a few others decided you could.
What makes these sounds so attractive is the sound of history in them. Music recorded by Louis Jordan, who was huge in the 1940’s sounds good after being doctored up in new remasters, but you can hear the history, and it sounds like the 1940’s, and that meant a lot of very good music. Analog came in, and slowly but surely thanks to effects we take for granted, reverb, echo, flange, chorus, wah, etc., and the studio’s increasing capabilities while the music is great for our favorite albums, it can become nearly impossible to give it that authentic sound of its time, which may or may not matter according to individual preference.
Now we have massive overdubbing, banks and banks of guitars, bass, whatever. A “singer” can go in and sound great even if they’re tone deaf, like airhead Brittany Spears. This of course crosses the line between wanting the best possible sound representation and out and out studio trickery.
Boy bands, tons of Top 40 dogshit, and others are not singers or players at all. They are puppets designed to look good on a stage and that’s all. One supposed guitarist in one boy band which I’ll allow to remain anonymous was recently photographed “playing” live and the stage hands didn’t even bother to have him have a wireless cord or any cord at all connected to the guitar. That’s a huge insult and consumer fraud in my opinion.
So to make a long example short, I love lots of death metal and metal in general except for deathcore (Whitechapel and Lamb of God excluded) or metalcore. If bands and drummers want to use the technology they’re paying for, so be it. Synthesizers, guitar effects racks, vocal effects – why not drums? Frank Zappa used to compose music on early sampler/computers like the album “Jazz From Hell” that was not humanly possible to play. Does that make it phony? Of course not. Ultimately it isn’t the effects – if the song is good, and effects are used for aesthetic reasons and not to mask the fact the performer can’t play his or her instrument, use it. Only when blatant fraud like the example I mentioned should there be a real complaint, although because I’m a 55 year old musician, I still like true rehearsed performances. And I love Morbid Angel, so there.
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Zeke / October 17, 2016 3:37 am
I totally agree. Triggers and sample replacement are just tools in the toolbox. They aren’t inherently good or bad. And, personally, I don’t even mind pop’s “fraudulent” use of technology to make those perfect sounding songs :-)
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bloodpukesalvation / October 17, 2016 1:04 am
darkthrone’s Hate Them has an awesome drum sound. Still one of my favorites.
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surreptitious pounders / October 17, 2016 9:30 am
I don’t have a huge issue with sampled drum sounds, as much as I have an issue with laziness. It takes more time to produce an album acoustically and the end result can be very satisfying. Agalloch for one comes to mind. Who says every sound needs to be crystal clear? It makes little sense to me for a musician to invest in a quality drum set only to not use the sound that comes out of it. Also the apologists out there like this author miss the larger issue which is metal fans demand more and always have. Leave the fake shit to pop and rap. When I hear monster drumming I expect that it’s a monster drummer demolishing his kit, not a pussy at a computer copy and pasting.
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Abomination of desolation / November 30, 2016 7:16 am
This article totally misses the point. Saying “this that or the other “classic” album used it” is not a valid argument. Saying that it was painstaking to sound replace isnt a valid argument either. It doesnt change the fact that it can be abused to strip away dynamics and also have a terribly clicky sound. The notion that you need to do it to cut through in the mix is also bullshit
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Abomination of desolation / November 30, 2016 7:19 am
At the end of the day if people use samples in a way that sounds natural and dynamic then cool, but it seems most of the time this unfortunately isnt the case.
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Abomination of desolation / November 30, 2016 7:27 am
This article is just overflowing with ignorance and i could go on but ill just leave it at what i said. “Old man” “dad rock” please give me a break, im 19 but i still feel some of these older dudes all the way on the things they say about modern metal drumming
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Johnny Dahlberg / May 24, 2017 4:37 am
Samples are not equal to “clicky sound”
You can sample with whatever sound you want, you can make it sound like a woofy 30s jazz album if you want… =P
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