We Need to Talk About Lars Ulrich's Drums

I've seen some discussion about whether Lars drums on the official live video of One is fake. I usually don't bother but I thought it was fun to compare the official video with a video recording from the audience to see if it differed.

Official video:

Fan video:

Article in Metal Addicts:

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[DEADLINETV]

I think they did "too good of a job", especially on the double kick part. Lars was never that tight so they should've programmed some inconsistencies too. It probably had to be done quickly, but it's now so obvious that people are noticing. But yeah, I get your point!

[MattsDrumCovers]

I love Lars but his drumming has been just plain wrong. He overplays everything except the important bits that ppl want to hear. He looks uncomfortable when he plays and his sticks weigh as much as the moon. Admittedly I’m only 46 and I look for ways now to pace myself but if I was Lars I would at least just play the record. He always said he played for the song, he doesn’t he overplays the song. Having said that, I’m glad he’s still playing lol.

[CreativeMindsAudio]

I feel like sample replacement isn’t faking it, as most things have separate video/streaming mixes than monitor mixes and FOH mixes. Often times the live feed is more of a ‘studio’ vibe vs FOH. So sample replacement makes sense to have on the ‘live’ feed as it often is delayed a bit and can have some latency and more plugins and what not on there for more polish.

Altering performances is a no go in my book. That’s not right or fair to the fans. That being said, I’m okay with overdubs altered to the original recording and stuff like that to enhance the original live recording. But as soon as you change the live performance red flag for a live recording imo.

[Jonathan_Doe_]

It wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve redone the drums. He messed up so much even my non drumming friends went ‘ooo’ at how badly out of time he was getting. We walked away early because it was just sad to watch the other 3 being dragged down so hard by him.

[ulf]

Glad you did this I've played drums for 30 years & worked as a drum tech with a signed pro band on tours.

As far back as "Death Magnetic" which I was there for he can't play the double kick part in "One" anymore he is possibly the worst pro drummer I've heard or seen live.

Cleaning up live recordings has been a thing for years that's not an issue the issue is when you physically do NOT play the part fans hear live then it appears on your official video, that's not right & is plain scamming your own fans.

[Kalavinka]

Shit happens at festivals. I was at Psycho Las Vegas 2 years ago and the sound for Mayhem and Wolves in the Throne Room started off rough as hell.

[johnpeters]

apparently, on the famous Frampton live performance, the only real element that remains in the audio is the high hat…. So they basically just kept the tempo map and studio recorded the rest.

[millerman]

@4:15 Sounds a bit like old SSD drum samples :)
@4:42 Sounds like a technical/mixing issue, there are suddenly two very different sounding kick drums playing at almost the same time, the latency between those two kicks makes it sound like a flanger/echo effect.

[KBizzy]

On the Hardwired album any fast double kick part is CLEARLY comped in with samples, as the kick sounds noticeably different in those parts in every way. Mostly the release and overall tone. Very noticeable, and we all know he simply can’t play like that in reality anymore. Even when they play the songs live, he omits those fast double kicks and ‘cheats’ a bit by the way he subtracts kick drum hits.

[DavidOakesMusic]

*NEWSFLASH* Every band touches up their live audio / video . EVERY ONE OF THEM.

[billyhughes]

Bro -- great vid. And you're so right, even back in the DAY when we just had live albums bands would take the tapes back into the studio and overdub/fix parts to make it sound better. I've read/heard all the stories about the KISS Alive records and doctoring them after the fact.

[claywoodslim]

To be honest, I wonder why they don't fix it live. I mean, if he can't play the double kick drum pattern, they could easily have a rodie or something playing that part on a sample trigger backstage and just mute his kickdrum on that part of the song and he'd probably get away with it.

[BR_Lnx]

I know I am a bit late... But anyway, I was there. His mic was indeed not working at the start (the audio in their video is either "fake" or they have a separate mic for their official recordings?), and the double bass sounded really mid live. I was at the very front and couldn't hear it. It could be the mic still not working, or he just used a single bass as he was tired. HOWEVER, his double bass sounded really good during 72 seasons and other songs they played. Was a great experience for my first concert ever.

EDIT: Ok, I just watched your vid now and noticed how at 5:37 you can't hear his kick/bass drum. What I think happened is his second bass drum's mic really wasn't working. Reason is if you watch their official videos, Lars for some weird reason uses the left bass drum by itself sometimes instead of using his right bass drum (drummers usually dont do that?), so it could be he was trying to play his left bass drum there as he sometimes does BUT it didn't work (maybe he noticed through the stage monitors) and thats why he fixes the bass afterwards. But it's just a theory...

[r.deanmcknight]

As some one who grew up with Metallica from the beginning, gen x here, and has seen Metallica numerous times in concert as well as hung out with at various venues, Lars hasn't been this tight on double bass since And Justice For All. You can really tell how bad he was when the album St Anger came out, he really struggled with that one and it wasn't tight either

[paszTube]

What I find odd is that I rarely hear people complain about the quantized to death, all velocities set to 127 drum tracks, equally quantized to death bass and guitar parts, robotic sounding autotuned (and quantized!) vocals in modern (metal) productions. I say modern but that quantizing and tuning shit has been going on for maybe 25 years now.

I get why producers want to fix distracting fuck ups in recordings (often easier and quicker to do that doing overdubs and retakes) but I get the feeling a lot of producers are just lazy. Select all -> conform to grid / quantize -> done!

[lewisrichards]

The mic on the left base drum wasn't going through the PA. Thats why it sounded like he was playing 3 base drum hits instead of 6. You can even see the vibration on the heads of the base drums. He was playing it you just didn't hear it. Also of course they cleaned it up for YouTube.

It looks like one of the drums had problems with either mic, or a trigger. It's obviously corrected, but we'll probalby never know if not hearing one of his drums threw him off, or did he run out of stamina, or if he played it right but not quite in pocket as the corrected version is not even knowing that one of his drums is inaudible.

[wjm]

i think the edits are fine as it allows for a better listening experience, what people don't want is to feel cheated thinking that the performance is entirely authentic, perhaps just be transparent and include some disclaimer that the performance has been edited or some sort.

[novemberzed]

Last year, Flemming Rasmussen held an interview at a local venue after which a Metallica coverband played. He said that Lars struggled with simpler grooves when they recorded, but complex stuff, like the doublekick in One, that was all done in one take. Perhaps Lars just stopped paying attention to his playing after 1988.

[leif]

Of course their is something wrong with the sound!! Seen them live 4 times on this tour. They have played One before and after this performance at Download and the doubble bass sounded absolutely normal. Everybody knows Lars isn´t that great BUT he is nowhere near this bad. Their are probably hundred live versions of the song out their and none of it sounds like this. So if Lars isn´t having some kind of physical breakdown here, the problem is 100% sound technical.