Just for fun check out Les Paul’s trem picking at 1:15!
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Lets say the dude was 90 percent metered… then thats metered… i would say its unreasonably nitpicky to take a mistake or two here and there and say “hes not playing metered” shit happens, its music. Nothing is ever 100 percent perfect at any speed.
What I find interesting is that for the tremolo part, he seems to be doing DSX with a blended wrist-only motion (lots of flexion-extension), but for non-tremolo, he switches to USX with a supinated forearm-wrist motion. Good foresight by the camera operator to give us future nerds such a great viewing angle! 
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Yes you’re right it’s really interesting! At some part in the video slowed down, I swear I even saw him doing a downstroke sweep with that USX orientation to get to the next string. He was a proper shredder haha.
This is all over pre pro tools midi jack off “music.” Rick Beato talks about this when he covered 70s prog like Yes. Bands played with a “feel” of a tempo and there are slight imperfections. A lot of this stemmed from playing live for years together as a tight unit pre recording because recording time and access to studios was a luxury pre DAW. If you want machine like precision 100% of the time sell your guitars and only make EDM in ableton forever.
I don’t really care who gets mad at this because this “everything needs to be perfect” mentality is why a vast majority of modern rock and metal is unlistenable and soulless and we now have to discuss people “fake playing.” Auto tune ruined vocal pop and the quantized midi mentality is killing rock/metal.
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Thanks for the comment and support @Dissonant_Timbres , I think we come from a similar school of thought.
As a closer, in addition to you, a few of the forum’s metalhead regulars here (some of whom I keep in touch with off-site) have told me to drop this and that I’m wasting my time, horse to water, etc. Lots of baseless claims in here, such as claims of 30NPS tremolo picking and a poster at the beginning of the thread claiming that “hordes” of players can play 180 BPM 16th notes “all day”, whatever that even means. This is in addition to one person claiming my playing above in that clip I posted was out of time and wrong, even though it’s a faster version of the official Emperor Scattered Ashes tab that I verified with a dozen live performances, some of which are professionally shot… My version is note perfect with unmetered tremolo, exactly as they play it live. Lmao…
Anyways, I’m guessing the one statement about “hordes” of players is based off that unverified/self-reported speed poll that the Cracking the Code team sent out a few years back, which could mislead lesser experience players. An example of what happens when you shoot for an unverified or seemingly arbitrary goal exists in this thread. To anyone in doubt, watch the cover video, and count the pickstrokes; they never lie. Sometimes he’s in, other times he’s out; seemingly in-between worlds for a floating effect… The very definition of unmetered, and the very definition of black metal playing which formed in part as a reactionary movement in the 90s to the over-quantization and studio trickery of death metal around the same time. Which is why his playing is great, and is as good as it needs to be for these sorts of passages.
Even in spite of this, once the person who watched OP’s video realized he was probably wrong, he conveniently shifts the goalpost to suggest for an arbitrary amount of 10% unmetered playing to still count as being in time and locked to the grid. Yes, because you can be half-pregnant; you can be in-time, but out-of-time. Better not drop to 11% unmetered, or you’re out. What about 37%? 62%? Why not 85%? This isn’t the way music theory and notation works, and it’s not the way you should learn to play this genre of music, as me and several other experienced players in this genre advised last summer. Full stop.
Here’s this thread’s mic drop moment. If you think you’re hot shit and can sustain 180+ BPM 16th notes or whatever for minutes straight with machine-gun-like timing, go read here and then further down, too. The poster in question is John Taylor:
That’s all, there are a couple of you who I’d have a lot more respect for if you messaged me and apologized for giving such objectively awful advice, running this thread off-track from the get-go, and promoting intellectual dishonesty and unrealistic standards. All of this while providing
literally no proof of your own ability to do the things you claim to be able to do/the things you claim many people can do, or in the more simple alternative, recorded proof of the things you claim are common, which by virtue of their commonality should be easy to find and post.
Just lol.
Will not be reading or responding further. The mods should lock this shit thread up, seeing as it has run its course. Stay safe and healthy.
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@Rot have you considered to use elbow motion?
I mean there’s a huge difference between tremolo and runs trough many strings. Quote that @guitarenthusiast posted is definetely true for runs (my normal speed is about 120-130 bpm except for scales which I drilled a bit…), but pure one string tremolo becames easy and faster when using elbow.
Main point here is to consider tremolo as downstrokes… that kind of ‘bad’ downstokes where you can’t escape a string on a upstroke. In that case it makes it easier to keep the rhythm. I played twinkle-twinkle-little star on 180bpm for 2 mintes and it’s not that difficult.
…and I didn’t get where this ‘30nps’ number came from. Even at 240bpm 16th it’s just 16 notes per secomd.
Baseless? Hey im not a bullshit artist, i said NEARLY 30 NPS. Okay heres around 24 NPS but its unmetered. I havent played for speed like this for a long time… and im cold… give me about a week or two and ill post 32 NPS locked in with accents every 8 notes.
And in the next few days ill post 30 minutes at 180 bpm 16th notes. I just dont have time because im flying to korea then back home to canada… (im in cambodia right now, and things have been interesting trying to get back home 
)
If you can hear individual pickstrokes then it isn’t tremolo picking, it’s just picking.
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The video show both lead and rythm parts, jumping between them. Rythm part had some 8th notes, lead was 16th notes and as far as I can tell the 16th notes were there looking at the waveforms.
For the sake of argument I can record something to a metronome and see what’s really going on.
Not really, I would get too tense.
Hey All,
I think it’s best if we try to keep this discussion on topic, and if we try to avoid that this turns into a picking speed competition!
The purpose of the thread opened by @Rot, as far as I understand, is to discuss ways to improve/practice tremolo picking as required in the metal tunes he likes.
By the way @Rot, I thought your cover was great, I wouldn’t worry too much about being exactly on the grid. Only MIDI files are exactly on the grid 
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True it got a bit off track but i am responding to a request to basically show that im not a bs artist. I guess i can do that in a new thread.
I am not trying to compete or show im faster than anyone, merely responding to claims that i have made unsubstantiated claims. I wouldnt presume for a second that i can hold a candle to anyone on here. Thats not my point.
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@Rob_The_Viking, I was not referring to you in particular, and your tremolo is clearly great! I am just worried that this type of discussion can easily become non-constructive. I think in this case it was a result of the interaction between several people, all in good faith as far as I can see.
In general, all of us, let’s try to avoid to push discussions in the “betcha can’t play this” direction
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Thanks man. Yeah it got a little non-constructive and i suppose if someone thinks im full of shit i should be chill enough to just let it go. Im workin on it, hahaha.
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@tommo Thanks for stepping in. I received a PM from @Rob_The_Viking who was polite in his words and figured I’d return to leave things on a good note since he took the time to post a video.
@Rob_The_Viking You are objectively skilled in this style of playing. The clip you posted is very, very fast. Many people would like to have that level of tremolo picking…
…However, slowing the clip down and accounting for manual (generous) counting of pickstrokes, your hand is moving somewhere in the range of 240-260 16th notes, with a bunch of hiccups due to what might be slight errors in your motor programming. That’s very very fast, but, as I suspected, but not the 24 notes per second you are claiming. Which is fine, this happened before on this forum more than once. You have all the right hand speed and then some. Most players in black metal do not write using that level of speed, so you’re ahead.
To end things, it seems like we’re all in agreement: People absolutely can play that fast as I stated a few posts back, but it is a rare, rare skill. I can. Check my post history for a Soundcloud clip, as well as a Van Halen tremolo clip personally verified by Troy in the range of ~220-240 ish. You obviously can. Rot can probably do it, too.
We can chalk this up to a win for everyone involved since we all likely learned something. 
Thanks to everyone for being pleasant, I should have been a little bit more reserved but I am very passionate about this genre and how to teach it. Best wishes and stay safe/healthy.
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Nah, I can’t, my tops is just a bit above 180 for now, but thanks so much for having a little faith
In general I would like to wrap this up by saying how grateful I am to all of you, when I first started this topic I was almost certain that 4nps 180 was waaaay too fast for me, to the point I was about to give up and start playing doom/sludge.
You guys not only convinced me to keep practicing, but also showed me how.
Cheers!
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Do you mean 30 notes per second? That is equivalent to 16th notes at 450 bpm if I calculated correctly. That’s John Taylor fast.
Yeah i was trying pretty hard to tremolo fast for a few years there. It would take a while to get that speed back. But yeah i think thats aboot right.
I would feel like tweaks and twangs in my arm when i was doing that all the time so i backed away from it. Plus its not musically useful really. I just wanted to see what i could do.
Edit. Okay i just watched that dude. He sounds like he might be a bit faster. But similar speed. Maybe a couple notes less than him per second? Its not that hard to max that out over the course of a few years.
I can confirm that @Rob_The_Viking is super fast
But I also feel obliged to point out that there is no evidence of any player in the world achieving 450bpm 16th notes.
The fastest recorded tremolo is indeed John Taylor’s at approximately 360bpm = 24 notes per second.
In fact the fastest repetitive (and controlled) human motion ever recorded in a lab setting (including fastest drummer competitions!) is… also from John Taylor with approx 11-12 cycles per second (which indeed would result in approx 22-24 notes per second if you do two pickstrokes per cyle).
Well it wasnt 30 then hahaha.
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