One tiny small itsy-bitsy part I can't figure out by ear

[Rot]

My fav band (beside TOOL) dropped new EP. I’ve been to see them live on Thursday and got hyped and decided to learn one of the new songs - by ear obviously as there is literally no tabs. The band is a bit… shall we say, Obscure. Sphinx. Obscure Sphinx. Nevermind.

I am quite close to learning the whole song by ear (that’s new lol) apart from one tiny fragment - and by that I have a general, rough idea of what is being played, just not 100% sure how exactly. This will make sense in a second.

I took the liberty of preparing a sample in two versions - one with guitars slightly forward and one with guitars isolated (my the magic and grace of our AI overlords). There’s still some bass and drums and vocals bleeding in but tiny enough amounts that it can be ignored:

The tiny part in question is the ending of the riff (repeated 2x), the one that sounds as if there were open strings involved.

Luckily, there’s also some vids from the shows (link already with timestamp for your convenience):

Obscure Sphinx live from Progresja, part I (17.01.2025 - Progresja, Warszawa)

Important to note - as far as I know, the tuning is DADADGBE.
I see (and hear) him going to 5th fret on 7th string, picking note there, picking <> with an upstroke, waiting a bit, and then two(?) strokes, while going to 3rd fret and doing something similar again.
I assume the upstroke w/ longer note is either open strings, or:

-0 -0
-0 -0
-5 and then -3

starting with 5th string (does that make sense?) though I could swear there is something else going on in the lower notes that I can’t put my finger on, and to further my confusion, I can’t see him play, except for that another downstroke after the longer upstroke.
I tried to write it all down in Guitar Pro, but honestly could not figure out proper note lenghts at all. All I managed to find out is that the track is probably in 103BPM and that’s it.
I’ve been sitting on this lick for like 2 days now and it’s driving me nuts that I can’t figure out what is going on lol.

[JBakerman]

That doesn’t seem like the right tuning. FYI I found this easier to hear with the actual song and Amazing Slow Downer’s stereo KA (Karaoke/center remover) function. AI extractors like Moises can be great for certain things (drums & vocals in particular) but tend to mangle distorted guitar in strange ways when the mix is dense enough IME.

[Rot]

@JBakerman

That doesn’t seem like the right tuning

TBH the tuning I got is from the previous albums, but they are known to mess things up a bit, i.e. they would use 3 tunings in the past, including F# standard on 6-strings, but until now they did not go below D on 8.
The bass however is tuned ADADGC… That’s a lot of confusion. It’s very well possible that my tuning is not up to date.

I put your tab in Guitar Pro and it sounds close, I just checked how it would sound if I switched back to DADADGBE just to satisfy my curiosity and adjusted with what I thought I was hearing and came up with this:

What do you think? Also I don’t see him playing open 7th string, so maaaaybe there should be 2nd fret there…

@JBakerman

Amazing Slow Downer’s stereo

Oh, that might be useful, thanks, will need to check it out

@JBakerman

AI extractors like Moises can be great for certain things (drums & vocals in particular) but tend to mangle distorted guitar in strange ways when the mix is dense enough IME.

Yep, that’s my experience as well, though it’s still better than nothing. To add to your point, with ERG guitars tuned this low it also confuses a lot of guitars with bass, so the tracks bleed into each other. Still nice to have it so I can practice with actual drums / use it to hear what drums and bass are doing so I can program MIDIs when I finally get to recording some covers.

[JBakerman]

I think it’s pretty much exactly what I posted. The higher open string notes are definitely F#-B, not D-G.

[Rot]

Ah yes, sorry, wrong strings lol, like so:

It gives me the right vibe now, the only issue I have is that I am not 100% sure if he did de-tune the G string to F#, I’ve seen him use the same guitar to play other songs that I know for a fact are in DADADGBE, but then again it would be quite easy to quickly downtune one string.

Anyway, variations between tunings sound like this:

In any case, thank you very much for the help, I don’t think I would figure it out without you, I appreciate that a lot.

[Rot]

To follow up on this, I started programming guitar lines in MIDI over the actual song to see if there are any notes clashing either way. My logic being, if I can’t hear any clashes between midi piano/synth and guitars, that means I got the lines right.

So I programmed both one after the other, and to be honest, I can’t tell for certain lol, I need someone with better ears, but I think the second version sounds better…?