This settles it, METALLICA DID speed up this track! (Here's how it sounds at normal speed)

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]Hey everybody, Mike here from The Art of Guitar. Today I'm here just with a really fast video. It's a followup to one that I did a little while ago where I discovered the drum track, the isolated drum track from Metallica's cover of The Prince. I first heard it on a cassle. I forgot that's what they called them, the singles that were on the cassette. Cassette singles. Cassin.

[00:00:20]Anyway, listening to the drum track, I heard that the drum sounded a lot higher pitched. So, I listened to the bread fan drum tracks which were recorded around the same time period and those sounded more, you know, normal. So, everything was just pitched normally and then I played the Prince and things sounded like Looney Tunes. It was crazy. Well, even though a lot of people were agreeing with me that they probably sped up the track to make it sound faster and tighter. Uh, the solo, by the way, is really what I was focusing on because it sounded almost cartoonishly sped up. But uh I figured Kirk Hammet, you know, maybe soloed at a slower speed and then they sped up the whole tune alto together and it sounds almost impossible to play clean. But I went back and I listened to the drum track again and I noticed something that was so obvious that I can't believe I missed it. So I thought I would make this video and explain it. And then I thought I would go the next step further. Take the track and slow it down to its original beats per minute, approximately what I believe it was. I actually like the way it felt and the way it sounded better than after they sped it up. And I wonder if after you hear the two different versions if you're going to agree with me or if you're going to be like, "No, I think they made a good choice speeding it up."

[00:01:29]So, I did this before with another video, but this is a lot of fun. I'm going to go over to my ProTools area, my computer lab over there, and I'm basically just going to screen record and show you guys what I did, and then I'm going to show you the final result.

[00:01:42]even though I know this video is going to get copywritten copywritten copyrighted, but uh I think it's worth it just to give you guys a little bit of an example of what it sounds like. So, let's go over there. Okay, just like magic, we're over here at the Pro Tools setup. So, I'll show you what I did.

[00:01:59]First of all, I went and got a bunch of tracks offline. So, I have bread fan.

[00:02:04]I've got the bread fan drums only. So, you can hear those. Then, I have the Prince and the Prince drums only. And what I did was I did some calculations because I heard something really crazy.

[00:02:15]So check out the beginning of the drum track to the Prince and see if you notice something kind of strange.

[00:02:25]Did you guys hear that? So when the countoff happens in the beginning, this uh high hat sounds regular. It sounds normal. So it's like one, two, one, two, three, boom, and all of a sudden it shoots up like a whole bunch of uh sense as far as pitch goes. So listen again.

[00:02:43]Hear that tone? Now listen when the drums kick in.

[00:02:49]It's like what the hell happened? So I thought that the first count off is probably the original tempo of the song.

[00:02:58]So I went through all this stuff. I took the first three hits because those are evenly spaced out. really the first two hits and I put them in another uh session and I basically lined it up with a grid to time it and it timed out at about 155 beats per minute. Then I timed out the regular tempo to the prints like the general tempo overall and it was about 165 to 166 or seven. And so I thought okay we'll just say 10 beats per minute difference basically. So, what I thought I would do is take the actual tune, which is right here.

[00:03:38]So, that's the sped up version or their version, which was sped up by 10 beats per minute approximately. And I would put it into vary speed. I would change the mode of the track, which is a cool thing you could do on ProTools. So, if I slow it down now to 155, now when it kicks in, it's going to be at the original tempo that it was, and the guitars and bass are going to be tuned down just like I believe that they did for this track. And then when they sped it up, it brought it to regular E standard, or you would call it A440.

[00:04:10]Okay, check this out.

[00:04:15]Does that sound badass? It's only 10 beats per minute difference, but it sounds heavier, chunkier. And by the way, when the vocals come in, there is a bit of an anomaly because what I believe they did was they recorded the drums, the guitars, and bases at that slower speed and tuned down a little bit and then they sped it up and then I believe they had James sing over it because I don't think they wanted James voice to be pitched up because it would make it sound higher than it really was. So, I that's just my guess, but check it out when the vocals come in. It does sound cool with the vocals a little bit lower because I'm slowing it down here. Let's find it.

[00:04:55]Takes a while for the vocals to come in.

[00:05:03]>> See, doesn't that sound cool? Okay, I'm going to go back. Now, the reason I'm not playing the count off right now is because I'm down to 155 beats per minute. So, this will be really low now.

[00:05:14]See that? Okay. So, when Metallica originally recorded this track, it sounded more like this in the studio.

[00:05:27]Sounds awesome. Now, I'll put it back to normal.

[00:05:35]Doesn't it give it sort of like a Mickey Mouse feel? It just sounds weird to me now. So, I'll do it the opposite way.

[00:05:41]Here is the way they actually um sped it up and released it.

[00:05:48]And here's the way it originally sound as they were recording it.

[00:05:58]So, if you watch my original video on this, I'll link it below. You'll see that um there's a lot more going on that I explain as far as tuning the guitars and stuff like that. But, I thought that was crazy. Here's some more proof. Okay, so let's go back to the uh normal tempo here. Now, if I play just the drums of bread fan, listen to this.

[00:06:32]See, they sound pretty close to normal.

[00:06:33]They may have sped that up a tiny bit, but I don't think so.

[00:06:38]maybe.

[00:06:40]But now listen to the Prince drums again.

[00:06:43]That high hat just sounds that that high ringing happening. It's kind of crazy.

[00:06:48]So that is really the tell for me is between those two. But then when I heard the first couple hits on the high hat of that track, it just blew my mind that I didn't catch it before.

[00:07:01]So that would have been really cool to add to the first video. So, this is kind of an addendum, I guess you could say, but adding on to it. And I thought it would be really cool for you guys to hear what the print sounds like at its original tempo. One more time, I'm going to go to where the vocals are.

[00:07:21]See?

[00:07:30]>> Badass. Okay, back to the speed that they released it at.

[00:07:35]Same part.

[00:07:40]Not the same part.

[00:07:50]>> Much rather hear.

[00:07:59]>> Yeah, it plots along a little differently, doesn't it? But I feel like I can bob my head to it a little bit better. So, let's do the head bob. But uh let's do the head bob experiment here.

[00:08:14]Now, let's bring it back up.

[00:08:18]Feels rushed to me. Maybe it's cuz I'm older and I'm getting slow or something in my old age, but let me know if you feel the same. I want to put the entire track on for you guys to hear it, but I'm already going to get copyrighted for this. But if I put the whole track, they might actually make it so I can't even put the video up. So, I have to make a decision. So, I have to kind of chop it up like this a little bit. But, let's go to another section just for fun. And I'll put it down to the original studio tempo as they're recording. Maybe like the solo section would be kind of cool to see.

[00:08:53]Oh, this part too.

[00:09:00]That groove is so hard. I love it. Okay, let's go to the beginning where the solo is.

[00:09:10]See, even at that speed, that's that part's really difficult. That's why I kind of think that they may have sped or slowed it down even more for the solo part, but I can't really guarantee that that's what they did. Okay, back to full speed. the way they released it just gets ridiculous. I still love it, don't get me wrong. It's one of my favorite Metallica covers. Uh Bread Fan is the other one actually that I really, really love. Um Garage Days was a huge album for me actually. Um the original.

[00:09:41]So I love when they do covers. These came out during the singles era and then they put them all on Garage Inc. I believe. So, that's the story from as far as I know. Okay, everyone. What do you think as far as uh how it sounds when it's at its original tempo? Is it better? Is it weird? Is it, you know, the way they should have gone with it?

[00:10:01]Because I think they should have gone with it that way. It would have been really cool. Okay, everyone. Thank you for watching my weird little experimental video. And I love doing these strange deep dives going into the lab and breaking things apart and, you know, taking things apart and seeing how they work. So, okay. We'll catch you later. Bye-bye.