There was a period where that didn’t happen. I want to say the DSS to Unraveling era was when they were writing parts separately and then basically sending them to each other. Which is why a lot of songs from that time just didn’t work that well live. Toshiya even mentioned that Shinya was programming his drum parts, and when he went to play them they ended up being too difficult for him. It was a weird time.
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You would think a drummer of all people would know how to write programmed drums that are within their own abilities…
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As Saishu mentioned, the band (spearheaded by Kaoru) began relying heavily on piecing together songs on their computers and sending them back and forth amongst each other. They talked about doing it around DSS, but I have a feeling the practice started when they were writing Uroboros.
As for the Unraveling: it’s a mixed bag but songs that are good are damn good. Unraveling, Karma, and Macabre alone make it worth a listen. I loved this “era” of the band even if their output wasn’t always my favorite.
From Different Sense to Unraveling, the band wrote their heaviest material to date and it seemed like they were frantically shifting from one musical style to the other. It was wild.
I believe this was also around the time Kaoru was having hand issues and Kyo fucked up his vocals again (I think?). Shit was WILD.
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Did they mention a reason for this practice? It’s not really something that feels like it could work well to begin with. Were they that tired of seeing each others faces? 
Depending on the band it can actually work really well!
In my band, our vocalist, Erik, (who also plays guitar) and I usually begin songs ourselves on our laptops, with rough takes, programmed drums, and very rough bass lines.
We’ll send this back and forth a few times with new stuff added (we have licenses for the same recording software so sessions are easily transferrable between our machines) until it’s feeling more full, then we bring it to the rehearsal room with out drummer (who usually has been listening to different iterations as Erik and I send our stuff back and forth). At that point there’s a strong enough skeleton of the song for us to start really feeling it out as a unit
When we play live, things will always be a bit different because we’re a power-trio, we can only recreate so many layers at once on stage without backing tracks. But as long as all parties put in the work, this sort of remote writing style and piecing things together can work well and be a foundation for making some amazing art with collaborators 
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I’m not sure if they’ve ever said; but my guess would be convenience. It’s easier to stay in the comfort of your own home vs. going to the studio.
I understand the comfort of home but as someone who works partly remote partly in the office, I would always prefer being able to talk to each other in person. And my job is not even very creative in nature. I guess it depends on the person, tho.
Kaoru was taking after his biggest musical inspiration, Miles Davis, and decided that each musician needs to record their part in isolation.
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A couple songs from that era – specifically the remakes of Kiri to Mayu and Karma – had drum fills that made me think “there’s no way Shinya is gonna nail those live.” For the most part, he didn’t.
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I forget this release happened sometimes.
The Unraveling is clearly a DSS left over that got worked on and even then it’s a very forgettable song. Only plus is that I found myself grooving to it live.
Karma fuckin slaps. Im not a big fan of the OG version but I felt a lot of the energy from the OG version…but amplified. The riffage and song progression is insane. Also the last 2 minutes? Madness.
I prefer the Karasu remake over the OG one as well. Feels like it has more life/grit to it and I found myself making the stank face during that riff before the final chorus. Stellar work.
Bottom of the death valley is a LOSS on either side. The OG version is boring. And the remake somehow came out twice as boring. IDK why I’m acting shocked about my thoughts here…I hate a lot of the Kisou stuff.
Unknown despair…copy and paste my response from the previous song.
The final? I want everyone involved slapped.
Macabre? One of the best remakes of all time. This is a true example of taking the essence of an OG song and crafting something masterful. I know we’ve discussed the writing process of the DSS era but I feel in my heart that the band had to have worked on that one together in a room. It oozes out of the song.
Overall, minus a few songs, it’s a pretty cool release. I go back to the key songs from time to time. Live, most of the songs don’t translate well minus Macabre, Karma (at times), and Karasu.
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i can’t imagine anyone wanting/preferring to do this unless the members pretty actively dislike eachother.
every email-band i’ve been in has been due to poverty reasons; eg if we were higher class we might all be working 9-5s with the same day/hours off, and if members had enough income or sociomobility we could live in the same city instead of halfway across texas.
i’m assuming(?) diru was making enough money for their label ca. DSS to be employed full-time. But assuming it’s not a thing of Kyo’s boss at 7-eleven not giving him enough days off…
my completely uninformed guess would be enough members of the band had obligations in various other places, whether it’s family/personal, financial, or artistic like chasing other collabs.
personally i’ve got the sense that since Ouroborus, dir en grey operates more like a supergroup than a band - in that their schedule is slower, they don’t spend much time together, and everyone’s got other music/arts things going on, but they stay working on diru activities in the background until there’s a new release/tour and this band takes gets first call on their scheduling.
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I know and it IRKS me
I’m not even a drummer, but when I program drums for my own music where no real drummer will ever play it I’m STILL paying VERY careful attention to physical limitations of the human body 
Don’t understand this limitation. It’s just noise, basically techno in that case. I suppose going for a “natural” sound could be the case. But multiple drummers could just be working together in the hypothetical song.
Personally I think bands should shoot for the stars on recordings. If they can pull it off live that’s a bonus - if they can’t at least their ideal composition (or closer to it) exists somewhere.
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It’s just the aesthetic I’m going for. I have no problem layering in other things (I love building percussion loops that get mixed in with the drums, actually!). But because, for my solo music, I’m programming everything that isn’t my guitar/bass playing and a few things played in on a keyboard, I’m trying to do things to make those programmed elements feel a bit more human
With the drums, even if the final mix is very polished and punchy, I’m trying to start from a point of programming them with the dynamics of a human, not hitting more things than a person has limbs for at once, etc… It would take a really good drummer to do some of it in real life, but it’s still possible. At least, I like to think so lol
Yeah probably this. Remember reading somewhere that they all live pretty far apart so physically getting together to write is probably a pain in the arse.
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Bauhaus and many others have found success with the exquisite corpse method, but it seems like these tracks in question had more collaboration than those. EC is literally just write shit and make it into a song by stitching it all together.