I’m posting a very brief demo of my playing a scale, full speed and half speed. Here are the links:
Any constructive criticism appreciated. I’ve been stuck at a max speed of about 110 for years.
This looks like pretty “textbook” “string-hopping”. Is this the same speed as your max tremolo?
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As @Pepepicks66 pointed out, this is the stringhopping motion. This type of motion will hit a speed limit at a moderate tempo.
Can you film yourself playing a fast tremolo on one string? Without thinking too much about how you do it. Just whatever is most comfortable.
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Excellent advice from the others! I would only add a question: where’s the other string? 
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Thanks for the response. Yup, I was pretty sure that I was string hopping. My max tremolo speed is just a little faster.
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Thanks for the response. Yes, I suspected that I was string hopping. Here’s a tremolo demo:
Thanks for the response. My secret is that I play a 5-string electric “mandocaster” tuned in 5ths. I thought the 4 notes per string in the scale would give it away.
Right, looks like that same motion so this makes sense. That’s great news though, because you know what isn’t working so it’s time to move onto something else that does work. There is a whole section in the Pickslanting Primer on finding a fast motion. Not sure if you have access to that or not.
One you may like to try is the motion that would happen if you were scribbling on a piece of paper really fast, using just the wrist. If you do that on the guitar, you’ll find that your down strokes go slightly away from the body of the guitar. A way to help make sure this happens is to use slightly bigger pick strokes and allow your pick to rest on the string that is positionally above the one you’re tremoloing on, but going slightly diagonal on the down stroke. That should help the upstroke and downstroke to use different muscles as well, not the hoppy ‘extension’ we’re seeing on both the up and down strokes in the examples you posted.
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Thanks, joebegly. I’ve been through the Pickslanting Primer and identified the motion you describe as the closest to mine. I can move the pen very fast on the paper, but can’t transfer that to the string. As soon as the string is there, my speed crashes. I’ll try what you suggest.
Sounds good. One thing I think helps with that motion is some pronation. The side of the thumb can make gentle contact with the bass strings. Also, making sure the forearm is resting on the guitar body.
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Thanks for the video. Ideally on one string, you’d want to be reaching the 150-160bpm 16ths. You will already be able to move faster than this, just need to get it happening on the guitar.
The table tapping tests are worth taking in the primer, but also, just experimenting with whatever motion gets you at least in this ballpark. Whether that’s wrist, forearm and wrist, elbow etc, whichever seems to come easiest to you to get you in this ballpark.
It should feel relatively easy and smooth around this speed. The stringhopping motion won’t usually be able to reach that speed, at least not without a hell of a lot of tension!
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I went through the Pickslanting Primer again and got some good results from just changing the way I hold the pick. My tremolo speed went up significantly. Maybe a breakthrough. I’ll report when I’ve done some serious investigation.
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This can certainly help simply by just putting your hand in a different position. I discussed a small bit of this in another thread recently.
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Hi there! You shouldn’t really need to do that. Tremolo is really the first step towards fluid picking technique, and your first goal should be to find a reasonably fast and comfortable motion that does not require a lot of thinking / planning to get going.
As the others have more or less said (all great advice btw 
) you basically get there by trial and error, trying different setups and pick grips (and I would say even pick shape and stiffness). Important point: the tremolo should be fast immediately, no need to do many reps etc.:
However, the good thing is that the trial and error does not need to be completely blind
The concepts you can keep in mind for inspiration during this search are in these sections of the primer: https://troygrady.com/primer/testing-your-motions/
https://troygrady.com/primer/tremolo/
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Thanks, Tommo. I have made a couple of discoveries. When I found a faster tremolo motion, I first noticed that I was using a different pick grip – trigger more than pad. But on further examination I realized that in changing the pick grip, I had slightly flexed my wrist and raised it up off the bridge, where I normally anchor my wrist. And once I raised my wrist off the bridge, my fast motion is quite clearly elbow motion, whereas my stringhopping motion is wrist. So now I need to see if I can learn to use the elbow motion in “normal” playing – in other words, control it.
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You don’t have to stick to one. You just have to be mindful of when to change.
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