Distortion + Crosspicking?

Playing Technique
#1

Hey all!

I’ve been slowly working my way through the Getting Started content the last few weeks and have been trying to apply some principles. Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself and this content is covered in future lessons (and if so, which ones?), but I was wondering, is there any talk about applying crosspicking to more distorted playing? It seems that every time it comes up it’s in conjunction with acoustic guitar where the notes ring out and there’s no muting.

Are there any significant changes to make to the technique when using it for distorted riffs? From my understanding, you’re just planting your hand on the guitar, making the dart-thrower/reverse dart-thrower motion, and to include string muting, you can just move your wrist around while maintaining the motion. I’m finding it a bit challenging to do however, and would love if there were some slowed-down video examples to help see this technique in action on distorted electric guitar.

Personally, I’ve been trying to learn this lick from a Dillinger Escape Plan Song, Panasonic Youth, which I think would lend itself to cross picking well:

Any advice or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

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#2

X-picking and muting can be done… but it typically takes a bit of adjustment. I went through a few months where I just couldn’t do it, because I felt like my form required my wrist to hover a couple inches above the strings. But I’ve since made adjustments, and now I can do both simultaneously.

I would say that initially, don’t worry about it too much. Just develop your X-picking form in the most comfortable, economic way you can… and later on… you can kinda ‘work-in’ muting methods.

#3

Thanks for posting! And thanks for reading the Getting Started guide. Makes it a lot easier to address questions like this.

As to dart-throwing motions, there are two wrist approaches we talk about in that crosspicking lesson. Each one uses a different dart throwing motion. The Molly Tuttle approach is dart-thrower. The Andy Wood one is reverse dart-thrower. If you do both dart and reverse dart in the same motion, that’s stringhopping - so don’t do that.

Of the two efficient approaches, only the Andy one has muting. The nice thing is that no adjustment to the motion is necessary. That’s the trick. If you try to mute the typical “dwps” way, where you roll the hand onto its pinky side, you can’t do the motion any more. The hand needs to pivot, and it’s pivoting from more or less the center of the wrist.

So the pivot is where the muting actually comes from. It’s not coming from the usual right side of the hand like you typically see in metal. So for a strings ringing type sound, you put the pivot on the bridge or the body, and the strings vibrate unobstructed. For a muted sound, you put the pivot on the strings themselves and voilà, muting. The movement does not change, just the location of the hand.

For an alternative approach, you can try the second crosspicking method which allows more traditional muting with the right side of the palm. There are a bunch of muted examples in this talk:

And of course there is the Martin Miller / Kiko Loureiro method which allows constant right-side palm muting as well because it’s mainly a finger motion. I haven’t worked on that so I can’t comment.

#4

Timely question and timely post - I have what’s basically a crosspicking mechanic similar to Andy’s, near as I can tell, which I basically use for everything. I’ve been trying to work out how exactly that works for fast alternate picked scale runs, and I THINK it’s working, but I’ll have to sit down wiith a guitar tonight and check what I’m doing against this.

I’ve been meaning to post to ask this question for weeks now. :rofl:

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#5

Thank you so much for the detailed reply Troy, I’ll give those videos a look! Luckily as it turns out even before I started the series, my technique is closest to Andy Wood’s, so this should make for a hopefully easier transition. I’m still not 100% sure if I’m doing the motion right, but hopefully that’ll start to come together soon.

#6

That’s the main thing. Feel free to post a clip if you like and we’ll take a look.

#7

Alright, here’s my very sloppy attempt at playing this riff! Haven’t worked on it too much yet, so don’t judge too harshly :grimacing:

Down the neck:

From the front:

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#8

Honestly, this looks great - the motion is right on. I can see you’re still feeling your way through it, but you’re doing it and that’s what matters. Nice job here.

This rhythm on this pattern is pretty tricky. I have no idea how these prog guys remember these crazy time signatures. As you make the motion habitual, I’d supplement this with some more straightforward patterns, which will give you a chance to feel the smoothness of it. Three strings in one direction / forward roll, three strings back and forth, and so on. Whatever keeps it fresh.

Try not to hammer this for hours at a time. It’s more about feeling the smoothness of it, stepping away, coming back, recreating that smoothness, and so on.

Again, sounds good and looks good so far!

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#9

Thank you so much Troy! It’s good to know I’m on the right track. Really appreciate your quick and detailed responses.

#10

Hey Troy, one more question connected with all of this.

Do you think that it’s possible, using Andy Wood’s crosspicking technique, to completely supplant UWPS/DWPS? It seems like the crosspicking trajectory is enough to help you escape the strings and if you’re able to keep up that same line of motion at higher speeds, you should technically be able to play things like fast 3NPS scales with crosspicking. Has there been any consensus on this?

#11

Are you asking are there players who do 200bpm where, when you film them, you see a curved pickstroke on every note? I haven’t seen it. But there are lots of players who look like that at 150-160bpm. Molly is a good example. Olli Soikkeli also.

I suspect that we probably won’t ever see someone whose primary picking motion looks like that for all types of phrases. Mainly because these players are self-taught, and they’re naturally optimizing for the line they are playing. That’s what pickslanting is, an optimization. The hand figures out that there is no point in trying escape in both directions because the lick doesn’t require it.

When you watch Andy Wood play 3nps scale lines at shred speeds, his pickstrokes only escape when they need to. Here’s some more detail on that:

Ultimately if what you are really asking is, can I have a technique where there is no speed limit, and I don’t perceive or am not conscious of the fact that my technique changes slightly based on the phrase I am playing? Yes, definitely. Molly, Andy, Olli - they all streamline their movements when they start playing really fast lines that don’t require two-way escaping, and none of them are conscious of doing this.

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#12

The same curved motion absolutely can be used to 200 bpms for 3NPS. I do that as a warmup. I am 99% sure I am not 2WPS… each pick-stroke looks and feels identical to me.

However… ‘Double-Escape Speed’ doesn’t translate to 1NPS speed. At least it doesn’t for me… at least not yet.

Currently, I have to articulate more and get further above the string when I do 1NPS stuff, and that limits my speed. The best I can probably do is ~170 bpm, and that’s not everyday. My comfort zone limit is closer to 150ish.

For me, the reason has to do with tracking 3NPS being much easier than 1NPS. those extra two notes give you a lot more time to ‘prepare’ to move to the next string.

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#13

Also worth a peek is the Teemu interview, there’s a very brief example where Teemu shows his WIP crosspicking motion which is high-gain and has nice crisp muting.