I do get glimpses of playing the scalar chunk cleanly. Last few times i did, I remembered to pause for a bit, reflect on the feeling of the motion. I haven’t gotten it under the magnet yet. Hopefully soon once I have gotten consistent and clean so I can see what I’m doing.
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I don’t have a concrete practice routine for it, but I do definitely look at swiping as something that I do intentionally.
I typically play single escape lines with a helper motion to change strings, but there are lines I play where I very specifically swipe some notes instead of changing strings “cleanly” because there is a slight tonal difference and it’s a fun way to accent a note.
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I just tried the Gilbert lick with both USX and DSX to try to understand why it doesn’t work with DSX for me. And maybe it also has something to do with the motion being too powerful and therefore creating the sense of actually playing the muted string. I’m not sure this is how you perceive it as well?
USX for me is a much lighter motion which glides over the strings more easily. You can clearly hear the swiping noise still but it somehow doesn’t feel like a problem and with more gain it gets masked somewhat.
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Interesting contrast between swiping with both setups.
Yes! Do you have any footage of your attempts? Would be interesting to see and maybe we could see something that can help you.
Wow, these are both ferocious (laudatory).
I’m no swiping expert (or anything else for that matter), but it seems plausible to me that you’re doing a pseudo-DBX movement for the string changes when running USX, but not for DSX, making the swipe sound more pronounced on the latter. Also the well-known left-handed muting advantage with the USX version can’t hurt 
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I’m going to upload later in the week and hopefully get some feedback 
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Sounds great with your USX!
ETA: Wow! Just started working on this, and it’s pretty cool. I will need to work on my sync but very efficient. Going to keep work on USX downstroke swiping and DSX upstroke swiping too. I will need to review these clips from Antigravity too
I’ll probably work on a single string version sliding with pointer finger as well. More tools in the toolbox
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Yup, I intentionally use swiping for various things. I can do a whole bunch of different motions, DSX/USX/DBX/2WPS, but my most comfortable technique has always been a forearm/wrist USX motion. At slower speeds I can do a passable DBX with it, but at anything above a moderate tempo I can’t. So, there are times when I just swipe a note here or there because it’s just an easy, comfortable way to achieve what I’m after.
I had kind of a mental block about it for awhile - like it was cheating, and I was just taking the easy way out. But once I accepted that it sounded fine, and it allowed me to easily play things that were giving me a ton of trouble before, I started looking at it as just another tool in the toolbox.
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So what are you doing here exactly and how did you practice it? It looks like you’re doing USX, but how exactly is the swipe working? You’re muting the string above with your left hand?
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I thought. THOUGHT I had it down, many, many years ago. And then I came here and posted it thinking I had 'er nailed, nope. Swipe city. hah! I didn’t even know it! Anyways, I can do my half-assed swipe version pretty easily still… My apologies for the ummm terribleness… Anyways…
I swipe on upstrokes, or when I don’t want to do a very good downstroke! lol I mute a lot with my left hand. To avoid swiping I guess something “else” needs to be done, but I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t just say screw it and try to get a lot better at swiping? hahahaha I don’t know how one would go about “practicing” it systematically.
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It doesn’t sound good when you’re playing slow, but when you speed up it’s not really that noticeable. I’m guessing this is because when you’re playing slow the pick is really dragging the string more than when you’re hitting it with speed?
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@Scottulus sounds great when you’re ripping like @aliendough said. I am not good at the one string version and need to practice that.
Since I have been working at this with swiping I relate to Troy’s latest comments on another post: if you have good hand sync across the strings, with out knowing about picking escape, you’d sound pretty good. So I’m working on immaculate sync
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Just wondiner what kind of pick you’re using? I’m wondering what kind of effect the pick material has on the swiping sound?
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Sounds great @Scottulus.
When I was a teenager, I was always upset that I couldn’t get the Gilbert licks to “snarl” the way they do when Paul plays them. It turns out that the snarl was swiping noise.
I was upset because I wasn’t swiping, but I didn’t know that swiping was something that could work si well and feel and sound good. I thought any contact with other strings would very obviously feel and sound like a mistake.
Strangely enough, I knew about playing through muted strings for articulations like scream bends, etc, but I never connected the dots.
Since learning about swiping from CTC, I’ve experimented a little with deliberate swiping in my mixed-escape RDT form. This form has always had a hard, percussive attack and quite a cutting tone, which I don’t like in every context. I spent a lot of time trying to change the sonic character without much success.
I’ve since discovered mechanics that naturally have the sonic characteristics I had been trying to achieve, and when I use the mixed-escape RDT form now, I actually prefer to accentuate its aggressive sound. For me, the swiping adds to that, though I can still avoid swiping if I want to.
Also, I notice that with the dart-thrower USX and rotator cuff and elbow USX motions with the trailing edge grip, the downstroke swipes are much less audible than the upstroke swipes with the mixed-escape RDT form. I wouldn’t be able to hear or feel the swipe at some of the speeds these movements can reach.
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@aliendough See start of primer for everything regarding picks: size shape material and effect of edge picking
I’d say that it’s a bit rough because of two things; 1) It’s me playing it and 2) I haven’t really played like this in a very, very long time. I suppose that it’s kind of good that it’s at my disposal, and it represents a sort of “base” should I need to draw upon it. The “swipe” whether it’s muted, or just a string noise (which happens more often than not when I do this, as my form isn’t great for RH muting) adds a sort of inherent, umm “slop” or “messy” sound I think. Speed kind of blurs things. When it’s slowed down, it’s definitely there! Passable, but it comes at that “less than clean” price!
Nylon Flow 1.34. It helps out a lot with “chirp” but I don’t know that it makes swiping sound any better or worse. I think for that, a detailed audio scrub in Logic or protools or whatever and remove any offending noises and then put THAT audio in your video. I don’t do that, 'cause I am a man and I am at peace with playing what I played even if it sounds like crap from time to time.
Me either, but I am getting better with time spent on it. I find that even though some things (like this) are initially feeling a bit, ummm awkward… I really appreciate that if it’s in line with my form, and my escape, then it’s is something that will likely improve pretty quickly, and as well it will kind of dovetail with some other “DSX moves” as well, and other things will improve this and vice versa - if that makes sense.
@Tom_Gilroy Thanks for the kind words, and I always appreciate your insightful posts. Detail! hahaha
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@Scottulus I’ll say this: if swiping is a “snarl” as @Tom_Gilroy rightly describes, then the one string with position change is “yowl” with the slide adding a distinct warble effect. I could see it being awesome with the right effects like wah or something noisy like all the silly sounding chorus noise pedals they are making now as to take advantage of what the slide brings with overtones and harmonics.
Taking the easy path: I’ve been working on sliding my pointer because it’s cleaner than my pinky right now. Easiest path: tapping it: by far my fastest speed lol
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I think that we can describe Troy‘s discovery of swiping as an escape hatch where one is playing a chord that has some muted strings in it.
Therefore, it would seem to me that one should practice the swipe exactly as if it is a chord, and one could notate it as a chord diagram with X’s to kill string(s).
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I don’t practise swiping for single-note playing as such; but I do regularly run through drop-2 and drop-3 chord voicings and all of my drop-3 voicings’ fingerings include damped strings. Also, in a big band rehearsal I regularly use 3 note 7th chord voicings with just the root, 3rd and 7th. Some of these are related to the drop-3 voicings just mentioned (i.e. with the 5th omitted); so they also have damped strings. It does seem as you get to single-note playing that hits a damped string “in passing” that would generate a percussive click that might be more prominent and potentially intrusive, particularly since some players/ styles use playing damped strings on their own as an effect. But apparently not.