Do You Think There's Any Legit Musical Need To Play Faster Than MAB?

Graham and Govan are 2 of the top players hands down

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Cooley was clocked at 16 nps compared to Lane’s 18 notes per second. However it has been claimed that Cooley plays some licks at 19 notes per second - possibly one or more of the notes are economy picked or not picked at all when/if he does play at 19nps. Willjay’s test - the industry standard for this sort of thing so to speak, only counts strictly alternate picked licks since the entire purpose was to find out how many notes per second some of the world’s fastest and best known guitarists could play using alternate picking. Shawn Lane was no longer alive ten years ago when the list was created (and the only list of its kind ever to be published in Guitar World magazine!) so the title of fastest alternate picker on the planet and the $100,000 cash award that went with it was awarded to Dannyjoe Carter of Las Vegas, Nevada.







EDIT: OK, there was no cash award, :slight_smile:

Do you think they’re any cleaner than Batio? MAB’s style isn’t for everyone but he is awfully clean. I think his most impressive solo is in that song from Planet Gemini that he plays at the start of one of his DVDs. I can’t remember the name of the song right now but it uses things like whole tone licks and other unusual sounding scales.

Pound for pound, in terms of sheer range and versatility, accuracy and cleanliness, harmonic knowledge, and raw technical prowess, if I had to make one pick for the best guitarist currently alive, I think it might be Govan. Stylistically he isn’t necessarily my favorite player, but he is so bloody good that little things like style don’t really matter. He kind of transcends it.

Maybe not Govan at his most sheerly technical, and flat out I have no clue if he’s faster than Batio or not, but he’s pretty out there here. It helps that the rest of the band is pretty untouchable as well. :rofl:

I’m sharing this mostly because you, reading between the lines, seem somewhat unfamiliar with Govan’s playing, and, well, you owe it to yourself to check him out.

I get that you think, overall, he’s better than MAB and he may very well be better. I haven’t heard enough of him to have an opinion on that. However, do you think he’s just as clean as Batio? Just curious because I think Batio’s picking is so remarkably clean. The solo to the song I couldn’t remember earlier is to “Time Traveller.” Have you ever heard it? It’s at the top of this page.

Watch that video, I shared it for a reason. :slight_smile: And remember this is a live performance, and heavily improvised - I like his Aristocrats stuff more than his first solo album, “Erotic Cakes,” because I found that playing a little TOO clean and polished, whereas the Aristocrats are a bit more gnarly and spontaneous.

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Would MAB interpolate the Inspector Gadget theme for a laugh?

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Thank you for posting this! It’s not my style of music but he is an impressive player. He reminds of Jeff Beck but with more chops. I’d be interested in hearing him in more of a metal context if he plays that style.

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I’ve never heard him play pure metal, but he played on two Steven Wilson albums, sort of somewhat harder prog-rock material. If I remember right, there’s a pretty ripping solo on this performance:

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…seemed relevant. :wink:

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