First crack at Magnet footage - fast and slo-mo video

Technique Critique
#1

Ok, my Magnet showed up right around the time life got REALLY busy for me for a while, and I’ve basically been offline here for almost six months (my last notifications were from late May, lol). But, I’m here, I’m still alive, I’ve been playing a bit more, and I figured I’d finally try to shoot some Magnet footage! :rofl:

I haven’t really been thinking much about technique lately, mostly just playing and trying NOT to overthink things, and just if something feels smooth, try to do more of that. But, my understanding had always been my picking mechanic tended towards escaped downstrokes, wityh a bit of a “helper” mechanic to get in the occasional escaped upstrokes.

Recent observations, going by feel and not footage:

  • I’ve always tended to choke up on my pick a bit, and NOT doing that seems to help - it helps the pick follow a wider arc, maybe, making string changes a little easier? Not sure, but when i consciously don’t choke up on the pick, things go better, so I’m just going with it.
  • With the necessary caveats that a lot of the “pickslanting” language is not really a helpful description of a pickstroke… I’ve found that despite (I think) being a primary downstroke escaped player, holding my pick with more of a “downwards pickslant” orientation seems to work better for me.
  • Sometimes, things feel VERY smooth. Not like certain licks feel very smooth and certain don’t, but there are times where everything feels pretty effortless. It’s a great, really exciting feeling.

ok, video footage - very little thought here, just warmed up a little and went for it for about 25 seconds, just improvising. Some clear timing issues at one or two points, but parts of this outside of that felt pretty smooth. Looks like there’s some two-way stuff going on in here just watching my wrist angle change, but honestly I’m not NEARLY as good at diagnosing players as some of you - I hope the angle isn’t too bad!

At speed:

Slo-mo:

Fairly mid-gainy Strat stuff, gain around maybe 1 oclock on my Mark V, and it probably would have made sense to shut off my delay for this, but the attaxck of the pick on the strings is probably audible enough here anyway, this was awfully low volume.

Any things here that are clearly working, or clearly not, I’m all ears. This is loads better than I was capable of when I first signed up here several years ago, but I’m coming off a period of not playing nearly enough, and as the riding season is winding down I want to make up for that and get back after it.

Anyway, hope you’re all well!

-Drew

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#2

Hi @Drew good to see you on here again! I think you sound great and it looks pretty effortless!

I do see in places you’re getting cleaner escapes than others, and that seems to be via a little wrist helper motion, a la Andy Wood.

You mention you just sort of “went for it”. So maybe try some stuff that is intentionally mostly DSX with occasional helper motion required and really concentrate on that to see if the string changes get to 100% clean. And to be clear, when I say “clean” I don’t mean you sounded mess or anything. I’m a big fan of swiping, but if our pick is knocking into stuff when we don’t intend for it, even if our muting from the fret hand saves us, it’s possible for that to mess with our heads a little. And you mentioned sometimes you feel like everything just “works”, so I’m curious if during those times you just hit this subconscious level where you’re doing the helper motion all the time when it needs to be there. You can clearly nail it in many places!

Anyway, great playing!

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#3

Thanks man! I mean, it’s tough, because there’s also clearly an elemebt of red light syndrome here, and no matter how natural you may be feeling at the moment that all goes out the window as soon as you stick a phone in front of your picking hand. :laughing:

I think it’s just going to take some getting used to it and once I do hopefully I can capture some of those moments where “hey, this feels GREAT” is all I’m thinking. I will say though that it’s not really just the DSX stuff liuke the Gilbert 6s (I’ve gotten very good at spinning variations on that pattern - honestly, rushing the fretting hand has been my biggest issue to date), it’s ripping through scale lines where I know on some level I should be getting buried, but I’m just not. I’m not sure what the best course of action is here, try to really focus and hone in on those moments, or try to NOT think about it, and hope it keeps happening more… There’s absolutely an element in picking of just letting your body figure it out on its own,I guess, and I don’t want to break that process either… Especially since I’m 100% prone to overthinking things. :rofl:

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#4

Ha…red light syndrome. I hate it. I record myself on audio all the time, no huge deal. As soon as I film myself, it’s immediately the worst playing of my day. I’d probably post more videos if it weren’t such a problem lol I’ve got my pride though…except the occasional times I actually post video, which still is never my “best” playing.

Let me know when you figure that part out :wink:

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#5

Oh yeah, and I 100% get you here - honestly, I can play cleanly ENOUGH, and fast ENOUGH, to handle like 99% of playing situations I’ll every find myself in and honestly play a good 90% of the stuff I want to in my own playing. But we all know if something could be better, then it’ll drive us crazy until er figure it out… so here we all are. :slight_smile:

Only cure for Red Light Syndrome I’ve ever found is just doing it a whole lot. I’m not yet there on audio, much less video, and I haven’t been recording much of anything of late (and seem to have killed my interface in a recent power failure despite a surge protector and powert conditioner - it turns on and responds to controls and everything, but isn’t connecting to my Mac anymore, so it may be a bit) so I’ll have to build back up there too.

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