Thanks for that, let me know once you’ve found something.
Alright, here comes my extremely scientific analysis.
I pulled out a similar shape Ibanez to try to compare as close as I could. Here’s me holding it like I normally would:
Now shifting the elbow up / canting the headstock up to approximate your angle:
I took a still of your video to compare:
When I tried to hold it in a similar position to you, I felt the same thing that I used to when I had more elbow movement: pure wrist seemed to pick too parallel to the string, almost like a slide. Definitely kills my playing.
The main differences I notice is that I naturally hold the neck more parallel to the ground, and my forearm is much more perpendicular to the strings. An easy tell is that the fleshy part of the palm below my thumb is resting on the bridge humbucker.
Thanks for these photos. I’ll give it a try tomorrow and see how it feels. There’s a lot happening in my playing since last week, maybe changing the way I’m holding the guitar could make a difference too.
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I keep playing around with slightly altering hand positions, we’ll see if I find any improvements. 
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Damn right! Makes me laugh my ass off… there I am pleased with myself because I’m starting to play scale fragments at 190bpm 16ths and then I watch that hot shit! … I’m just wishing my fretting hand could pull that off, let alone my picking hand 
@gabrielthorn - great playin’ bro!
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If you’re interested, I can take additional pictures of my right hand to see where I anchor it and “landmarks” I use to make sure I’m where I need to be.
That would be really helpful thank you. I’m experimenting with putting my hand a bit lower, something like you do on your photo you’ve posted. I want to learn how to escape strings properly after upstrokes as I have issues with 4nps or 2nps licks starting with a downstroke, and I’ve found it’s a bit easier like that. Also my entire picking motion looks more unified.
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Thanks for that. I still feel it’s sloppy when listening to my recordings but it’s kind of scary I can hear every note clearly when slowing down the video.
Quick question - do you tend to play a lot solo i.e no backing tracks? I’m wondering if you recorded a lick with a backing track, whether you would still think things were sloppy? (Without listening to the isolated track beforehand).
I think you may have have convinced yourself that every tiny imperfection is possible to avoid at all times and I don’t think it is the case. Even the ‘best’ shredders are not 100% perfect even on album tracks, but within a mix they might as well be… your chops are definitely in that league
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No, haven’t ever tried doing that. I’ll give it a go soonish as I’m a bit more brave on the instrument and strarted practicing a few songs I like.
After seeing this topic Technical Difficulties Sextuplets posted by GageBonner I’ve decided to give the riff a go.
I did not find the run at the end that challenging, I could do it on a reasonable tempo even if it’s a bit sloppy, but the main riff really bugs me. The 16th notes section is ok, but I really feel the 6s part connecting the sections difficult. Starting the 6s on the beat and arriving on the beat when it slows down again is a nightmare. Especially when I need to roll with my pinky to catch the 10th fret on the D string. Any suggestions how to practice this riff?
My first attempt with 120 with mistakes and a mess up.
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As usual your playing is great, I think in like 2 days you will be able to play this at the original tempo and better than me - I’m starting to get envious 
At your level I would stop worrying about tiny details and just play the riffs you want to play focusing on good rhythm, good phrasing and good dynamics.
Only suggestion I have re TD riff is that a metronome is probably not the best tool for practicing it. This is a syncopated riff with accents that keep moving, and the steady “beep beep” of the metronome makes it difficult to hear whether you are playing the rhythm tightly enough. In fact I find the metronome distracting.
I would suggest using the drum track from the actual song (slowing it down as required), and making sure that your accents line up with the drums
A quick YT search returned this backing track which seems close enough to the real thing:
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PS: here’s an alternative version of that run that avoids the flat pinky move. Note: only uses downstroke escapes
G-----------0-5
D--------2-4---
A-2-3-5--------
E--------------
PS: people on the internet will say “this is cheating blah blah”.
But tommo says: there is no cheating. There is stuff that sounds good and stuff that does not sound good. If it sounds good, it is good
PS: if you are interested I may as well share this test lesson that I recorded a few weeks ago with the webcam. Potato-quality video and sound, so please note this is nowhere near the professional quality stuff on the official CTC channel, it was not really meant for wide distribution
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Thank you tommo, the backing track is a much better idea. Personally I like playing 6s as 4s with metronome and weird stuff like that but just for having more fun while practicing I’ll go for the backing track.
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Wow, really nice and clean playing, and the riff sounds cool. I’ll give it a try.
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I’ve spent some time playing along with the backing track and returned to practice the licks in chunks after that. Lots of trial and error.
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Sorry for the delay, tried to get a few good ones. This is what I meant by I anchor the fleshy part below the thumb on the bridge pickup:
Where the pinky-side of my wrist touches the bridge saddles:
I know I’m in the right spot when picking the low E, the point of contact is about an inch away from the neck pickup:
Front view:
This is just how I do it, hopefully it’s not taken as “this is the only way” because it’s not, you just happen to be holding the guitar and feeling the same issues that I used to.
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I noticed my hand position is quite similar but mostly when I play on higher strings, not on the low ones.
I added a new thing on my daily practice list, I started practicing it on a 190 bpm, which is far from the original but hopefully I’ll get there.
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That’s my low E position, even higher on higher ones. That being said, it sounds like maybe your roadblocks might have been more on the “mindset” side of things, so I’m sure you’ll be progressing past any limitations you used to have.
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