Hi there. I have just joined Cracking the Code, with a free membership (for the time being), and thought I would ask if other users think they have benefited from the site, and have made any great advancement in their playing. If so, in what manner have you improved?
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Hi! Nice to see another Uk’er joining (I live in Hertfordshire).
Check out this thread that got started for feedback on being a paying subscriber
I have been working on 2 -way Pickslanting for a while now and really starting to get nearer one of my goals of picking scalar lines at around 200bpm (16th notes)
In the below post link below, there is a clip of me practicing a lick from Michael Angelo Batio’s No Boundaries tune. Its only around 75-80% the tempo if the original, but a handful of months ago I wouldn’t have been anywhere near.
As you can see in the post, not only did forum members give me sound advice, it was backed up by Troy himself who directed me to the exact Masters in Mechanics material relevent to the area I am struggling with - I can now watch it over and over - It is part of my practice regime now. Material and the forum help you to get straight to heart of difficulties you are having and offer options for you to explore and experiment with. I have made significant improvement over the last few weeks, despite having a newborn in the house - this shows that quality practice beats sheer volume of practice alone and in CTC, the quality is high!
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Thank you very much for your answer. So would you recommend upgrading my membership?
Definitely. You don’t have much to lose, you can go back to free membership at a future point if you want, but I doubt you will, at least any time soon. With a young family, I’m on a tight budget, but all I have to do is give up a few cups of overpriced coffee month and it is paid for.
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Thank you again, for your time and advice. I will probably, for now, stay on a basic membership and if that goes well, I will look into upgrading my membership. It doesn’t cost too much, so my parents will hopefully agree that it is a good idea to let me spend my money on it haha…
Hi and welcome!
I’m not a MiM member yet, but the only reason for that is that I rarely find time to practice actually.
Upgrading will be the first thing I do when that changes.
Beside the link that @PickingApprentice shared, there’ve been a couple comments saying the same thing, so I’ve no doubts there’s remarkable benefit on subscribing.
Especially if you look on the price for quality lessons.
But even without upgrading, there’s still a lot to learn from the free content, and in the forum there’s no difference, if you have any questions post them and you’ll get help.
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Thanks for the reply… 
Just one question: seeing that you are a free member, as I am, do you feel that the available content for a basic membership is sufficient, or do you feel like you run out of content? I will probably try to gain as much as possible from my basic membership before upgrading to MiM. I’ll also ask my teacher for his opinion, as I believe that he may have a membership.
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For me no, I’m totally satisfied with what I get, especially by the forum.
But probably you shouldn’t take me to compare, I’m basically inactive actually (and that for a long time). Troy gained my interest back for guitar (which I’m really thankful for) and I spend my time basically with understanding my own playing and trying a couple of things to get a feel for it, but I’m not aiming to improve my playing at this point, hopefully that’ll change over the year.
So for understanding things and play around with them the free membership fits perfectly (and btw is very giving).
From time time there’re exercises mentioned that can’t be accessed for free members, and as far as i got it there’s soundslice (tabs and notes if I’m right) for pretty much all the content.
So to improve your playing the benefit of subscribing should be huge.
In any case I’d say it’d be just fair to spend at least a couple of bucks (not sure for you if you still live at your parents that’s another thing).
If it turns out that I’m not able to spend a valid amount of time for playing I’ll buy a T-Shirt or something else to support this thing at least a little.
Anyway I wouldn’t worry too much, there’s no need to hurry, I didn’t see one single time that Troy didn’t answer a question or rejected commenting a video due to the membership level.
Probably he’d point out a specific seminar or something if he thinks you’d benefit from it.
So I’d say to find out what fits best to your needs is asking questions.
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Alright cool, thanks.
It’s good to know that Cracking the Code offers so much for free, but as you have said it is only fair to support it in some way or another, so I thought maybe, even if I don’t get a membership (just yet), it might be a good idea to pay for one of the interviews or seminars - my teacher especially recommended the Eric Johnson one. Thank you @theGuyFromGermany and @PickingApprentice for your time and advice. Off to explore Code for a bit…
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Hey, sounds good, let us know if you have any further questions as you look around
See some more detail from me and Troy in this thread too re: where to start:
Best value is probably trying a month of the subscription. Or if you prefer to start with a single download product I think the Pickslanting Primer is your best bet. Either of those options will get you access to watch our broadcast on picking motion (mentioned in that linked discussion) which is very helpful for establishing a picking motion and our current recommendation for first thing to watch if you’re getting started with our stuff!
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