Do you really think so?!? Does playing a rhythm a little harder with distortion/OD/gain make a difference to the sound - I’m conflicted on this. Playing that MoP riff with alternate picking makes it dead easy, in fact, that’s the way I thought it was played until I heard different from another guitar forum I was involved with along with a couple of other riffs from “And Justice…” all alternate picked.
Maybe I’m being naive - but I believe it should be in principle possible to make alternate picking sound pretty much the same as all-downstrokes!
I don’t have hard evidence for this, but I know I can play several alternate picking licks both starting with upstroke and downstroke, and I typically get almost identical sounds. Maybe the only exception is pinch harmonics - much harder to achieve on upstrokes.
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one up, two down.
Work smarter, not harder.
K.I.S.S.
Keep It Simple Stupid
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That was something that I used to practice getting, harmonics on upstrokes, got pretty decent at it after a while. The only scale shape I knew for a long time was the minor pentatonic so I was practicing it with that. When I found out I could play 3 note-per-string scale shapes that went out the window 
.
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If there are no chords, aren’t U and D indistinguishable? I don’t have a guitar handy but it looks like U D U repeated would be very easy and effective (basically sweeping U)? Then again perhaps it is awesome fun for D, D, D, but I think @tommo is right.
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You clearly know how to make an academic happy 
EDIT: the only problem I’d have with U-D-U (with upwards sweep) is that I find it a bit uncomfortable to palm mute when doing UWPS.
In theory, on single note lines, I agree with you. There may be something to be said for a pick slant in the most literal sense and the angle of the pick as it hits the string impacting the tone, which could lead to tonal differences between upstrokes and downstrokes, but that’s pure speculation.
Where it clearly differs is when you start incorporating diads or chords into your riffing, where a downstroke raking across two or three strings is going to sound differently than an upstroke simply because the notes are being hit at slightly different times.
And, I could also see a difference coming from the strength of your downstrokes vs your upstrokes - if you’re a guy who’s used to riffing with all downstrokes, then your attack is probably going to be more forceful on a downstroke than an upstroke.
I guess finally (I’m thinking out loud here) I could see the picking motion slant making a difference - if your stroke is moving downward through the string and burying the pick then it’s deflecting towards the body/fretboard, which could have a different sound to it than if it’s deflecting away. Vice versa if downstroke-only picking involves escaped upstrokes, and I’m actually not sure which Hetfield uses.
I can usually tell if multiple strings [chord/interval] are (a) going up, (b) going down, or © parallel (plucked by fingers). However, for a single string, I cannot tell.
I think the downstroke people are usually doing 5ths and they want a particular order, hence they have to go really fast.
This is a cool thought, but I kind of suspect it would have more to do with whether the picking path (and thus possibly the actual vibrational movement of the string) were more or less perpendicular to the body – with a low action in particular, a more perpendicular string motion might be more likely to hit the frets than one parallel to the fretboard.
Good point - an escaped downstroke would pull the string away initially, but it would then rebound into the fretboard. That would be a reason upstrokes would NOT sound different than downstrokes.
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In retrospect I’m glad you understood what I meant, because wow did I explain that poorly 
Symmetry arguments convince me that only the direction that a chord is struck is of significance.
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I do love a good symmetry argument, but please explain what you mean here? I don’t follow.
I’ll keep it short. Use suppinated forearm roation like James Hetfield. My friend struggles to downpick with his suppinated wrist deviation, though he is an accomplished two way pick slanter.
Late reply but in short? Yeah… but no. I’d rather play Blackened because it’s around 190BPM while MoP is 212. To the point that since I haven’t practised it for a while, I simply struggle to play MoP to tempo even though I used to be able to. The section after the solo is torture to play up to speed, especially after you’ve been already picking during the whole duration of the solo nothing but 8th notes. The gallop it starts with requires a bit more finesse than what you’ve been playing until then, and alternating two palm-mutes with an open F5 saps stamina rather fast.
Back when I was trying to clean up my down picking, I was doing nothing but the first few bars on repeat in Guitar Pro, asking the software to increase the speed by one percent after every repetition. For days. It was more of a physical exercise than a technical one to be honest…
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When I was a teenager I played the whole song “downstrokes only”, with 1 exception: this particular riff you mentioned. I played that in a “2 down 1 up” pattern … with the last 4 notes alternate.
Simply because … you cannot tell the difference with “downstrokes only”. And because … it gave me a tiny break from all that downstroke-madness .
To get this up to speed I used a metronome. Start slowly … the key for me here is relaxation and patience. Only higher the speed when your movements still feel comfortable and relaxed. Give this process a couple of months.
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I can help with this.
Using a metronome can help develop your technique but you need to understand the riff shouldn’t be thought of as played in perfectly spaced eighth notes.
I think what gets most folks thrown off is that when you start to get it up to speed, you are still thinking in terms of perfect eighth notes.
You want to think of the 2 notes on the E string as a very quick double-hit, then hit the A string.
Don’t think of it as 3 equally spaced notes. You can even pull the tune up, slow it down to 40% or whatever and listen - the 2 E notes are in quicker succession.
Practice getting the 2 E string notes as quick a double-hit as you can possibly make, this allows the time to get the A string and start all over again. I like to accent the A string notes.
Refine, refine, refine your picking technique to very, very small pick strokes and until you are using the very tip of the pick, no more. That wild, unrefined picking hand all over the place, catching the strings a quarter inch into the pick is not helping any.
Try emulating a drum beat to get a good feel of this - this exercise may help to understand:
First use 1 hand to tap out the beat - 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, … include the double tap on the A string when appropriate. Accent the 3, make it like the riff with accents where appropriate and try to play it fast, like the song.
You will find it’s not easy just like on guitar.
Now do the same thing, but use 2 hands instead. One hand represents the E string (I use right) taps out 1, 2 and the left hand, representing the A string, taps the 3 after every double tap of the right hand. Get that up to speed - See how much smoother/easier it is?
It’s not analogous, you are still using a single picking hand on guitar but it helps emphasize the importance of getting that double tap on the E as quick as possible to provide enough time for the distance motion to the A and back.
Hope this helps. I should do a video on this but too lazy.
Anyone is welcome to use it in a video if this helps them and you want to educate the masses; shout-out to rotjab would be welcome.
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That pattern is actually not as hard as it seems. 0-1-3 - is a down-down-sweep.
Well, it doesn’t feel like sweep totally, but techically it’s very close. You need less movement to get from E-string to A-string than when playing on one string only.
There’s a fun riff I like to play in a song ‘Be Dead or Die’ by Starkill. You can hear it from 2:08. May be they play it with alrernate picking, but downstrokes all the way feel muuuch better and fun )
There’re a lot of movements between two strings, so it can give you an understanding of that type of playing. I actually started with this one and tried to play MOP much later. It starts like this (if I recall correctly)
----------9----9---------8----9—10-9----7
—7-7----7------7-7----7----7---------7–7-…
(guitars tuned down to C)
Wanted to also add a non down picking strategy in addition to my prior post to help with all down picking. I think the thread was asking about other picking strategies also. As I noted in my 1st post, at speed - it’s critical the timing of this riff is not all equally spaced notes and the 2 notes on the E-string are in a quicker succession. When looked at like that and you practice the double-hit on the E as a single chunk, this will greatly help get it to all down picking speed. Likewise, the issue with other patterns, like incorporating a sweep, is the timing. There are a few mentions of a downward sweep in the post. The problem with a downward sweep, if you are really wanting to emulate the lick, is that is doesn’t lend the same timing of a “double-hit” on the E prior to hitting the A. A downward sweep motion will tend to create a quicker timing between the last note on the E string and the A string which kinda throws it all off. One pattern that is a lot of fun to play, emulates the riff almost perfectly, and is very easy to do - goes like this:
Start with an upstroke on the E string - you are going to keep the quick double hit on the E by doing an upstroke, then a downstroke on the E. Play it like it’s almost a single motion, very small pick strokes. You want to start with the pick just touching the bottom of the E string. Up, down. Then on the downward motion off the E string, you bring the pick down to the Bottom of the A string and the motion will be hitting the A string with an upstroke and then bring the pick back to the bottom of the E string to repeat. Think of it kinda like the rest stroke or what ever its called when you hit the A string and bring it back to the bottom of the E string in the same motion. This is an upward sweep motion rather than a downward sweep. The whole sequence is a circular motion that can be played very fast and stays true to the “timing” of the lick, maintaining the quick double on the E and then an accent on A. The part of the riff that has the double hit on the A string is done by catching the A string at the top instead of the bottom - down, up on the A and back to the bottom of the E. Rinse/Repeat. Get that double hit down on the E however like it’s 1 little microchunk and you can get it to all down picking speed.
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