Last iteration was an accidental grouping of 4, but that’s what I mean. At tempo 115, doing a gallop per click.
Soo just unchained little blips of DUD-U groupings? How do I count 115 BPM then? I don’t hear metronome in your clip, and as I said I don’t have the brains to actually count that groove properly.
Is that what you mean?
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So you can play the gallop at speed with a click. I’m just trying to understand which part of the song you’re having technical issues with, and if it’s the DUD U repeat or longer pattern, I have tips.
As far as speed goes, I can’t keep up with the tempo. At full speed it’s a hot mess, I can’t distinct individual notes. Playing along the tab I can hear I’m behind.
Also when I’m past comfortable speed, trying to go keep up, my rythm changes from 000-0-000-0 to 0000-0000-0000.
That’s why I try to increase speed little by little, in barely noticeable increments.
Another issue I have is that string changes, bends, any changes to riff take me by surprise and I need to constantly look at the tab to know what’s coming. I can’t feel when the bend is coming nor when I’m supposed to go for low F string.
What I was going to suggest to develop speed / endurance / comfort, is to keep the metronome at 115, then do an “additive” method:
- Start with the DUD you already video’d.
- Add incrementing notes, DUD U would be next (I prefer DUD U D). Do reps until it feels comfortable.
- Keep adding increments as you feel in control. Go back a step if you start to lose it.
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Here’s my progress on this DUD-U pattern in terms of speed so far:
Day 1: 50%
Day 2: 60%
Day 3: 70%
I’ve not tried to speed it up - just playing the same thing over and over so the pattern “burns in” and speed up naturally. I’m not playing the correct notes either - just moving it around and bending whenever I feel like it. Currently it’s still ambiguous to my picking hand - I think that if I force it to speed it up - pick hand would revert to DUD-D.
I think it’s going to take another week or so before I’m comfortable with it and can use it in a tune.
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I’m at about 80% right now.
I just tried it, but since I’m having trouble with keeping the time (i.e I’m not sure if each gallop I make is really in 115BP) I tried to do normal alternated 16ths throughout with gallop “blips” every other beat. I was completely fine with that. I also tried treating the gallop as triplets and bumped tempo to 172 so that ach gallop would fall on a click, but that was too fast to maintain, I was only able to do couple bars of 160.
Here is the fastest I can go without backing track / metronome reference:
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Wow that’s really getting there - gratz!! I’m nowhere near that level at the moment - but I’m sure it’ll all work out!
I think it’s really worth investing in this pattern - esp with metallic clicky kick drums just sounds amazing!
Definitely, however I’d still prefer to use DUD-D whenever possible. That dowsntroke at the end helps with groove, both feeling it and accenting it. If I was to use that rythm for anything like thrash metal or heavy metal I think I’d do it that way.
However for modern, ultra tight and fast playing DUD-U seems to be absolutely necessary.
I honestly don’t think one pattern is more necessary than the other, really boils down to a few different factors (to include riff patterns to be used, player strengths, song tempo, etc). Everyone that I personally saw play bleed or similar patterns did it DUD D, could be because the music we were all playing was heavy with downpicking / gallops. Quick example - this song came out a couple years before bleed but had a similar pattern:
While interacting with this topic, I stumbled on a fun way to develop this riff and just general pick control: paradiddles with the pick. I noticed that you can do 16th notes at 115BPM with a [D D U repeat] pattern to hone in on the feel of [DUD U repeat]. You can have fun doing common paradiddle patterns at a slower tempo to build some fun rhythmic control:
- [D D U repeat]
- [D U U repeat]
- [D D U U repeat]
- [D U D D U D U U repeat]
- [D D U D U U D U repeat]
- [D U U D U D D U repeat]
The back to back upstrokes are noticeably harder if you don’t practice them, @guitarenthusiast should give this a go.
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It is also noticeable slower than Bleed. Or so I think.
I’d prefer to play everything DUD-D but since I can’t keep up DUD-U is the way to go. I almost managed to hit 90% today, but quickly fell out of sync and missed the F string riff, so…
After trying out DUD U for a couple days, I found it hard to go back to DUD D U for the first picking pattern, so I switched to DUD U D there as well. I don’t feel as “locked in” rhythmically compared to DUD D, but it does make endurance better with the repeated DUD U portion.
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A bit of an update: I left it for a few days, just came back now without a proper warm up.
80% max along the tab, but it was fairly easy do to at that speed. I dunno how it works, couldn’t play any faster yet at that speed I felt quite relaxed and did not make any major mistakes up until the rythm change.
Looks promising.
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I find speeding things up past the original (by 10ish bmp or so) and trying my best to keep up (for 4-5 minutes-ish), then backing off to the original is helpful in pushing my ‘clean speed’ limits for those challenging parts.
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Yeah I just tried 100% and I was sort of fine for the most part, up until the rythm changed.
It was sloppy though so I couldn’t count that in good conscience.
My afternoon coffee was too much too strong though and I’m still trembling but also I feel sped up, so maybe that’s why.
I will give it a few more tries hanging around 85-100% tempo.
Cool! I think I’m at 80% ish also. I had a busy week at work - so maybe spent 2hrs this week on it. I find that some hardcore hours practice - then rest for a few days - that’s thing that wipes out a previous burned in technique. In fact right now - I can’t DUD-D anymore - heh 
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