Paul Gilbert talks here about muting strings around what he’s playing, and specifically mentions (albeit in passing) that he’s hitting muted strings while playing “a fast thing.”
Weird, huh? This is from April of this year, by the way.
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He swipes when playing the infamous first exercise from Intense Rock. This is common. I do it when playing outside Gilberts, but not inside Gilberts (starting with an upstroke) which I find so much easier.
Well, yes. The weird thing is that he’s talking about it. 
Ah, ok. Years ago I’d assumed Gilbert was perfectly ‘clean’ and would never do something like swiping and I thought maybe you were surprised he’d do something like that as I initially was. It is interesting that a natural like him is being introspective about his mechanics in a way that goes beyond ‘it’s like turning a key’.
Actually when you listen closely, you can hear that when he plays the lick in intense rock, there is a “clicking” sound which reveals the use of swiping
I noticed Gilbert has dropped those stacked single Dimarzio Injectors he was playing for a while. And now he’s back to humbuckers. 
When Troy showed in Antigravity that this is true, I just about threw a guitar through a window.
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It was even worse than finding out Shawn Lane wasn’t picking every note when playing those huge string-skip stretches. 
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This seems more like something Master Shake would do, Fry Man.
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“Now who has the material? Nobody! Because HE just made me do this!” 
Edit: Note that the fact that I almost threw a guitar through a window, but didn’t actually follow through, means I couldn’t possibly be Shake. Now who draped this wet towel over my computer?
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What surprises me is how loud and far from subtle the sound of the swiping is when he does that fast picking on the E and A strings on Frenzy starting right around the 35 or 36 second mark. It’s so loud that it doesn’t sound so much like swiping as it just sounds like he’s slamming the pick into the unwanted string.
So, is there a general speed threshold where picking a line such as this without swiping becomes impossible? Could Gilbert (and MAB) have done these licks without the swipes? (If they knew about it at the time) or was it just a natural progression that is necessary in order to play said lick at these tempos?
I don’t plan on using swipes generally, but I have to concede that they may well be needed when a certain speed and lick combinations occur. I have tried employing swipes and got very varied results, I find it too distracting to use when I’m working so hard in clean 2WPS.
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All he is saying and showing is that he mutes the string above or below the one he is playing a note on. So when he plays for instance a note on the high E string he mutes the B string in order to avoid unwanted noise. That has nothing to do with swiping in my opinion. That is something you always should do especialy with distortion.
Here’s what I don’t get. @Troy mentions that swiping works for outside string changes. However, in the Strunz and Farah interview he shows that Strunz’s primary string change method is swiping. And he does it in both directions. How is an inside string change swipe possible?
Both directions means as well on a down and upstroke, has nothing to do with inside or outside string change.
When you play for instance a note the A string with a downstroke and after that a note on the D string with an upstroke you can swipe through the D string before playing that upstroke note; so that is swiping starting with a downstroke.
Starting on dor instance with a tone the D string with an upstroke playing a note on the A string with a downstroke, you can swipe the A string before playing the actual downsroke note; so that is swiping starting with an upstroke.
Swiping is therefore possible in both directions.
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Yes but I saw in slow motion him do a downstroke on the D and then an upstroke on the A with swiping.
Yes that is what i mean. You play down on the D string and then swipe the D string and hit the not on the A string. You will have to mute the D string quick after playing the note on it though.
Wouldn’t you need an upward pickslant to do this?
Strunz uses an upward pickslant.
But, it also worls with a downward pickslant as long as it is not tilted too much downward, like Marty Friedman or most gypsy players will do.
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I did a search for swiping and found this thread. I searched because I think I just realized that swiping is possible because of muting with the fretting hand.
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