Thanks Brendan for the info. For a few months after Christmas the budget is always tight 
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Thanks!
Anything particular you have in mind / things it feels like we’re missing? Or just generally like to see more stuff more often? Good idea to collect some more structured feedback here, too 
I’m not sure if this has already been posted here on the forum and if so maybe somebody could provide a link.
I have watched the 12 part you tube series of CtC. And I’ve seen a bunch of the interviews etc. now that I’ve joined the forum I see that many people have subscribed to the service.
What exactly is a subscriber getting that isn’t on YouTube?
Even though I’ve watched the YT CTC series and I basically understand the concepts, I still feel like I’m not sure where to start with practicing the concepts Troy has covered…is there a specific step by step program that is part of a paid membership?
Thanks…I may have some follow up depending on the responses!!! Lolk
Subscribers get access to the interviews, although you can pay to download whatever interviews you, Pickslanting Primer and Cracking the Code Channels with has stuff like Talking the Code on there.
There is a load of stuff on the site and I would recommend it if you haven’t subscribed before.
There is no step by step program. I guess the easiest thing would be to post a video on here and wait for someone to chime in with an analysis of your technique and then you could watch whatever videos or episodes were most relevant to the difficulties you are having.
I’m pretty sure I’m not the regular member in that case, I rarely find time to practice and actually spend most time in analysis and engineering, which is surprisingly great fun
So I’m kindof happy with all free stuff we get.
On the other hand, it leaves a bad taste to get that profit without paying anything - I know they put a lot of effort in.
So actually I’m thinking about buying a TShirt, maybe i’ll subscribe for a month in summer holidays when there’s time to watch a att that stuff.
Best fitting to me woudl be the abilty to buy strings or picks with some benefit for CtC, I would do that and feel good.
So, @Brendan just a suggestion if you could do corporations with stores, that you benefit when they sell with CtC as referer, that’d be great!
I would recommend giving it a go for a month to see how you like it. You can binge watch the material and see how you get on with it.
BTW, I’m not complaining @Brendan - just as my membership ended I’ve had these thoughts on my mind so I wanted to get them off my chest and out in to the open to see what everyone else thought. I will continue to support the team.
Short answer: 25+ complete interviews, Pickslanting Primer, three seminars. Total of dozens of hours of video and over 1,000 musical examples with interactive Soundslice notation. Occasional members-only livestreams. We tried to give a good summary here: Join Cracking the Code! – Cracking the Code (Let us know if anything is unclear, happy to answer any further questions!)
Not something we’ve looked into much but cool idea! Though with a small team / limited time for us I think it’s easier to just sell our stuff directly.
Thanks @aliendough and no worries I didn’t read it as a complaint! Appreciate these questions, helps us learn how we can improve what we do and how we present it…plus I like talking about this stuff
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Well I’m probably not the typical player but right now there’s several resources that I’m looking for to help me practice more effectively. This is not necessarily a wish list for CTC, I’m just listing things that I am specifically looking for.
- I’m looking for a decent backing track creator similar to ireal or band in a box that is geared more towards rock blues and metal
- I’m looking for a good source for cliche riffs in blues and jazz styles. Yes there’s a ton of stuff on YouTube but it takes a lot of time to actually weed through the crap. Why Cliche? I believe cliche riffs are a good way to start a conversation, then you can build on that vocabulary with more advanced stuff. I have been analyzing my own playing and realize I need a bigger basic vocabulary.
Like I said, I’m not expecting you guys to do any of this stuff but that’s what I will be focusing on in the near future
Okay here’s an actual idea, what about a quick ten minute or so private Skype lesson once a month for subscribers? I see many people expressing that they don’t know where to start, it would be cool to be able to get an assessment of your playing and point in the right direction
just two days ago I had to cancel my membership but not because of content but because I’m poor af haha I’ll definitely resubscribe asap, In my case I prefer the membership, but I agree with ‘‘the future content idea’’ and as was mentioned I also agree that an specific released date might not work. My suggestion (which is almost identical as some comments haha) is that if by any chance a chart, that shows the material that is being edited (interviews,etc), was developed, one cool characteristic might be to add how the progress is going, and if it’s soon to be finished and released (not showing the specific time though), by doing this a relief on new content might keep some of us interested on a membership or set some money apart for a interview purchase.
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Ok, I’ve had a chance to browse the website. Let’s say I’d like to try a one month membership to get my feet wet. Does the subscription self-renew or do just go back and buy another month when I’m ready?
Good suggestion! Probably not manageable for us to do like one-on-one lessons but I do think there’s a lot more we can do with live video e.g. Q&A help sessions for members, and agree doing this kind of thing more regularly would be great. We have a bunch of ideas for this, just have to find the time.
Cool, will think about the best way we might do something like this. Could be like a monthly “status update” post, or maybe a section on the site we update periodically…
It will renew automatically but it’s easy to cancel at any time. If you want to make sure it doesn’t auto-renew you can just cancel immediately after signing up, it will be marked as “pending cancel” and remain active til the month is up. And then you can always resubscribe anytime after if you so choose
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Here’s my story about this subject. Maybe it will be useful to you.
I found CTC on Youtube 6 months ago or so. I watched all of the videos and started applying the concepts and got immediate results. My picking speed and fluidity increased tremendously almost immediately and I continued to make gains. (I was a stringhopper, previously, and converted to rotational DWPS after watching the Youtube videos.) I felt like I made a breakthrough, but I also felt that I would likely continue to improve as I continued to practice, which really hadn’t happened in the previous 30 years. (For perspective, I am a former professional guitarist who could never figure out how the big shots played so fast.) Not to mention I was just having so much fun. I felt like a real guitarist again.
I was so impressed and grateful, that I was strongly considering sending @Troy a Benjamin in the mail. I figured I had already learned the secrets for free that I would happily have paid through the nose for, and I owed something to the guy who had more or less instantaneously unlocked the door to picking paradise.
Instead of anonymously sending Troy $100, I decided to buy the Seminar Bundle, figuring I’d get some licks and exercises out of it. I thought it was a bargain even if I didn’t learn any new secrets because I had already improved so much. I also started lurking here, reading the stories of other players, so eerily similar to mine.
Then Troy posted a two minute video with no talking, a visual demonstration of crosspicking. I tried it, and Holy Mother of God! It was a whole other level. No more swiping. No more worrying about how many notes per string I’m playing. Suddenly I’m not just faster, but free of the limitations of DWPS. My playing improved tremendously, all of a sudden, again. That’s two amazing breakthroughs for me in half a year.
I mean, I was just trying to pay off my debt for my DWPS breakthrough, and Troy and the crew delivered a crosspicking breakthrough to my doorstep out of the blue.
So now I owe Troy another hundred bucks.
Anyway, my suggestion is to stop now, before you get the overwhelming urge to send Troy all of your money.
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I meant more something like price-engines do, you just link to an existing system, and get a small percentage of the sales on the end of the month.
But if you put strings and picks directly in your shop (and ship to europe) that’d be fine too 
Anyways to make things a little more complicated, it seems the main benefit to get a payed member seems to me in an educational sense. The infomational stuff (at least a lot of it) and the forum is free.
I’m glad and thankful it is that way.
If you find a way to get some products up that target the ‘plain viewer’, Here’s one who’d purchase it 
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I am a paid subscriber and barely look at any of the paid content, and have no plans on canceling my membership.
The way I look at this, hear me out: I was struggling with pick technique, spending literally years banging my head against the same wall, doing all sorts of research, then I dug into CTC and it gave me insight I don’t think i ever would have come across, and now I have tools to solve tons of technical challenges that I couldn’t have solved before. I was so in the dark with picking for years and it really frustrated the hell out of me…now, for the most part, most things make sense.
Additionally, I teach for a living and CTC has helped a lot with any pick-related stuff I teach. So, in a not-super-indirect way, I make some money off of what I learn from Troy/CTC.
If I support CTC they are going to continue doing research and making material and making these breakthroughs in the understanding of guitar technique…that’s very good for me, and great for everybody. I want to see them continue exploring and trying to make these discoveries, AND I want to support all that they have provided so far.
I’m somebody who does music for a living, and understanding technique is really important to me, so I can understand if guitar is more of a casual interest then even with all of the above you might assess whether it’s really worth $20/month for you, especially if budgeting is very tight. Maybe if you’ve learned a lot from CTC, try to pick up one guitar student who is interested in learning this stuff from you, then you’ll be able to pay for your membership and also likely make a good profit 
Edit to add: I can’t really comment on the value of the paid content vs the free as honestly I’m just not looking at things and checking out and assessing that much, schedule is crazy and I limit myself in what ‘extras’ I participate in, and generally only get like 10 minute here and there to actually practice. It’s totally possible that there could be a more attractive balance to the would-be-paying customer. I signed up initially because I wanted to dig into all the more nitty gritty details of two way pick slanting that is covered in the paid content.
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I would definitely be into some CTC swag. T shirts, etc.
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Picks for me please!!
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There are a lot of details that are left out in the youtube videos. The subscription is well worth it, though.
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Tshirts are actually in the shop, thinking of ordering one too.
Are the Soundslice tabs in the individual download?
What is in the individual download? Is it the interview only?
Is the play along soundslice notation on ALL of the interviews watched with MIM membership?
Soundslice is online-only — it’s built with a pretty cutting-edge web technology stack and all the nice interactive features aren’t available in any download format. But yes we have Soundslice notation on our site for all musical examples in our interviews and instructional material!
All our download products contain video files (interview and/or lesson chapters, analysis, etc.), and .zip files for the musical examples containing video clips (with slow-mo Magnet footage) + tablature in PDF and Guitar Pro formats.
So the material is basically the same with online vs. download versions, with the exception of certain web-only features like Soundslice. Another web-only thing is our video timelines where we list timestamped musical examples below each video to make it easy to go between the musical clips and the interviews/lessons they come from. Nothing missing from the downloads, content-wise, but there are definitely some cool things we can only do w/ the custom web platform.
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