I came up with this while working on the Meshuggah Bleed pattern and have been using it every time to warm up; I dig it a ton, and hope y’all do too!
Paradiddles used:
D D U
D U U
D D U U
D U D D U D U U
D D U D U U D U
D U U D U D D U
Let me know what y’all think: helpful, confusing, not worthwhile?
Hey that’s cool! I’ve been interested in making exercises with drum rudiments but never got around to it. I’ll check this out tomorrow morning.
@Lewis The only thing I’ve seen that’s somewhat similar to drumming rudiments is alternate picking with various accent points, but I feel like this helps me with pick control way more.
I saw your post on this and tried it, it’s really cool and might help me to improve accuracy and control so I’ve been doing a similar workout the past few days and will continue 
That’s a cool idea! I’d never thought of that.
Even though I’ve started learning drums on a vkit early last year, the idea of using drum rudiments on guitar never occurred to me!
Will have to give this a go.
Keep us updated on your progress with this!
I haven’t tried keeping any kind of benchmark so far, but I’ve been starting at the same BPM every time (85) and the patterns have been clean and more second nature with every session. I’ve been stopping at 95 I think, and my picking feels pretty warmed up when I start playing. Not only that, but I feel like it forces me to hold the pick in the best way possible (and location on the string) every time, I’m guessing because the double upstrokes have to sound comparable to double downstrokes.
I wonder if this has impacted my top speeds at all. The first time I did this, I was feeling some interesting things in my wrist / forearm (a similar “effort” feeling to playing a hard rhythm or lead line you’re not used to), but now it feels pretty effortless.
That’s great, I imagine the practice of double upstrokes can only help with speed and articulation in particular. Also gives options as to how you might play some metal rhythms, given that upstrokes and downstrokes timbre can be different. I’m interested to see what happens the more time you work on this and if it will affect your top speed and articulation
I’ll probably record a benchmark tomorrow, and try it on bass with trailing edge picking as well.
Sounds good! Sure keep is updated as to how you get on.
I’d be interested to see this with the trailing edge picking on bass
So I found my top speed to be comparable to my top speed on DBX lines, which is 105 BPM (210 BPM 16th notes).
Both of them start with DDU (which I consider the easiest for the lack of doubled upstrokes) and end with DUU (which I think is the hardest because… of course… doubled upstrokes). I think I did DUDD UDUU before DDUD UUDU on the guitar take, but reversed the order on the bass take. They feel like they could be more or less the same difficulty for me. DUUD UDDU was the penultimate in both, since I feel like it’s maybe a tad harder for me than the previous two. DUU on both are pretty fail, I think it caps out closer to 100 BPM. DDU I’ve done clean at 115 BPM, and wouldn’t be surprised if I could hit 120 BPM.
I’m thinking I’ll stick to the “middle 3” paradiddles to keep experimenting, as they seem to be more in line with my DBX speed, and maybe even the feel is comparable (maybe it forces the “helper” mechanic)?
It would be interesting to see if anyone else that plays DBX lines give these paradiddles a go to see if they have similar thoughts and results. Likewise, those that want to develop DBX might find this useful? Only way to find out is if more of y’all check it out!
Great work man! I’m not good enough with my downstrokes to try this just yet. It’s something I’ve been trying to rework and do a different way, but I’ve copied the link to this thread to give them a go in the near future
I think it might be a useful tool for figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Give it a go with what you have and see what happens!
More experimentation and update: DUU might be the best thing to focus on to overall increase the speed (makes sense since doubled upstrokes are the hardest… pretty “duh” moment).
I did a candid video after a short warm up using the paradiddles, then pushed the BPM to 107, which is the speed I could feel somewhat still in control of the “middle 3 paradiddles” I talked about in the last post. Then, I tried my go-to scale for DBX across all strings, and while it’s not as clean as I want it (muting needs work and some pick slippage here and there) it’s definitely got potential.
@Troy or @tommo, since I haven’t received my magnet yet, care to give this a shot with magnet view?
Ha, you mean you’d like me to try and film these? I tried them only briefly when you made the first post – so far I suck at them 
But it’s definitely something I’d like to try every now and then so if I can get any of these to a decent level I’ll magnet them here.
Looks like you yourself made great progress! Did you find that these exercises helped some other areas of your playing? I’m guessing they may have interesting chugga-chugga applications 
I find this hard to believe!
Since this is the fastest I’ve tried this scale, I’m thinking that there’s carryover!
Definitely found that the doubled upstroke is a similar feel to hard DBX lines for me, but the doubled downstroke is not that big of a deal, mostly just helping the feel of that Meshuggah Bleed pattern. I wonder if it’s because (I think) I lean towards USX? So if someone were to be more DSX, then double downstrokes would be harder? Or maybe I just do so much downpicking, that doubled upstrokes just feel relatively harder?
I’d love to get more people in on this!
Yeah I think in general the double up is something that people don’t work on. Certainly the typical repertoire of metal rhythm guitar does not encourage it!
I gave it a go and I really suck at downstrokes, can’t seem to figure it out at all.
Oddly enough, I’m way better at all upstrokes… I’m gonna have a closer look at the upstroke and see if I can…reverse the motion or see what it is that makes downstrokes so difficult for me.
More experimenting with this has shown that my downstrokes are total garbage. No more practice until Sunday so I reckon I’ll have to make a thread and post vids of my horrifying downstrokes attempt!
This is good though, this exercise has shown some weaknesses I can work towards fixing, so thanks for that!
This is a really good idea. I’m going to incorporate some of this into my warm ups! Thanks for posting this!
(I also subscribed to your YouTube channel.)