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Are you sure that Ain’t FROM startrek? Thanks 
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This is kind of a question about what the end game of all of this is, though, isn’t it?
Like, I’m coming into this blind, the dude’s name looks vaguely familiar but I know essentially nothing about him. But, reading between the lines, he can play exceptionally fast. And, it sounds like the technique he’s hit upon to do this just doesn’t sound good?
Maybe this is the beginning of my transformation into a crotchety old man, but if it’s extremely fast but sounds like crap to the degree that he needs a midi pickup on his guitar to feed a guitar synth because using a real pickup into an amp sounds awful… Then why bother doing this on a guitar in the first place?
At some point the craziest technique in the world still has to serve a song, and things like tone and articulation still matter. IF you’re giving them up in the interst of raw speed, aren’t you losing something intrinsic to the guitar?
Idunno. If anyone needs me I’ll be outside shaking my fist at clouds and telling kids to get off my lawn.
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lol I’ll see you out there! I do this now all the time, it’s like a hobby…
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May I join you gentlemen as well? The other week some of those little punks were even trying to unlock my gate and enter my yard to a more severe extent.
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Hell yes. Bring your walker, you’ll fit right in!
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He is not my cup of tea but he clearly has monstrous speed at times. His writing about his pick design makes it sound as if it is his version of the Sik pick?
Reminds me of metal drummers that would rely on triggered drums so much that the “fast” parts didn’t even sound or feel impressive; just sounded like someone glitching out a drum sample as fast as possible.
Sounds like us grumpy old men are in good shape. 
Yeah, I mean… I guess I get it, and if music is first and foremost a creative form of expression, then there’s no “right” way to do it, and certainly pushing the physical limits of what’s possible in terms of playing speed is, from a truly value-neutral point of view, no less a form of creative expression than pushing the limits of soaring melodicism, or vocal dynamics in playing.
But I certainly have a lot more subjective sympathy for guys like Paul Gilbert, who come at the question of picking technique from at least partly a point of view of tone:
That’s ironic too, I suppose because speaking personally it took me YEARS before I really ever started practicing “tonal” things on the guitar, like playing slower lines and really focusing on letting the notes breathe, or really consciously thinking about muting technique to make sure notes were ringing out as purely as possible, and even today I don’t do this as much as I should (in part because my technique is a lot better than it used to be but still not 100% where I want it). So I’ve got more wood to chop here, too.
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