Runbarr for picking speed and accuracy?

Gear
#22

This makes sense - I’ve never tried to solve pick depth by covering more of the pick with my fingers.

When I was learning to play early on I got ahold of the Stylus picks. I think they’re pretty similar in concept to this product, but in a sense much less forgiving. They play perfectly smoothly if you don’t exceed pick depth, but the second you do it’s going to catch on a sharp edge. I used them to try and train my hand to feel what maintaining minimal pick depth should feel like, and kept my grip roughly the same as I normally would.

I think the drawback of the stylus picks is that they de-incentivize you to find an angle of attack that actually works with a normal pick.

Just looking at this product, I’m guessing the drawback would be the tendency to press against it, causing a drift in posture when it’s not present. Might be interesting to practice alternating each of them in a routine when developing picking technique:

Picture for reference if anyone hasn’t seen them image

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#23

Understood the SikPiks are out of production. Does anyone know of a similar product?

I’d be interested because of what Troy wrote here:

However if you are most comfortable in a position that does not have much edge picking, and you want more without changing your hand position, then this can do that. They offer the pick in various degree increments that you need to match up to your hand position to arrive at the desired degree of edge picking.

If anything, just as something to tool around with.

I find some of most comfortable DBX orientations involve very little edge picking, however for a lot of the things I like to play, I prefer the sound of more edge.

#24

I haven’t used my Sik Piks in ages. Once I found out they were no longer available, I didn’t want to become reliant on them. I looked for other twisted picks, but the only one I found was H 10 R Angled Pick from Dunlop. But it’s much thinner (quite flexible compared to the rigid Sik Pik) and the twist isn’t very pronounced.

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#25

Interesting, thanks.

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#26

They seem like gimmicks to me instead of proper training tools. My 2 cents.

#27

I contacted the manufacturer and he sent me one, he’s a heck of a nice guy and I know Johnny Hiland endorses this thing. I thought I had seen a post about it here, but alas a search turned up nothing. Perhaps I spelled it wrong? I don’t know. I thought I’d try one out on one of my junker guitars and see what’s what Here’s my thoughts on it plus a bit of playing;

It does take one thing out of the equation, and that’s pick depth. So I think that if someone was just getting started and was working on maybe playing even number of notes per string, or developing a sweeping or economy picking thing - the runbarre would be great to help develop that I think. I actually found it really helpful as a practice tool for fingerstyle speed actually a la 2/3/4 fingers and hybrid picking. Again, it just seems to help guage a pick/finger depth for the most part. I might experiment with it a bit more to see if I can use it to help develop some other motions.

I have used it a bit on and off for the last few months very casually, and in the video I start with a wrist thing and then revert back to my elbow. It actually makes me want to press into the guitar with my pick even more than normal when I use it. I guess the idea is for the player to always maintain contact with it via pick. For that reason, I think that developing “swiping” and “sweeping” is probably what’s going to work best for this little add-on. DBX - I think not. Maybe. I don’t know.

All in all, I think it’s a pretty cool practice tool - it doesn’t seem to feel like it’s a “crutch” really because I play a lot better on my “non-runbarr” equipped guitars. Apologies for the terrible, non-good, proper escaping guitar playing! :grinning:

Thoughts?

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#28

I haven’t, but Gary Willis uses the equivalent on bass:

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#29

Oh very cool! I actually find that the Runbarr is pretty awesome for training “fingers” stuff. Neat little practice tool. I read that Billy Sheehan kind of uses his pickups in a similar fashion?

#30

Oh is that what it’s for? I always thought it was an overdeveloped thumb rest, lol

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#31

Can I ask a question - I saw that it comes in two sizes and there is a diagram on the site that let’s you work out which one will fit your guitar. Once you have bought one that fits, can the height be adjusted further depending on personal preference?

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#32

It makes for a great thumbrest! lol

I don’t know much about the various models or whatever, but the one I got was adjustable. I actually messed around with it for a while on and off and finally just epoxied it to my pickguard; it’s on a sort of “junker” practice guitar, certainly not my “main”.

I certainly don’t find that I have any dependance on the runbarr; I suck with or without it hahaha

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#33

In the bass community these are called “ramps” - they were pretty heavily used for a while, but then there was a drift away from them. Many bassists (some high profile guys) felt they were losing dynamic range due to the shallower RH picking depth range.

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#34

Johnny Hiland talks about this in a more recent video. Due to arm / hand issues, he had to switch with playing with a thumb pick. The RunBarr helped him learn how to do upstrokes and downstrokes with a thumbpick. He also finds it useful for sweeping. And he says it has helped many students develop a more consistent picking motion.
Couple things. As you can see in this video, putting the RunBarr on a guitar doesn’t mean you have to play over it all the time. (In the solo at the start of this video, he mainly plays away from the RunBarr. )

Johnny Hiland, RunBarr (2022)

For those unfamiliar with Johnny Hiland, here’s a video about him by Levi Clay, who calls Johnny the Redneck Van Halen.
Johnny Hiland, The Redneck Van Halen

#35

I got a Stylus pick years ago. They are unforgiving. They keep you on the tip of the pick, alright.
Biggest drawback: hard as hell to play rhythm guitar with one! ;o)
I’m old school, where guitar parts combine rhythm and lead, so this just didn’t work for me, though it does help with one’s tremolo. Hhm, wonder what it would be like to play with one now.

#36

I never treated it as something to actually play anything real with, just as a way to get used to a certain pick depth. I don’t think I ever used it for anything besides drills for tremolo picking for that reason.

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#37

after seeing the price of some picks i think i need to get in on this action. just gotta get cesario filho on board and a 3d printer bing bang boom. :stuck_out_tongue:

#38

If I’m trying to hit a string I attempt to just scrape the top half of it. But then I’m delighted to plow the rest of the pick into an adjacent string for a rest stroke. Then, if sweeping (where I often seem to do it as a sequence of rest strokes vs. a smooth motion), I apparently have a lot more contact… so I seem to have multiple pick depths! No wonder I’m such a work in progress :rofl:

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#39

Aren’t we all? And you know what, that’s a good thing. I mean, if we ever reached the end of the line—what would we have left to do???

#40

refine it further which gets even harder.

i can look underneath my strings and i do the rest stroke its always the same depth. that device would waste my time i would probably barely even scratch it ever. snake oil product for my level.

#41

At that point, we’d probably have to put some thought into writing songs that people might enjoy listening to. Fucking nightmare.

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