So I'm confused: is this guy "fake" or not?

So I watched all of Roy Marchbank’s videos on youtube.

Next, I came here to try and read any threads about him.

It seems SOMETHING happened “behind the scenes” that I’m missing, because the tone of the threads suddenly jumped from, “Roy, you’ve got amazing technique, let’s get together,” to “Your hands don’t match up with what you’re playing” and then that’s the end of it.

What happened? Why was there some fallout?

So what’s the deal, is this guy really “only” capable of playing Shawn Lane-esque speeds of 22-25 notes per second, and then fakes all his other things?

In my opinion, (based upon my own freakish fast twitch muscles/nerves, Shawn Lane’s admission of having the same genetic oddity, and reading about the potential abilities and limitations of the human body,) as well as the fact that Roy’s hyperspeed playing sounds pitch-shifted higher, IS Roy Marchbank just a hoaxer?

I guess one potential reason for his fast playing sounding pitch-shifted is that he picks so close to the saddles. I tried doing that, and indeed, it DOES make the notes sound higher pitched, plinky, and artificial.

Anyhow, perhaps I’m the last guy here to stumble upon Roy, but I was curious what the final verdict was on whether or not he was dishonest in his abilities.

Now, WITHOUT regard to speed, I saw his video on a slow acoustic tune, and I can say he absolutely has the ability to play wonderful moving music.

:slight_smile:

Thanks for reading guys!

1 Like

He for sure has the ability to tremelo pick at hyperspeed. But when he realy plays live at those insane speeds it is mostly not in sync at all and ofteb just a blur of notes; often chromatics.
When things are realy, realy in sync and have that midi like bad Guitar Pro sound it is not played live.
If you play those vids at 25% speed you will see the movements of his left hand often do not match at all with the notes you hear.
Troy noticed this of course and it is very obvious.

I don’t know why he does this…?
His more normal playing is nice, he is a good musician.
But those fake vids are so bad.